°•Quiet Love⁵- ᴇɴᴅ•°
°•Elara’s Story: How I Learned What Love Is•°
|| I was sixteen the first time I realized my parents weren’t like other couples.
Not in a dramatic way. There was no big fight, no stunning display of affection that made everyone gasp.
It was quiet.
Like everything about them.
And I think that’s why it stuck with me.||
|| It was a Sunday afternoon in late October, the kind of day where the light feels golden and the air has that sweet, sleepy crispness of fall. I was home for midterm break, tucked in my favorite corner of the sunroom with my laptop and tea, pretending to study but really watching the way the light hit the leaves outside.
Dad was in the living room, organizing the bookshelf again—he did that a lot. Never really moving things, just adjusting. Straightening. Making sure everything felt calm. ||
|| Mom was in the kitchen, humming a tune she always did when she was baking something soft. Probably her almond sponge cake. She only made it when she was in a good mood. Or when she wanted to make Dad smile without saying it out loud.
I saw it then. That thing they do.
Dad wandered into the kitchen for no reason at all—probably under the pretence of needing water—and paused behind her. ||
|| He didn’t say anything. Just stood there for a moment.
And then, gently, like it was instinct, he reached out and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.
She didn’t turn. She didn’t even pause in what she was doing. She just smiled—small and to herself—and leaned back, just a little, until her back lightly pressed into his chest.||
|| They stayed like that. Still. Quiet. Saying absolutely nothing.
I swallowed the lump in my throat before I even knew it was there.||
|| I’d seen them do things like that a million times before. The way Dad always put Mom’s tea on the left side of her notebook because she’s left-handed. The way Mom always covered him with a throw blanket if he fell asleep on the couch, then sat beside him and rested her feet near his, like touching him—even a little—helped her breathe better.||
|| But something about it hit differently that day.
Maybe because I was older.
Maybe because I’d seen how loud the world can be about love. The screaming. The chasing. The movie-moment kisses in the rain.
But this?
This was the kind of love that didn’t need to perform.||
|| Later that evening, I found Mom in the nursery.||
Li Elara
《Well, our old nursery》
|| We hadn’t touched the room in years, but sometimes she sat there—on the little rocking chair near the window, where she used to hold me at night.
She smiled when I walked in ||
Li Elara
“You okay?”
(I asked, taking the spot on the soft rug by her feet)
Li Ziyi (Zoey)
(She nodded) “Just thinking.”
Li Ziyi (Zoey)
(She ran her fingers across the edge of the rocking chair) “How fast it all went. You’re almost seventeen.”
Li Elara
“Still your baby,” (I said, grinning)
Li Ziyi (Zoey)
(She chuckled)
“You’ll always be. But it’s more than that. I was just remembering... when we brought you home. Your dad was so terrified of breaking you.”
Li Elara
“Seriously?” <A laugh escaped from her lips, hearing her mom>
Li Ziyi (Zoey)
“Oh, absolutely. He held you like you were made of porcelain for the first two weeks. Wouldn’t even sneeze near you.”
(Her eyes softened with the memory)
Li Ziyi (Zoey)
“But then one night, you wouldn’t stop crying, and he just... started humming. Some lullaby I didn’t even know he knew. And you fell asleep on his chest.”
Li Elara
(I leaned my head against her knee)
“I feel like I remember that.”
Li Ziyi (Zoey)
(She laughed softly) “You were a week old.”
Li Elara
(I closed my eyes) "Still feels familiar.”
|| She ran her fingers through my hair, quiet for a moment.
Then I asked the question that had been sitting in the back of my mind all day. ||
Li Elara
“How do you know when it’s real? Like... love?”
|| She didn’t say anything right away.
Just kept stroking my hair, thoughtful.||
Li Ziyi (Zoey)
“I think,” (she said finally,)
“it’s when the other person makes silence feel safe.”
Li Elara
(I blinked.) “What do you mean?”
Li Ziyi (Zoey)
(She smiled gently)
"When your dad and I first got married, he barely spoke. Not because he didn’t care. He just... held everything in. But he always showed me in other ways. The quiet ones. Making soup when I was sick. Fixing the heating pad before I asked. Sitting beside me when I couldn’t sleep, even if he said nothing.”
Li Elara
(I looked up at her.) “So you fell in love with the quiet?”
Li Ziyi (Zoey)
“I fell in love with him,” (she corrected)
Li Ziyi (Zoey)
“And the way he made even the silence feel like home.”
Li Elara
《I let that sink in》
|| That night, I watched them again.
Dad was reading on the couch. Mom was next to him, knitting something. Their knees barely touched. No one was speaking. No music. Just the soft crackle of the fireplace.
And yet… the entire room felt full.
Not with noise. But with something alive.||
|| A week later, we went to visit my grandparents. On the way back, Dad stopped the car near the meadow just outside town.||
Li Elara
“The one from your anniversary picnic?” (I asked, smiling.)
Li Yunrui
(He nodded) “Your mom loves it here.”
Li Ziyi (Zoey)
(Looks out the window)
“It hasn’t changed much.”
|| I got out of the car, trailing behind them as they walked to the old tree. Dad carried a thermos of tea. Mom had a little scarf around her shoulders that he kept adjusting every few minutes.
They sat down on the grass. I stayed standing, just listening. ||
Li Ziyi (Zoey)
“Do you remember when I gave you the pregnancy card here?” (Mom asked, her voice quiet.)
Li Yunrui
(Dad nodded) “You were shaking.”
Li Ziyi (Zoey)
“I was terrified.”
Li Yunrui
“I was too,” (he said)
“But also... happier than I’ve ever been.”
Li Ziyi (Zoey)
(She leaned against him)
“You were a good dad from day one, Yun.”
Li Yunrui
(He kissed her hair) “You made it easy.”
Li Elara
《 I turned away, not wanting to intrude. But I stayed within earshot, letting the soft wind carry their words.
Love, I realized, wasn’t always fireworks and grand gestures.
Sometimes, it was just a man refilling your tea before you asked.》
Li Elara
《A woman folding your sweater and leaving it on the bed because she knows the nights get colder this time of year.
Two people who had every reason to drift... choosing, quietly, every single day, to stay.》
|| One evening, I walked into the kitchen to find Dad slicing fruit.
He handed me a slice of pear without saying a word.||
Li Elara
“Do you remember what you felt... when you first realized you loved Mom?”
|| He froze—just for a second—then leaned against the counter, thoughtful.||
Li Yunrui
“There wasn’t a single moment,” (he said gently)
Li Yunrui
“It was more like a series of them. Small. Ordinary. She burned cookies once and refused to give up. Just laughed and tried again. And I remember thinking... I want to be the reason she keeps smiling like that.”
Li Elara
《I blinked》 “Wow.”
Li Yunrui
(He shrugged, slightly bashful)
“I didn’t know how to say it for a long time. But I think she knew. She always did.”
Li Elara
《That's my bashful dad, still the same》 (thinks internally)
Li Elara
“She says you showed it, even when you didn’t say it.”
Li Yunrui
(He smiled)
“That’s her gift. Seeing what most people miss.”
|| I popped the pear slice into my mouth, chewing slowly.||
Li Elara
“I hope I find someone like that someday,” (I said quietly.)
|| Dad looked at me for a long time.
Then said, ||
Li Yunrui
“You will. Just don’t look for the loudest one in the room.”
Li Yunrui
“Look for the one who brings you tea. Who listens. Who makes silence feel like love.”
|| That night, as I lay in bed, I stared at the ceiling and thought about everything.
The gentle years. The steady hands. The thousand ways love had been built in my home without ever needing to be shouted.
I thought about my mom’s quiet strength. My dad’s careful hands. The way they still looked at each other when they thought no one was watching.
And I realized something.
I wasn’t afraid of love the way some of my friends were. I wasn’t searching for fireworks.||
Li Elara
《Because I had grown up in the aftermath of a quiet storm—a love so soft and steady, it shaped everything it touched.
I fell asleep knowing that when I find my person someday, I wouldn’t need the world to know.》
|| Just us would be enough.
And maybe… just maybe… that was the greatest kind of love of all.||
Author
Officially ending this with Elara's POV...
Author
It was a good journey in this one, with my adventure at work just to somehow end this story, because trust me, the next 2 stories I cooked in my brain is not letting me be at peace and trust me when I say this...
Author
If you will like it or not, I am not sure but I will give it my time and attention to details just incase.
Author
Ignore the mistakes as I was in a hurry, and it isn't proofread.
Author
ThankYou for reading😃
Author
See you in the next story🫣
Comments
shiruu...lish♡♡
The one you said about where I would want to curse??
2025-06-23
1
shiruu...lish♡♡
This one reminded me of the time we first met online.
At that time too the story was so well detailed and made that I was really distraught when you deleted it.
2025-06-23
1
𝓽𝓲𝓰𝓾𝓴𝓴𝓲𝓮 🫐
It was a beautiful one, author-ssi 🥰 will be waiting for more, good luck with it 😁💜
2025-06-22
2