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"You had Jen investigate me." He Xu repeated, his voice not rising, but the calmness was more unsettling than anger. "What did you see from her, and then you decided to test me this morning?"

"He Xu—"

"Don't call me by my name," He Xu interrupted him. "Answer me, yes or no."

The restaurant remained quiet for a long time.

The sunlight from the window fell on the floor between the two people, casting long shadows of the table legs.

Jiang Yanbai sat there, head down, fingers resting on his knees, knuckles slightly white.

"...Yes," he finally said.

He Xu closed his eyes, leaned back against the edge of the countertop, and his back hit the marble surface with a dull thud.

Then he opened his eyes, looked at Jiang Yanbai, and spoke in a voice half an octave lower than before: "How much did you watch?"

"not much."

"How much is 'not much'?"

"Two videos. One from the practice room and one from the dormitory. And an old file."

He Xu's lips twitched slightly: "...What gives you the right?"

Jiang Yanbai suddenly raised his head: "Because I care about you!"

"Concerned about me?" He Xu took half a step forward, his tone finally rising a little. "You care about me, so you had someone dig up my past while I was asleep? You care about me, so you investigated my past behind my back? You asked me where I'd been before, and I fucking thought you were just chatting casually—turns out you already knew, and were waiting here to trick me into revealing information?"

His voice trembled slightly, a tremor he hadn't heard in a long time; it was low, but it scraped through the air like sandpaper.

"Jiang Yanbai, if you really want to understand me, you can just ask me. You've known me for six years, when have you ever stopped you from asking?"

Jiang Yanbai's lips moved, but his voice was muffled in his throat: "...I'm afraid you won't tell."

"You went and searched it yourself even though I didn't tell you?" He Xu looked at him, her chest heaving, her breathing more rapid than usual. "What do you take me for? Your pet cat? A dog you picked up? Do you even know what privacy is?!"

His voice finally exploded with the last sentence, the last syllable carrying a long-suppressed anger and a sense of being torn apart.

"He Xu—"

"He Xu," Jiang Yanbai's voice lowered, "I was wrong—I didn't mean to—"

"Stop talking."

He Xu interrupted him, took a half step back, leaned back against the edge of the kitchen counter, and put his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants.

Jiang Yanbai sat in the chair, completely motionless, as if he were nailed to the spot.

He Xu looked at him and remained silent for a long time.

Then he turned around, picked up his coat draped over the back of the chair, and walked toward the entrance.

The footsteps were light, but resolute, as if there was no intention to turn back.

Jiang Yanbai's voice came from behind: "He Xu, where are you going?"

"...Let me go for a walk." He Xu didn't turn his head, reached out and opened the door. "Leave me alone for a while."

The door closed with a very soft, almost inaudible sound.

The living room fell silent again.

Jiang Yanbai sat at the dining table. The bowl of porridge in front of him had gone completely cold, and a thin film had formed on the surface of the white rice grains.

He buried his face in his hands, his fingers clenched into his hair, squeezed hard for a moment, then let go.

A very soft sound came from the kitchen as Marco tidied up the counter, and then it fell silent.

-

He Xu walked out the gate with quick steps.

He was walking so fast that he didn't even realize how fast he was going. By the time he came to his senses, he had already left the side road lined with palm trees and turned onto the slope leading to the main road.

The afternoon sun in Los Angeles shone down, spreading a blinding white across the asphalt.

He narrowed his eyes but didn't stop.

He didn't know where he was going.

I just want to leave that house, leave that dining table, and leave Jiang Yanbai's face.

My mind is a mess.

He regretted those words as soon as they left his mouth.

He heard himself say, "What do you take me for?"—those words were like a knife, stabbing Jiang Yanbai precisely, and also stabbing himself.

He had known Jiang Yanbai for six years.

That person was all talk and no action, but he never missed a chance to get things done.

Jiang Yanbai even found him a doctor in the United States. When he was hospitalized, Jiang Yanbai skipped his recording studio meeting to stay with him. When he was recovering and unable to speak, the first thing Jiang Yanbai did every day when he came back was to check if he was there.

He remembers everything.

But he couldn't help being angry.

The feeling of having his past exposed, spied on, and pieced together in the dark was like a thorn stuck in his back.

He didn't know how much Jen had found out, or what videos, files, or details Jiang Yanbai had seen that he had never mentioned to anyone.

That unknown fear overshadowed his trust in Jiang Yanbai.

He continued walking forward.

The houses on both sides of the road gradually became sparse, the fences turned into bushes, and the bushes turned into open spaces.

He had lived in this neighborhood for almost two months and passed by this road every day while jogging, but this road was very different now.

He stopped at a fork in the road.

There is an old oak tree at the intersection, its canopy so large that it covers half the road, and a faded bench is placed under its shade.

He sat down on the bench.

Sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting dappled patterns of light on his knees.

A breeze blew by, carrying a slightly dry and cool feeling.

He looked down at his hands.

My fingers were still trembling slightly.

That shiver wasn't from cold—it was the aftershock of the adrenaline rush.

My whole body is responding to the conflict that just happened.

He took a deep breath and then slowly exhaled.

"What the hell are you reacting to...?"

His voice was so soft that only he could hear it.

With a faint self-reassurance he himself wasn't even aware of, he thought, "Why are you angry... He's angry because he cares about you... You know that..."

But saying those words did not calm the surging emotions.

Instead, it was like lifting a lid a crack—things that had been suppressed for too long started to come out.

He remembered something from long ago.

He remembered waking up in the hospital when he was twelve years old. The child in the next bed had his mother with him, while he only had a bowl of porridge that had gone cold.

He recalled a time when he was sixteen, in a practice room in Seoul, his ankle swollen like a bun, and a man in a white polo shirt standing in front of him saying, "Stand up."

He recalled the bullying that was handed to him, disguised as "training," and he kept quiet because it would have been pointless to speak out.

He recalled that spring when he was seventeen, standing in the corridor of Yueyin Entertainment, clutching a withdrawal application in his hand. The window at the end of the corridor was open, and the March wind blew in, carrying a chill.

Someone told him, "Once you sign, everything you have here will disappear. Just pretend you were never here. Don't mention anything about this place when you go back."

He signed it.

I was forced to sign.

And then he really never mentioned it again.

He thought he had buried those things deep enough that even he himself would never look back at them.

But it turns out that wasn't the case.

Those things have always been there.

He just thought he didn't remember.

He Xu sat on the bench, head down, chest heaving.

His breathing rhythm started to become off—faster and shallower than before, with a familiar tightness that would occasionally flare up in the middle of the night over the past few years.

He pressed his hand to his chest, trying to force his breath down, but the layer inside his chest tightened immediately, as if something was gripping his ribs from within.

not enough.

The air seemed to have thinned, and each breath only filled half a mouthful.

His fingers gripped the fabric on his knees so tightly that his knuckles turned white, and a fine layer of cold sweat beaded on his forehead.

Tiny spots of light began to appear at the edge of my field of vision.