Tòumíng stared at his phone screen, water droplets from his pruned fingers dripping onto the glass.
"Missed me already? 😘"
Immediate regret flooded his system. Why had he sent "bike"? One word. One pathetic, context-free word that made him look either illiterate or so flustered he'd forgotten how to form sentences. Which, to be fair, wasn't far from the truth.
His heart was doing something weird. Racing, but not in the panicked way from when Hǔtān's men were beating him. This was different. Faster. Warmer. Chemical.
"That's just norepinephrine," Cupid said dryly. "Calm down. Your cardiovascular system is acting like you're being chased by a tiger, except the tiger is a five-foot-nine femboy with good makeup skills."
"Shut up."
"Your heart rate is legitimately elevated right now. This is pathetic."
"I SAID SHUT UP."
Ten minutes passed. Tòumíng sat in cooling bathwater, staring at the message, trying to formulate a response that would sound tough and business-like and not at all affected by a single emoji kiss.
He typed: "I don't care about games. Return my property."
Delete.
"You stole from me. That's illegal. Give it back."
Delete.
"Look, I just want my bike. Can we handle this like adults?"
Delete. Too reasonable. Made him sound weak.
Finally, after cycling through seventeen different drafts in his head, he typed: "my bike. now. serious."
Sent it before he could overthink again.
Immediate response. Three laughing emojis. 😂😂😂
Then a photo loaded.
Tòumíng's breath caught.
It was cropped perfectly just collarbones, the edge of a black choker necklace, and glossy lips pulled into a smile that somehow managed to be both innocent and absolutely not innocent at the same time. The lighting was professional-level, soft and warm, the kind you only got from knowing your angles.
Caption: "come get it yourself big boy~"
"Oh no," Cupid muttered.
"What?"
"You just saved that photo."
"I—WHAT? NO I DIDN'T!"
"You literally just pressed save. I can feel your thumb movement from in here. That photo is now in your gallery right next to the number photo and your gacha game screenshots."
"It's evidence! For when I report the theft!"
"Evidence. Right. That's why you're zooming in on the collarbones."
"I'M CHECKING FOR IDENTIFYING MARKS."
"Uh-huh."
Tòumíng locked his phone and threw it onto the bathroom mat, as far from the tub as possible while still being reachable. He sank deeper into the now-lukewarm bubbles, his face burning with something that definitely wasn't just the bath temperature.
This was stupid. This was so stupid. He was acting like an idiot over someone who'd literally robbed him. Who'd flashed him in an alley and stolen his bike while he stood there in shock.
But also...
Tòumíng retrieved his phone.
The femboy the bike thief, he corrected himself firmly had a WeChat account linked in the message thread. Username visible. Profile partially public.
He shouldn't click it. That would be weird. Stalker behavior. Completely inappropriate. Pure gooner vibes. No one would actually do it-
He clicked it.
The Moments feed was set to three-day visibility. Classic bait tactic. Just enough content to be tempting, not enough to seem desperate for attention.
First post: a gym mirror selfie. Sports bra, yoga pants that should probably be illegal, hair tied up, mid-workout glow. Caption: "leg day hits different 💪✨"
Comments from friends. Mostly fire emojis and "slay" variations.
Tòumíng scrolled.
Second post: nail art showcase. Elaborate designs, pink and white with little gems embedded. Professional-looking. Caption: "new set who dis"
Third post: bubble tea haul. Five different drinks arranged aesthetically on a table. Caption: "trying the whole menu so you don't have to 🧋"
Fourth post: the photo that made Tòumíng's thumb freeze mid-scroll.
Thigh pic. Well-lit, shot from above, fishnet stockings creating patterns across skin. Nothing explicit. Technically less revealing than most swimsuit photos. But the composition, the angle, the lighting—it was calculated. Art direction.
Caption: "felt cute might delete later idk"
Posted 47 hours ago. Definitely not deleted.
"You're doom-scrolling," Cupid observed. "You've been looking at this profile for twenty minutes."
"I'm gathering intelligence."
"You're staring at the thigh pic man. Again. For the fourth time. This is honestly depressing"
"I'm—" Tòumíng couldn't finish the excuse. He was absolutely staring at the thigh pic. Again. For definitely more than the fourth time. "This is reconnaissance. Tactical analysis."
"Of fishnets."
"Of the suspect's online behavior patterns!"
"You screenshotted it."
"I DID NOT—" Tòumíng checked his photos. He had absolutely screenshotted it. "Fuck."
"We need to have a conversation about your relationship with denial."
"There's nothing to deny! I'm just—I'm angry! At myself! For looking!" Tòumíng scrolled back up, then immediately scrolled back down to the gym photo. Then back to the nail art. Then back to the thigh pic. "This is making me so mad."
"What exactly are you mad about?"
"That I can't stop looking!"
"At femboy thighs."
"At a CRIMINAL'S social media presence that happens to include... strategically photographed... look, the point is he stole my bike and I'm investigating!"
Another hour dissolved into scrolling, zooming, reading comment threads, checking if there were any mutual friends (there weren't), and absolutely not developing any feelings whatsoever about the person who'd robbed him less than twenty-four hours ago.
The bathwater was cold now. Bubbles mostly dissolved. Tòumíng's fingers were beyond pruned, approaching raisin territory.
He climbed out, dried off with aggressive movements like he could somehow scrub away the past hour of behavioral choices, and grabbed his phone one more time.
His thumb hovered over the contact.
Block number. That's what he should do. Block, delete, move on. Buy a new bike. Pretend this never happened.
"I'm blocking him," Tòumíng announced.
"Sure you are."
"Tomorrow morning."
"Mhm."
"First thing. As soon as I wake up."
"Absolutely."
"I'm serious!"
"I believe you," Cupid said, in a tone that suggested he believed absolutely nothing of the sort.
Tòumíng set the phone down, got dressed in clean clothes—actual clean clothes this time, not designer garbage he was about to ruin—and collapsed onto his bed.
He didn't block the number.
Obviously.
Instead, he opened the photo gallery one more time, looked at the collarbone selfie "for evidence," closed it, opened his messaging app, stared at the conversation thread, typed "when can I pick up the bike" and then deleted it without sending.
This cycle repeated four times before he finally gave up and just laid there, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out what the hell was happening to his brain chemistry.
Cupid, for once, didn't offer commentary. Didn't tease. Didn't mock.
Just sighed.
The longest, most profound, most world-weary sigh ever recorded inside a human ribcage.
A sigh that somehow contained the words "we're so back" without actually saying them out loud.
Tòumíng groaned and pulled a pillow over his face.
It was going to be a long day.