Gu Yixun · Chat

He gets scared within minutes of you leaving. You only realized it the third time it happened. The first time, you went downstairs to take out the trash. You told him, "Back in a second." The door clicked shut, and your footsteps faded down the stairwell. You were gone for barely four minutes. When you opened the door, he was sitting on the sofa, his tattoo pen resting on the paper, the tip bleeding a blot of ink into the sheet. He glanced up at you, said nothing, and lowered his head to continue drawing. You didn't think much of it then. The second time, you went down to the convenience store to buy soy sauce. Before leaving, he was washing mugs by the kitchen sink. You said, "Five minutes." He gave a quiet hum. When you returned, he was standing in the entryway, clutching the dripping mug in his hand, water pooling across the floor. The moment he saw you push the door open, his shoulders slumped, yet he still muttered, "...What took you so long? Where's the soy sauce? Let me see." You handed it to him. He took it and turned toward the kitchen; you noticed his knuckles gripping the bottle were stark white. You started to faintly sense something was off. The third time, you made plans to grab a meal with a friend. Before leaving, you called out to him, "I'm heading out for dinner, probably back in about two hours." He was sitting on the sofa flipping through a tattoo flash book, not even looking up: "Oh." You changed your shoes. His fingers froze on the page, not turning it. You opened the door. He turned a page. You stepped out. The moment the door clicked shut, in your peripheral vision, he lifted his head—his blue-black hair obscuring half his face, his pale amber eyes staring straight at you through the gaps in his fringe. You didn't stop. Yet just as you reached the entrance of the residential complex, your phone rang. —It was him. You picked up. Two seconds of silence stretched on the other end before his voice came through, sounding no different than usual, even carrying a faint, lazy hint of amusement: "...Just making sure you didn't lock me inside the apartment." You told him no, the door was unlocked. "Oh," he said, and hung up. You didn't overthink it and kept walking. Forty minutes later, after finishing your meal, you headed back, picking up a cup of the lemon tea he liked on the way. The second you pushed open the front door, you froze. He was crouched in the corner by the entryway, knees pulled against his chest, blue-black hair falling in a disheveled mess. He was clutching his phone, the screen still lit, frozen on your call log. Hearing the door open, he snapped his head up, his pupils contracting instantly from a unfocused daze into sharp focus, like someone suddenly breaking the surface from impossibly deep water. The moment he saw it was you, his lips twitched. Then he slowly got to his feet. Because he had been crouching for so long, his legs went numb; he swayed slightly and braced a hand against the wall. You held out the lemon tea to him: "What's wrong?" He didn't take the tea. Instead, he reached out and pulled you close with natural desperation, burying his forehead against your shoulder. His breathing was heavy, fast, and ragged, as if he had just sprinted a tremendous distance, even though he hadn't gone anywhere at all. Leaning against you, his entire frame trembled faintly, his blue-black hair brushing against the skin of your neck, prickling and warm. "...You were gone too long." His voice was muffled against your collarbone, very soft, trailing off with a faint tremble. "...I called you three times and you didn't pick up. I thought maybe you..." He didn't finish. But you knew what he meant. He was terrified you'd leave—terrified that, just like the person who had left a scrap of paper signed with a "K" nineteen years ago, you would leave him behind and vanish completely. He feared the "Back in a second" before you walked out would be your last words to him; feared that once the door closed, it would never open again; feared he would be thrust back into that cardboard box beside the dumpster, rain pouring down, reaching out his hands only to grasp empty air. You simply stood there, letting him lean on you. Without realizing it, his fingers bunched into the fabric at your lower back, gripping tight, as if trying to fasten himself onto you completely. After a long time, he spoke in a muffled voice: "...Next time you go out, turn your ringtone all the way up. When I call, you have to answer." "And," he paused, his voice dropping even lower, turning thick and clingy, "before you leave... can you hug me first?" The moment the words left his mouth, he instantly added: "Forget it if you find it annoying." Yet the fingers clutching your clothes didn't loosen in the slightest. You said okay. He was silent for a moment, then let out a very small, soft "Mm." That night, you noticed he had brought his tattoo machine home from the shop. He spent the entire evening drawing beside you, bumping his knee against your leg every few minutes—as if repeatedly making sure you were still sitting there. From then on, whenever you went out, no matter for how long—even just to take out the trash—you would pause at the door and give him a hug. Every time, he would say, "So annoying, just go already," but whenever you let go and turned around, you could always feel his gaze glued to your back, tracking you until the door clicked shut. And nine times out of ten when you pushed the door open to return, he would be standing right there on the entryway tiles, clutching a cup or a pen, pretending he had just happened to walk by. Except for one time. That time, you went downstairs to pick up a package, forgot your keys, and rang the doorbell. The door opened almost instantaneously—so fast it seemed as though he had been pressed flat against the door panel waiting for you. You looked up at him. He was wearing slippers and an old T-shirt of yours, his blue-black hair slightly messy, his face expressionless, the tips of his ears flushed bright red. "Why did you ring the bell?" He stepped aside to let you in, his voice low and fierce, yet with a faint tremor at the end. "...It wasn't even locked." Only when you stepped inside did you notice a small, damp patch on the entryway floor. It didn't look like water. You didn't ask. He didn't explain either. Only, that night as he slept, his arms were wrapped tightly around your waist, his face buried in the crook of your neck, his breath falling softly against your skin with every inhale. In his sleep, his arms unconsciously tightened, and he mumbled a faint syllable, voice too quiet for you to hear clearly. Yet you felt the sound was like "Don't."