Night fell deeper.
The streets began to empty.
Shopfronts went dark one after another.
The light from the streetlamps filtered down through the leaves of the roadside trees, casting dappled shadows on the ground.
Then, a figure appeared beside the small building.
He wasn't tall, but he wasn't short either, with an average build. He wore a dark gray hooded jacket, the hood down, revealing neat, short black hair.
In one hand, he carried a white plastic bag printed with a few blue characters—
"City Psychiatric Hospital"
Inside the bag were several boxes of medicine, their edges visible through the translucent plastic.
He kept his head down the entire time, his eyes fixed on the phone in his other hand. The screen's glow reflected on his face, blurring his features, as if he were deliberately using the light to hide himself.
People came and went around him.
A man in a suit hurried past on his way home from work, briefcase in hand. An old man ambled by slowly, walking his dog. A delivery driver on an electric scooter zipped past with a whoosh.
But not a single one of them saw his face clearly.
He never even lifted his head.
Yet, whether it was the complex road conditions, the dense flow of people, a suddenly turning scooter, or a child crouching down to tie their shoelaces, he avoided them all as if by instinct.
No dodging, no swerving, no slowing down.
He just... walked, and naturally went around them.
It was as if he were the only one on the road.
He turned into the alley beside the small building, walked to the entrance, and headed straight for the stairwell.
His footsteps were so light they didn't even trigger the sound-activated light in the stairwell.
Only his silhouette was visible in the darkness. He still kept his head down, merely dimming his phone screen as he navigated inward by feel.
As he stepped onto the first stair, as if on autopilot, the hand carrying the bag of medicine hooked it gently onto his wrist. The now-free hand slipped into his pocket and began to feel for his keys.
He found them.
But just as he was about to pull the keys out of his pocket, his hand suddenly twitched as if electrocuted.
It wasn't just his hand; his entire body gave a sudden, sharp shudder.
Finally, the figure who had been hiding in the glow of his phone lifted his head. He turned the screen around, using its faint light to illuminate a white shadow in the corner.
The moment he looked up, the dim light finally shone on his face.
His short black hair was a little messy but still tidy. His features were handsome and clean-cut, his brow bone slightly prominent, casting a small shadow in the light. His skin was well-cared-for, showing almost no signs of age, but the aura he exuded had completely lost any hint of youthfulness.
Like a room with its doors and windows shut for a long time.
Like a book that's been closed and placed in the furthest corner of a shelf.
Like the thin, transparent shell a person naturally forms after getting used to having no contact with anyone.
Indifference. Aloofness. Do not approach.
Most striking of all were his eyes, which reflected the light. They were deep, his pupils a profound dark brown. At this moment, they were fixed on the illuminated corner.
He remained silent, his gaze filled with confusion and wariness.
He stood there, motionless, until his phone screen automatically timed out, plunging the stairwell back into darkness. Only his eyes still seemed to glow, reflecting the moonlight.
In front of him was a small figure curled into a ball.
Long, messy white hair was splayed out, covering most of her face.
She was curled up tight, hugging her knees, leaning against the wall. Her mouth was slightly agape, a tiny bit of drool at the corner.
Her breathing was even and deep.
She was asleep... and sleeping soundly.
He just watched.
For a long time.
Until his long-dormant thoughts rebooted, and he silently formed a short phrase in his mind...
"...She looks like a cat."
Yes.
A little stray cat that had fallen asleep in the stairwell for some reason.
But it wasn't a cat.
It was a person... she looked to be about sixteen or seventeen. Her striking white hair could almost blend in with the moonlight. Even now, with almost no light source in the stairwell, she herself seemed to be glowing.
Her long white hair was of good quality; even in such dim light, you could see its smooth texture. The bangs across her forehead were messed up from sleep, a few strands stuck to her cheek, and a few had found their way to the corner of her mouth.
Her eyes and brows were beautiful, the most stunning he had ever seen—the kind of beauty where you look once and just think, "Wow, that person is gorgeous."
Her eyelashes were long, casting a small shadow beneath her eyes as they were closed. Her nose was straight, her lips slightly pursed, with a faint upward curve at the corners, as if she were having a nice dream.
In the dim light, her entire face possessed a unique tranquility.
Like a sleeping porcelain doll.
Like a girl who had stepped right out of a painting.
But—
Shu's gaze shifted slightly downward.
Her mouth was slightly open.
It was a tiny gap, almost unnoticeable if you weren't looking closely, but it was that tiny gap that made the entire "art style" of her face suddenly shift—
It became a little... dorky.
Genuinely dorky.
The light was too dim to see more details, but he could still see her breathing.
Rising and falling, rising and falling. It was very much like the rhythm of a small animal sleeping—not too fast, not too slow, so peaceful that it made him wonder if she was truly deeply asleep.
After all, this was a stairwell. A concrete floor, in a corner... she didn't even have anything to cushion her.
Yet she slept soundly and peacefully, curled up like a fluffy ball.
So soundly... that she hadn't woken up even with him standing right in front of her.
The word floated through his mind again:
Cat.
She really did look like one...
A stray cat.
The kind that appears from nowhere, runs around the city all day until it's dirty and exhausted, and then just finds a random corner to curl up and pass out in.
A very beautiful cat.
It felt like all she was missing was a cardboard sign that said, "I'm cute. Please adopt me."
He stared at her for a long time—long enough that he could have woken her up ten times over.
But he didn't.
He just stood there, waiting.
Waiting for her to wake up on her own.
Unfortunately, this "stray cat's" wariness was not as high as he'd hoped.
Five minutes passed, then ten. She didn't even stir, her breathing still impossibly even.
Though, that might have also been because he had held the same position in the dark for a full ten minutes...
Nope... getting sore—
He silently shifted his weight in the darkness and sighed.
Since she wasn't going to wake up on her own, it was up to him.
He walked over and crouched down in front of her.
And then—
He realized he didn't know how to speak.
It had been so long since he'd talked to anyone that his body had memorized silence. Opening his mouth now felt like a challenge.
"Hey"? Was that too harsh?
"Hello"? A bit too formal...
"Wake up"?
...That seemed okay.
He opened his mouth.
"Wa—"
A single, dry syllable squeezed from his throat.
He paused, then added another.
"—ke."
Two syllables now.
That was progress.
He took a deep breath, preparing to say the full two words:
"Wake up."
But before he could speak, the curled-up cat... no, person, suddenly stirred.
Her long eyelashes fluttered, and then, those eyes slowly opened.
Kiana had a dream.
In the dream, she was still looking for Shu.
Searching and searching, but she couldn't find him anywhere.
Then someone called her name. The voice was soft, as if drifting from far away.
She walked towards the voice.
As she walked, everything suddenly became bright.
A face appeared before her.
Short black hair, nice eyes, a clean-cut face.
And that scent she had been smelling all day, thinking about all day—the scent that was uniquely Shu's.
Her brain hadn't fully woken up, but her mouth moved on its own.
"...Shu?"
Her voice was soft and muffled, thick with the grogginess and nasal tone of someone who had just woken up.
The two syllables floated clearly from her lips.
Then she saw that face—
And froze.
When Shu heard those two syllables, he froze too.
Shu.
She had called him Shu.
Not "hey," not "you there," not "mister."
Shu.
He didn't know this person at all.
He would swear on his twenty-seven years of memory that he had never seen this face before.
He'd lived in this city for so many years, and he could count the number of people he knew on two hands. None of them looked like this. With that white hair alone, if he had ever seen her, even for a moment, he should have some impression.
But she knew his name... and the way she said it—
Do... I know her?
Shu's mind went blank.
Am I supposed to know her?
Long white hair, azure blue eyes—right now those eyes were half-lidded, clearly not fully awake, but they were beginning to focus, beginning to look at him.
Those eyes were pure, the kind of pure where you know she's been through a lot, but she still chooses to look at you with that gaze.
Clean and clear, looking straight at him.
Like she was looking at someone very important.
Wait...
He felt like he really did know her!
But that was impossible...
"Kia—" The name almost escaped his lips, but in the next second, reason violently reasserted control.
No... No, no, no...
How could it be Kiana?
A character from a game... how could she suddenly appear at his doorstep, calling his name as if she knew him intimately?
A hallucination.
It had to be a hallucination.
I must have forgotten to take my medicine... right, isn't the whole reason I went out today because I ran out?
Shu quickly glanced at the bag of meds hanging from his wrist, solidifying his conviction.
This was a hallucination.
He shot to his feet, ripped the plastic bag from the psychiatric hospital off his wrist, and pulled out his keys with one hand—
Turned, unlocked the door, and slipped inside.
The movements were fluid, as fast as if he were fleeing for his life.
The door was just about to slam shut—
"Wait, wait, wait—!!!"
A hand suddenly shot in.
Shu's hand, which had been rapidly closing the door, stopped dead, forcefully halting the heavy door just before it would have made a deafening SLAM.
"Ngh— Huh? It doesn't hurt?"
Kiana, who had already squeezed her eyes shut in preparation for the pain of having her hand crushed, suddenly opened them, looking at her hand in surprise.