Gulu (Chinchilla Beastman) · Chat

The rain outside finally stopped at three in the morning. 你 was woken up by a certain rhythmic pressure—light, evenly spaced stepping, moving from her chest all the way to her cheek, with the slight itch of fur brushing past. She opened her eyes and, by the dim light of the night lamp, saw a silver-gray furball "marching" intently on her shoulder blade. Sensing she was awake, the furball froze. Two round black eyes reflected the faint light in the darkness, the hint of grape-purple deep in the pupils barely visible. "...Gulu?" The furball stiffened for two seconds, then quickly jumped off the bed, making light "patter-patter" sounds on the wooden floor. By the time 你 sat up and turned on the bedside lamp, Gulu was already in his human form—wearing an oversized old T-shirt, standing barefoot by the door with his hands behind his back. His ears were perked up nervously, but his tail was honestly wagging in small, quick bursts behind him. "I, I didn't mean to..." His voice grew smaller and smaller, the last few words almost caught in his throat. 你 rubbed her brow. The digital clock showed 3:17 AM. She remembered the first rule she set was "do not wake me up in the middle of the night." "What are you doing?" Gulu’s eyes began to wander: "...Checking." "Checking what?" "Checking if you're..." He paused, seemingly searching for the right words, "...still breathing." 你 froze. Gulu's tail wagged even faster: "When Grandma fell asleep in winter... sometimes she wouldn't breathe for a long time. I have to check." He said it as if it were a matter of course, a perfectly normal midnight activity, even though right now his entire being screamed "guilty"—ears pinned back slightly, toes rubbing restlessly against the floor, fingers clutching the hem of his T-shirt. 你 remembered Gulu saying "Grandma is gone" last night. Remembered his expression when he said "winter is coming again." Remembered how he curled up in the cashmere blanket, his tail quietly wrapping around a corner of it. The night light stretched the shadows. The radiator in the living room made a faint clicking sound. "Come here," 你 said. Gulu hesitated for two steps. "I'm human," 你 made her voice sound as calm as possible. "Humans breathe very lightly when they sleep, but it doesn't stop. No need to check." Gulu’s ears twitched, clearly processing this information. His gaze fell on 你's chest, as if wanting to confirm there was still movement there. A few seconds later, he shuffled back to the bedside. Instead of getting back on the bed, he squatted on the rug by the bed—a position where he could look levelly at the side-lying 你. "Then what if..." he asked softly, "what if humans really stop breathing?" 你 looked at him. The grape-purple eyes looked exceptionally clear in the dimness, filled with an overly serious worry, and something else—the kind of obsession with "loss" that only someone who has walked alone for too long on a cold winter night would have. "If that day ever comes," 你 said, "you’ll definitely be all grown up. You’ll have your own place, your own heater, and cake." Gulu’s tail lightly tapped the rug. He didn't speak, just maintained his squatting posture like some furry night-watch statue. After a long while, he let out a very soft sound, somewhere between a "coo" and a sigh. "你's breathing," he said very slowly, like learning a new vocabulary, "sounds different from Grandma's. Grandma's breathing was like wind blowing through dry leaves. 你's is like... like the sound of water in the radiator." This metaphor made 你 want to laugh, but Gulu's expression was too serious. "Radiator water sounds good," Gulu added, then gave a small yawn, revealing a bit of sharp teeth. "A warm sound." His eyelids began to droop. His ears slowly slumped, the wagging of his tail grew smaller and smaller, and finally curled up beside him. But he still squatted there, stubbornly on guard. "Go sleep on the sofa," 你 said. Gulu shook his head, his movements very light, eyes already half-closed: "Here... I can hear the breathing." Stubborn little animal. 你 sighed, pulled an extra pillow from the bed, and threw it onto the rug: "At least use this." Gulu blinked, then quickly dragged the pillow to his side and buried his face in it to sniff—it had the same detergent smell as 你's bed. He gave a satisfied "coo," curled his whole body up, wrapped his tail around himself, and snuggled onto the rug with the pillow, just within 你's reach. Five minutes later, his breathing became even and long. 你 turned off the night light. Darkness reclaimed the room. There was only the continuous, rhythmic clicking of the radiator and two different frequencies of breathing—one deep and steady, one light and shallow, occasionally accompanied by a cub-like purr. Outside the window, the winter night was still long. But in the room, two beings shared this darkness in a peculiar way. One on the bed, one on the rug; one a human temporarily taking in another species for the winter, the other a chinchilla beastman who took "checking breathing" as a duty. 你 before closing her eyes again, heard a blurred mumble from the rug: "...Cake... give you half..." She smiled silently, sitting up from the bed to look at the little chinchilla on the floor.