My best friend just bought the flat across the street from me.
I immediately turned around, sold my house, and ran away.
That sounds unreasonable until you understand what kind of best friend Su Mian was.
She was the sort of woman people trusted at once.
Warm voice, soft smile, thoughtful messages, birthday gifts wrapped so carefully you felt guilty tearing the paper.
For eight years, I called her my closest friend.
For eight years, I believed she stood beside me because she loved me.
Then, in the sales office of a new development, with rain tapping against the glass and a model building glowing under white lights, a stranger lowered his voice and gave me the first honest warning I had received in years.
“Madam,” the sales adviser said, glancing to his left. “The friend who came with you just now…”
His sentence trailed off.
I looked where he was looking.
Su Mian stood near the miniature blocks, smiling at another member of staff.
She had one hand resting on the edge of the model, delicate and relaxed, like someone admiring my future from a safe distance.
“What about her?” I asked.
The adviser swallowed.
“Twenty minutes ago, she paid for the flat opposite yours.”
The pen in my hand stopped.
Not dropped.
Not shook.
Just stopped, as if my body had paused before my mind could understand.
“Opposite?” I said.
“Yes. You were looking at 1601. She bought 1602.”
He bent closer, lowering his voice further.
“She specifically asked us not to tell you.”
The office carried on around us.
Someone laughed near the coffee machine.
The electric kettle clicked off in the corner.
A couple nearby argued quietly about storage space.
I sat there with the contract in front of me and felt something small and hard move into place inside my head.
It was not one thing.
It was everything.
The car.
The yoga class.
The office building.
The handbag.
The boyfriend.
The way she had cried at my engagement as if she had lost something rather than gained a brother-in-law.
Last year, I had bought a car after months of saving.
The next day, Su Mian sent a photo of herself beside the same model in a different colour.
She called it fate.
I had laughed with her because that was what best friends did.
When I joined a yoga studio, she appeared a week later in the changing room with a new mat tucked under her arm.
She said she wanted us to be healthier together.
I thought it was sweet.
When I changed jobs, she rented a place three months later in the building across from my company.
She said the commute suited her.
I told myself coincidence was harmless.
Coincidence, after all, is such a tidy word.
It lets you pack away discomfort without looking at it.
It lets you avoid accusing someone who always remembers your birthday.
It lets you stay polite.
The adviser shifted beside me.
“Madam? Are you still signing?”
The deposit contract sat under my hand.
The flat I had chosen was 1601, a bright south-facing three-bedroom space, the kind I had imagined filling with clean curtains, quiet mornings, and Jiang Chen’s shoes beside mine in the hallway after we married.
Opposite it was 1602.
Su Mian’s flat.
Su Mian’s new front door.
Su Mian’s eyes, every morning and every evening, across the same narrow space.
I thought of her telling staff not to tell me.
That was the piece that would not soften.
Buying nearby could be explained.
Buying opposite could be excused with laughter.
Hiding it could not.
“Yes,” I said.
The adviser looked relieved.
I signed my name where the paper asked for it.
Then I placed the pen down carefully and looked up.
“Could you check whether 1603 is still available?”
He blinked.
“I thought you wanted 1601.”
“I’ve changed my mind.”
“Madam, 1603 is on the west side.”
“That’s fine.”
“It is fifteen square metres smaller.”
“That’s also fine.”
“The light is not as good.”
I smiled.
“Light is not my main concern.”
He did not know what to say to that.
He went to check his screen.
I watched Su Mian in the reflection of the glass beside the model.
She was still smiling.
She tilted her head as she listened to the other employee, the picture of support, the friend who had accompanied me on one of the biggest decisions of my life.
When the adviser returned, he nodded.
“1603 is still unsold. The deposit can be switched.”
“Then I’ll take 1603.”
He looked as if he wanted to warn me again, but his training won.
I signed the revised papers.
The receipt was clipped to the new contract.
My name sat beneath a different flat number.
A flat Su Mian had not chosen to face.
For the first time that afternoon, I could breathe.
When she came back, she linked her arm through mine as if nothing in the world could possibly stand between us.
“Finished?” she asked. “Congratulations. You’re finally a homeowner.”
Her voice was bright.
Too bright.
“Yes,” I said. “I signed for 1601. A big south-facing three-bedroom. The light is beautiful.”
Her eyes changed.
Only for a second.
A tiny spark of satisfaction lit there, quick and private.
If I had not been watching for it, I would have missed it.
“That’s brilliant,” she said. “I told you this area was perfect. I was the one who brought you to see it, remember?”
“Of course,” I said. “Lucky you were there.”
Her hand tightened around my arm.
The pressure lasted only a moment, but it was enough.
A friend squeezes because she is happy.
A person checking control squeezes to see whether the thing in her hand is still there.
We left together under a low grey sky.
She opened her umbrella first and held it over both of us, just as she had done a hundred times before.
Usually, I would have felt cared for.
That day, I noticed how she always chose which side I walked on.
In the car, Su Mian talked as though she had already walked through my flat with a tape measure.
“What style are you thinking?” she asked. “Nordic? Japanese? Something creamy and soft?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“I think a warm cream style would suit you. Nothing too sharp. You’re not that sort of person.”
I looked at the road ahead.
Rain blurred the windscreen in fine silver lines.
“What sort of person am I?”
She laughed.
“You know. Gentle. Easy. You need a home that feels calm.”
Gentle.
Easy.
The words rested on the dashboard between us.
She kept talking about flooring, curtains and kitchen units.
She said she had saved reference photos already.
A few days earlier, apparently.
Before I had even signed.
I answered when I had to.
“Mmm.”
“That sounds nice.”
“Send them over.”
Inside, I was counting backwards.
Su Mian and I had known each other for eight years.
We met at university and became roommates first, then sisters in every practical sense.
She borrowed my hairdryer.
I borrowed her coat.
We ate instant noodles over shared notes and stayed awake through each other’s break-ups.
After graduation, we stayed in the same city.
Friends drift apart after university, people say.
We did not.
At least, I thought we did not.
We had Sunday lunches, late-night calls, birthday dinners, shopping trips, hospital appointments when one of us was ill, and the kind of unspoken routine that made other people say they envied us.
When I met Jiang Chen, she listened to every detail.
Where we had coffee.
What he wore.
Whether he paid.
Whether I liked him.
At the time, her attention felt loving.
Three months later, she started dating a man who worked in the coffee shop below Jiang Chen’s office.
She said it was funny.
She said the world was small.
She said maybe we were meant to be two couples together.
I was happy for her.
I did not ask why her life kept moving closer to mine.
When I received a raise, I posted about it because I was proud.
The next day, Su Mian posted a new handbag.
It cost more than the old rent I used to split with her.
She said she had been saving.
I believed her.
When Jiang Chen proposed, Su Mian cried until her mascara smudged.
She hugged me so tightly my ribs hurt.
“My best friend is getting married,” she kept saying.
Everyone thought she was moved.
I did too.
Now I heard the sentence differently.
My best friend is getting married.
Not you are happy.
Not he loves you.
My best friend.
As if the centre of the sentence had always been her.
When we reached her building, she gathered her bag and turned to me with that familiar bright smile.
“Lunch tomorrow? Our usual Japanese place?”
“Of course.”
She stepped out into the drizzle and waved from the pavement.
I waved back.
Then I drove two hundred metres, stopped beside a wet kerb, and picked up my phone.
My fingers were cold as I messaged the sales adviser.
“Hello. When my friend bought 1602, did she say anything else?”
The reply came quickly.
“She asked which flat you were looking at. After confirming it was 1601, she pointed directly to 1602 and said she wanted that one.”
I read the message twice.
Then another arrived.
“She also asked when you planned to move in. She said she wanted to finish her renovation before yours.”
My stomach tightened.
Before mine.
Not with mine.
Before.
I typed again.
“Did she explain why?”
The typing dots appeared, vanished, then appeared again.
“She said something strange. ‘It will be convenient to take care of her from across the hall.’”
I sat very still.
A bus moved past, throwing grey water from the road into the gutter.
Someone hurried by with a damp coat pulled close at the collar.
The whole world continued, ordinary and wet and bored, while I stared at those words.
Take care of her.
That was how people spoke about children.
Or the elderly.
Or someone who could not be trusted alone.
I was twenty-eight.
I had a job.
I had a fiancé.
I paid my own bills.
I did not need Su Mian across my front door, finishing her renovations before mine, quietly learning my moving date.
The first instinct was anger.
The second was fear.
The third, thankfully, was caution.
Lin Yao, I told myself, calm down.
Do not ring her.
Do not accuse her.
Do not give her the chance to tidy the story before you understand it.
That night, I barely slept.
The rain stopped sometime after midnight, but the room still felt damp and close.
I put my phone face down on the bedside table, then picked it up again.
I opened old messages.
Su Mian asking what time my interview was.
Su Mian asking which building Jiang Chen worked in.
Su Mian asking whether our wedding flat would have a spare room.
Su Mian asking if my mother liked him.
Every question had seemed harmless at the time.
Friendship is built from small questions.
So is surveillance.
That was the thought that kept me awake.
By morning, I had decided not to change my behaviour too much.
If she was watching me, she expected me to move in a straight line.
So I would let her think I was.
At noon, I arrived at our usual Japanese restaurant.
It was a quiet place with pale wood tables, warm lighting and staff who knew our order before we sat down.
Su Mian was already there.
She wore a new dress.
Her make-up was flawless.
A paper napkin sat folded beside her hand, untouched.
“I ordered salmon sashimi and chawanmushi for you,” she said as I sat. “Your favourites.”
“Thank you.”
Once, that would have warmed me.
Now I wondered why my favourites always arrived before I did.
She studied my face for a second.
“Tired?”
“A little. Too much excitement yesterday.”
She laughed softly.
“Buying a home is a huge thing. I’m so proud of you.”
The words were perfect.
They landed in the wrong place.
I poured tea into my cup and let the steam rise between us.
For a few minutes, she talked about ordinary things.
A colleague who annoyed her.
A delivery that had gone missing.
A dress she might return.
Then she placed the menu down.
“Oh, right. When are you planning to start renovating your wedding flat?”
There it was.
The hook beneath the conversation.
I kept my hands steady around the cup.
“Probably next month. We need to find a designer first.”
Su Mian brightened at once.
“I know someone excellent.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Zhang Lei. He designed my cousin’s place before. It was beautiful. I’ll send you his contact.”
Her phone was already in her hand before she finished speaking.
Too ready.
Too practised.
A contact card landed in our chat.
Zhang Lei.
Design director.
The name meant nothing to me, but the timing did.
Su Mian had bought the flat opposite mine.
She had asked when I was moving in.
She had wanted her renovation finished before mine.
And now she had placed a designer in my hand before I had asked anyone else.
“His schedule is very busy,” she said. “You should make an appointment early.”
I looked at the contact card.
It sat on my screen like a small door.
I did not yet know where it led.
“What style did your cousin choose?” I asked.
She smiled.
“Something very similar to what I think would suit you.”
There it was again.
What would suit me.
What I should choose.
Where I should live.
Who I should call.
The restaurant around us remained politely quiet.
A server placed a dish between us and withdrew without interrupting.
Su Mian picked up her chopsticks and waited.
She was waiting for me to say thank you.
So I did.
“Thank you. I’ll contact him.”
Her shoulders relaxed.
A tiny movement.
Almost nothing.
But after eight years, I knew her small movements as well as I knew my own.
I had once used that knowledge to love her better.
Now I used it to survive her.
My phone buzzed before I could lock the screen.
It was the sales adviser again.
“I forgot to say one more thing. When she asked about your moving date, she also asked whether this was your wedding home and whether your fiancé would be living there often.”
The restaurant seemed to narrow.
The table between us became suddenly too small.
Su Mian’s eyes flicked down.
She had seen the light of the notification.
Perhaps not the words.
Perhaps only my face.
Her smile held for one second too long.
Then it shifted.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“Just a message.”
“Oh.”
She lifted her tea.
Her fingers missed the handle.
The cup tapped the saucer with a small, sharp sound.
No one stared.
That was the strange mercy of public places.
People notice everything and pretend to notice nothing.
“Su Mian,” I said softly.
“Yes?”
“Why are you so interested in my renovation?”
She blinked.
Only once.
Then she laughed, the gentle laugh she used when making other people feel unreasonable.
“Because I’m your best friend.”
It was the answer she had always given without saying it.
Because I’m your best friend, I can ask.
Because I’m your best friend, I can know.
Because I’m your best friend, I can stand wherever I like in your life.
I looked at her across the table and realised I did not know when love had become permission.
My phone buzzed again under my palm.
This time, the message was not from the sales adviser.
It was from Jiang Chen.
For a moment, I did not turn it over.
Su Mian’s gaze dropped to my hand.
Then rose to my face.
The cup between her fingers trembled slightly.
Outside, rain began again, soft against the restaurant window.
I thought of 1601, bright and exposed.
I thought of 1602, waiting opposite it.
I thought of the smaller, darker flat I had quietly chosen instead.
And I thought of the question I should have asked years ago.
When someone keeps moving closer and closer to your life, are they trying to love you…
Or are they trying to leave you nowhere to hide?