The new apartment was small, but at least it was quiet—just enough for her to hide from her memories. During the day, she worked part-time at a nearby convenience store. The job was nothing special—cleaning, stocking shelves, ringing up customers. All she wanted was a life unnoticed.
That day, while she was crouched down scrubbing the floor, a large, veined hand placed a box of cold medicine on the counter. Out of habit, she didn't look up, just scanned the item and reported the price.
— "One hundred and thirty thousand."
Silence. No movement. No hand offering money. Irritated, she finally lifted her head—
It was him.
Those deep eyes, that faint smile. The very person she thought she would never meet again. Her heart raced, but her pride forced her to mask it with annoyance:
— "The money."
He said nothing, calmly taking bills from his wallet, handing them to her one by one. And then he left. No explanation, no glance back. As the door swung shut, she clenched her teeth, muttering to herself: "God, please don't let him recognize me."
The next day, there was an unusual order at the store: a giant water jug, requested for home delivery. She accepted it without a thought. The apartment building had no elevator, and by the time she hauled the heavy container up four flights of stairs, sweat soaked through her clothes, her arms trembling.
But when she reached the door of the assigned room, her chest tightened. This floor—this number—it was right where she lived.
And when the door opened—
It was him.
He stood there, calm as ever, accepting the water as though this encounter were nothing but ordinary. Stunned, she shoved the jug toward him, her lips pressed tight. He gave a faint nod, dragged the jug inside, and shut the door in her face.
The cold slam of the door stoked her fury. Without thinking, she kicked the wooden panel hard, gritting her teeth as she hissed under her breath:
— "Bastard…"
The next morning passed without him. At first she told herself it was nothing—he had work, errands, whatever men like him had—but by midday an odd hollowness had settled into the apartment block. She found herself waiting by the stairwell, ears tuned to every passing footstep. Habit, she told herself. Curiosity, maybe. Or something more stubborn and stupid.
By late afternoon, the absence had become a weight. She was tired of hearing the thin silence that answered every creak in the hallway. On impulse she walked to his door and knocked. No answer. She knocked again, louder this time, anxiety pricking at her fingers.
Still nothing. The hallway smelled faintly of detergent and the day's heat. The lockpad blinked under her hand. Without thinking she punched in the digits she'd seen him use the other day—an unconscious mimicry of a rhythm burned into her memory. The numbers fell into place the same as her own apartment's code. Her hands froze. She'd been using the same sequence at home: her birthday, simple, easy to remember.
The door clicked.
She stepped inside and found him sprawled on the couch, a rumpled blanket half thrown over him. His face was a bruise-map—purples and swollen lines like a storm had passed across his features. He was fever-hot to the touch, breath shallow, as if sinking under the blankets might be his only refuge.
Something like panic, like an old, fierce tenderness she hadn't expected, rose in her throat. She fumbled for a towel, dampened it with cool water and pressed it to his forehead. The skin there was hot enough to steam.
He stirred, blinking into the dim light. For a moment he didn't see her—then his eyes narrowed, sharp and impatient.
"How did you get in?" he demanded, voice raw.
She bit back a smile she couldn't quite hide. "Easy. The code's the same as mine," she teased, as if the absurdity of it weren't a small betrayal. "My birthday. Seems we're both very memorable people."
He turned his face away with a grunt, annoyance flaring even when fever fogged his mind. She wanted to be embarrassed—after all, wasn't this the man she'd been careful to avoid? But some old familiarity smoothed her muscles. The way he breathed, the tilt of his jaw—she had known this. She had known him before whatever had broken him, before both of them had started to keep secrets.
She moved with the cautious intimacy of someone tending to a child. She fetched water, boiled rice into a thin, soothing congee and spooned it into a bowl, blowing on it until the steam stopped stinging her fingers. He watched, silent, the impatience in him dampening into something more human: the faint shadow of gratitude.
When she left, she didn't stay for his thanks. She covered the bowl and set it near the couch, straightened his blanket, and slipped out before the questions could come.
Home felt oddly small. After a hot shower, the housemate—who knew nothing and asked everything—poked her head in, asking about shifts and deliveries with the casual curiosity of someone who took other people's lives for granted. The mundane questions jolted her back to reality: bills, schedules, the small demands that had formed the scaffolding of her life. She answered mechanically, then retreated into the narrow comfort of her bedroom.
Lying in the dark, the memory of his bruised face kept surfacing. Pieces of the man she had once known, pieces of the stranger he'd become, braided together into a single, painful knot. And then—the part she had tried not to think about—slid into place: the whispered rumors she'd heard, the hush of neighbors, the furtive way people spoke his name. A suspected link to a drug ring. The word lingered like a scent she couldn't scrub off.
Guilt unfurled inside her chest, a slow, burning thing. Had she been the cause? Had some strand of her choices tugged at his life and led him to this ruin? She pressed her palms to her eyes until the stars behind her lids blurred. She wanted to blame herself, to own the harm and thus, in some silly way, control it.
The night stretched thin and long. Outside, the building slept in muffled breaths; inside, her thoughts roiled. She had come to this place to disappear, to stitch her days into something steady and small. Instead, fate—cruel, ridiculous—had threaded her life with his again. She turned over and clutched at the blanket, trying to find a shape for the unease. For the first time since she'd moved in, she didn't know if she wanted him gone—or if she feared, terribly, what would happen if he left for good