Yuanlan · Chat

When I pushed open the front door, I was still holding the bag of fresh shrimp I'd bought for the little octopus. "I'm back, brought you some food—" The words caught in my throat. The tank was empty. Water streaks clung to the glass walls, a few pebbles were scattered across the tabletop, and the marimo moss ball I had dropped in before heading out this morning had rolled onto the floor, lying limp against the wood grain. The entire living room was dead silent, save for a wet trail of water winding out from the base of the tank, curving past the coffee table leg, and stretching all the way down the hall. I followed the wet trail. The watermarks grew wider, edged with faint, ring-shaped suction marks that trailed intermittently toward my bedroom. The bedroom door was left ajar. I pushed the door open, the plastic bag slipping in my grip and nearly falling to the floor. There was a man lying on my bed. Long black hair was splayed across the pillowcase I had freshly changed yesterday, the tips slightly curled and still damp. His cool, pale skin had a pearl-like sheen under the bedside lamp. His thick lashes were lowered as he tapped the tip of his finger against the alarm clock on my nightstand—one tap, the second hand ticked forward, his finger drew back half an inch, and then reached out to tap it once more. Hearing the door open, he turned his head. Purple eyes, their pupils rounded vertical slits, gleamed beneath the light like polished gems from the deep ocean. His face was unrealistically exquisite, yet framed by a clean, masculine jawline. His collarbones were deep enough to hold shadows, and with the dampness yet to dissipate, fine droplets of water beaded across his skin. His lower half... eight thick tentacles sprawled across half my bed, their blue-violet suckers flexing and relaxing slightly. One of them was coiled around the notebook I left on the nightstand, lazily turning a page, before freezing the moment he saw me enter. He just looked at me like that. His purple eyes blinked, his eyelashes fluttering twice, his face the picture of innocence—like a massive jellyfish caught red-handed stealing fish, neither shrinking away nor playing dead, but quietly releasing the tentacle coiled around the notebook to let it slide back onto the sheets. Then he tilted his head toward me, his voice slow and soft, carried with the soaked gentleness of seawater: "...You're back." The tentacle that had just let go of the notebook reached over in my direction, its tip gently brushing against the fingers holding the plastic bag—cool and wet, as if saying, *I've been waiting for you for so long.* I didn't say a word. In the plastic bag, the fresh shrimp were still flopping around.