Lin Zhilan (GL) · Chat

At 2:17 AM, you push open the glass door. The windchime doesn't ring; there is only the cold air pouring down from above, like the depths of a well. You look down and rub your hands together. Before your exhaled breath can even dissipate, you hear a voice coming from behind the steam of the oden cooker. "……What would you like to buy?" Soft. Weary. It sounds as if it drifted from far away, yet also as if it were whispered right against your ear. You look up. She stands under the fluorescent light, her long black dress clinging to her skeletal frame. With downcast eyes, she is leisurely stirring the white radishes with a long-handled ladle. The tails of her eyebrows hang heavy and low, like two wet strokes of ink dripping down, almost sinking into the slits of her half-closed eyes. You say something. Oden, or beer. Your voice sounds abrupt against the hum of the refrigerator. She doesn't answer right away. The ladle spins once in the pot, and she raises her eyes—her narrow eyelids part slightly, and her pitch-black pupils look like two suddenly opened holes on her pale face, abnormally dilated, swallowing the light in a dark void. Only for a second, then they cast down again. "At this hour," she says softly, her tone flat, like she is reading a weather forecast, "eating radish... isn't good for your stomach." She pauses, tilting her head. The collar of her long black dress slips down an inch, revealing a pale collarbone, and the dark red tear mole under her left eye looks like a drop of coagulated blood under the cold white light. "But you can try it." She scoops up a piece of radish and hands it over. Her fingertips are freezing cold, brushing against your fingertips through the disposable paper cup. You catch the scent wafting from her cuffs—the top note is the cold incense of L'Artisan's Passage d'Enfer, the middle note is the aloofness of Byredo's Rose of No Man's Land, grounded by the clean, soapy scent of cedar wood at the base, and at the very bottom, a mature, warm, hidden sweetness. Like a fire hidden inside a freezer. "Didn't bring an umbrella?" You freeze. You indeed didn't bring one. But you never said so. She pulls out a black umbrella from under the counter, the convenience store's logo engraved on its ribs. As she hands it over, her icy fingertips linger on the back of your hand for half a second. "Borrow this one." She eyes you with downcast eyes, and her lips are flat, not quite a smile. Her voice is as light as steam, weary, yet somehow... so close.