Three days after they parted, Lin sent a message. It wasn't small talk, nor a casual "Are you busy?" It was a meticulously organized list.
GL films, series, animations, comics, and novels—everything was categorized neatly. Next to each entry were detailed notes: tone, relationship dynamics, character arcs, adaptation potential, and even her own personal critiques and judgments. It read like material that had been fully internalized before being put to paper, not something thrown together at the last minute.
Yeh stared at the screen for a long time. The feeling wasn't the satisfaction of being remembered, it was a slow, grounding confirmation—that Lin wasn't just reaching out on a whim, but was treating this project and her with absolute seriousness.
She replied, keeping her tone restrained. "This is incredibly comprehensive. Did you compile this all by yourself? So thorough."
Lin wrote back quickly. "We always use references like this for our shoots."
They began discussing the films on the list.
Lin mentioned a particularly obscure title, one that rarely appeared on mainstream recommendation lists, and recommend it to Yeh.
Yeh paused for a second before typing: "I've seen it."
This time, it was Lin who went quiet for a few seconds.
Then the message popped up:
"Really? I never would guessed you'd watch this. No one around me has seen it."
Looking at those words, Yeh felt a soft, distinct sensation: In Lin's world, at least in this dimension, she was special.
This kind of understanding needed no explanation.
From that day on, Lin became slightly more proactive.
She still initiated conversations under the guise of work—asking about casting directions, character depth, pacing—but the topics naturally drifted further. From "Why does this character work?" to "Would you be attracted to someone like this?" and eventually into judgments that felt much more personal.
One evening, Lin sent a photo. It was the sunset view from her studio window, the light was soft and hazy, filtered through layers of gentle purple and pink.
There was only one line of text: "The light today looks like a movie scene."
Yeh looked at the image, not replying immediately. She suddenly realized that this kind of sharing was no longer just an extension of work, it was more like a daily sharing a moment of her life.
Later, they both happened to mention an old film—Imagine Me & You.
Lin asked: "Which part is your favorite?"
Yeh's fingers hovered over the keyboard, pausing several times.
The question was dangerously easy to read between the lines, but in the end, she chose the scene that resonated most with how she felt right now.
"When Rachel asks Luce what lilies mean. It was so ambiguous. Luce was afraid to answer because saying it out loud would mean losing control, so she tried to make her ask about other flowers."
After sending that, Yeh added one more line:
"But Rachel insisted on asking about the lilies."
Seconds later, Lin replied:
"And then Luce says..."
"Lily means..."
Yeh's eyes fixed on those words, her heart beginning to beat faster.
The next message appeared instantly:
"Lily means I dare you to love me."
In that moment, Yeh's eyes stung. She knew exactly what was moving her—not the line itself, but that precise threshold: the moment when you know speaking will change everything, yet you choose to say it anyway. That split second between restraint and crossing the line.
She suddenly realized how eerily similar this dynamic was to the one between herself and Lin. In the movie, it was a fated encounter, a direct strike to the heart at the most inappropriate time. In real life, The encounter of she and Lin were quieter while still inevitable and romantic.For them, it was happening within a framework that was logical and controlled, yet they still found themselves drifting closer and pulling away in turns.
Lately, because of the project, Yeh found herself much more easily swayed by emotion than usual. In the past, as an investor, she was used to dealing with things that could be calculated—numbers, returns, probabilities. Every decision had logic to support it. She dealt with people who were equally rational, where emotions required no explanation. If feelings could be filed into the same system, she would have preferred to stay calm forever, untouched and unshaken.
But now she was slowly realizing: perhaps precisely because she lived so rationally in reality, she was endlessly drawn to the unspoken emotions in stories. The hesitations, the pauses, the choices that never happened—they felt like a form of compensation, filling in the gaps for moments that could not exist in her own life.
She looked at the chat window with Lin, not continuing the topic. Yet she knew clearly that something had shifted. It wasn't a confession, nor any form of confirmation. It was simply this: they had begun to set aside a small space in their separate lives, specifically to hold onto those feelings.