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“Are you going to move sometime today?” Lu Guang asked without looking up from his book.

“Shut up! I’m thinking,” Cheng Xiaoshi grumbled, frustration wrinkling his brow. He leaned in closer towards the table, peering intensely, as if the concentration might reveal the answer to him.

Lu Guang sighed quietly and flipped the page, unperturbed. His leg remained crossed over the other in his chair, and he paid little attention to Cheng Xiaoshi’s fingers hovering anxiously over the chess board between them.

His focus, however, was finally broken when Cheng Xiaoshi groaned again, louder this time, more defeated.

“What am I supposed to do?!” he cried, his forehead dipping pathetically down to his shoulders.

At that, Lu Guang finally looked over at his friend, grey eyes narrowly judging. His expression was mostly flat, but some hint of bittered amusement washed his face. “You’re asking me?”

Cheng Xiaoshi groaned again, this time throwing his head back in dismay. “I bet you’d know what to do!”

Lu Guang glanced at the chess board briefly.

“Hm,” he hummed unhelpfully, and returned his gaze to his book.

“What is that supposed to mean?!” accused Cheng Xiaoshi, now sitting upright to stare daggers at his friend.

Lu Guang looked up, but he was still hidden behind his book. The dark purple cover was familiar to even Cheng Xiaoshi at this point; Lu Guang had been reading this one quite often lately.

“You’re the one who wanted to play chess,” Lu Guang said calmly.

Cheng Xiaoshi wilted slightly. It was true, he was the one who suggested that they play chess, but he didn’t exactly want to.

If he had his way, he would be outside playing basketball, but the cold rain that steadied down outside made sure that wasn’t a reasonable option. He had suggested chess because, frankly, he didn’t know what else to do. He spotted the game sitting forlorn in their closet while searching for their winter coats a while back and it came to mind as he struggled to find something to occupy himself in this dreadful weather.

Plus, he thought Lu Guang might enjoy it. Cheng Xiaoshi had seen him play just a number of times before, back in university, but he was good. It seemed like a fitting skill for Lu Guang.

So, Cheng Xiaoshi had decided to challenge his friend to a game of chess. That game turned into a few more games, after Cheng Xiaoshi had been mercilessly humiliated in the first few attempts. He got better by the fourth or fifth round, but it was still laughably incomparable to Lu Guang’s command of the board.

And now, deep in the lull of this sixth sad round of chess, Cheng Xiaoshi was regretting ever suggesting it. He knew Lu Guang was good at chess, and wasn’t the type to show him any mercy, but this… this was cruel.

“Playing chess against you feels like trying to finish a puzzle while someone keeps stealing the pieces.”

Lu Guang beheld his friend’s downcast expression. “I like puzzles.”

Cheng Xiaoshi groaned once more and sunk back into his chair, defeated. He sat sulking for a few moments, making noises like a pained animal, until Lu Guang finally closed his book and spoke.

“Are you really feeling that cooped up?” he asked.

Cheng Xiaoshi didn’t look at him. Instead, his eyes scanned the ceiling, away from Lu Guang’s curious gaze.

“Of course I am! We’ve got no more work to do and Qiao Ling’s off having a ‘rest day.’” Cheng Xiaoshi’s voice didn’t hide his displeasure with his sister’s absence on today of all days. “The universe has relegated me to being mercilessly slaughtered by you at chess. I’m like a rat in a cage.”

Lu Guang set his book down on the corner of the table, still watching Cheng Xiaoshi across from him. “We don’t have to play chess, idiot.”

Cheng Xiaoshi glanced over at his friend, an interested glint in his eye. “What do you have in mind?”

“Puzzles.”

“I’m a rat in an electrified cage,” groaned Cheng Xiaoshi. “Are you a sadist, Lu Guang?”

An amused grin teased the corners of Lu Guang’s lips. “I’m kidding,” he assured. Cheng Xiaoshi crossed his arms over his chest.

“What’s going on with you?”

The question caught Cheng Xiaoshi off guard. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb. You’ve been in a funk for days. What’s going on?”

Lu Guang’s voice had that masterfully crafted mix of concern and sternness woven into it that Cheng Xiaoshi struggled to withstand. Something about the way Lu Guang tended to express his care and concern for him was absolutely strong-willed, yet silent. So much could go unspoken between them and still be so powerfully felt, quietly shown.

Cheng Xiaoshi let out a breath, and the puff of it lowered his defenses.

“It’s Qiao Ling. I’m worried about her,” he admitted, his voice lower, more focused.

Lu Guang straightened slightly in his seat, his gaze cast firmly on his friend as he waited for him to elaborate.

“She’s been acting weird for a while now.” Cheng Xiaoshi tightened his arms over his chest, tapping his finger against his bicep thoughtfully.

“She’s been extra jumpy lately. Which, I mean, I get, after everything that’s happened…”

The rain pattered on like drums outside, falling in a heavy, steady rhythm.

“But it’s almost like she’s… nervous, around us? It doesn’t feel right.”

Cheng Xiaoshi’s voice grew a tad quieter as he finally spoke his mind. He had noticed Qiao Ling’s weird behavior a little while back—it wasn’t long after they returned from the hospital, maybe a couple of months ago.

She was almost imperceptibly different, but Cheng Xiaoshi knew his sister. She had been acting on edge, even when there was no danger. Qiao Ling was truly strong, but also remarkably stubborn and independent. If something was bothering her and she hadn’t already approached Cheng Xiaoshi with it, she wasn’t likely to tell him.

Throughout their lives, whenever something like this had happened, Cheng Xiaoshi had handled it on his own, the way he knew how: with his fists.

He didn’t necessarily go with the intent to beat up a bunch of bullies on the school playground, or to knock an asshole jock in the jaw in high school, but these things did happen. Qiao Ling was perfectly capable of defending herself almost always, but her problems were Cheng Xiaoshi’s, too. She would always scold him when she found out what he had done, but then followed her lecture with a huffed thank you and a grateful hug.

They hadn’t needed to handle personal issues in this way for some time now, but Cheng Xiaoshi was still very protective of Qiao Ling. It wasn’t something he had to think about; his love and his protectiveness were like instincts that pushed him into action. Qiao Ling and Xu Shanshan might call it impulsiveness or chide him for being too rash, but Cheng Xiaoshi didn’t mind. He was glad to be able to help his friends, to protect them.

Now, he was in the lobby of the photo studio, left wondering what was bothering his sister, and with no real leads to do anything to solve it.

The rain and his thoughts came down heavy as Cheng Xiaoshi’s gaze turned pensive. A frown tugged his lips downward in thought, and Lu Guang noticed.

He spoke carefully. “She does seem a bit off,” he agreed.

Cheng Xiaoshi’s stare remained aimless. “It’s weird that she won’t talk to us about it.”

The three of them had gone through, well, everything that’s happened, but had relied on one another to stand on both feet through it all. They were more honest about their anxieties now, especially seeing as they were the only people who could truly understand what one another had experienced. It was a bit strange at times to be so open, but Cheng Xiaoshi found that it really helped ease his own worries.

Qiao Ling had been a reliable part of all of this—so why now was she feeling far away?

Lu Guang looked as thoughtful as Cheng Xiaoshi did. Silence filled the air in the photo studio, thinned only by the steady fall of ice-cold rain against the windows.

“Why don’t you just ask her about it?” Lu Guang asked finally.

Cheng Xiaoshi sighed, letting the sternness fade from his face. “Do you really expect Qiao Ling to just tell me whatever it is that’s bothering her so much? She’s way too stubborn for that,” He huffed, bothered. “Plus, I already tried…”

The frigidity of the rain outside was rivaled only by Lu Guang’s silent, silver-eyed stare at Cheng Xiaoshi. “You’re aware of how ironic that sounds coming from you, right?”

The subtle accusation seemed to reanimate Cheng Xiaoshi. “Hey! I’m serious, I’m stuck here.”

Lu Guang watched the thoughts work over Cheng Xiaoshi’s face, observed the gears turning so obviously in his mind. Cheng Xiaoshi always wore his heart on his sleeve and his emotions clearly in his features, and he was mulling over them now.

Finally, Lu Guang stood from his seat.

“Do you think she would talk to me?” he asked, voice tinted lightly with uncertainty.

Cheng Xiaoshi unfolded his legs to sit up straight in his own chair again, eyes snapped towards Lu Guang.

“Would you?” His voice peaked with hope.

“Of course, if you think it would help,” Lu Guang said calmly. “I don’t want to bother her, but… I’m worried about her, too,” he admitted, just a bit more quietly.

A soft smile warmed Cheng Xiaoshi’s face. It spelled out his thankfulness before he said it himself.

“Thank you, Guang-Guang! I knew I could count on you,” he mused, bright.

Lu Guang brushed himself off needlessly, composing himself. “Don’t sing your praises just yet. I still have to talk to her.”

Despite Lu Guang’s warning, the worry seemed to vanish from Cheng Xiaoshi’s face entirely, replaced instead by something warm enough to defend against the icy weather.

“I believe in you, Lu Guang!”

>> Can I come over?

Qiao Ling stared at her phone screen atop her bed, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders as she sat cross-legged. She had been staring at the text message for a few minutes now, the brightness staring back at her until her eyes felt bleary.

She had noticed the text come through and responded almost immediately—the playful ding! of its arrival had broken through her hazy thoughts and grabbed her attention. Admittedly, she was a bit surprised to see Lu Guang’s name pop up on her lock screen, and even more surprised to see him asking to come over to her place.

Maybe Cheng Xiaoshi had finally gotten on his nerves so badly that he had to escape, she thought passingly. The thought lacked any bite as she pushed it away to formulate a response.

>> Of course

That was all she managed to come up with, but it seemed reasonable enough. Of course Lu Guang could come over; if anything, it was a little strange that he had asked at all. Cheng Xiaoshi came over all the time without so much as a warning, much less asking for permission. But Lu Guang wasn’t like that, of course, so it shouldn’t have been so surprising to Qiao Ling.

As she sat staring at the text thread, Qiao Ling wondered: maybe it wasn’t surprise she was feeling. Maybe it was something else entirely that was filling her with such apprehension.

She didn’t want to conclude anything either way—that would be admitting it, making it too real, too undeniable. Qiao Ling could only pass off her unease as illness for so long though, and she knew this. She knew in the pits of her knotted stomach that she was nervous about seeing Lu Guang. Why did seeing her friend, who she trusted and loved so much, feel like a confrontation?

Lu Guang hadn’t done anything to make her uneasy. Nothing at all—in fact, he’s been relatively normal since they all came home from the hospital. If anything, she was the one acting weird.

She hated it, but she couldn’t help it. Maybe that was the root of it: she couldn’t help what was happening, and she didn’t know why or how and really what any of it was.

There it was again, that whirlwind feeling whipping around inside her head, her entire body, electrifying her blood—

That feeling she got when she held Xixi’s hand in the subway tunnels until her strength gave way. That feeling that seized her before a lightning-fast movie of other people’s memories rushed through her mind. That feeling she got when her consciousness was pulled from her own body and inserted into someone else’s memory of some other time, forced to watch like a ghost from beyond some spectator’s plane of existence.

That feeling was on the cusp of taking her over again when Qiao Ling heard a soft knock on her bedroom door.

“Qiao Ling-jie?”

Everything in her body stilled, making her heartbeat too loud in her ears.

“Can I come in?”

It was Lu Guang’s gentle voice, even softer than she remembered it. Despite its quiet warmth, Qiao Ling’s blood suddenly ran cold.

“Yeah, come in.” She tried to betray her inexplicable nerves with a perfectly lively tone of voice, but she’s not sure she entirely succeeded.

Still, the door slowly swung open with its usual creak that somehow felt ominous now. Qiao Ling watched intently as the familiar figure of Lu Guang emerged from behind it, slightly hunched as he carefully closed the door behind him. In his hand was a plastic grocery sack, weighed down by something inside. Qiao Ling didn’t allow herself to so much as glance at it until Lu Guang turned around to face her.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, voice calm and low as always.

“I’m alright,” she replied half-heartedly, fighting against the anxiety churning around her stomach.

Nothing changed in Lu Guang’s expression, but still he seemed to zero in on something.

“We were worried you might be getting sick, so we made you some congee,” Lu Guang said, holding up the plastic bag. It crinkled with the movement and Qiao Ling finally dared to look at it.

“Actually, Cheng Xiaoshi made it,” he explained, offering the bag to Qiao Ling. She reluctantly reached for it, avoiding Lu Guang’s hand as she grabbed the handles.

As she held it, the earthy flavors rose in a steam over her face. It was the aroma she remembered from her childhood and even after that, the kind of smell that reminded Qiao Ling of the time she and Cheng Xiaoshi spent in the kitchen on cold, rainy days.

“It’s vegetable congee,” Lu Guang said, and Qiao Ling already knew. An involuntary smile spread across her face, easing some of the tightness in her shoulders.

“Thank you,” she said, looking back up at her friend. The warmth spread from her fingers around the hot congee to the vacant space between them, as if it could fill some invisible void that separated them.

Why was she still feeling so strange? So… distant? It didn’t feel right, didn’t feel good at all—what was wrong with her?

He nodded lightly, his hands falling to his sides. Lu Guang, too, seemed unsettled in the silence that followed.

“Are you feeling sick, Qiao Ling-jie?” he asked, concern threaded through his words. Qiao Ling held onto her bag of congee, moving her finger idly around the side of the container. Rising steam fogged the plastic, creating a nostalgic condensation that dripped down the sides.

“A bit,” she admitted with a weak smile. “Just a bit under the weather.”

Lu Guang’s face fell just slightly: just like Lu Guang, who never showed too much emotion, but who she had come to know well enough to see when something affected him.

“I’m sorry. I hope you feel better.”

A silence stretched out between them again, curtained by the still-falling rain outside. Qiao Ling found it hard to look Lu Guang in the eye; instead, she watched the broth of her vegetable congee swirl around with gentle movements of her hands.

“Are you both doing alright?” she asked finally, still chasing the green onions through the container.

“Cheng Xiaoshi’s restless because of the weather. And he’s really worried about you. He’s acting like a dog that’s been cooped up inside for days,” Lu Guang said, a typical annoyance creeping into his tone that seemed reserved for her brother.

Qiao Ling couldn’t help but laugh a little—the sound left her nose, and her lips turned faintly upward.

“That sounds about right.”

Lu Guang gave a small sound of affirmation. When he said nothing else, Qiao Ling bit the inside of her lip. She heard her pulse pound in her ears again as she mustered the courage to meet her friend’s eyes.

“What about you?”

“Hm?” he asked, apparently impervious to the tremendous effort it took Qiao Ling to deliver the question as steadily as she could. It was strange to Qiao Ling that Lu Guang, as perceptive as he was, should miss something she was trying so hard to communicate.

“Are you feeling alright, Lu Guang?”

“If I can survive Cheng Xiaoshi’s imprisonment in the photo studio, I should be fine.”

Qiao Ling’s gaze was steady, her lips a straight line. Finally, Lu Guang seemed to pick up on the weight of her words; his posture straightened and the air shifted.

“I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

Qiao Ling’s heart pounded against her throat, pushing down any words she had formed. She had somehow failed to consider that Lu Guang would ask her why she was so insistent on asking him odd questions when he had come here out of kindness to deliver her homemade congee in the rain, and now was fighting to formulate a response of some kind. Something, anything.

Every second she spent trying to come up with something to say seemed to stretch out for hours. It was excruciating: Lu Guang’s finely tuned gaze on her, still painted with concern and care, the quiet seconds ticking on forever. There was a growing pressure on Qiao Ling’s chest that she couldn’t push away.

“Qiao Ling-jie,” Lu Guang’s voice was audible through the fog. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him any longer, her eyes falling to the still-warm congee like a tether. His tone became steadier, more serious, and it peaked Qiao Ling’s anxiety once more.

Why? Why do I feel this way?

“Is something wrong?”

Lu Guang had an uncanny ability to make you want to be honest with him. Qiao Ling noticed this back when they were all in university—sometimes, he forced the truth out of Cheng Xiaoshi, but usually Lu Guang was as calmly and rationally persuasive as anyone she’d ever met. Now, being on the receiving end of this coaxing tone of voice, she felt like closing in on herself. And again—

Why?

After receiving no response, Lu Guang crouched down at the side of Qiao Ling’s bed. The crown of his white hair floated like a cloud at the top of her vision, his quiet figure just in front of her. Still, she couldn’t face him: it was like a magnet resisting its opposite, struggling in vain against the polar attraction pulling her in.

“You can tell me,” he said, voice whisper-soft but steadily felt.

Why?

Blood rushed warm and fuzzy through her veins, and Qiao Ling forced her body into action. She had to act before her nerves froze her entirely.

Suddenly, she grabbed Lu Guang’s wrist, sending a startled ripple through his grey eyes—finally, she met his gaze. She watched her friend’s eyes drift from her hand, still warm from cradling the congee, on his pale wrist to her face, and the space between them from earlier was broken by the honesty in their eyes.

The weight of their stare was great, threatening to crush Qiao Ling’s persistence. But she had to say it: she knew it in the very depths of her bones that she couldn’t keep this inside any longer. This had to be spoken, in the space between the two of them, to close the void that invaded her home and heart.

Qiao Ling breathed deeply, voice still fringed with unease. Still, she managed to speak, forced the words out over her trembling lips.

“Lu Guang, I know.”

“What do you mean?” Lu Guang’s voice had that stern composure; it was hard to tell if there was something beneath the surface.

A brief quiet passed through the room like an icy wind. Without Cheng Xiaoshi there, the mood was different, but this wasn’t simply the absence of someone else. This silence was charged, poised and ready to strike.

“You’re not being honest.”

The air seized in Lu Guang’s throat, not that he let it show. It was no longer a room full of space and air to breathe, but a dangerous minefield set to detonate at the faintest slip. He was still.

“What are you talking about?” Lu Guang’s voice betrayed no emotion but entered the battlefield with a calculated seriousness. His eyes were now fixed on his friend across from him, slightly narrowed as he studied their face.

A sigh—too practiced, too heavy. Lu Guang felt the rigidity of the air now, not daring to breathe too freely for fear he would set off the traps all around him. They were there—something was there.

“Can’t you be honest with me? It’s just us here right now.”

It wasn’t inviting: if anything, it was a thinly veiled threat, and it didn’t escape Lu Guang’s notice. He was now hyperaware of the space and every move that threatened to topple the delicate balance they stood in.

“You need to be clearer. Say whatever it is you mean to say, Xia Fei.”

Was Lu Guang taunting, or did it just feel that way? He was always a bit hard to read, even after everything, but the heavy atmosphere lent Xia Fei no favors.

An angled grin pulled at the boy’s lips. Still, he kept his head down, aimlessly inspecting the hot coffee between his hands.

Moments ticked on in tense silence. It was as if neither of them dared to say anything more: fearing some kind of reaction, or some admittance that came with putting their thoughts into words.

Finally, Xia Fei raised his head. He met Lu Guang’s gaze, which was practically bearing into his soul. A mischievous glint in his golden eyes matched his quiet smirk. The stiff pressure in the room was palpable, taut enough to cut ice.

“I want to forgive you. I want to be your friend,” he began, voice calculated velvet. “But it’s your fault.”

Xia Fei’s slender fingers traced the rim of the coffee mug still pressed between his palms while Lu Guang’s silver gaze scrutinized him from across the table.

“It’s your fault the boss is dead. And it’s your fault that Cheng Xiaoshi is going to die.”

The silence was deafening: it rolled over the room like an impossibly large tsunami wave, engulfing everything in its wake.

Was Lu Guang daring him to continue?

A quick, dry breath of a laugh escaped through Xia Fei’s nose.

“I should have realized it sooner. Why else would he have me tail you, too?”

Lu Guang seemed keen to let Xia Fei keep talking, if he dared. The sharpness in Lu Guang’s eyes was enough to kill, or at least to silence—yet Xia Fei continued, smiling grimly at his coffee.

The world outside the photo studio was frozen. Maybe reality stopped beyond this room—maybe Cheng Xiaoshi wouldn’t come downstairs to find his world as he knows it shattered, his friends left bleeding and battered in its remains.

Maybe this moment was real, maybe it wasn’t.

Maybe Lu Guang was hallucinating from lack of sleep and abundance of stress. Maybe this was a nightmare spun from his deepest fears that he never let see the light of day.

Maybe this was a memory of a timeline he lived at some point, or was going to live.

Undoubtedly, this was the worst option.

And yet, the clarity in Xia Fei’s voice, the assuredness in his tone: it all dragged Lu Guang down with it, crashing him into the minefield he had been so carefully avoiding. His accusation sent Lu Guang flying like a crashed planed into the ground, timelines and memories caught in his wake, exploding and turning into tall walls of flame in the aftermath.

“Lu Guang, I know.”

What?

Why?

Why, again—

Why now?

Why, when she had finally mustered the courage to bring it up, did Qiao Ling have to be sidelined by another sudden vision?

If it weren’t so frustrating, she could have laughed—it was bitterly ironic, that the very cause of her anxiety would manifest now, just as she finally acknowledged it aloud.

Suddenly, Lu Guang pulled away from Qiao Ling, wrestling quickly away from her grip. He scrambled back just enough to rekindle the space that divided them, and stared at Qiao Ling with heavy grey eyes. The slip of his presence from underneath her grasp brought her abruptly back to the present. The warmth from her vegetable congee was all but gone, replaced by the cold absence of Lu Guang escaped from beneath her fingers.

She lunged forward instinctively, but only reached his shadow.

The emptiness of the air brushed roughly against her skin. The gap between them felt cruelly large now: her arm hung sadly in the air over her bed, not meeting Lu Guang’s figure sat awkwardly against her bedroom floor. The bag with her bowl of hot congee sat haphazardly near the edge of the bed, teetering as if it too were afraid to disrupt the fragile state of things.

“Lu Guang…”

It came out almost muttered, nearly a mumble—but audible. Qiao Ling wouldn’t allow herself to be overtaken by her nerves, or the whiplash of whatever memory-hopping ability she had been cursed with. She couldn’t, not when her friend was so far away, and answers could be so close. She couldn’t let Lu Guang slip away.

His head hung so that she couldn’t see his face, obscured by a ruffle of white hair. Qiao Ling slowly extended her hand out towards him again, still at the edge of her bed, afraid to abandon the mattress and be on the same ground as Lu Guang.

Why?

She was surprised when Lu Guang’s head suddenly snapped up and his eyes met hers, cloudy but firmly fixed on her. His brows were tight with stern concentration, but whatever emotion pushed him away from her seconds ago seemed to have thawed.

“Qiao Ling-jie, what are you talking about?”

His voice, too, was eerily even, like he had never lost his composure. Qiao Ling had to reassure herself that she hadn’t imagined it. The effort pushed her forward, granting her the courage to say what had been eating away at her mind for weeks now.

“Your memories, Lu Guang… I’ve been seeing them…”

Another silence.

This one stretched out longer than any of the others, carried more weight than Qiao Ling could have ever thought possible. The things she just said, everything she still had to say, what it all meant: all of it echoed relentlessly in her mind, begging for her attention. The endless questions and worry and wondering were bubbling at the surface now, ready to spill out and take over at any moment.

Truthfully, her head was spinning: with the shock of being sent to and from Lu Guang’s memories and left wondering what any of it meant, her focus threatened to slip away. She had to stay grounded, had to stay tethered to this moment—

Slowly, she inched her fingers forward, reaching out for Lu Guang once more. He was motionless stray for the strong rise and fall of his chest, still sat just close enough to Qiao Ling…

If he looked up, if he reached out…

“Lu Guang—”

The softness of her voice evaporated when her fingers brushed his skin. The moment her hands met Lu Guang’s arm, an explosive energy like an electric shock rushed through her.

Pain and surprise and static raced through her in equal parts, and she leapt back reflexively. It was as if she had placed her fingers right on a live wire, or laid her hand against a hot stove. Her body recoiled with the pain that lingered in her pulse, her skin tingling with heat that was no longer from a cup of hot congee.

Qiao Ling yelped, grabbing her hand and cradling it.

The sound barely escaped her mouth before a nauseating set of images faded over her vision:

She saw Cheng Xiaoshi, her little brother, bleeding out on the floor of the dark room, hair disheveled and stained with blood that grew cold.

She saw herself, slumped lifelessly against the wall of the photo studio, the room drained of color and light.

She saw versions of these gut-wrenching images fade over one another, fighting for her attention. They were different in small and big ways; she was sure that sometimes the images were the exact same.

But they weren’t images at all.

They were—

Why?

No, they can’t be.

It’s not possible.

But—

Qiao Ling already had one such memory.

She remembered how it sprang to mind against her will when the boys had just come home from the hospital, when they were enjoying their welcome home party. She remembers now how confused she felt when that image flashed against her eyes, impressed itself onto her consciousness. Her body remembers the terror that consumed her when she considered, for a moment, that what she saw might in fact have been Lu Guang’s memory.

She knew that was what she was feeling now.

Only, the reality was undeniable now, and the anxiety was devouring her completely. She was dissolving under the panic and the horror until there was nothing left: she was sure her body was sand to be lost to the wind in this wicked storm that had swept through her bedroom.

The overwhelming urge to vomit made it incredibly difficult for Qiao Ling to speak. She was still trying to blink away the nausea and unease of the images invading her thoughts when a sound at the edge of her awareness tickled her ringing ears.

She willed her head to be steady, forced her eyes forward.

She saw the final frame of another image, one playing out in real time in her real life. Not a memory, not a vision, not anything but the uncertain and uprooted reality that she was surely living.

Qiao Ling could have believed that she was actually living out this life in hell, and that the white shock of Lu Guang’s hair as his head fell back against her bedroom floor was the wings of some angel who had seriously lost his way. Nothing else seemed to rationally explain the terror coursing through her veins. Nothing else could justify the awful sound of Lu Guang’s body folding suddenly against the floor, or the chilling silence that followed.

Before she or her body could really process what was happening, Qiao Ling shot out of her bed towards Lu Guang. She scrambled against the blankets as they tangled around her, daring to block her way to her friend. Her friend who she was not going to let slip away, not going to lose to this storm of questions and anxiety and unwelcome memories. Qiao Ling was not going to let anything separate them.

“Lu Guang!”

Qiao Ling didn’t hear herself shout.

Her bowl of vegetable congee hit the floor with a sad clatter before it spilled out, like a chess board toppled by a weight that sent its pieces flying—not that Qiao Ling noticed. Even as the broth spilled out from the broken container, her focus was only on Lu Guang. She didn’t see her phone fallen against the floor, dangerously close to the growing puddle of steaming congee, screen still illuminated with her text conversation: Can I come over?

“Lu Guang… Lu Guang!”

She was still only vaguely aware of the pathetic tone of her voice, soaked through with worry and forgotten congee. She was folded beside Lu Guang, scanning his pale face for anything to quell her fears.

Her fingers reached to move his hair out of his face, but halted just before his forehead. She was scared to touch him again, fearing some reaction like the one that had just caused this.

Why?

She bit down hard on her lower lip and forced her limbs to cooperate. She would not let anything take up space between her and her friend, not when she needed him, when he needed her, and she was so close.

Qiao Ling wished Lu Guang’s eyes would snap open, his gaze softened by the greyish light of the rainy day, but still discerning and awake. She needed Lu Guang to wake up and look her in the eye, to ground her to this moment in this reality, to not leave her alone here with more questions than answers and the dread overflowing in her stomach and without her friend she loved so much.

No, I’m not letting you go, Lu Guang, she decided.

She shook Lu Guang’s shoulder, but not even his brow twitched in response. Her determination didn't falter; if anything, energy coursed like hot water through her veins.

Never again.