Liu Jun Yi immediately sprinted to the bathroom. He knocked on the bathroom door and asked, "Ai Yu? Ai yu, are you okay?" His voice was full of worry, his fists tightly clenched. "Oh! I'm sorry for worrying you, I just slipped and fell, it's nothing much!" Chen Ai Yu reassured. "Okay, don't be so careless, take care of yourself more," Jun Yi said. Even so, he was a little suspicious. When it was his turn to shower, the floor didn't feel slippery at all, there were non-slip mats around. There's no way someone was able to sneak in and do something in the time Ai Yu made her chai tea, right? Maybe he was thinking too much, Jun Yi thought to himself.
Jun Yi returned to the couch and continued to sip on his chai tea as he watched the television. He looked relaxed snuggling under the knitted blanket, but he was still thinking about how someone might have done something to Ai Yu's non-slip mat. The more he thought about it, the more worried he became.
Soon, Ai Yu came out and made a beeline straight for the fridge. She opened the fridge and looked at where she had placed her chai tea, but... it... it wasn't there! Her expression changed from an elated one to a confused one.
Seeing the drastic change, Jun Yi's brows furrowed and he asked, "What's wrong?" Ai Yu tilted her head and scanned the fridge one more time. "My chai tea... it's not here. But I definitely DID put it in the fridge!" She replied. She looked about the kitchen to make sure she didn't forget it somewhere.
Now, Jun Yi was very sure that there was someone messing with them. And these were just the small warnings before the unknown person started doing major things. When he realised this, he felt anxious, but his anger toppled over and covered up his anxiousness almost completely.
"It's alright, we'll never know what happened. Just make a new one first," Jun Yi said as he pulled out his phone. "Okay..." Ai Yu had an feeling that he had taken it, but she put that thought in the bin when she thought about how there was no good reason for him to have done that.
Jun Yi messaged Jinhai, "You found who the unknown person is?"
Jinhai was quick to reply, "No, they used a temporary phone so I wasn't able to find out who the person is. I'm sorry, boss."
With this, Jun Yi's mood worsened, but at least he now knew the enemy wasn't completely stupid. "I'm going to go use the bathroom. Don't open any windows or the balcony door, yea? Keep them locked," he said. Ai Yu was a little bemused but nodded anyways.
Jun Yi entered the bathroom and went straight for the windows after locking the door. The window was clear from the inside and shaded on the outside. He looked out the window and all he saw were buildings and roads. Upon a closer look, he saw a few CCTVs from different angles on lampposts and on the side of buildings. They captured the bottom of Ai Yu's building perfectly. Jun Yi pulled out his phone again and this time, he called Jinhai.
"Jinhai, I'm sorry to keep bothering you, but if we don't end this soon, Ai Yu might be in danger. There's someone threatening to hurt her, and they're starting with very small petty things like stealing her drink and changing her non-slip bathroom mat to one with almost no friction at all...
"...could you help me find the footage of a few CCTVs close to Ai Yu's house? More specifically near the right side of the building and the front."
"Oh... Yes, boss. This won't take long. I can get this done by tomorrow morning. Not to disappoint, but they might've known the CCTVs were there before doing this and might've cut them, just a heads up. Why don't you ask Ai Yu to move to a safer place for the time being?"
Jun Yi had thought about it before but decided not to since he didn't want her to find out this was happening. She's gone through enough, he didn't want to burden her even more.
"No, I don't want to tell her about it. It'll just stress her out. Anyways, I already have in mind for in case that happens... but the thing is, they might've thought about this beforehand too. Also, don't give up on trying to find them through the phone. They might be using a burner phone, but it doesn't mean it can't be tracked. We can try accessing the phone's WiFi and GPS to geolocate[1] this unknown person."
"Yes, boss."
With that, they ended their phone call. Jun Yi locked the bathroom window and thought about it again. When they realised Ai Yu's drink was gone, he had already made sure all the windows and doors were locked... except for the toilet and her bedroom. He didn't want to enter without her permission, so all he did was close her bedroom door.
He returned to the living room and what welcomed him was a completely docile girl sitting on the couch happily sipping on her chai tea, not willing to gulp the tasty drink down in one go.
"Oh, welcome back! I heard you talking on the phone with someone. Everything okay?" She asked, her eyes trailing after Jun Yi as he took a seat next to her on the couch. "Yep. Did you lock your bedroom windows?" That's when a dark thought found it's way to her mind. Could he have been asking her to lock her windows and doors because he wanted her to suffocate? This thought wasn't easy to push away. She didn't close her bedroom windows, but still cheerily answered, "Yep! I did it when you were in the bathroom." "Good," he replied.
They sat in silence majority of the night, Ai Yu tried to keep her distance and Jun Yi could easily tell. Before they were to split ways to sleep, he stopped her. "I know we hardly know each other, but why are you suddenly keeping you distance? You were fine when we had dinner, before and after, but now you're suddenly building your wall back up again... who told you what?"
Ai Yu was a little taken aback. She didn't expect him to suddenly ask her, she thought they were going to sleep just like that. "No one told me anything... I... I'm just being paranoid. I thought that you... you want to... never mind, it sounds silly now that I think about it," she waved her hands in a denying gesture and sped off to her bedroom before Jun Yi could reply.
Jun Yi stared as her small figure run to the bedroom and slam the door shut. Paranoid? Silly? What did she think he wanted to do? It wasn't hard to guess, especially since there was a high chance she had trust issues. She thought he wanted to kill her by suffocating her. It was about him asking her to close everything and keep the house sealed, so it was obvious.
He looked at the time and decided it was too late to be dealing with this, so he just went to sleep. He could always deal with it tomorrow... right?