Silence had weight. Xinyue had never thought of it that way before only as absence, as space between thing but tonight it pressed against her chest like a second rib cage.
The hallway smelled faintly of cleaning solvent and old flowers. Someone on the third floor was watching television too loudly, canned laughter floated through the walls at irregular intervals. Everything was normal on the surface except for her neighbor's open door.
Her phone buzzed again in her hand.
Unknown:I said don't go inside.
She didn't move an inch like the message suggested. Her key hovered inches from the lock. The door to her apartment looked the same as it always had – white paint chipped near the handle, the tiny scratch she'd made last winter trying to force a stubborn grocery bag inside. But the same time she felt like something changed too.
It felt like normal, kind of giving a off vibes maybe she thought.
The emergency exit at the end of the hallway creaked softly as it swung, responding to a draft she couldn't feel. He still wasn't there. For the first time since she'd met him, the door was unwatched.
Xinyue swallowed. "Okay," she whispered to no one. "Okay."
She stepped back instead of forward. That was when the silence broke finally. Footsteps – controlled, unhurried approached from her behind. Not rushed or steady. But confident in the way only people who didn't need to hide ever were.
She turned sharply at the presence. He stood three feet away from her. Close enough that she could see the faint tension at the corner of his jaw. Far enough that he hadn't reached for her.
"Next time, you don't disappear without telling me," She said tightly looking at him.
"I didn't disappear," he said. "I just repositioned myself."
"That's the worst possible phrasing I have heard in a while."
His mouth twitched despite himself. "You're not wrong."
She exhaled hard, adrenaline shaking her hands now that the danger had a face again. "I'm never wrong." "Anyway, you texted me from an unknown number? Do you have any idea…"
"I didn't want my name attached; he interrupted before she could finish.
"Why?"
A second long pause later. "Because if someone got your phone, I didn't want them to know who was warning you."
Her throat tightened at that. "So instead, you let me think you'd left me alone after talking about protection."
"I didn't leave you."
"You weren't here."
"I was watching from the stairwell," he said. "A different angle."
She stared at him for a second longer without knowing how to express her frustration towards him and the situation she gotten herself into. Regert was the last thing she want to think about.
"You know what?" she said finally. "You don't get points for creative surveillance."
"I'll survive the loss."
That earned him a look sharp enough to cut glass. He stepped closer then, not into her space, but into her orbit. The hallway felt smaller with him in it, like the walls were listening.
"You're shaking," he said.
"Congratulations, you caused it" she said to him.
His hand lifted, stopped midair, the dropped back to his side. She watched all his movement like hawk. The silence again and it screamed at them.
"Did someone try to get in?" she asked.
"Yes."
Her stomach dropped at that, "who?"
"Someone who knew you'd come home alone."
She laughed at that, brittle. "You mean literally anyone who's ever met me?"
"No, someone patient," he corrected her. "Someone who didn't need to rush."
Her fingers curled into fists and shouted at him. "I'm tired of this already. Of the half – baked answers and doors and files and patients disappearing and you acting like you own my perimeter."
"I don't own you," he stated that quietly not minding her, at the same time kind of fearing her outbreak again.
"Then stop deciding things for me."
His gaze held hers. "Then stop being a target." He blurted out without thinking. Those words hit harder than he meant them to be and he regrated insteantly. "That's not…" he strutted against his own words, without knowing how explain it.
"I didn't ask for this," she said, voice low. "I didn't ask to be useful or protected or monitored." Those words made it worse than anything.
"I know."
"Then why does it fell like everyone else got a vote to my life except me?"
The silence that followed was heavier than the last. Especially since he has no answer for that, "I made a call," he said finally.
She blinked at him. "A call to who?"
He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he turned slightly towards the stairwell. "Come out," he called out to an unknown existence. For a fraction of a second, nothing happened. Then a man stepped into her view.
Tall, broad – shouldered. Dressed too neatly to be a neighbor, too casually to be law enforcement. His eyes swept the hallway once efficient, through- before settling on Xinyue with a polite nod.
"This is Jin, he works with me" he introduced the new comer to Xinyue.
"With you doing what, exactly?" Xinyue asked critically. Jin inclined his head and answered her "Making sure people go home safety."
She snorted at his response. "That's vaguest answer I have ever herd from someone after your boss." "Wait, is he really your boss?" she asked again with curiosity.
"It's intentional." "Also yes, he is my boss." Jin replied mildly not minding her questions.
Xinyue turned back to him. "You brought back up without telling me?"
"Yes."
"Do you hear yourself?" she asked him in disbelief.
"I do, perfectly," he said.
"Can't protect me yourself? Need support system now?" she tries to rail up him but he didn't take her bait. Instead avoid her all together for her disappointment. Jin's gaze flicked between them, something like amusement crossing his face, this was the first time he saw his boss like this, being speechless and avoiding answers. "I can wait downstairs if you'd prefer privacy." Jin said to them.
"No'" Xinyue said. "Stay. Apparently secrets multiply when you leave the room."
He almost smiled at her response and hold back when he saw his boss staring at him with blank face.
They entered her apartment one by one. Nothing was disturbed. No drawers out of place, and there were no obvious signs of intrusions either. That kind of made the situation worse, all of them thought without expressing.
Jin did a quiet sweep while Xinyue leaned against the counter, arms crossed. He stood opposite her, closer than he needed to be, like distance was a luxury he no longer trusted.
"You're hovering," she said to Taehyun.
"I'm guarding."
"Same problem."
His gaze dropped briefly to her mouth before snapping back to her eyes. "You invited danger into your life the moment you didn't walk away." He stated.
"I didn't know there was danger."
"You knew something was wrong."
"Because of you," she shot back at him after his revealing of uncomfortable truth of their situations beginning.
"That doesn't make it untrue, is it?"
Jin returned nodding once, totally obvious to the tension surrounding him. "It's clear. For now."
For now. Again.
"Great," Xinyue muttered. "I'll sleep like a baby. A paranoid, caffeine – addincted baby. If possible."
Both the men didn't mind her sarcasm, instead they focused on other things. That's really frustrated her max. "I'll take the couch," Jion said.
"There is no need," she said.
"There is," he said gently to her.
She looked at him. "You're staying too?" asked in disbelief.
"Yes."
"On the floor?"
He shrugged. "I've slept in worse places."
Her eyes lingered on to him a moment too long. "You shouldn't have to."
Something unguarded flickered across his face. "Neither should you."
Later, too later in the night. She sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the glow of her phone. A message popped up.
Yuerin:You alive? Because the hospital gossip is trying to kill you if the shadows don't.
Xinyue smiled at the message faintly.
Xinyue:Alive. It's normal.
Yuerin:I heard news. And no such thing anymore. Also – the so-called security guy hot or just terrifying?"
She glances towards the door. Towards the quiet beyond it.
Xinyue:Both. Unfortunately, you already saw.
Silence settled again but this time, it wasn't empty.
It was kind of listening.
Outside her door, he leaned against the wall, eyes on the hallway, back to the bedroom. Like watching the doors.
Always watching the door like a predator waiting for his pray. Then his vibrated once.
Jin:Movement downstairs.
He didn't respond to it.
But he was already moving.