When they arrived in front of a five-story brown building, Chiaya headed toward the entrance and said, "We're here."
As she entered the door code, Karan watched her closely, trying to understand what she was doing. He wasn't even aware that watching someone enter a code was considered rude.
The door opened with a click.
Once they stepped inside, Karan asked, "Do you live here?"
"Oh, yes. It's not exactly a modern place, but I like it," Chiaya replied, not realizing Karan meant the building's entrance itself.
Chiaya lived on the fourth floor. When the elevator doors opened, Karan was startled for a moment by the man he saw.
It took him a few seconds to realize that what he was seeing was his own reflection.
He followed Chiaya into this box. He knew the person in the mirror was himself, but the differences he wasn't accustomed to surprised him.
First, the gray tones in his eyes had significantly faded—they were darker and more muted.
The second difference, he couldn't quite explain. In Narval, living beings—from their nails to their hair—looked more vivid.
Although this mirror reflected more clearly than any he had seen in Narval, the presence of living beings appeared strangely dim. Here, everyone seemed a bit more drawn to the ground. He had noticed this in the people he spoke to on the street and in Chiaya, but he hadn't realized he looked like them until he stood in front of the mirror.
When they stepped out of the elevator and entered the apartment, Chiaya turned to Karan and said, "Welcome."
Karan thought to himself, So much effort just to enter a home—so many doors to pass through.
"Would you mind taking off your shoes?" Chiaya asked.
She didn't know which country the man had come from, but figured that, in his culture, walking around indoors with shoes on might be considered normal. "I'm leaving some clean clothes and towels in the bathroom for you. Go ahead and take a shower. Leave your clothes outside the door—I'll wash them," she called out as she rummaged through the closet and drawers, looking for something that might fit Karan.
Expecting to find clothes suitable for a two-meter-tall, broad-shouldered man in the wardrobe of a 168-centimeter-tall, slender woman was, frankly, ridiculous.
At some point, she stopped caring about how it would look or what it was. All she needed was something he could somehow fit into.
The only thing she could find was a baggy yellow pajama set with cute raccoon prints all over it. Assuming that the place where Chiaya had left the clothes was the bathroom, Karan stepped inside.
If Chiaya expected him to come out of here clean, then there had to be water—or something similar—somewhere in the room.
He closed the door behind him and began examining the space.
Something that looked like a pipe extended into a hollow white stone. He touched and examined this object. It seemed to have some kind of mechanism.
When he lifted one part of it into the air, he realized that water began to flow from the pipe.
By raising and lowering the piece, he could start and stop the water.
He was mesmerized.
He fiddled with everything in the bathroom.
At first, he refused to use the pleasantly scented substances, thinking they might be potions.
But after concluding that anything found in Chiaya's bathroom was likely meant for cleaning, he managed to use them.
Chiaya wondered why it took Karan so long to get his clothes. Then, she started to worry, thinking he might have accidentally left something strange out in the open. She relaxed very quickly, though. This was the trait Chiaya liked most about herself: her ability to calm her anxiety by thinking there was no point in worrying and exhausting herself for a long time if she could handle whatever the outcome would be.
When the bathroom door opened, Chiaya understood that it was her turn to shower and walked toward it.
Karan had just stepped out, trying to dry his hair with a towel.
The already tight, midriff-baring pajama top had ridden even higher as he moved.
The pajama bottoms looked more like leggings, ending far above his ankles.
Chiaya had never imagined she'd see her favorite pajamas like this. A sudden burst of laughter escaped her.
"I'm so sorry," she tried to say between giggles. "I think I'm still a little drunk and I just can't stop laughing."
Karan, embarrassed and slightly annoyed, said, "You're the one who gave me these clothes."
"I know, I know—ah, I'm so sorry," she said, wiping a tear from her eye.
She looked at him again.
Everything about Karan's build was perfectly proportioned.
How could he still manage to look attractive in such ridiculous clothes?
Life really did play favorites with some people.
"I'm going to take a shower now. If you want, you can get some sleep on the couch.
You haven't slept all night, and you'll have to wait a few hours for your clothes anyway."
While showering, she giggled again, remembering how Karan had looked.
Then her mind returned to the thing she had pushed aside in her rush earlier—
For the first time in her life, she had seen a hallucination.
And it was truly frightening.
Chiaya had never seen anything in her life as guaranteed or permanent.
You could get into an accident and lose a limb.
You could be fired out of nowhere and end up with nothing.
A friend from high school—one of the most outgoing and fearless people she had ever known—was now living with agoraphobia.
She was terrified that something terrible would happen the moment she stepped outside her home.
Chiaya never looked down on her. She knew that even the personal qualities we carry through life could vanish under circumstances we'd never imagine.
Her mind was drifting from one thought to another.
Anyway, Chiaya never saw anything as guaranteed. Her sanity was one of those things. She decided that if it happened again, she'd see a doctor.