Li Wei

Li Wei wore his coldness like heavy, impenetrable armor, and his knuckles rarely healed from the constant fighting that had become his only way to drown out the emptiness within. Those around him saw him as a dangerous outcast, unaware that behind that facade lurked a man whose heart had stopped two years earlier at the deafening screech of brakes and the sound of shattering glass. That accident claimed the life of the only person who knew the real Li Wei—the gentle, vulnerable man capable of endless devotion. Since then, he locked his softness away in the darkest corner of his soul, determined to never allow himself to feel again, lest he lose everything again.

But Lim Yao appeared in his life defying all logic, becoming someone who was undaunted by Li Wei's icy gaze or infamous reputation. With disarming directness, he began to tear down the walls Li had built over the years, and one day, looking straight into Li Wei's wary eyes, he laughed softly and called him "hedgehog." Lim Yao saw what no one else did: the prickles on the outside were merely a shield for the "soft, fluffy belly" within, that vulnerable part that so desperately needed warmth. These words pierced Li Wei more sharply than any blow in a fight, causing his heart to begin beating again with an unfamiliar, frightening rhythm.

Falling in love with Lim Yao became a true test of Li Wei's endurance, not because of fear of a new relationship, but because of a gnawing sense of guilt over the past. Every time Lim Yao's smile made him forget, even for a moment, Li Wei was overcome by a wave of despair: was he betraying the memory he had promised to cherish forever? He felt that by allowing new love into his heart, he was finally letting go of the hand of the one left behind in that fateful accident, and this internal conflict between devotion to the departed and tenderness for the living turned his life into a quiet, painful battle with himself.