Forevermore

NINE

Standing by the entrance of his house, Shang Qinghua was debating whether or not he should tell Shen Yuan about this. On one hand, he can brag about it for the rest of his life to him, but on the other hand, it may or may not be dangerous for him to know.

Eternal bragging rights or the safety of his best friend—what a dilemma.

Begrudgingly, he eventually decided that maybe keeping Shen Yuan alive might be slightly better than bragging to him about it. Just when he's finally found something that will make him stop calling him a "sad, pathetic loser" too. How sad.

Kicking off his shoes, he checked the time for the first time in a while. It was only ten twelve, so not that much later than when he left. Although momentarily after seeing the time, he realized that he was also assed out for a while and it he was definitely at Mobei Jun's workplace/house for more than half an hour. Hell, it takes even longer than that to even get there.

"Shit." Cautiously, he went on the calendar app, further confirming his suspicions. It is ten twelve, that isn't a lie, but it's also ten twelve twenty-four hours after the last time he checked the time. It's been a full day already. Fuck. Still staring at his phone, he also realized that he finally had service again, or got it back recently. He had lost service the entire time he was with Mobei Jun and when he did get it back, his phone was already on silent so he didn't see any of the notifications he got.

Now though, now he sees all of them. All thirteen missed calls and forty-six messages. All from Cucumber-bro. "Aww, he does care!" He said to himself. It doesn't matter though because he now has irrefutable proof that Shen Yuan cares about him, no matter what he says.

This calls for some serious gloating.

Running (as fast as he could with socks on smooth hardwood floor), he burst through the door, silently hoping Luo Binghe also wasn't in there with him (happened once before and he will forever be traumatized by it), with the goofiest grin he could muster.

"Oh Cucumber~ I didn't realize how much you missed—aaaaand you're not here." Where did he go? It's not like he ever leaves his room. He's too much of a hermit for that.

Maybe all of his missed texts will give him a clue on where he went. Who knows, he thinks, he might have gone out to look for him out of worry, seeing how concerned he was.

Unfortunately, the reason he wasn't in their house was entirely Shang Qinghua's fault, just not in the way he wanted it to be.

Cucumber-bro
Yo where you at
You ditched half your shift
Jiu-ge is giving me shit for it

Looking at the time stamps, it took another forty minutes for him to send him another message.

Bro wtf???
Why you no respond?
I know you don't have anything better to do
ANSWER ME BITCH

Another hour and a half passed until the next few messages too.

You dead?
Did you fall into a ditch somewhere?
If you did Im not helping to find the body

Two minutes after that, another message was sent.

...
You better not have died
I'll kill you myself if you are

It then took around an hour for the next texts to come in. For almost twelve hours, at different times, he was sworn at in very colourful ways, with words he didn't even know could be used to swear at someone. At some point, Shen Yuan pretty much created his own language, full of multiple creative insults.

Skimming through the variety of insults, he stopped to read the texts from four hours ago.

You missed your shift
I'll cover for you this ONE time
If your not back by the end of it,
I'll find and murder you myself
Today was supposed to be DATE NIGHT
You made me miss out on getting railed
Asshole