◎He Seems to Be Doing It on Purpose◎
Su Yun was sleeping comfortably when he heard a noisy commotion, waking up in a daze and opening his eyes to a head of curly hair.
“Yiyi, you are awake.” Rubbing his eyes, he sat up and discovered he was covered with a blanket.
Did Si Yan help cover him?
Like a hen protecting her chicks, Jiang Yiyi initially spread his arms to block the front, turning around immediately upon hearing the voice. “Senior brother, are you alright?”
Normally, hearing Jiang Yiyi call him senior brother did not feel like much, but right now it felt somewhat chuunibyou.
Stepping past Jiang Yiyi’s messy curls, he looked at Si Yan.
Seeming displeased, Si Yan wore a cool expression. “Explain it to him, otherwise I am afraid he will cast a spell on me.”
Su Yun:
Fine, the guy could crack jokes after all; he had worried over nothing.
Realizing he had misunderstood something, Jiang Yiyi asked quietly, “Senior brother, who is he? Do you know him? Why does this apartment look so much like the one we are renting?”
Omitting the detail that Si Yan was his blind date, Su Yun roughly explained the situation, leaving Jiang Yiyi shocked by the series of coincidences woven into the whole affair.
“So, not only do you know him, but the boss knows him too, yet you did not know he lives right above us, and then you just happened to press the wrong floor button and ran into him? You guys must be really fated.”
Si Yan felt that this curly-haired kid actually had some sense.
Su Yun, on the other hand, felt that Jiang Yiyi’s logic matched his curly hair: messy and convoluted. “If you are alright, let us head back. We have already bothered Mr. Si for a long time.”
Mr. Si?
Si Yan raised a brow slightly. Was the camaraderie built from sharing breakfast and yogurt together really worth so little?
“Oh, oh, oh.” Being a polite kid, Jiang Yiyi turned around and bowed deeply to Si Yan. “Thank you for taking us in last night, Mr. Si.”
Noticing the kid had already forgotten about him patting Su Yun’s head earlier, Si Yan played along graciously. “Do not mention it, it was only right.”
When he said it was only right, his gaze landed on Su Yun.
Standing beside Jiang Yiyi and missing the meaning behind that meaningful glance, Su Yun said, “We will come back another day to properly thank you.”
This time Si Yan didn’t stand on ceremony, giving a slight nod.
Before leaving, Si Yan instructed Su Yun to take all the food left in the container with them.
Su Yun originally wanted to re-raise the topic of splitting the bill, but fearing Si Yan might bring up the portrait again, he could only let it go and returned downstairs with Jiang Yiyi.
Back home, Jiang Yiyi collapsed straight onto the sofa. “My head is still spinning.”
Su Yun told him to eat something before returning to his room to rest.
Eating with great satisfaction, Jiang Yiyi vaguely felt he had forgotten something.
At noon, Fang Ke dropped Yang Ximing off and headed upstairs to look for Si Yan.
Since Jiang Yiyi hadn’t gotten up yet, Su Yun didn’t follow them up. Besides, they had already agreed to drop by later to express their thanks.
Knowing Fang Ke was coming, Si Yan unlocked his door well in advance. Pushing the door open unceremoniously, Fang Ke took off his shoes while voicing his gratitude along the way.
Standing in the living room and looking past Fang Ke, a trace of disappointment flickered in the depths of Si Yan’s eyes upon seeing no one else following behind.
Assuming the open door was why, Fang Ke casually pulled it shut.
Si Yan withdrew his gaze with a sense of loss.
“How can things be such a coincidence? I was just talking about introducing you to them, and you guys ran into each other first.” Refusing to treat himself like an outsider, Fang Ke walked straight to the fridge after entering to look for something to drink, spotting two boxes of yogurt that caught his eye and preparing to pull them out.
Before his fingers even touched them, however, Si Yan shoved a bottle of sparkling water into his hand.
“Huh?” Turning his head to look between the spot Si Yan had originally occupied and the man now standing before the fridge, Fang Ke asked, “When did you learn teleportation?”
“There is a lot I can do; you just do not know it.” Si Yan grabbed a bottle of sparkling water for himself and shut the fridge door.
Looking displeased at the sparkling water in his hand, Fang Ke said, “I wanted yogurt.”
Pressing against the fridge door, Si Yan said, “It is expired, I advise you not to drink it.”
Narrowing his eyes suspiciously, Fang Ke replied, “Then I will help you throw it away.”
Si Yan refused. “Housekeeping will handle it, no need to trouble President Fang.”
Growing even more suspicious without being able to figure out why, Fang Ke could only drop the matter. “You are developing more and more weird habits.”
“You are just getting more and more careless,” Si Yan retorted, releasing his hold on the fridge door once Fang Ke abandoned the yogurt idea.
“Huh?” Fang Ke looked puzzled.
“Didn’t you say they are your precious subordinates? Letting intoxicated people go home by themselves after a team dinner, if that isn’t being careless, what is?” Si Yan asked.
Hearing Si Yan’s tone, Fang Ke felt the strange illusion of a parent being summoned to school by a head teacher for a reprimand.
“Su Yun was still sober when he left, and I told them they could stay at my place, but he said he would be fine,” Fang Ke defended himself, feeling somewhat guilty. “Still, it is a good thing he ran into you.”
“Hmph,” Si Yan snorted coldly, signaling: As if you still have the face to say that.
Completely casting himself in the role of a parent criticized by the head teacher who dared not talk back, Fang Ke muttered, “I will pay attention next time and won’t let it happen again.”
Only then did Si Yan let him off the hook, sipping his water while pretending to ask casually, “You mentioned before that you have an exceptionally brilliant designer under you, is it Su Yun?”
Speaking of his capable right-hand man, Fang Ke straightened up with paternal pride. “Yeah, that award we won in Country L last time? Most of the creative work was actually his.”
“Oh,” Si Yan said, as if just remembering, “So he is the chief designer you were saying you needed so badly.”
Realizing he really had mentioned something along those lines to Si Yan previously, Fang Ke nodded. “How about it? Interested in being a model and helping my chief designer out as a reference? A game character designed using your image is bound to blow up.”
“I do not have any problem with that,” Si Yan said.
The catch was that Su Yun had to be willing too. He couldn’t shake the feeling that ever since the day after their dinner date, Su Yun had been giving him the cold shoulder, and today’s reunion only validated that suspicion, the man seemed deliberately set on keeping his distance.
Clearly, it was Su Yun who had cast the line first, and he had taken the bait, yet the person holding the line was now throwing the pole away and trying to release him back into the wild.
What kind of baffling operation was this?
If he hadn’t known that dinner was a blind date, he could have brushed it off as Su Yun adding him out of mere social etiquette. But now that he understood the significance of that meal, he had no way of interpreting that behavior as a simple social networking add.
Who in the world actively proposes exchanging contact information with a completely uninteresting blind date right as the date ends?
Su Yun probably still harbored some affection for him; something must have simply happened afterward that caused Su Yun’s attitude to flip overnight.
Perhaps only Su Yun himself knew the answer.
He chatted with Fang Ke a bit longer. Since Fang Ke needed to return to the company to handle some matters, he asked if Si Yan wanted to grab dinner together that evening to introduce everyone downstairs to each other and thank him for his help last night.
Weighing the option, Si Yan replied, “Let us skip today, and don’t make them work overtime at the company either, let them get a good day’s rest.”
Just as Fang Ke was about to praise him for being considerate, he heard Si Yan continue, “Don’t make them work overtime tomorrow either. The Si family’s newly built hot spring project in the suburbs is having its soft opening; take them along to experience it, poke holes in the new project, and give some feedback.”
Fang Ke:
Turns out this guy was just out here drumming up popularity for his family’s core business.
Still, having hot springs to soak in would surely thrill those three brats. It could count as compensation for his lack of guardianship last night while simultaneously paying back a favor to Si Yan, hitting two birds with one stone, killing two birds with one arrow, why not?
“Alright, it is a settlement then,” Fang Ke said with a shrewd look. “Are there massages?”
Deliberately misinterpreting his meaning, Si Yan replied, “That place runs a legitimate business.”
Angered by the remark, Fang Ke cursed under his breath and stormed off.
That afternoon, Su Yun accompanied Fang Ke back to the company. When Fang Ke announced that Si Yan was taking them to the suburbs for hot springs the next day, Su Yun hesitated, wanting to opt out.
“Just treat it as going to help him pack the venue and make numbers,” Fang Ke said.
Hearing it was to help Si Yan out, Su Yun found it hard to refuse.
Returning home that evening, Su Yun saw that Yang Ximing and Jiang Yiyi were already packing their travel essentials, having even prepared his share.
“Driving there takes over an hour, but we have to leave early to beat the traffic,” Yang Ximing said. “So I bought you a functional drink, or I can drive if you prefer.”
“Senior brother, do you have swimming trunks? I brought two brand new pairs, I can spare one for you. Actually, I will just bring both, just in case,” Jiang Yiyi chattered away while stuffing two brightly colored floral swim trunks into his bag.
Su Yun: , could you guys possibly be any more enthusiastic?
At that moment, Fang Ke sent a group WeChat message: “Tomorrow you guys will ride in Si Yan’s car. He is driving, so Su Yun, you don’t need to drive.”
Seeing the message, Yang Ximing and Jiang Yiyi looked even more thrilled than Su Yun.
Resigned to his fate, Su Yun asked Fang Ke what time they had agreed to depart.
Fang Ke replied, “Didn’t Si Yan tell you? I pushed your WeChat to him.”
Unable to admit he already had Si Yan on WeChat, Su Yun had no choice but to initiate a chat to ask about the itinerary.
Si Yan promptly sent him a detailed travel schedule, down to the exact seating arrangement for everyone in the vehicle.
“Is there any special reasoning behind this seating chart?” Su Yun texted to ask, genuinely curious about Si Yan’s thought process.
“Compared to them, I am much closer to you, so sitting in the front passenger seat suits you best,” Si Yan replied.
Su Yun fell silent, feeling that Si Yan’s reasoning made entirely too much sense.
“Or you can sit in the driver’s seat and I will take the passenger seat, either way works,” Si Yan added another message.
Closing his eyes for a second, Su Yun’s fingers flew across the screen: “That is also an option.”
The next morning, Su Yun set out with his two spirited roommates, arriving at the independent garage in the basement as agreed.
The garage door was already open. Walking inside, they found Si Yan already waiting.
“Cool,” Yang Ximing murmured at the sight of the three immaculate luxury cars gleaming in the garage, before his admiration shifted toward Si Yan himself upon catching sight of him.
He hadn’t met Si Yan yet, making this their very first encounter.
“Handsome.” Nudging Su Yun with his elbow, he lowered his voice. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Jiang Yiyi chimed in from the side, “I told you yesterday, the guy living upstairs is a major hottie.”
Lowering his voice, Yang Ximing said, “You probably just meant an ordinary hottie, but someone this handsome requires Su Yun’s approval to count.”
With that, he turned back to Su Yun. “Don’t you think this guy looks a bit familiar?”
Dressed in black casual wear with a backpack strap slung casually over one shoulder, Si Yan had already walked up to Su Yun.
“Which one do you want to drive?” he asked Su Yun.
Unaware of the discussion Su Yun and Si Yan had held the previous night regarding driving duties, Yang Ximing and Jiang Yiyi looked toward Su Yun curiously, with Yang Ximing’s eyes radiating detective gossip energy like a meerkat sniffing out juicy drama.
Glancing at the three luxury cars and feeling rather intimidated, combined with the inexplicable weirdness in the air, Su Yun said, “You drive.”
Without pushing further, Si Yan nodded. “Hop in then.”
Selecting a spacious SUV, he asked Su Yun to help place his backpack in the trunk.
By the time Su Yun finished stowing the luggage, Yang Ximing and Jiang Yiyi had already settled into the back row, clutching a printed itinerary featuring a clear seating diagram.
Pulling open the front passenger door, Su Yun saw Si Yan sitting in the driver’s seat wearing sunglasses, a subtle smile curling the corners of his lips, radiating the triumphant aura of someone who had successfully pulled off a prank.
Su Yun:
What on earth is wrong with this straight man?