The final semester at HUAD arrived with the biting chill of February, but for Yan-chen and Seo-yoon, the air felt electric. This was a year of transitions: Seo-yoon was beginning her second year, finally finding her rhythm in her film studies, while Yan-chen was supposed to be finishing his fourth year of architecture.
The weight of the letter from London sat like a stone in Yan-chen's heart, but it also acted as a catalyst. Knowing he had only four months left before his father forced him across the ocean to complete his fifth year, he became a man possessed by the present.
Every afternoon, as soon as the final bell echoed through the halls, Yan-chen was waiting for her at the gate. Gone was the "Ice Prince" who preferred the solitude of the library. Instead, he took her to every corner of Suzhou they hadn't yet explored.
They spent their evenings in the bustling night markets near Shantang Street. Seo-yoon's Chinese had improved remarkably; it was no longer the hesitant, broken phrasing of a newcomer. It was cute but proper—she spoke with a rhythmic, careful cadence that made the local shopkeepers smile and offer her extra portions of stinky tofu or sugar-coated haws.
"Yen-chen, look! Zhège tánghúlu hěn tián!" (This candied hawthorn is very sweet!) she chirped, holding the red, glistening stick up to his mouth.
Yan-chen took a bite, but his eyes never left her face. He was memorizing the way her nose crinkled when she laughed and how the steam from the food stalls curled around her hair. He was building a library of her in his mind, a blueprint of her joy to keep him warm in the foggy London winters to come.
"You're being very indulgent lately," Seo-yoon teased one evening as they walked along a quiet canal. She was practicing her calligraphy on a digital pad, her strokes becoming more fluid. "No extra lab hours? No obsession over the stress-testing of the new bridge model?"
Yan-chen pulled her closer, his arm a solid weight around her shoulders. "The most important structure right now isn't made of steel, Seo-yoon-ah. It's time. I just want to make sure the foundation is deep enough to hold us up."
Seo-yoon tilted her head, sensing a hidden frequency in his voice. "Is something wrong? You sound like you're writing a final monologue."
Yan-chen's heart skipped a beat. He thought of the London enrollment papers hidden in his desk drawer, right next to the threat against her visa. He couldn't tell her—not yet. If she knew his father was holding her residency over his head, she would try to sacrifice herself for him. And he wouldn't allow that.
"I'm just appreciating the view," he lied, his voice thick with a tenderness that bordered on ache.
Late at night, after he walked her home to her quiet house in the Pingjiang District, Yan-chen would return to his apartment and work until dawn. He wasn't just doing his HUAD coursework; he was teaching himself the specific structural codes of the UK and preparing the documentation for the Hong Kong project his father demanded.
He was a man living two lives. By day, he was the devoted boyfriend, the student who took Seo-yoon to see old black-and-white Chinese films and helped her translate her scripts. By night, he was a soldier preparing for a forced exile.
He looked at his calendar. The days were falling away like autumn leaves. Every laugh she shared, every time she corrected her own Mandarin with a proud little "Aha!", every time she reached for his hand—it was a memory he was carefully packing away.
He knew that by the time the cherry blossoms bloomed, the bridge would have to be crossed. But for now, in the golden light of a Suzhou afternoon, he let himself believe that four months could be an eternity.