After the text message that sank like a stone, Leo truly played the mute.
Whatever. He buried himself in his code, lost in the digital world. The pile of empty takeout boxes by his door was a testament to his focus. The opposite door was quiet as a tomb. Fine. Peace and quiet.
But his eyes and ears had a mind of their own.
Going downstairs to take out the trash, he glimpsed a small, tightly-tied black trash bag placed in the corner opposite her door. Inside were what seemed like empty water bottles and crumpled tissues. He walked past without a second glance.
Boiling instant noodles late at night, steam rising hot, his ears unconsciously pricked up. No sound from next door. Not a peep, not even a cough. He frowned into the swirling steam.
This silence was unnerving.
Saturday afternoon, he grumbled his way through washing a week's worth of stinky socks. Done, he carried the basin to the balcony to hang them. The balcony was the old-fashioned kind, shared between units, separated only by a low partition wall.
He shook out a damp sock, hanging it on the clothesline, his gaze inadvertently sweeping across the neighboring balcony.
The clothesline was empty.
Except for one thing.
A black training top. The material was thin, the shoulder area slightly frayed from wear. It wasn't completely dry yet; water droplets dripped one by one from the hem, spreading a small, dark patch of damp on the concrete floor.
It looked utterly exhausted.
Leo's sock-hanging motion halted. He stared at that lone training top for a few seconds, then snapped back to reality, viciously flinging his stinky sock onto the line.
"The hell you looking at," he muttered to himself, picking up the empty basin and turning back inside.
That indescribable, nagging irritation surfaced again, like ash that couldn't be brushed off.
Sunday morning, he woke up desperate for the bathroom, bleary-eyed. Heading back after relieving himself, he pulled open his door on a whim and glanced out.
There was a transparent plastic container on the floor.
Inside were a few cherry tomatoes, washed clean, gleaming a bright red, droplets of water still clinging to them.
Beneath it was a note.
The handwriting was still neat and blocky, but the strokes were a bit shaky, as if written with an unsteady hand.
「Vitamins.」
Just three words. No salutation, no signature.
Leo stared at the box of cherry tomatoes, then at the note, not moving for a long time.
He bent down, picked them up, and closed the door. The plastic container was cool. The tomatoes were plump, clearly the expensive kind.
He picked one up and tossed it into his mouth. His teeth closed; sweet and sour juice burst forth, carrying a faint hint of strawberry—just like that cheap scent she wore.
Chewing the fruit, he picked up the note and looked at it again.
"Vitamins?" He scoffed, crumpling the note, about to throw it in the trash. His hand stopped halfway.
He tsked, smoothed out the crumpled paper, and stuffed it into his computer desk drawer, amidst a pile of old cables and screws.
Then he picked up the plastic container, poured the remaining cherry tomatoes into his own bowl, and ate them one by one.
Finished, he washed the empty container and left it by the drying rack.
The next morning, as he was heading out, he placed that dried, empty container back outside her door.
He didn't say a thing.