Every evening, before going to bed, Yixing would light a candle and place it within the purple candle holder on her bedside table. Then she would close her eyes as she patiently waited for the scent to waft towards her.

The tradition of lighting a candle every night was not a new one.

(Light a candle whenever you think of me, Sehun had joking said once when she had asked how she would cope without him the first time they were forced to be apart for the holidays. The look of surprised awe when she had told him she had done exactly that will forever be a treasured memory, one that she holds close to her heart.)

The candles she lights now, though, are.

They smell of cotton, of freshly laundered clothes that have just been brought back in after a day under the sun, and the scent reminds her of him. It was the scent that enveloped her sense when he hugged her close; she would bury her nose into his shirt and breathe in deeply. It was the scent that lingered on his skin, even after her fingers had divested him of his clothes; her fingers would skim over pale skin as possessive marks over the base of his neck and across his collarbone.

Sometimes the scent would bring a small fond, albeit somewhat sad, smile to her lips as she recalled all those happy memories of small touches and large gesture - the blatant hand holdings and the shy kisses, the study dates and the movie dates, everything. She would sit on her bed, eyes soft and eyelids half-closed, and she would lose herself in her reminiscences. Then she could latch onto a single memory and cling to it as she clambered under her covers, settling in for the night.

(Those nights, her dreams would always be bittersweet and she would wake up longing for something she can no longer have.)

Sometimes the first whiff brings her to her knees and she has to hurriedly place the candle holder in its customary spot on her bedside cabinet before she causes an accident. She doesn't have time for memories - that first curl of smoke is enough to trigger the tears.

(Those nights she would fall asleep crying and wake up with sore eyes and a headache. Then she would spend the rest of that day listlessly wandering about the house and not even her grandmother's delicious cooking can lift her spirit.)

In the morning, after the wax has burnt itself out, Yixing would gently take out the empty metal husk, cradling it between her palms like a precious gem as she breathes in the last of its cottony scent. She would thank it quietly before transferring its home from the candle holder to a black box she has hidden inside her bedside cabinet.

(The black box is the only thing inside the bedside cabinet - and it contains only one item in abundance.)