“she hated herself more than she loved him. she hated herself so much he started to hate her too.” — kori jane.
zayne li x fem-reader ⌇ hurt/no comfort ⋆. 🕯️
You knew the day would come when he would finally come to his senses.
The love of your life was a man of honour. He was a healer, a cardiac surgeon who saved more lives than one can count in two hands. He was mature, wise, kind-hearted, and full of love. He was your sun, no matter how his hands wore the cold. A warmth that engulfed you like the most comforting fire during winter.
Zayne was your sun, but you were the moon only during the eclipse. Something that shadowed him, hide him away from the world, sniffed away his light.
They say you can't love someone if you can't love yourself but you call bullshit on that. You have never loved yourself, but him? God, you loved him so much you forgot what hating yourself felt like.
You snuffed out his light.
He no longer smiled around you, if it was not forced, or small.
The glimmer on his eyes dimmed.
His shoulders slumped down, burdened from a invisible weight.
This was not the man you loved, you burned him.
You apologised for everything.
For speaking too loudly. For speaking too little. For being tired. For forgetting to eat. For needing him. For touching his hand first. For flinching when he touched your hand unexpectedly. For waking him with nightmares you timidly tried to explain.
“You're allowed to feel things, don't push yourself.” he would comfort.
“You aren't a inconvenience, please don't say that.”
“I'm here.” I'm right here, he wanted to crack the ground open.
The way you stiffened whenever he bought you something small, like coffee or gloves during winter. The way your first instinct after laughing was to glance at him nervously, checking if you had become annoying. The way you always moved like you were taking up too much space in his apartment despite half your belongings being there already.
One night, he found you asleep on the couch instead of beside him.
The bedroom door was open, he left it open for you.
The lights were off, and she had curled herself into the smallest shape possible beneath a thin blanket, breathing slightly uneasy.
When he woke you up gently, you startled hard enough to look afraid.
“Sorry, I didn’t want to bother you,” you whispered immediately with a yawn.
“You never bother me.” His eyebrows furrowed, a tinge of frustration building up his chest. He did not show it, but he reprimanded himself inwardly all the same.
Your eyes lowered at once, as if you didn’t believe him enough to even argue.
He stood there for a long moment, thinking too much, not thinking enough, before saying quietly, “Come to bed.”
You followed him obediently.
Like you were grateful he still wanted you there.
Months passed, then two years, and loving you became exhausting in ways Zayne never admitted aloud ─ doesn't want to admit out loud.
Not because you were cruel, you were the kindest soul he had ever met.
Not because you demanded too much, but because you never demanded anything.
You ccepted affection with guilt, and accepted reassurance with suspicion. Accepted love like it came with an expiration date.
How do you continue loving someone who is anticipating your departure? What did he do... he tried, he tried so much.
Every time he reached for you, you acted surprised he still would and eventually, he started noticing something ugly growing inside himself.
Not anger, God, never anger.
Just the heavy numbness that comes from pouring warmth into someone who keeps insisting they are cold.
“You should stop wasting your time on me.”
It was raining that evening.
You sat cross-legged on the kitchen counter while Zayne cleaned your bloody hand, stitching it carefully with hands as soft as feathers.
Neither had looked at each other for several minutes.
“What brought this on?” he asked calmly.
You shrugged, like you didn't care.
“You’d be happier with someone else.”
He rinsed crimson down the sink drain.
But the answer came slower than it once had, and you noticed.
Of course you noticed, but for all the wrong reasons.
Your smile almost broke him then because it wasn’t bitter, it was relieved like confirmation. “I knew it,” you whispered.
Zayne dried his hands carefully before turning toward her fully. “Darling-”
“I can see it in you, Zayne. I know you better than myself.”
Silence settled between them, only the sound of the rain strucking the windows softly could be heard in the fractured home you tried to build together.
You looked unbearably fragile sitting there beneath the kitchen light, sleeves hiding you hands, eyes shadowed with exhaustion deeper than sleep.
Then you said the thing he would remember long after you were gone.
“I think I ruin people who try to love me.”
Zayne inhaled once, slowly and measured, afraid his eyes as teary as they were would start dripping.
“You need help I can’t give you.” He almost choked on his words, throat tight.
His words weren't harsh... just true.
And somehow the truth hurt you both more than cruelty would have.
You smiled faintly at the answer hidden inside the silence.
“I tried,” you whispered. “I really tried to become someone easier to love.”
Zayne closed his eyes briefly, heart thumping loudly on his chest. “That was never what I asked from you.”
“I know.” your voice cracked, "...That’s what makes it worse.”
Because he had loved you gently. Patiently. Faithfully.
And yet still, you could not survive inside it.
The relationship did not end dramatically.
No breakup speech. No slammed doors.
Just distance becoming permanent.
You stopped leaving clothes at his apartment. Stopped falling asleep beside him. Stopped reaching for his hand first. And Zayne ─
Zayne let you go in small, cowardly ways because he no longer knew how to hold someone who kept slipping beneath her own self-hatred. He was a heart surgeon, and nothing in his life prepared him for you.
The final time he saw you, snow was falling outside the hospital entrance.
Maybe that was the reason why he would hate using his evol even more in the future.
You stood beneath white streetlights in a dark coat, looking sick enough to disappear into winter itself.
“I came to return your keys,” you said softly, eyes glimmering lovingly.
He stared at the metal in your gloved palm without moving.
“If I keep them..." you voice broke, “I’ll come back.”
Something inside his chest twisted painfully. Then come back — come back to me, come back to our home. Let me make you mine again.
You looked at him for a long time after that, memorizing someone you loved enough to leave behind.
“I’m sorry, Zaynie,” you whispered one last time. “I love you.”
Zayne almost answered automatically: Don't apologise. It died before reaching his mouth.
Because neither of them believed reassurance anymore.
“Take care of yourself, my little jasmine.”
You smiled with unbearable sadness, as though you both understood you probably wouldn’t and then — then you walked away into the snow covered streets, disappearing before he could get his mind moving.
Zayne remained outside long after the cold should have driven him back in.
Motionless beneath the falling white snowflakes.
Feeling, for the first time in years, absolutely nothing.
