Danny absently checked the upload progress bar. The footage provided by this anti-theft video was big enough that the slow satellite network would take two or three days to upload, but Danny wasn't in such a hurry. In fact, he was anxious about another thing.
The doctor locked himself up again.
The last time he did that was when Danny was kissing him. That time the doctor spent the whole day digesting his emotions. Danny was sure that the doctor was more shocked this time than the last time, and he couldn't predict how long it would take the doctor to accept the emotion. Now, he doesn't even care that much about whether doctors accept the definition of cats and people. He was just worried about the doctor's mental state. The last time, he couldn't let the doctor starve himself out.
Danny has gone upstairs to check a few times. He crept as far as he could, playing a cat that disappeared without a trace, and put his ears up against the doctor's bedroom door, like a stalker. The first two times, he didn't hear anything. Danny's panic accumulated one by one, but fortunately, the third overheard of the rustling of changing clothes dispelled his negative conjecture. The fourth time, there was no movement. Danny listened at the door for a long time before he heard a faint sigh.
From this, it can be inferred that the doctor is okay, he probably just doesn't want to see Danny for the time being.
Danny can take it.
To be honest, Danny didn't quite understand the doctor's pain. The doctor has legal status, is highly educated, has a doctorate in a high-end profession like a doctor, and even owns a house entirely his own. Even if he is excluded and bullied, he can still live in this country house without worry. What exactly do doctors have to complain about
Not only that, but Danny doesn't even think he has anything to complain about, not counting his previous patrons. He was cared for by his aunt for the first fourteen years of his life, when he went to school seriously. Later, when his aunt died and Danny made a living by taking part-time jobs, his aunt's friends also helped him one after another.
Three and a half years ago, the restaurant where Danny worked was closed due to a shutdown order. He was 18 that year, later than most of his peers. To be placed near Leona, Nevada, male prostitutes of this age are even completely legal. So he didn't think he was miserable.
In comparison, the doctor is like a flower in a glass hood. Danny doesn't know why the doctor twists his mind after a setback. He also lost his aunt (despite her terrible temper, Danny still loves her), and was subjected to professionalism and sexism (not that Danny cared), and he was still alive and well. He started living alone and was only 15 at the time, and the doctor was already a full-fledged adult.
The doctor was weaker and more helpless than Danny.
But that's also part of the doctor. Painful and obsessive, weak and strong, limited and knowledgeable, cautious and insane... all part of the Doctor, in Danny's body when he met the Doctor. Danny couldn't change it, so he chose to accept it. He accepts the fragility of the doctor, the fact that the doctor is broken, and seeks a solution based on it.
Danny found the pair of cuckoos directly above the gate. The inward one is the culprit. Its eyes are made of glass, with a dark red sheen. A very reasonable and easy to think arrangement of anti-theft cameras and pet surveillance cameras. Danny wondered why he hadn't noticed it before, because it was obvious that preventing sneak shots was one of their professional skills in this line of work. Maybe it was because he had to worry too much at first, and he didn't have the energy to take this into account; maybe later, he was too comfortable and casual and gave up worrying easily.
Following the direction of the cuckoo's eye, Danny found the center of the lens's field of vision: the couch in the living room. So he put a note on the back of the sofa:
"You can go downstairs. If you don't want to see me, I'll stay in the study."
Danny's words were crooked, drawn against the dictionary after the sentence was formed. But he knew doctors could understand. He looked at his work, and suddenly felt that there was a sentence missing, and immediately tore another page and wrote a few scribbles below:
"Again: Don't peep at my sleep!"
Then, Danny packed up the blanket and hot tea and hid in the study. He didn't choose the bay window where he usually stayed, but sat down against the door. If the doctor went downstairs, he wanted to know as soon as possible.
Before that, Danny in front of the doctor was like returning to his childhood when his aunt was still alive, willful and lively. But when he realized the doctor's problem, the years of experience gradually returned to Danny. He became more suspicious, more mature, and better at coping. He will use the life experience he has learned voluntarily and unvoluntarily over the years to find ways to help doctors.
Danny is very patient.
In the third hour he hid in the study, the doctor finally came downstairs. He heard a friendly "ding" from the microwave, and then everything went silent. For about an hour, Danny had been holding on to an unspeakable expectation, waiting for the doctor to finish his meal, prepare himself mentally, and push the door/door to find that Danny was still waiting. At that point, they can stage a romantic comedy reunion—
But nothing. There was no other movement in the living room until sunset. The doctor was really avoiding him.
Even though he had anticipated this and accepted it, Danny was still sad for no reason. The hot tea had already cooled down, and Danny drank it and pushed out the door. With a pen and paper, he angrily replaced the note on the back of the sofa:
"coward!"
But the word seems too heavy again. After a second, Danny ripped it off and changed it to:
"Good night. PS: Don't peep at my sleep!"
The note communication works. The doctor and Danny maintain a tacit schedule: they live in a small house at the same time, live and rest, but do not see each other. The work and rest of the two people are completely staggered, and they wander back and forth in the dimensions of time and space, like a Zen-like hide-and-seek.
Everything was going well, except for Danny's mood.
He feels lonely.
On the doctor's side, at least Danny was seen through the anti-theft camera, but Danny really never saw the doctor again. He somewhat understood the pain of the doctor at the beginning. Vulnerability and helplessness may be because the doctor has no partner or comrade-in-arms. Being alone is scary. Wake up at the doctor's house in a panic trying to escape the days, and now, Danny feels extremely lonely.
Danny rarely finds himself in this situation. Even in a profession with no social status like him, when the industry unites, he can still have some say in the face of callers, and can compete for share and safety requirements. Because of his aunt's relationship, the contact person took good care of him—of course it wasn't the kind of care that was soft-spoken or giving him extra money, but it was a great blessing to introduce a good-tempered customer to him. At least Danny doesn't have to be a street hooker. He dares to say that his situation is one of the best in the business.
Looking down the street, a considerable proportion of his colleagues are illegal immigrants, those who have really suffered, and some whose stories are so tragic that they can be compared with Fantine, and together they can write three "Les Miserables". They either go their separate ways, or one-sided contact with the protector. Danny sometimes wonders why they don't stand together, but he also understands that trust is hard. Danny can only do his best.
Among those people, there might be cases of cognitive insufficiency, but Danny never knew them to the degree he did with the doctor. More, disappearing from the street before Danny can even be named. Maybe a good place was found, or maybe there was nowhere to go anymore.
Is it the same for doctors? Danny thought wildly. He fought alone, was ostracized, and was bullied. He was guided by his family, but arrived at a strange place at the wrong time. So he was tired, he was afraid, so he chose to numb himself. The doctor's luck is really bad. At the lowest point, Danny was lucky to meet the doctor, but the doctor was not met by anyone at the time.
"I miss you."
Danny wrote the sentence, then crossed it out. He didn't like to express his preferences and emotions like this. He doesn't like to appear weak. He would rather "request" than "need".
Maybe I'm just hungry, Danny thought. He got up and jumped off the sofa and decided to go get something to eat.
There are omurice and soup left by the doctor in the refrigerator. Danny brought it out and warmed it up. The doctor is really strange. He clearly believes that Danny is just a cat, yet treats him with such respect and pity. Even now, in principle, they were quarreling, and the doctor even left him omelette. This was the case even earlier. Even before they knew each other, the doctor, who hated cats so much, took Danny home and saved him.
Danny picked up the soup and took a small sip. He missed the doctor even more.
Danny packed the kitchen and went back to the living room. He decided to be honest and finished the "I miss you" and posted it to the doctor. He picked up the pen and paper that he threw on the sofa, found the angle of the original sticker, and habitually raised his head to confirm the position of the camera, but was suddenly startled.
He found that the camera was moving.
That kind of movement is quite regular, slowly moving from the upper left to the upper right, then quickly to the lower left, and then slowly to the lower right... Danny stared at the camera for ten minutes, and determined that the camera was writing. Three pseudonyms, the voiced sound of the lips, the bilabial sound like a smile, and then the nasal sound.
is "sorry".
Danny stood there blankly, suddenly remembered something, and looked down at the paper in his hands. Crossed out "I miss you" is still pretty obvious. Messy stroke order, pseudonyms like children's graffiti. But so what, the doctor will definitely understand. Danny didn't even post it, just simply put it on the sofa cushion, and the doctor saw it through the camera and gave a reply in a way that is hard to say whether it is classic or modern.
so boring. Danny sighed.
Now is the 21st century. Computers have been invented for nearly a hundred years, and smartphones have been around for 20 years. Although the house is remote, it also has satellite network coverage. What's more, the distance upstairs and downstairs can be received by Bluetooth. Why do doctors still do this...
Danny wrote all his criticisms of the doctor's strange way of replying on a piece of paper, followed by a lot of exclamation points. This time, he didn't bother to stick to the sofa, so he directly raised it in his hand and stretched it out in front of the camera. After a while, I saw that the camera moved again.
It was so boring. Danny sighed again.
Thought so, but he still kept his eyes on the movement of the camera, recording the doctor's reply.
To tell the truth? Danny enjoyed it.
It will be a day before the communication between the two evolves into the 21st century. Danny woke up the next day and went into the study to check the upload progress of the video as usual, and found that the video was uploaded in the early morning. Not only that, there is a small red dot in the upper right corner of the computer, which is the mobile phone information synchronized by this computer. When I opened it, it was a message from the doctor to Danny: "Your lawyer friend is calling."
Danny was pleasantly surprised by that little dialog. He snapped back a long speech immediately, first caring about the doctor's situation, then asking what was said on the phone (more curious about how they communicated), and finally writing a menu saying that he wanted to eat the vegetable tempura the day before yesterday.
The doctor didn't reply a word.
Well, he might still need some time. Coward for a long time.
Danny thought angrily. He thought for half a second if he said too much to frighten the doctor, but it was obvious that Danny's unilateral reflection was useless, and the doctor refused to communicate with him at all. Danny clicked his tongue and closed the dialog box. Then he used the computer to contact the lawyer to confirm the content of the video and what happened at the time. When it was over, Danny couldn't hold back and asked what the doctor said on the phone. The lawyer replied that the call was not connected.
Ah, no surprise.
Danny reopened the dialog box in the upper right corner and tapped the keyboard hard. He typed out a long rebuke to the doctor, then deleted it word for word. It's pointless, the doctor can't be scolded, and hurting the doctor certainly can't make Danny happy.
Danny held his chin for a while. He was bored and lonely. He misses the doctor. How about a talk show? Plane crashes, survival on an isolated island, straight men will bend when there are only two people, and enemies will fall in love.
But now Danny is clearly out of the spiritual island, he can surf the Internet, communicate with other people, watch any hot/hot reality show or contact his friends. Why does he still only want to chat with the doctor upstairs who is trying to avoid him, act like a spoiled child, and talk about some trivial and even completely misplaced little things
In the end, Danny simply summarized the conversation with the lawyer. Knowing that the doctor would not reply, he got up after hitting enter to prepare for lunch. But before he left the study, he heard the computer beep. Danny looked back, and the screen showed the doctor's reply: "Do you want help?"
... This person, what's going on? At first he pretended to be dead, and suddenly he responded in seconds. Did he keep posting it in front of his phone until he was willing to reply now
Danny was both angry and funny. For a second, he really wanted to make some mean replies, like "How can a deranged doctor who squatted in his bedroom and refused to go out?" But in fact, Danny just replied ambiguous. emoji. After a while, the doctor's reply was displayed on the screen: "You hire a lawyer, what are you going to do?"
Danny looked at the line. He occupied the computer in front of the doctor, called the lawyer, and asked the doctor for a video. And the doctor's response has been "Can I help?" This was the first time he asked "what are you going to do". Danny wasn't sure if that was a good sign.
He sorted out his thoughts and wrote his plan to the doctor in its entirety, including the prosecution plan, timing, chain of evidence, and ultimate goal. Danny suspects that his Japanese level and the doctor's cognitive problems may cause the doctor to not understand, but Danny still wants to say. Danny wanted to tell the doctor that he would do it to the end, and he wanted him to go to jail and get his own money. Danny has to prove himself right, and all who hurt him go to jail.
He hoped the doctor would be so righteous.
Danny's content is very detailed and complex, and some sentences in the middle have to be written with the help of a network translator. Doctors also read for a long time. Danny saw the "typing" sign on the opposite side keep flashing.
After a long time, the doctor replied, "That's difficult."
He was referring to Danny's lawsuit. Of course it was difficult, there was no timely medical evidence, and Danny himself was an illegal male prostitute, and they wanted to sue a wealthy and powerful industry elite. Without having to be told by a lawyer, Danny knew that the jury's ass was naturally sitting across from it. But you can't stop doing it just because it's difficult.
Danny slapped his answer down. There was no movement on the other side for a long time, and Danny was almost falling asleep waiting. Lying on his desk, he was tired from the intense cross-examination and hard work all morning, but he was still persistently waiting for the doctor's reply.
In fact, what does what the doctor say has anything to do with him? He didn't need a cognitively dissonant doctor to have an opinion on his life. But when the message alert sounded, Danny jumped up immediately. He clicked on the message, with a hint of unease that he didn't want to admit.
The doctor sent a thumbs-up expression.
Danny grinned.