Shoutout to Kari for the commission!
Le Cheng thought about it and decided to start experimenting with a low level of being difficult and spoiled.
So he opened the chat window and sent Zhou Shirui a message.
[“Orange*” patted you]
* sounds similar to cheng in his name; thats why he chose it as a nickname
[Orange: What are you doing? Did you go play basketball?]
After thinking about it, Le Cheng sent over a [Bunny rolling around] sticker as well.
He thought Zhou Shirui wouldn’t reply too quickly, but less than two minutes after the message was sent, he heard a “ding-dong.”
[Big Brother: Mm.]
Le Cheng raised an eyebrow.
…He really was very cold.
But this was good too. The colder he was, the lower his tolerance for a difficult, spoiled boyfriend would be, which meant he was more homophobic. As long as Le Cheng acted up a little, Zhou Shirui should be unable to tolerate him within two months.
Plan successful. Le Cheng held his phone and poked at the screen.
[Orange: Then can I come watch?]
He tapped send, but a full five minutes passed without Zhou Shirui replying.
Le Cheng waited and waited, feeling that Zhou Shirui was probably doing it on purpose.
[Orange: Have you arrived?]
[Orange: I want to go. Can I?]
[Orange: Please, please?~]
[Orange: Cat rolling around and shooting hearts.jpg]
After sending the messages, Le Cheng looked at the screen full of green chat bubbles and revealed a satisfied smile.
—I’m seriously so annoying :D
The first rule of being a difficult, spoiled boyfriend: Have an extremely bad temper! If your boyfriend isn’t by your side, you have to bombard him with messages and check up on him!
Le Cheng estimated that Zhou Shirui probably wouldn’t respond anymore, so he stopped while he was ahead. That was enough difficult-and-spoiled behavior for today.
—After all, he couldn’t scare the person away right from the start.
If he was too annoying, he felt that Zhou Shirui probably wouldn’t compensate him later either.
Le Cheng put down his phone and dug out the original owner’s graphics tablet and iPad. They looked like they hadn’t been used for quite some time, but their configurations were much better than the ones Le Cheng had bought before transmigrating. After using a shopping platform to identify them, he found that even the replacement pen nibs were compatible.
Le Cheng was pleasantly surprised as he gently touched the tablet, preparing to turn on the computer and test how it felt.
“Ding-dong—”
His phone vibrated once, and the screen lit up.
Le Cheng lowered his eyes and glanced at it.
[Big Brother: Come if you want.]
Four simple words.
Le Cheng froze for a moment and picked up his phone, somewhat hesitant.
If he refused now, wouldn’t it make him seem strangely sensible? Wouldn’t that break his character?
…He never imagined that one day he would have to rack his brains just to be impolite.
But after eating, every bone in his body felt lazy and languid. He only wanted to rely on his adorable graphics tablet and be a little cat who only knew how to draw commissions. He didn’t want to go outside at all.
Le Cheng thought about it for a moment, stood up, and ultimately decided to go out.
Inside the basketball gym.
A dozen or so tall young men were sprinting around the court. The wooden floor produced a sharp sound from the friction. Zhou Shirui shook his hair, came to the side of the court, bent down, and picked up a bottle of water.
He tilted his head back and drank two mouthfuls. His Adam’s apple moved, and a drop of hot sweat slid along his well-defined brow bone to his chin, trembling precariously.
“Hey? Who’s that?”
“Don’t know.”
“Seems like Brother Rui’s boyfriend?”
“Brother Rui is straight. Don’t talk nonsense.”
There was suddenly a commotion on the court. Zhou Shirui raised his eyelids to look, and a goose-yellow figure suddenly entered his line of sight.
“Zhou Shirui.”
The voice wasn’t loud or soft, and the tone was very clear. Zhou Shirui paused slightly, only to see Le Cheng wearing a white canvas shoulder bag. The moment he raised his eyes, a smile suddenly bloomed across Le Cheng’s palm-sized face. His large eyes curved into crescents. He looked somewhat embarrassed, yet he jogged over to him, blinked twice, and took a bottle of Pulse from his little bag.
“Uh…” Le Cheng blinked. “After you finish your water, drink this.”
Zhou Shirui lowered his eyes slightly, his gaze falling on the hand Le Cheng extended toward him.
His fingers were long and slender, his skin very fair, with faint blue veins visible beneath. His nails were trimmed into a smooth, rounded shape and had a healthy pink color, inexplicably giving rise to several unfounded fantasies.
Zhou Shirui reached out and took it.
Seeing that he had taken it, Le Cheng breathed a sigh of relief. He wanted to say something, but suddenly found himself at a loss for words. Although the several boys nearby hadn’t said anything, they were clearly watching them. He was too embarrassed to say anything else, so after a pause, he finally spoke. “Then, good luck. I’ll sit over there and watch you.”
Zhou Shirui answered in a low voice. “Mm.”
Le Cheng’s mind turned. “Oh right, don’t have too much physical contact with them.”
Zhou Shirui: “Hm?”
Le Cheng said softly, “Because I’ll get jealous.”
Zhou Shirui: “Jealous?”
“Yeah.” The second rule of being a drama queen: Make some unreasonable demands!
Le Cheng decided to be a little more forceful so that his image would seem even more unreasonable and troublesome. “Because you’re my boyfriend.”
Actually, he wanted to say, “Because you’re my man.”
But that line was too embarrassing, and it felt unbearably hot coming out of Le Cheng’s mouth.
Zhou Shirui frowned slightly. He didn’t particularly like this form of address, and he felt that this request was somewhat excessive.
But when he glanced at Le Cheng’s visibly reddened earlobes and wandering gaze, he pressed his lips together and said nothing.
He said, “Mm, I’ll try my best.”
Le Cheng let out a long sigh of relief. He had seen Zhou Shirui frown, so he figured that he must have made Zhou Shirui uncomfortable.
Zhou Shirui turned his head and returned to the court. Le Cheng carried his little backpack and found a place to obediently sit down.
He didn’t particularly like competitive sports like this. After watching for less than two minutes, he became bored and took out his phone, casually scrolling through it.
He accidentally opened WeChat, and the chat window with “Big Brother” suddenly popped up.
Le Cheng guiltily glanced behind him like a thief. Seeing that no one was there, he continued looking at it with relief.
…He genuinely felt that this form of address was embarrassing, with a vaguely flirtatious feeling to it.
But… if he remembered correctly, Zhou Shirui was a junior, indeed one year older than him. Actually, calling him “big brother” wasn’t really a problem.
Le Cheng reached out and pressed his finger on the screen, holding it down, then pinned “Big Brother” to the top.
Only after finishing all this did he have time to glance at the court.
Most of the people on the court were tall and long-legged, wearing jerseys, but Zhou Shirui still had a distinctly handsome, cold air about him, standing out among the crowd.
The ball suddenly passed into Zhou Shirui’s hands, and Le Cheng became slightly nervous as well.
The people around him reacted quickly and immediately rushed over. Zhou Shirui moved to the left, but it was a feint. In the few seconds of opening it created, he leaped high into the air, his long, strong arms suddenly thrusting upward.
“Bang—!”
The basketball traced an arc through the air and went straight through the hoop.
A perfect three-pointer.
“D*mn! Nice!!”
The court instantly erupted into commotion, but Zhou Shirui showed little expression. His brow bones were deep-set, his side profile sharply defined, and hot sweat flowed down from his temples. He removed his glasses with one hand, lowered his long eyelashes, and casually lifted the hem of his jersey to wipe himself.
Because of the angle, Le Cheng could even see the lines of his abs in that instant.
The combination of his cold demeanor and hormones created an instant explosion of sexiness. The long, beautiful lines of his muscles made Le Cheng’s mind go blank for a second, after which his professional instincts kicked in and he immediately turned his head, about to take out his tablet.
—How could he not practice with such a ready-made, stunning human figure!
But the moment Le Cheng touched his bag, he came to his senses. He hadn’t brought anything at all, and this wasn’t the dormitory either. He hurriedly opened the notes app on his phone and began drawing.
His fundamentals were solid, and he wasn’t picky about tools. The notes app on his phone would do in a pinch.
His slender fingertips scribbled across the screen, and with a few quick strokes, Le Cheng accurately outlined the lines of the human body and the flow of the muscles.
By the time Le Cheng finished drawing, Zhou Shirui happened to be walking off the court.
Le Cheng guiltily turned off the screen in one motion and stood up. “Are we leaving?”
“Mm.” Zhou Shirui casually held the Pulse he had just been drinking, tilted his head back, and finished the rest. His Adam’s apple moved, and the long lines of his neck were exposed before Le Cheng’s eyes.
Having just done something guilty, Le Cheng instinctively stepped forward, moving closer to Zhou Shirui, and held out his hand. “Give me the bottle. I’ll throw it away. You go change first.”
But Zhou Shirui took half a step back, leaving Le Cheng standing there blankly.
“I’m sweaty.” Zhou Shirui was succinct.
“Huh?” Le Cheng tilted his head in confusion. After a moment, he had clearly misunderstood what Zhou Shirui meant. “Oh, I have tissues here. Let me wipe you.”
As he spoke, he immediately pulled out a stack. After hesitating for two seconds, he pressed it against Zhou Shirui’s clearly defined chin.
He moved a little too quickly. His index finger pressed against Zhou Shirui’s lower lip through the tissue. Le Cheng didn’t notice it, but Zhou Shirui did.
A subtle feeling shot through Zhou Shirui’s heart.
He shifted his face subtly and reached out, avoiding Le Cheng’s finger, to hold the tissue in place.
“I’ll do it myself,” Zhou Shirui said.
“Oh, okay.” Le Cheng blinked, his expression obedient.
It was difficult for Zhou Shirui to tell whether Le Cheng had done it intentionally.
He casually wiped himself a couple of times, crumpled the tissue into his palm, and Le Cheng held the Pulse bottle, twisted open the cap, and blinked at him. “Hurry up and put the tissue into the bottle.”
“?” He didn’t understand, but Zhou Shirui still did as he was told.
Le Cheng screwed the cap back on, turned around to look for a trash can. Zhou Shirui watched him. Although the angle partly concealed what he was doing, he still clearly saw Le Cheng walk up to the trash can and shake the empty bottle up and down like he was shaking a can of soda. Only after shaking it did he turn around and walk back with satisfaction.
“…………”
A strange little habit.
After throwing away the trash, Le Cheng turned around to look for Zhou Shirui and discovered that no one was on the court. He had probably gone to change clothes.
There were separate changing rooms in the sports complex. Le Cheng stayed where he was for a while, and suddenly, the image of those muscle lines from just now flashed before his eyes.
…Mm, really quite good.
Honestly speaking, Zhou Shirui was really suitable as a human anatomy model.
Before transmigrating, Le Cheng practiced drawing the human figure every day. His aesthetic standards for the human body were almost demanding. He couldn’t encounter someone like this in real life, so he could only practice by drawing from models.
Although he hadn’t gotten a complete look at Zhou Shirui’s muscle lines but based on Le Cheng’s rough estimate, they should be very beautiful.
Le Cheng unconsciously wandered over to the entrance of the changing room, but didn’t go inside, because there was no reason for him to. Several team members gradually came out, and he didn’t know any of them, so he simply stood to the side and played with his phone.
“Ugh, hiss—!”
A painful groan suddenly came from inside the changing room. Le Cheng froze and instinctively pushed the door open and rushed inside.
But the scene he had imagined didn’t happen. Zhou Shirui was standing there perfectly fine, casually wearing a pair of casual trousers on his lower half. His bare upper body was covered with a few droplets of water, his abdominal muscles clearly defined, firm, and beautiful. The moment Zhou Shirui met Le Cheng’s eyes, he was visibly stunned.
Le Cheng’s face was flushed, and he instantly became a little embarrassed. “Um…”
But Zhou Shirui had already lowered his head, calmly using a towel to wipe his abdominal muscles before smoothly pulling on the shirt beside him.
