A drafty window and unspoken warmth: Autumn's chill creeps in through the cracks. Ah Yu wrapped his beige cardigan tighter, his fingertips still numb with cold. He adjusted the colors of a photo on the computer screen, the curve tool drawing a gentle arc across the interface, much like the listless sunlight outside the window. The old window frame in the studio swayed gently in the wind; a tiny gap had long since formed between the wooden frame and the wall, through which the wind slipped, carrying the scent of withered leaves from the old locust tree in the alley, and a bone-chilling cold.

"Complaining about it getting cold again?" Lin Wanqing came out of the tea room carrying a mug, the ends of her hair still smelling of lemon from the shampoo. She placed the mug on Ah Yu's table, and the sweet aroma of hot cocoa instantly filled the air. "Freshly made, with double the milk."

When Ah Yu looked up, a thin layer of fog had formed on his glasses. He took them off and wiped them with the corner of his shirt, his gaze returning to the window—a ball of yarn had been stuffed into the drafty crack, its dusty gray color somewhat jarring against the dark brown wooden frame, yet strangely reassuring. The yarn was packed tightly, and when the wind blew through again, it only produced a very soft whimper, like a cat with its mouth covered.

“This is…” He reached out and touched it. The texture of the yarn was rough yet familiar, the kind of old thing that had been washed many times and whose fibers had loosened.

“Zhong Hua climbed up the windowsill and stuffed it in yesterday.” Lin Wanqing sipped her black coffee, her eyes curving into crescents. “Didn’t you complain the day before yesterday that the wind was blowing into your neck? He found a ladder, put it by the window, and fiddled with it for almost half an hour. I got up to get a drink of water in the middle of the night and saw him jump down from the ladder, almost falling—you know his sense of balance, he can even trip over his own shadow when walking on flat ground.”

Ah Yu's fingertips paused on the ball of yarn.

The feeling of the wind seeping in through the window cracks suddenly became clear—it had started last week when the temperature dropped. That day, he was squatting by the window organizing photos from his trip to Qinghai, his knees against the wall, the cold wind creeping up his trouser legs, making him shiver. At that moment, Zhong Hua was standing in front of the shelf opposite him, flipping through documents, his back to him. His shoulder seemed to move slightly, but he didn't turn around.

It turned out he had heard it.

“This yarn…” Ah Yu picked up a strand of yarn, and memories seemed to be stirred by something, suddenly surging up. This grayish-green yarn was leftover from Lin Wanqing’s scarf knitting back in college. That winter was particularly cold, and Lin Wanqing followed a tutorial to learn how to knit a scarf. Her stitches were crooked and uneven, and in the end, she knitted a “rag” of varying lengths. The remaining balls of yarn were left on the dormitory’s shared bookshelf, and no one paid any attention to them.

He thought it should have been lost long ago.

“He found it in the storage room.” Lin Wanqing’s voice pulled him back to reality. “He said the thread was thick enough to stuff in the window cracks. I even told him he was stingy, that a roll of new tampons only costs a few dollars at the supermarket, but he insisted that this one was ‘heavy’.”

It had weight to it. Ah Yu stared at the ball of yarn and suddenly remembered the light bulb in her university dormitory.

Back then, they lived on the fourth floor, and the dormitory ceiling light always had a bad connection, flickering like a scene from a horror movie. Every time a light bulb broke, everyone would pass it around – climbing up to change a light bulb was a skill, especially with that old iron ladder that made a creaking sound when you stepped on it.

Zhong Hua was always the last one to pick up the new light bulb.

He never stepped on the top rung of the ladder. Even if it was difficult to reach, he would only stand on the second to last rung, tiptoeing, his arms outstretched, like a giraffe trying to reach a branch. Once, Ah Yu was standing below holding the ladder and saw that the muscles in the back of his neck were tense. His hand hovered above the lampshade for a long time before he shakily screwed on the new light bulb.

"Are you afraid of heights?" Ah Yu asked him afterward, chewing on an ice pop.

Zhong Hua was wiping the dust off his hands with a tissue when he heard this. He paused, his ears turning slightly red: "Who's afraid? It's just that the ladder is shaky."

Later, when the dormitory ceiling fan was replaced, the repairman was laying the wires at the top of the ladder. Zhong Hua stood at the door for a couple of glances, then suddenly turned around and went to the balcony to collect the clothes, his back view showing a bit of haste. Ah Yu didn't think much of it at the time, assuming he was in a hurry to go to the library. It wasn't until one day when she found Zhong Hua's diary under the bed that she saw a page that read: "Standing at a high place makes me dizzy, like walking on cotton." The handwriting was torn by the pen tip, as if his hand was shaking when he wrote it.

It turns out he didn't have a poor sense of balance; he was genuinely afraid.

Ah Yu's fingertips repeatedly caressed the ball of yarn, the fibers catching under his nails and causing a slightly itchy sensation. He remembered working overtime until ten o'clock last night, when Zhong Hua said he needed to tidy up the storage room and told him to go ahead. He was carrying his camera bag when he went out and saw Zhong Hua moving an aluminum ladder towards the window, the ladder legs dragging on the floor with a screeching sound.

"It's too late, let's do it tomorrow," he said at the time.

Zhong Hua turned around, the streetlight shining from behind him, casting a long shadow on the ground. "It's okay, I'll be going as soon as I'm done." He smiled, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes clearly visible in the light. "Your camera bag zipper isn't closed properly, be careful on the road."

Ah Yu was so focused on pulling down her zipper that she didn't see Zhong Hua clench his fist on the ladder railing as he turned around, his knuckles turning white.

"Couldn't he have waited until daytime to do it?" Ah Yu said in a low voice, his voice a little muffled. The heat of the hot cocoa seeped through the ceramic cup, making his palms numb.

“Who says otherwise?” Lin Wanqing sighed. “I advised him to contact the property management, but he insisted that if they came, they might have to remove the window frame, and he was afraid they would damage the succulent you had on the windowsill.”

The Haworthia on the windowsill was just bought last week. Ah Yu casually mentioned that she liked its plump leaves.

Ah Yu buried his face in the steam of the hot cocoa, his glasses fogging up again. He remembered the windowsill in Zhong Hua's office—it was always empty there. Lin Wanqing had suggested several times that a potted plant could be placed there to block the computer glare, but Zhong Hua always said it was "too much trouble." Yet, Zhong Hua remembered his windowsill perfectly.

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