Sicheng stood behind the register for a long moment after the door slid shut, staring at the space where the man had been standing, gum still forgotten in his hand.
"What," he said, to absolutely no one, "the fuck was that."
He set the gum down. Picked it back up. Set it down again, because his hands didn’t seem to know what to do with themselves after everything that had just happened.
Some rich lunatic in a suit that cost more than his rent had strolled in at nearly midnight, looked him dead in the eye, and asked for his sperm like he was ordering off a menu.
And then — and this was the part that really stuck — the man had looked him up and down like he was doing actual math, weighing pros and cons, running some kind of internal calculation that clearly involved parts of Sicheng he had never had a stranger evaluate quite so openly.
No one had ever looked at his dick with that much scientific interest before. Not even people he’d actually slept with.
He dragged a hand down his face and let out a slow breath, trying to shake off the lingering unease crawling up the back of his neck.
"Fuck." He said it out loud this time, mostly to fill the silence. "Do I have to find a new gig?"
The store hummed quietly around him, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, entirely unhelpful in answering the question. He had three other part-time gigs lined up this month already, none of them paying enough to just walk away from a shift over one deranged customer, no matter how much that customer had unsettled him.
Still. Something about the way the man had said I’ll be back sat heavy in his gut, less like a threat and more like a promise.
Sicheng groaned, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling.
"I have a feeling," he muttered, "that creep is gonna come here tomorrow."
Nuocheng floated through his own front door like he was walking on air, humming under his breath before the door had even clicked shut behind him.
He loved coming home to a quiet house. No live-in staff hovering, no assistants trailing him with folders, nothing but the soft hum of the refrigerator and the low click of his heels against marble as he wandered into the kitchen.
Pure peace. Exactly how he liked it.
He pulled open the fridge and peered inside, humming a little louder now, something slow and moody, the kind of old jazz standard about a love that never quite worked out, the singer resigned to it in a way that was almost cool if you didn’t think too hard about how sad it actually was. He didn’t think about it too hard. He just liked the melody.
The cook had left him a container of braised short ribs with rice, still cold, waiting patiently on the middle shelf. Nuocheng pulled it out, popped it in the microwave, and set the timer, swaying slightly to the tune stuck in his head while he waited.
He carried his good mood upstairs with him, humming through his shower, humming through the long, deliberate routine of his skincare afterward, patting serum into his face with the focus of a man who took his glow seriously even after midnight. By the time he pulled on soft lounge pants and an oversized shirt and padded back downstairs, the food was warm, and his mood hadn’t dipped even slightly.
He settled onto a stool at the kitchen island, plate in front of him, phone propped against a fruit bowl, and dialed.
Dai An picked up on the second ring, her voice already loud before he’d said a word. "Why are you calling me at midnight. I have a client in six hours. Some rich brat wants a full sleeve and I need my hands steady."
"I met someone." Nuocheng shoveled a bite of rice into his mouth, grinning around it. "The one, An. I’m serious this time."
"You said that about the personal trainer."
"He had a fake laugh. This is different."
"You said that about the barista too."
"He had a girlfriend, that wasn’t my fault, how was I supposed to know—" Nuocheng waved a hand even though she couldn’t see it. "This one’s different."
"He works there, some late-night gig. Doesn’t even know who I am, and when I told him, he genuinely could not have cared less."
That got her attention. "Wait, hold on. You told a random supermarket worker who you are, and he didn’t immediately try to climb into your pants?"
"That’s the thing! He looked so unbothered. Almost annoyed, honestly." Nuocheng sighed happily, chin propped in his hand. "Gorgeous, An. Tall. Built like he actually uses his body for something other than sitting behind a desk. Terrible attitude, in a way I found extremely attractive."
"You’re insane." Dai An’s laugh crackled through the phone, rough and delighted. "So did you make a move already, or did you just stand there staring at him like a lovesick idiot?"
"I may have asked for his sperm within the first thirty seconds of meeting him."
There was a pause. Then a loud, cackling laugh that Nuocheng had to hold the phone away from his ear for. "You WHAT."
"It felt right in the moment!"
"Nuocheng, baby, no wonder the man looked unbothered, he was probably calculating whether to call security."
"He didn’t call security."
"Small miracle." Dai An was still laughing, the sound softening into something fonder. "Okay, spill." Her voice dropped into something eager, hungry for details. "Face first, then work your way down, and don’t you dare skip a single detail."
Nuocheng, more than happy to oblige, launched into it, gesturing with his fork between bites, describing every detail he could recall with the enthusiasm of a man who had genuinely, finally, found something worth talking about.
"Okay, but for real," Dai An said, once her laughter had settled into something more manageable, "are you actually going to go back there, or was this a one-time unhinged encounter you’re going to romanticize into a whole personality for the next month?"
"I’m going back." Nuocheng said it with total conviction, stabbing another piece of rib with his fork. "Tomorrow, probably. Maybe the day after, so I don’t seem desperate."
"You already seem desperate. You asked a stranger for his sperm."