Chapter 40: She’s Breathing
No matter what Zeyu did, no matter how he breathed, the words that came out of his mouth, nothing with Zhiyi changed.
Behind him, the manager told the emergency operator that the patient was conscious but unresponsive and no longer breathing.
The word patient struck him.
So did no longer breathing.
Zeyu tightened his arms around Zhiyi. She was too still. Even an unconscious person would have sagged. She remained trapped inside her body, her eyes open, her lungs refusing to work.
"Hanchuan, it isn’t working," he said desperately. He had never felt like this before. He was the fun one... any of the other guys should have been here instead. They would have known what to do... Why was it him? Why was he still fucking everything up?!?
"Keep holding her." Hanchuan’s voice came through the phone sharply, dragging Zeyu from his spiraling thoughts.
"Her lips are blue."
"I know."
"What if—"
"Don’t finish that sentence." Hanchuan’s voice remained low and controlled, but something moved beneath it. Something Zeyu had never heard from him before.
Fear.
But the sound of it vanished almost immediately.
"Widen your stance," Hanchuan said. "Take her weight before she gives it to you."
Zeyu planted one foot behind the other and spread his feet.
"Done."
"Pull her higher against your chest."
He did.
"Now breathe."
Zeyu closed his eyes for half a second.
He filled his lungs slowly enough that every part of the movement pressed into Zhiyi’s back.
"There are no questions," he said near her ear. "You don’t have to answer me. You don’t have to answer anyone."
He released the breath.
Nothing.
"Again," Hanchuan ordered.
Zeyu breathed.
"I’ll handle the store."
Nothing.
"Again."
"I’ll choose everything."
Her chest didn’t move.
The manager was still speaking to emergency services. Zeyu caught fragments.
Two minutes.
Possible respiratory arrest.
Prepare to lower her to the floor.
"Hanchuan, they want me to put her down."
"No. Not yet. She needs pressure around her body."
Zeyu’s arms tightened. He didn’t know if this was the right way to deal with this, but he had seen the relationship between Hanchuan and Zhiyi. If anyone knew how to handle her, it was him. He would tell Zeyu what he needed to do to make everything better.
"She needs to feel where she is," Hanchuan continued. "She can’t hear us yet. Give her something her body can follow."
Zeyu breathed in.
Held it.
Breathed out.
"You don’t have to make a good impression on me," he said.
The words came from nowhere.
Or perhaps not nowhere.
He remembered the way she had repeatedly opened her mouth in the car, only for him to continue speaking. He remembered her right hand closing around her left. Her careful, shallow breaths. The way she had followed him into the store without answering whether she was ready.
She hadn’t been shy.
She had been trying to answer him.
Every question.
All of them.
"You didn’t do anything wrong," he told her. "I didn’t let you answer. That was my fault, not yours."
He breathed in deep again, and this time, her body gave a tiny jerk.
Zeyu stopped. "I felt something," he breathed, almost not willing to believe it.
"Don’t stop," Hanchuan said.
Zeyu filled his lungs. "I’m not offended. I’m not angry. You don’t have to fix anything."
Zhiyi’s chest twitched beneath his arm and air caught somewhere in her throat, but it didn’t enter.
"Again," Hanchuan ordered.
Zeyu breathed.
Zhiyi’s mouth opened.
No air came.
"Again."
His lungs hurt from forcing the rhythm, but he did it once more.
In.
Her chest pulled weakly against his arm.
Hold.
Her throat produced a small, strangled sound.
Out.
Zhiyi convulsed against him and dragged in a lungful of air so suddenly that the sound tore through the silent salon.
Zeyu’s knees nearly gave way.
"She breathed."
"Again," Hanchuan said.
The air left Zhiyi in a thin rush.
Nothing followed it.
Zeyu tightened his grip.
"No. You don’t get one and stop. Again."
He filled his lungs.
Her chest attempted to follow.
Failed.
"Again," Hanchuan repeated.
Zeyu breathed.
This time Zhiyi took a short, broken breath. It stopped halfway in.
"That’s it," Zeyu said. "You’re doing it. Again."
He no longer knew whether the instruction came from him or Hanchuan.
It didn’t matter.
He breathed, and she followed badly.
He breathed again, and she managed a little more.
On the fifth breath, air reached far enough into her lungs that her shoulders rose. On the sixth, it left without catching. By the seventh, the blue around her mouth had stopped deepening.
But still, Zeyu kept going.
The salon disappeared around him. There was only the fragile expansion beneath his forearm, the voice coming from his phone and the woman held against his chest.
"Open your left hand, Zhiyi," Hanchuan said.
She didn’t move.
"She still can’t hear you," Zeyu said.
"Say it beside her ear."
Zeyu lowered his mouth close enough that his breath moved the hair at her temple.
"Open your left hand."
Nothing.
"Again."
"Zhiyi, open your left hand."
He felt the smallest movement against his arm.
Her index finger twitched.
"There," he said. "She moved."
"Good. Again."
"Open your left hand."
One finger straightened.
Then another.
The others remained curled so tightly that her nails had pressed deep crescents into her palm.
Zeyu shifted his arm without releasing her and covered her fist with his hand. "You don’t have to do all of it. One more finger."
Her ring finger moved.
"Good. One more."
The last finger slowly opened beneath his palm.
The moment her hand relaxed, the rest of her body followed.
Not gradually. Dramatically.
Everything holding her upright released at once.
Her knees folded. Her head fell back against his shoulder, and her entire weight dropped into his arms.
Zeyu staggered half a step before his widened stance caught both of them. He tightened his arms and lifted her against him, taking her weight across his chest and hips.
"I have her."
The words left him before anyone asked.
Zhiyi lay completely limp against him. Not unconscious. Her eyes had finally closed, and she continued taking shallow breaths, but she made no attempt to stand.
She trusted him to do that for her.
Zeyu adjusted his stance again, spreading his feet until he was certain nothing could knock either of them over. Her adjusted his phone until it was tucked between his shoulder and his ear with one arm held her securely beneath her ribs. The other crossed her waist, his hand spread against her side.
He could feel every breath now.
Small.
Uneven.
Present.
"She’s breathing," he told Hanchuan.
"I can hear her," the other man replied.