Sunny Day Keychain

The seventh time I watched Lin Xiaoxiao fall from the building in front of me, I suddenly understood.

As an architect earning a million a year, I was used to solving every problem with a blueprint. But this time, my client was Death, the project was my girlfriend’s life, and the timeline was a repeating seven days.

In the first six cycles, I tried every “scientific” method I could think of: stopping her, watching her, filling her life with material comforts and surprises. The result? She always managed to complete her death ritual with uncanny precision.

On the seventh cycle, I gave up my blueprints. Instead of trying to stop her, I began to read: the despair beneath her smile, the cries for help in her paintings, and the bastard I had become, the one who thought she was a “burden.”

I rode the carousel with her, dragged her into a haunted house, and even made up an absurd construction project to bring her face-to-face with the real client. Like a clumsy detective, I fumbled around in her heart, trying to uncover the fingerprints of the “real” her.

Then I discovered she had seen through my loop long ago. What I thought was saving her was, in her eyes, nothing more than a selfish performance.

“You keep coming back, not for me, but to soothe your own guilt and regret.”

In the sixteenth cycle, I pushed her into the abyss with my own hands. In the seventeenth, I chose to let go.

I stopped trying to heal her and simply stayed by her side through one last peaceful seven days. We watched the cherry blossoms, saw a movie, and listened to her steady breathing beneath the stars.

The sun rose as usual on the seventh day. She didn’t head for the rooftop. Instead, she handed me a handmade keychain with a crooked little sun set into it.

“To celebrate how lovely the weather is today.”