When the screen turned on, Jiang Chaochao was always waiting for news from Ji Fangyi.
They met in an anonymous chat room on a niche social software. At first they just shared their insomnia at three in the morning, the sunset on the commute, or complained about the little embarrassments in life. Ji Fangyi will remember that Jiang Chaochao doesn't eat coriander, and Jiang Chaochao can hear the fatigue hidden in Ji Fangyi's tone - across the network cable, they are each other's safest tree hole, and they are the ones who dare to say "I can't seem to hold on anymore" at two in the morning.
Those carefully typed "Are you okay?" And those virtual hugs delivered across the screen once made two people floating in the city feel that they were not an island.
But I don't know when the dialog box became silent.
Maybe it was a misunderstanding that didn't have time to explain, maybe the gears of reality ran over the virtual warmth, maybe it was just that when I woke up one day, I suddenly found that the person who used to be able to talk to me all night, even a "good morning" seemed redundant.
The last message stayed three months ago. Jiang Chaochao sent "It's raining", but Ji Fangyi did not reply.
Later, Jiang Chaochao would occasionally click on the gray profile picture, and look at the dense concern in the chat history, like looking at an expired rain - it came with great momentum, and left with only traces of moisture, and a moment of sincerity that could never come back.
This is a story about encounter and dissipation. We once exchanged souls in the virtual world, but when we got closer to reality, we lost each other.
Concept: Can love in the fast food era really bear the ripest fruit?