Tina stared at him in bewilderment. He handed her a pack of tissues, then muttered, "I have art class today, I need to leave early. Let me do this for you!"
He picked up the glass bottles, arranged them according to the experimental procedure, and lit the alcohol lamp.
The girl stood frozen in place, watching the boy focus intently on the equipment, calling out his observations to her without ever turning around.
It took Tina a long while to remember to take notes. Once she'd filled in the recording sheet, she finally exhaled in relief. By then, the boy had already cleaned up and returned all the equipment to its proper place.
Exiting the chemistry lab, Shawn locked the door behind him. Without so much as a goodbye, he disappeared into the dim corridor. Her whispered "thank you" dissolved into the air, unheard.
Shawn watched this and sighed at what a coward he'd been.
He hadn't even been on lab-closing duty that day. He'd gotten the key from the person who was, just so he could go comfort Tina.
But standing in front of her, he couldn't bring himself to say a single comforting word. All he could do was help with her experiment, eyes fixed firmly away from her.
Afterward, he'd wanted to invite her to see the art class exhibition. But in the moment of locking the door, fear had seized him again. He'd fled without saying a single word, like a criminal making a getaway.
Well, what did he expect? In his mind, how could a pig ever comfort a goddess?
Tina's dreams held so many such moments.
Like when she'd secretly watch him walk back from the art room in the corridor, while he kept his head down out of insecurity and never noticed.
Like when she'd applaud wildly when his painting won an award, while he assumed she was just being polite like everyone else.
Like... like...
These tiny moments that had actually occurred but faded from memory—they were surfacing now with striking clarity in Tina's dreams.
Such profound, weighty unrequited love. It made Shawn's eyes unexpectedly fill with tears.
3
Ten years had changed Shawn.
He'd shed his heavy layer of fat, his features becoming defined and handsome. Through years of hard work, he'd become a moderately successful artist in his field.
Could this version of himself be worthy of Tina as she was now?
After watching so many of her dream streams, Shawn finally decided to contact her.
That was when things started getting strange.
Because he couldn't find her.
Former classmates said they hadn't heard from her in years.
He sent private messages to LD staff and received no response.
He left messages on Tina's stream, hoping she'd see them when she woke, but the messages were deleted. No reply came.
This struck him as very odd.
Fortunately, he found Tina's hometown address in an old school directory.
He traced it and discovered her parents still lived there.
But when they learned he was looking for Tina, they grew visibly anxious and refused to speak with him.
What was going on?
Standing outside Tina's childhood home, looking at the spiderwebs on the old eaves, Shawn was utterly baffled.
For Shawn, once he started thinking about something, it was hard to stop.
More questions flooded in.
For instance, why did these dream streamers have no other social media accounts? Why did no one seem to care about their waking lives?
Why did dreamers only broadcast dreams and never interact with viewers?
Why did LD restrict broadcasting rights, and what did their review process entail? Why delete his messages?
Why had LD never publicly disclosed their dream broadcasting equipment, and why had no one questioned this? Surely everyone would want to know? But he couldn't find a single online discussion about it—were they being deleted? How powerful would their censorship system have to be?
Armed with these questions, Shawn applied for a job at LD Technologies the following year.
He didn't actually want to learn how LD operated—he just wanted to find Tina through LD.
She had to be somewhere, earning money through dream broadcasting but unable to contact the outside world for some reason.
Was she being held captive by LD? Was LD some kind of sweatshop? But LD was so prominent now—how could regulators not uncover anything?
If Tina was indeed being held by LD, unable to reach the outside, why hadn't her parents reported her missing or searched for her? Were they being threatened?
Over the past year, Shawn had abandoned his art and worked menial jobs at LD, with no access to upper-level files or information about Tina's whereabouts. He could only endlessly circle the same worn-out questions.
Then one day, he inadvertently overheard a conversation between S-level employees in the restroom. He couldn't catch everything, but he caught one word: "classified facility."
His instincts told him that was where he'd find his answers.
But how to get there was another problem entirely.