“Can I say hi to you?”
“Say hi?”
“?”
…
The elegant, upright handwriting was quietly imprinted on the paper. Yu Bai closed his eyes, then opened them again, repeating the process several times, but the huge note in front of him showed no sign of changing.
It wasn’t a hallucination.
…Just restart the whole thing.
He’d seen how the back of instant noodle packets in the supermarket had more text than the front, so he’d copied that for the note, huh?
Don’t copy everything!
Since he’d already pretended not to notice the tailing, wouldn’t it have been better to just bury it deep in his heart forever? A real human wouldn’t say—no, write—something like that!!
And having written it, he even put it on the back! For anyone else to see!!
Yu Bai stared blankly as he crumpled the huge note in his hand.
Beside him, Yan Jing was laughing so hard tears were about to spill from his eyes. He was still holding his phone, trying to get close to the note to snap a photo of this rare embarrassing black mark. “So you got spotted ages ago? My god, and you sat in the kitchen with that telescope for so long—your neighbor must have known the whole time that you were…”
“Stop,” Yu Bai cut him off. He didn’t want to relive it.
Yu Bai simply balled up the note and stuffed it into his pocket, then interrupted with mock seriousness. “What do you think this little ball is?”
In his palm lay the gift from his neighbor: a smooth, grayish-white small ball, very light and cool to the touch.
Just like his mood right now—ice-cold.
Yan Jing laughed even harder. “Don’t change the subject. It’s way too obvious.”
“I’m not. Feel it. The texture is really unique.”
“How unique can it—Whoa, it’s so cool! And super light!”
A moment later, the two of them sat on the sofa, huddling together to examine the gift.
Yan Jing regretfully closed the image recognition app on his phone. “No luck identifying it. It kinda looks like one of those stainless steel ice cubes, but those are way heavier—they’re filled with freezing gel.”
Yu Bai quietly breathed a sigh of relief and said with utmost seriousness, “I think the ball is hollow inside. It only has this outer shell, which is why it’s so light.”
Topic successfully changed.
Good thing Yan Jing was so easy to fool.
“A shell?” Yan Jing’s eyes lit up with a sudden idea. “What if it’s an egg?”
“…” Yu Bai shook his head on reflex. “No way. What kind of egg looks like this?”
“Then how about I squeeze it hard and test its durability? Maybe it’s some special metal.”
Yu Bai quickly stopped his eager hand. The words slipped out before he could think. “Don’t squeeze it. What if it really is an egg?”
“…Didn’t you just say it’s impossible?” Yan Jing scratched his head in confusion. “Besides, no animal egg looks like this anyway.”
Yu Bai hesitated, then said, “Maybe it’s from some animal we’ve never seen.”
This version of Yan Jing didn’t know his neighbor was a non-human with mysterious powers.
Yu Bai didn’t really think the guy would send over an actual egg, but based on their interactions so far, he was sure this was no ordinary item.
After all, it was the first gift the neighbor had received, and given his polite nature, he would surely return something thoughtful and substantial.
“Like a dragon egg?” Yan Jing scoffed. “You’re such a kid.”
Five minutes later, a fluffy white Big Dumb Dog Plushie had joined them on the sofa, its ears flopped over as it lay there quietly.
Yu Bai and Yan Jing crouched beside the sofa, studying it intently.
After watching for a bit, Yan Jing couldn’t resist reaching out to lift the plushie’s belly. “Any changes yet?”
Yu Bai swiftly swatted his hand away. “It wouldn’t happen that fast.”
“Oh.” Yan Jing withdrew his hand sulkily and crouched back down. “Is the temperature right for hatching? This plushie can’t generate heat, right?”
“No. Want to sit on it and hatch it yourself?”
“No way, that’s too ridiculous.”
Yu Bai said, “No worries. We’re already being ridiculous enough as it is.”
Yan Jing shot him a glare.
Yu Bai glared back.
After a brief silence, they both burst out laughing.
“No way it’s actually going to hatch.” Yu Bai reflected self-mockingly. “Why did I even do something so childish?”
“It’s fine. You spent a whole night stalking someone even after getting caught.”
“Hey!”
Yan Jing chuckled and smoothly changed the subject. “This plushie looks brand new. Where’d it come from? You didn’t buy it yourself, did you?”
“Birthday gift from Doctor Chen.”
“Wow, she gave you a giant plushie even though you’re an adult? That’s chi—”
“Tenth birthday.”
“—awesome.” Yan Jing pivoted seamlessly, giving a thumbs-up. “She’s gotta be touched that you kept it so well preserved.”
Yu Bai ignored him and rubbed his numb legs as he stood up, deciding to shelve the wild theory that the mysterious small ball was an egg.
Yan Jing, however, stared at it a bit longer, stubbornly, until he yawned and asked to crash.
Yu Bai waved him off with approval.
Originally, he’d called Yan Jing over to keep him from dozing off unconsciously and missing the moment the time loop ended.
But now, it seemed unnecessary.
Just thinking about tonight’s mortifying embarrassment was enough to keep him wired—he felt like going downstairs for a run.
No sleepiness at all. Not even the coffee he’d bought in advance came into play.
Surrounded by the scent of peppermint oil, watermelon, and faint snoring in the room, Yu Bai sighed somewhat melancholically.
He’d planned to spend the whole night observing his next-door neighbor’s life, to learn more about the guy.
But now…
He swore he’d never set foot in the kitchen again!
Yu Bai sat down at the computer in his study, planning to find something to kill time through this long night.
He zoned out for a bit, then decided to watch some time loop movies—for inspiration on escaping the loop.
It was because he’d seen stories like this before that he’d quickly realized, upon experiencing it himself, that he was trapped in a repeating time loop.
Yu Bai focused intently on the movie titles displayed on his screen.
Groundhog Day, Terror Wheel, Happy Death Day, Spacetime Love Fishman…
He silently ruled out the last one. Zero relevance—it was clearly a romance.
Night passed swiftly amid one gripping movie after another.
In between, Yu Bai got up occasionally for snacks or the bathroom. Each time he passed the living room sofa, he paused hesitantly, then leaned down and carefully lifted the Big Dumb Dog Plushie’s belly for a peek.
The grayish-white mysterious small orb lay unchanged beneath it.
…So childish.
Yu Bai mentally scolded himself and returned to the computer to watch more movies.
With headphones on, he completely missed the faint, childish crying echoing faintly from the walls in the dead of night.
Outside the window, the pitch-black night gradually lightened. Dawn broke.
Yu Bai remembered that the last time he and Yan Jing had pulled an all-nighter gaming, they’d conked out around this time—and woken up back in the therapist’s office.
From now on, he needed to stay alert to the time.
Gazing at the faint morning light outside, Yu Bai closed the media player, got up to wash up in the bathroom, and headed downstairs for breakfast.
He was hungry.
Last night, he’d spotted a breakfast shop outside the complex advertising chicken wing meat buns. The name alone made them sound delicious.
He wanted to try them.
However, as a bleary-eyed Yu Bai opened his door, the neighboring door swung open almost simultaneously.
The black-haired, blue-eyed man had just stepped out too. He wore a simple, crisp white shirt, his fingertips resting on the silver-gray door handle. The clean cuff floated in the cool morning air, accentuating his defined wrist bones.
He heard the sound next door and turned to look.
Caught off guard in that eye contact, Yu Bai felt a shiver down his spine. For an instant, he wanted nothing more than to turn tail and flee back inside.
This was, for the moment, the last person on earth—or rather, in this world—that he wanted to see.
Oh, not a person.
But the man kept looking at him, a flicker of delight in his gray-blue eyes, bright and warm, as if thrilled to see him.
The non-human neighbor seemed about to say something, but then thought better of it. He didn’t speak, merely halting his steps to gaze at Yu Bai intently.
In that strange, silent stare-down, a torrent of words flashed through Yu Bai’s mind.
Like: What the hell is that small ball you gave me? Next time you send a mysterious gift, could you write what it’s for? Otherwise, it’s a nightmare for a perfectly ordinary human!
Or: Is the white shirt because when you searched on your phone ‘what clothes won’t go wrong for a man,’ that was the top result? By the way, how do you even know to use a phone to look stuff up?
And: If you’re pretending not to notice the stalking, then keep it buried in your heart forever. Humans have this thing called embarrassment—and don’t copy the instant noodle packet by putting the important stuff on the back!
But after all that frantic inner rambling, Yu Bai finally just averted his gaze awkwardly and forced out a curt greeting.
“…Morning.”
Whatever. Just say hi.
Yu Bai turned to stare at the wall, so he couldn’t see the man’s expression.
But he could clearly hear the faint amusement in the neighbor’s voice.
“Good morning,” the man said softly.
