text: The first time she saw him was in his live stream. He was cute, funny, and a bit melancholy, like a prince from a classic fairy tale. She couldn't help but do the same again, her favorite thing: she used her skills to keep the camera in his computer on twenty-four hours a day without him noticing so she could see everything he was doing at all times. She saw him once again turn off his live feed, remove his makeup, and bare his frightening acne-filled skin, messy, shapeless hair, and dull eyes. There was nothing cute about it. But she kept sitting in front of the computer screen staring at him moment by moment, watching him take off his clothes, expose his body, change into pajamas that couldn't cover his bottom, get under the covers, and then stare at his phone and lose sleep. The light from the phone shone on his expressionless face in the darkness, making him look ugly and creepy. He flipped through the contents of his phone, tossing and turning. It was as if he was obsessed, because even though he looked extremely sleepy and kept rubbing his eyes hard from time to time, he still refused to put down his phone until the sunlight from the next day outside the window gradually entered his room, and then he finally gave in and closed those eyes. Still sitting motionless in front of the computer, she watched his sleeping face disappear behind the blankets from time to time, and then reappear half an hour later. She saw his eyeballs fluttering behind his eyelids. He was beginning to dream, she knew. She began to speculate about what was in that troubled dreams. What she looked forward to most was his weekly live broadcasts, the only time he would respond to the camera. She always arrived at his live stream on time, but never said a word to him, never revealed the secret beneath his heavy makeup. She liked to watch his cute face smiling at the screen, talking, upset every now and then. He never had more than ten people in his live room, and she was never absent. There were times when she was almost the only one left in his live room and he would continue his conversation, smiling. This would sometimes make her feel terrified. Anyway, she watched him finish his broadcast, remove his makeup, go under the covers in the dark, and then stay awake all night staring at the phone until the next morning. The same thing over and over every day. Her computer screen is always on 24 hours a day, and it's him and his messiest room on the screen. She is too different from him. Her room is organized and she doesn't allow any surface in her room to get dusty. If there is anything in common between them, it is that they stay in their rooms almost twenty-four hours a day every single day, eating, exercising, sleeping. He had no reason to go out, or dreaded going out. She was there just to see him, and therefore no longer had the intention of going out either. Yet that's not all there is to the story. She saw that he would always lose his voice every now and then in the darkness of the night after doing everything listlessly every day. At first she felt curious, she didn't quite understand why he would cry. It was only after watching many of his live shows that she gradually understood the source of his melancholy, his pain and his endless sense of deep loneliness. Gradually, she understood his past. Her curiosity about his helpless crying gradually turned into empathetic heartache from the beginning. She heard his cries in the darkness of the night emanating from the unsearchable face. She felt her heart tearing at times. She listened to every word he poured out into the night; listened to his deepest desire to be heard, to be understood, and to be seen; listened to his depressing memories, his helpless complaints, his rage, his despair. In his chest, which was repeatedly and strongly heaving with emotion, she saw her own heart. Finally, she fell deeply, for him. She wished she could give him everything he longed for, while doubting that she could do so. Doubt, she thought, where in her life had she ever doubted herself before? She felt afraid. She even felt more and more strongly the deep guilt for prying into his life without his consent for the very first time in her whole life. But what choice did she have not to do so? She knew he wouldn't love her, ever. If he knew the truth about everything she did, he would probably resent her, fear her, run away from her, and disappear from her world forever and ever. And now she longed more and more deeply than ever to see him and feel him every moment, so it became more and more difficult to take her eyes off her computer screen, and every time she peered at him, it always brought her stronger and stronger remorse, pain, guilt and insecurity. Finally, one day, the very first time in her whole life, she turned off the computer screen. Never once before had she turned off the computer screen she had used to spy on countless people. She thought doing so would cause her to fall into some dark abyss and meet her death, but now, she actually never wanted to turn it back on ever again. Gradually, for the first time, her oft-darkened room slowly became clear to her eyes. The dark, immaculate furniture gradually took shape. She stood up and drew back the curtains that had never ever been drawn once. She still missed him immensely, missed his smile, words and melancholy, deeply heartbroken for his tears and torment. While he didn't even know she existed at all. Did he not know? From the first day she peeked into his life, from the first time she listened to his agnony, he could feel, in the darkness, between all his emotions and the inmost passions of his soul and some vague, obsessive presence in the dark, there's a link that he had longed for. He was healed. For the first time in a long time, he and she walked out of the room together.