The rented room was silent—  

the kind of silence that made every creak sound too loud.  

Evan flicked on the desk lamp.  

The soft yellow glow fell across his tired face,  

casting long shadows across the messy desk.  

He sat down.  

His mind was chaos.  

Zhang’s teasing words replayed in his head,  

followed by his own unplanned confession—his dream.  

On impulse, he pulled out a worn notebook from the drawer  

and opened it wide.  

It had once been his log for work calls and client notes,  

but tonight, it became something else entirely—  

his *restaurant plan*.  

He gripped the pen and started to write.  

“Location: crowded downtown area.”  

“Scale: small to start.”  

“Menu: homestyle dishes—simple but comforting.”  

“Budget: minimum required—”  

The handwriting was uneven,  

but there was fire in every stroke.  

Yet with every line he wrote,  

another image invaded his mind.  

Sienna.  

She’d be working now—  

smiling, pouring drinks,  

laughing with people she didn’t care about.  

A different table,  

different men,  

the same mask.  

That thought hit him harder than any hangover.  

“Why…?”  

“Why is she there,  

while I’m just sitting here scribbling in a notebook?”  

His throat tightened.  

The pen trembled in his hand.  

He wanted to be strong enough to pull her out of that life,  

but the truth was cruel—  

he couldn’t.  

Not yet.  

He set the pen down,  

grabbed his phone.  

The contact list blurred in front of his eyes.  

Finally, he opened their chat  

and typed:  

*Made it home. Is work going okay?*  

He hesitated,  

thumb hovering over the screen.  

Then—send.  

Time crawled.  

11 p.m.  

Midnight.  

1:00 a.m.  

The message stayed there, unread.  

Evan’s pulse wouldn’t slow.  

*She’s just busy,* he told himself.  

*She’s working.*  

*She can’t reply right now.*  

But another voice whispered—  

*Or maybe she doesn’t want to.*  

He clenched his fists,  

the notebook still open beside him,  

its unfinished lines staring back.  

The phone’s pale light reflected on his face,  

turning him ghostly white.  

Outside, a stray dog barked somewhere far away.  

Cold air slipped through the window gap.  

Evan leaned back in the chair,  

eyes bloodshot,  

body exhausted,  

but sleep refused to come.  

The knot in his chest stayed tight—  

a weight he couldn’t shake off.  

That night, he didn’t sleep at all.  

On the desk lay a few half-written plans—  

the fragile outline of a dream—  

and beside them,  

a silent phone,  

holding a message  

that no one had answered.