Behind The Red Curtain | YiZhan ✓

37-To Chase And To Be Chased

He liked drinking a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice in the morning. Or rather, that was the impression he wanted to give as he made his way downstairs. Then there he was at the kitchen, squeezing himself some with one of Duyi's expensive kitchenware, which seemed unused.

Meanwhile Duyi was before him, sat at the wide counter while sipping his coffee in delight. His other hand was going over the daily news on his tablet, not having the care to re-read anything as he just scrolled by.

"Do you ever cook?" Duyi glanced up and gave him a small smile. "I do every morning. I even used to be soo good, that my parents wanted to send me overseas to become a world star chef." Yibo widened his eyes in disbelief. "You serious?" Duyi chuckled as he took another sip from his black beverage. "I'm just joking. I don't think i've ever properly cooked in my life actually. The only thing i can put up together is an omelette with some tofu as a side dish. Otherwise.."

Yibo raised his brows as he finished squeezing his oranges and took the glass for a sip. He couldn't help the sour face he made after, to which the latter seemed amused at. "Then why spend so much money on such a grand kitchen? You even have everything one would need as a... world star chef."  Duyi looked down and took a moment to answer, his lips curled up in a pleasant way. "Would you... believe me if i said that it was a dream i had that was never to be executed?"

Yibo smirked before putting the glass back on the counter. "That's a funny thing to say when you don't even seem to like to cook." Duyi chuckled before crossing his arms, ready for confrontation. "It's funny to see you force yourself to feed me up with the lie that you keep yourself healthy either." The latter rolled his eyes as he made his way around the counter and leaned beside Duyi, before grabbing his cup of coffee and taking a sip. "It is funny indeed."

Duyi didn't seem bothered, instead, when Yibo put the cup back down, he stared at it in contemplation of something. Soon after, he slowly stood up from his seat and stretched his arms out. "I'll go get ready and then head out. How about you?" Yibo raised his brow. "I'm coming too ofcourse. What am i supposed to do, lie around all day?"

Duyi shook his head in ave. "Yes- that's what a sick person should be doing-"

"Oh don't give me that crap. Just go get ready and we'll head out together." Duyi didn't fight him on that matter and made his way upstairs to get ready as he had said. Yibo on the other hand started to gather up the kitchen, but got a phone call in the middle of it.

It was from an unfamiliar number, which he had never seen before. He had just gotten out of a mess, and now something like this? It would for sure make a person paranoid, so he ended picking it up. It might've been important after all. "Who is this?"

The end of the line was silent for a bit before an answer came. "Uhm... hello. I'm not sure if you remember but.." The voice that spoke belonged to a man, yet it was less deeper than it should be, somehow familiar. "It's me. Lai Yanlin, the guy you helped?"

Yibo took a moment to remember, and when he did, he sighed. "Oh.. right. That guy. So how did you get my number?" Yanlin's voice trembled slightly as he spoke, sounding somehow worried. "It was from your detective friend... mister Meng? I told him that i wanted to thank you for helping me."

Yibo rubbed his forehead, ticked off at how he gave his number away to some random guy who was just a prior alibi to some case they cracked. "Then you must've thanked Shun as well? Since he helped too." Yanlin then became hesitant to speak, his voice lowering. "I asked- but... he doesn't like sweets apparently."

Yibo furrowed his brows in annoyance. If he knew one thing about Meng Shun, it was that he pined for sweets. One didn't need to be close to him to know such a fact. He was known as the 'chocolate thief detective' on the media, thus giving him a hard time for being criticised by the common folk for his ridiculous nickname . "Look, you're nice and all but..."