The position was correct, the posture was correct. As long as she didn't make any major movements, there shouldn't be any problems...
By "problems," he meant rolling off the sofa.
Shu turned and walked into the bedroom, grabbed the quilt from his own bed, walked back to the living room, unfolded it, and gently covered her with it.
Then he looked at the sofa again.
Okay... he was still a little worried...
After all, Kiana's carefree demeanor didn't suggest she was a peaceful sleeper. And Shu did remember... Kiana's sleeping habits weren't exactly great...
He was still worried she might roll off.
Sighing, he went back into the bedroom.
This time, he brought out his own pillow.
He placed the pillow on the floor next to the sofa, right up against the edge.
If she did roll off, she would land on the pillow first, so it wouldn't hurt.
After doing all this, Shu fell into a daze, unsure of what to do next. So he just stood in front of the sofa, looking down at that slightly dorky sleeping face.
He watched for a long time, then turned and switched off the living room lights.
The warm light vanished, and the darkness outside the curtains successfully invaded the tightly sealed little room, instantly enveloping everything.
And darkness brings the unknown.
Shu once thought he liked this feeling... the mundane life suddenly gaining some insignificant uncertainty, the possibility of something hiding in the dark...
Where did I put that thing I was looking for? Did I leave a chair in my path?
No... not those things...
What he thought about was...
Are there monsters in the dark? Will someone unexpected appear? Will some disaster suddenly happen? Some unforeseen event?
His imagination had always been vivid.
Vengefully vivid. Vivid enough to construct a detailed story in a split second, vivid enough that any word, even a single character, could conjure a specific scene.
Vivid enough that—
When he looked at the world, only one thought remained.
...Is that it?
Another fantasy shattered...
Shu thought he liked the pitch-black canvas of the night...
But now, he didn't feel that way anymore.
The night was too deep and silent... deep enough to hide everything he could see, silent enough that he couldn't hear any sound he wanted to hear.
His hand lingered on the light switch for a moment, his brain uncontrollably active, leaping and flipping through countless thoughts, finally landing on a genuine realization.
He didn't like the dark.
It blocked his vision.
In the darkness, he withdrew his hand, unwilling to let the sudden light startle Kiana awake. He simply leaned against the wall, gazing towards the sofa, unwilling to look away for even a moment.
Actually, he could only see a blurry outline, a small lump wrapped in a quilt.
This was too dreamlike.
Everything that happened today was too dreamlike.
A girl claiming to be Kiana suddenly fell from the sky onto his doorstep.
Then she acted like she knew him well, even using his secrets to "threaten" him...
She showered in his house, wore his clothes, ate the takeout he ordered.
Then she told him stories for three and a half hours, and finally fell asleep on his sofa.
And him?
He just watched, covered her with a quilt, and placed a pillow for her.
Was this reasonable?
Was this... really real?
He asked himself countless times in his heart.
But he couldn't find an answer.
He felt it was real, because her tone of voice, the way she ate, her slightly open mouth when she slept—every detail was too real to be fake.
But he also felt it couldn't possibly be real... because she was supposed to be a game character. She shouldn't be here, and certainly shouldn't be sleeping on his sofa.
It was all absurd, so absurd that he had to suspect if there was something wrong with him again?
Something wrong again...?
He suddenly remembered his follow-up visit to the hospital today, and the plastic bag by the shoe rack.
The medicine.
He hadn't taken his medicine today... not all day.
He abruptly withdrew his gaze, walked silently to the door, picked up the plastic bag, took out the box of medicine, pulled out a blister pack, and popped two pale yellow pills from the foil.
According to the doctor's orders, he had to take two pills every day.
He put the pills in his mouth and swallowed them dry, without chewing.
And just as those two extended-release tablets slid down his throat, causing Shu a slight discomfort, and disappeared from his mouth—
The world suddenly went "quiet."
Like a wrong note suddenly corrected, like a nearly finished painting suddenly hit with consecutive "undo" commands...
Like waking up from a dream, and apart from the tears in the corners of your eyes, everything else is gone.
You want to go back... but you can't.
You don't even know what exactly you're clinging to, only feeling that something is tearing itself away from your mind.
Something disappeared... right beside Shu.
He couldn't say what disappeared.
Shu violently threw down the foil pack with the remaining pills, raised his hand to grab the fabric over his heart, and crumpled it tightly, as if grasping his own heart.
He felt insecure, so he hunched over, trying to protect his most vulnerable heart.
His breathing gradually became heavy. His chest craved cold air, not that humid, sticky stuff... he was trying to speed up his breathing rhythm to achieve this.
But it had no effect.
"...Kiana?"
Finally, against the resistance of his entire body, he spoke. His voice was very soft, so soft he could barely hear it himself.
No response.
In the darkness, there was only the sound of his own breathing.
As if the person he called had never existed.
Shu's rapid breathing slowed. He stood there, not attempting to call out a second time, but staring into that darkness for a long, long time...
Long enough that his body forgot to continue protesting.
Then, he lowered his head, looking down at the extended-release tablets lying on the floor.
The drug name printed on the white box, words he was all too familiar with.
He remembered the face of his attending physician forcing a smile this afternoon.
And the sentence that came from behind him as he left—
"Live well, don't think so much."
Spoken so lightly.
Yet so heavy.
Like...
Like a final instruction.
...
The door of a small, dark cabinet was opened. Stale air that had settled there for a long time surged out along the opening door, hitting the face of the person who opened it, carrying the scent of decaying time.
Two white medicine boxes were placed in the furthest corner of this cabinet.
Then, the door was closed.
Never to be opened again.