“Felix,” Vein called out, putting down his phone for a while. He casted his gaze to Xia Fei beside him, meddling with his pen tab, solving equations Vein knew nothing about. With packed and busy schedules at the moment, Vein was getting used to seeing the view of Xia Fei doing his university assignments in the car. “Are you familiar with internet slang?”

Xia Fei arched an eyebrow, attention still fixed on his tab as he wrote down some series of numbers. “Hm? I suppose I am. Why?”

Vein didn’t beat around the bush. He immediately asked, with a dead serious expression: “What does ‘rage bait’ mean?”

The younger tried to stifle a laugh before tilting his head to Vein’s direction, but it was to no avail. He chuckled as a few questions popped and ran through his mind. Out of curiosity, Xia Fei went to ask the first and most important question before indulging Vein with an answer.

“Where did you hear that from, Boss?”

The very expression Vein had just asked, that’s something one would regularly only see in social media. And much to Xia Fei’s knowledge, Vein was never an active user of anything at all, excluding Google reviews of restaurants and diner places he had visited. So this was new.

“Just answer me.”

Xia Fei pursed his lips, seemingly arranging words in his head before answering. “It’s like, when someone asks a question, or makes … um, I don’t know, it could be a statement, post, or anything, really, that is designed to provoke viewers’ anger, deliberately posted to coax frustration out of the audience, something like that,” Xia Fei said as he thoughtlessly spinning his pen around his fingers. “Like … for example, Boss, how would you feel if someone made a whole account just to post spams on how Queen is the worst band of all time?”

It was cute, almost seeing Vein perked up at the mention of one of his favorite bands whose tunes he’d hum in random moments of idleness. Though Vein had never explicitly said it, the way he would turn the volume up whenever the groovy bassline of Another One Bites the Dust came on shuffle told quite a lot.

The red haired guy hummed lowly first. “Well, to each their own? People have their own taste. I don’t really see the problem in it.”

“If they say the meat in your favorite hotpot place tastes horrible?”

“Hm … the fact that there are people who don’t really enjoy meat entices more pity out of me rather than anger. That also means more meat for me, technically, so there’s nothing to complain about,” Vein rubbed his chin lightly, face fixed seriously almost as if this was a test conducted to assess his moral compass. It was quite amusing to see, but it looked like his words of explanation were quickly digested by Vein. “Does this mean your hypothetical rage bait is not working, Felix?”

A soft laugh escaped Xia Fei’s lips. If only so many people on the internet would possess the same mentality of minding their own business, it’d be a better place. “True. Okay, that’s not working. Let’s see … oh, if somebody say I’m super shit at being a model and I should just quit from the industry, how would—”

“Such people won’t exist.”

Receiving such an immediate response from Vein without traces of worry and doubt, it’s hard for Xia Fei to not tug a smile. He was just poking some fun into Vein, turning the rage bait about himself, but he got a little bit too invested. His assignment was almost completely abandoned in the favor of talking to Vein. “Ha, just imagine, Boss. I’m sure there are people who are sick of seeing my face on the billboard.”

Vein shook his head. “No, no. I mean, they won’t exist because I’m not letting them see the light of day. I’m killing anyone who thinks my best talent is shit at modeling.”

“You can’t just say … no, you can’t do that,” Xia Fei groaned lightheartedly. People would get weirded out if they hear this, but Xia Fei knew too well that weird and off comments from Vein are the highest form of compliment in his language. This made Xia Fei’s stomach churned in giddiness. “Anyway, you get the gist of it now, right? About the thing you just asked.”

“Sure do.”

Xia Fei turned to stare at Vein, now back to typing something in his phone. He seemed so serious, maybe something regarding the business, but Xia Fei was too smart in recognizing patterns. Most of the time, Vein would just take calls in the car, even the long ones, that Xia Fei had to put on his headphones because he would’ve felt like he was eavesdropping and prying too much into the business if he didn’t. Texting has always been too much of a hassle for Vein, always preferring to send voice notes and receive phone calls.

So now, seeing his boss being so immersed in his phone … just straight up weird. Almost like being secretive, but if Vein was truly keeping this secret from him at all, then he should’ve not asked Xia Fei the thing that could lead to suspicion.

“Boss,”

“Hm?”

“You’re not going to tell me where’d you find the slang, yeah?” Xia Fei asked.

“Does it matter?” Vein asked flatly, as if he wasn’t in the mood to entertain the question. Touché. Yeah, why does it matter, Felix? Xia Fei didn’t know. “Go back and do your homework.”

Weird.

“Did you do something to my boss?”

It came off as a right off the bat accusation, and it infuriated Xia Fei how Liu Xiao only returned a simple smile he couldn’t read. As it was not everyday—Xia Fei wished it would never be a daily occurrence—they could meet in person, he didn’t take a lot of time to twist his arm, aiming to force one or two things out of Liu Xiao. He’s one of the very few people he recognized that was kind of close with Vein, whether Xia Fei liked it or not.

“I don’t know what you mean by that,” Liu Xiao answered before taking a sip out of a latte he’d ordered earlier. Xia Fei clicked his tongue.

“Don’t play stupid,” Xia Fei spat out. His hand toyed with the pastry fork, his mille-feuille remained untouched. He wanted to enjoy the dessert of the week after finishing talking things out with Liu Xiao; it’s important for Xia Fei to relish his one-dessert-per-week diet peacefully. “Boss has been on his phone a lot more frequently nowadays.”

Liu Xiao tugged a smile. “And how is that a problem? He’s a businessman. Bound to be very caught up in his work.”

“No. It’s different,” Xia Fei waved a dismissive hand. While it could be true, Xia Fei knew very well what type of businessman Vein was. Did he really? Well, he liked to think he did, at least.

Liu Xiao opened his mouth again. “Could you be a little more specific?”

“I’m not done yet. Could you be a little more irritating?”

“Easily.”

Xia Fei got reminded of the conversations he had a few days ago with Vein. He should’ve used Liu Xiao as rage bait examples. He sighed. “Ugh. Just so you know, if it weren’t for Boss, I’d never talk to you.”

“You didn’t say,” Liu Xiao replied, and didn’t seem to bother with Xia Fei’s hostility towards him. Almost like it was just another Tuesday for him. “So, are you going to give me more details on this whole Vein being weird stuff, or not?”

The blond furrowed his brows in a mix of disgust and uneasiness upon hearing how Liu Xiao addressed Vein by, well, his name. That’s just too much, the two of them shouldn’t be that close. But then again, Xia Fei didn’t know what Liu Xiao should call Vein if not by that. Certainly not boss (this implied Liu Xiao was in the same proximity with Vein as Xia Fei was), certainly not that guy (disrespectful!).

So he let that slide for this moment.

“Yeah. Mm … well, I did say he’s been on his phone a lot more nowadays, and I don’t question his busyness, of course. It’s just, I can’t help but to notice that during his peak busy times, Boss would prefer to take calls. He doesn’t really like texting, you see,” Xia Fei explained with a low and hushed tone. “But he’s been typing a lot. Sometimes furiously too … and he asked me a couple of slang words. Like, what? Just what the hell has he gotten himself into?”

It’s a little bit nice that Liu Xiao had some redeeming qualities. The guy was a pretty attentive listener. He nodded his head slightly, taking in the information before responding. “And why couldn’t you just ask him that? Aren’t you two so close?”

“If I haven’t asked him yet, I wouldn’t be so desperate that I resort to my last option,” Xia Fei scoffed, almost mockingly. He eyed how Liu Xiao pretended to be shocked by arching his eyebrow.

“What, your last hope is talking to me? How flattering.”

In lieu of an answer, Xia Fei only feigned ignorance. “I’ve asked him, but he kept on dodging the question. I decided to not probe further because it could be something embarrassing that he’d rather don’t share with me. What if he’s playing some kind of dating app? Or he’s seeing someone? That’s just …”

Not embarrassing, no. Embarrassing wasn’t the right choice of word. Humiliating and mortifying was more suitable to describe Xia Fei’s ends. Judging their well-acquaintanced relationship, and how Xia Fei thought of Vein as a very, very good friend other than being his boss, he was far too confident that Vein would confide things in him. When it didn’t line up with reality, it made his skin prickling with an inexplicable yet amusing sense of betrayal.

Maybe they really were just a boss and his employee and Xia Fei had looked too much into it … something like that, and he needed to shake off the feeling that Vein sees him more than just a model, just a pretty face, more and more than anyone else ever does.

Ah, he had thought about this, but Xia Fei could already feel an incoming heartbreak.

Liu Xiao broke it off with a simple question. “That’s a pretty wild guess, don’t you think?”

“It’s one of the least crazy guesses I could come up with,”

“That’s because you’re too blinded by jealousy seeing him busy texting someone, so you settle with that conclusion,” Liu Xiao said. A rosy tint appeared on Xia Fei’s cheeks, with his mouth agape yet no verbal response was spoken. He scowled and looked away, which Liu Xiao responded with a little laugh before continuing. “Do you think Vein would waste his time playing dates? This is the same guy who couldn’t even spend a day without getting on his feet. He’s too busy for that.”

Busy, huh. Xia Fei got reminded of how Vein was a little bit too busy for his liking as of late. The way Vein was busy doing whatever on this damn phone was not helping his case. Maybe that was what stressed Xia Fei out too. It was already a blessing, being able to spend time on the car ride back home like a few days ago, even what Xia Fei mostly did was doing his assignments rather than holding a long conversation with Vein …

“I hate that you have a point,” Xia Fei massaged his temple, trying to hide his embarrassed face. It was a futile attempt. “Well … knowing him, he’d just scare off potential dates he’s trying to court.”

“Right—you should’ve known your boss that much. So let’s rule out dating apps,” he said. Liu Xiao tapped his chin, thinking, and Xia Fei was touched by how this guy looked like he genuinely wanted to help him. “Actually, I just remembered something.”

It was almost like the word pissed off was written all over Xia Fei’s face. “What? So you’re really the one who did this to him?”

“It could be me. It might have been me, now that I think about it,” Liu Xiao chuckled, clearly not minding Xia Fei who turned to glare daggers at him. “I didn’t think he’d take my suggestion seriously.”

Xia Fei grunted. Now Liu Xiao was just showing off how buddy buddy he was with Vein. “What is it?”

“I can’t tell you the whole thing, but you do know about internet community forums, right?”

Huh?

When Liu Xiao told him about internet community forums a couple days ago, Xia Fei only went oh, yeah, I know. I even forgot I have an account.

He rarely used it nowadays, only logging in whenever he had to find pirated books he needed for classes because more often than not, the quality of available pirated copies in the internet archive sucked ass. Other than that, he didn’t really open the app. Xia Fei chose to stick to social media with the highest engagement to keep his fans and followers updated, and his community forum account wasn’t exactly the most selling one.

So by the time he was reminded the existence of the internet forums by Liu Xiao, along with the presentiment that Vein might be out there in one of these forums doing whatever God knows, Xia Fei took the struggle to log in again, mindlessly scroll down some communities in the explore tab, as he asked himself what could have piqued Vein’s interest in this one hell of a social media.

Xia Fei scrolled for quite long right before he went to sleep until he thought, ah, I kinda have something I want to ask too. Until he made a throwaway account to post in one of the forums. Until this one user replied with a simple question: are you a model?

He could only blinked, taken aback.

What the fuck?

In a split second, Xia Fei quickly sat up and leaned his back on the bed frame; all of his previous drowsiness went away as he took in the specific comment. His fingers hovered on his phone screen for a good several seconds before checking his account. Did he post it with the wrong account? Is this … timephotoboss, or something, was his mutual? Xia Fei quickly went back to check his post—no, it clearly said user throwaway, followed by his birthday.

Default profile picture.

No recent activity.

Zero followers.

Definitely his burner account.

There wasn’t a single thing that could indicate something along the lines of hey, this account is owned by a model even if that timephotoboss user stalked his whole activity history. No one would be able to identify him. Even if it was his personal account, and let’s say, Xia Fei did post it in the wrong account, his handle did not include the name Felix or Xia Fei anywhere.

What would give it away, then? Unless, this person was someone very close to him … someone who knew that Vein had been pestering him about gifts.

But even Vein didn’t really ask him about it in public, knowing Xia Fei would never indulge him with an answer had it been done in front of his co-workers eye. The blond was overly conscious regarding the assumptions that somehow will always be made by the wagged tongues of other models, even though he had been doing a good job at shrugging it off. Well, the point is, this user couldn’t be any of his co-workers.

How did he know, then? Hacking? Cyber-trespassing? But the timephotoboss user seemed to bear no harm ... their recent posts indicated that they were chill. They wrote several posts in the cooking community forum, then some in the photography forum. Maybe that has something to do with their username.

What’s that username, though? Did they work in the creative industry as well? Could this be his own photographer he had worked with in the past and Xia Fei had no idea?

Realizing every line of thought he had was immediately met with a dead end, Xia Fei opted to send a private message.

Xia Fei paid no attention to the latest chat bubble from timephotoboss—there’s a far greater matter at his hands. Before opening the link, his initial thought was: that can’t be Vein. Community forum was far from a small public server and it took an insane amount of pattern recognition ability coupled with chronically online tendency to piece posts from different users into a single story, and a rather coherent one at that. Timephotoboss could be shitting on him, pulling silly pranks on the internet for fun to waste time, but … he seemed genuine, so Xia Fei saw no harm in trying, at least.

What if this was actually something that Vein was up to for the past couple of weeks? That was what Liu Xiao was insinuating, right? Their previous talk steered Xia Fei away from the assumption of Vein roaming on the dating app. That’s why Xia Fei took the time to scroll down the forums, because he thought he might find something related to Vein.

And now that he did find something, Xia Fei shouldn’t be so hard on giving doubt. If this was really Vein, then he’d just believe that Vein was not fucking around, trying to court random people he met online, which also works as a signal for Xia Fei that he still got a chance.

Somewhere, somehow.

Right?

Remembering he had previously taken off his contacts—he was going to sleep, for God’s sake—Xia Fei quickly reached for his glasses on the nightstand. He turned down the screen brightness of his phone, a little dimmer than before. Xia Fei was going into a rabbit hole tonight and he didn’t want to risk his eyesight by staring at a blaring bright screen for too long.

“What the fuck,” Xia Fei couldn’t stop muttering under his breath as he scrolled down the initial link that was given to him. His brows furrowed deep and deeper each time he encountered little details that suspiciously, specifically very recognizable for him. His cheeks grew unbelievably hotter as he went on and on, reading the comments and replies from other users. “What the fuck, Boss …”

The poster was 25 years old. Searching gifts for someone who’s turning 22 in July. That’s Xia Fei, alright; he’s going to turn 22 soon. Things started to get personal when Xia Fei read the details in the second post. His hobbies, the things Vein has gifted him, his modeling job, everything …

And, well, um. This is awkward, now.

Xia Fei was certain he was never meant to see all this, but it’s too late.

So this is exactly what Vein was up to.

This wasn’t what Xia Fei expected, and he didn’t know if it’s ten times better or worse than every guess he had come up with.

Embarrassing? A little bit. Xia Fei knew how nosy people in community forums can be, and he had no doubt that they were already figuring out Xia Fei’s identity from Vein’s posts alone. But that’s okay. That’s fine. It’s not like he wasn’t a famous model to begin with.

Cute? Totally. Vein went through the hassle of actually using the internet forums to find out what Xia Fei would like as a present. He didn’t blame Vein for being unsure—he’s the one who told Vein that he wants nothing just earlier.

Worrying? Kind of. Xia Fei was pretty sure Vein was already deep in some beef with a user or two in the span of two weeks. It’d be a miracle if he hadn’t gotten a doxxing threat yet.

If his roommate was still awake, Xia Fei would’ve turned off his phone and pace around the room for a good five minutes to take everything in. But all he could do was to make sure his heart was not beating so fast and loud and searching for other posts Vein had previously uploaded. Xia Fei’s head spun whenever he encountered replies that mistaken him as Vein’s special-something … only to be clapped back with Vein’s response on no, he’s my employee, and something alike.

It almost felt like he was egosurfing, the way he scrolled and refreshed Vein’s page to see what his boss had to say about him, and—wait.

There’s a new post from roughly twenty minutes ago. Suppose he could pull a string or two … sure he could, if he wanted to.

Xia Fei swallowed a hard gulp. Why is this so adrenaline inducing for no reason at all?