Beyond Time (WenZhou Modern Day FF)

Long Lost

The next few days, ZZS kept waking up alone in bed. WKX would have already gone out by the time ZZS got ready for his early shifts and when his shifts were set in the evening, WKX would be gone for the whole day, no longer badgering him to send him to work or send him lunchboxes.

It was the same that day too. ZZS woke up to an alarm that WKX had set for him and went to work with his mind full of worry. Did he do something wrong? But he remembered no such thing, he even gave in to the man in the bathroom that night; the night before WKX started to, ZZS believed, throw his tantrums. Even if he didn't do anything wrong, he figured he should talk to the man and stop whatever chaos he was brewing outside. If small holes aren't fixed, then big holes will bring hardship.

He walked through the main gate of the fire station, his forehead still creased thinking of his husband's recent conduct. He was only snapped out of his train of thoughts by the time he reached the vehicle bay when Qiao Dan shamelessly grabbed onto his shoulders and hugged him from the back. If his mind was in the clear, he would detect no murder intent from his back and just gave her a strict warning but he wasn't, so he mindlessly arm wrung her, leaving her standing with her arm locked and twisted around her head.

"ArrKk! It's, it's me. Your Qiao Dan. Let me go.." Qiao Dan cried out in pain. Now that their position had switched with ZZS on her back, she couldn't see the man's face. The persistent girl's self-claim incited a grimace on his face.

Qiao Dan immediately turned to face ZZS once her hand was let go, massaging the red grip mark around her wrist. She was about to put on a sad face to incite sympathy from the man as she learned from the many dramas she had watched, sympathy often leads to love, but ZZS was fast to say,

"You're not mine. Didn't I tell you that I'm taken? Also, your behaviour could easily be deemed as sexual harassment. Please behave yourself." ZZS reminded her of the day after the kiss incident when he decided to confront the girl and ask her to be professional around him. He walked towards the datasheet hung on the side of the wall and started the routine inventory check not bothering to look at the wronged face Qiao Dan was intentionally wearing.

She followed closely behind him, insisting, "You did tell me but I'm not listening. You never look at your phone and you never talk about her. Show me her picture if you're not lying!"

ZZS forgot that he now live in the world where everything needed to be displayed. It's as if something doesn't happen unless caught on camera which he thought was ridiculous. He sighed thinking how much simpler it was in the past. He turned around to see the girl already had her hands on her waist with her chin held up high, her face saying 'I dare you'.

It wasn't hard at all, his phone was full of WKX's selfies that the man took the liberty of taking everytime he got his hand on the phone but something was holding him back. Why would he need to prove his words to someone as insignificant as Qiao Dan? And more importantly, what if she saw the picture and then fell in love with WKX instead? He dwelled on it a few seconds before deciding to just show her a picture. It was better to make it clear to the hard-headed girl as soon as possible so that he could resume his work, anyway. And even if she ended up liking WKX, that's WKX's problem to solve.

He took out his phone from his back pocket and scrolled through the pictures to choose the ugliest one. It was the first time he realized that his phone had more than 10 thousand of the man's face and choosing an ugly one took a considerable amount of his time. When he finally picked one, he could hear faint footsteps and chatters of his other colleagues.

Qiao Dan, seeing that ZZS was intent on proving he already have a lover, was already feeling nervous and decided to flee when the others were approaching. She figured that if she was to be humiliated, it was better not to do it in front of her subordinates.

ZZS frowned but partly relieved when he saw the girl leaving the bay all of a sudden. He smiled as he watched his three colleagues huddled together as they walk, focusing their eyes on a phone's screen.

"She's in trouble again. I wonder what she'd do next time."

"She's hot. Hot girls can do whatever they want."

"She is average."

"Average? If she is what you call average,
then where would you be on that scale? You can't even compare to her toes."

The guys burst into a laugh. Meng En hugged ZZS's shoulder when he reached the man and shoved his phone in front of him.

"Let me ask Zi Shu then, handsome guy's words worth more." He said to his friends, Ma Wei and You Ming, before he continued, "Tell me, do you think she's pretty?"

ZZS took the phone which was waived too close to his nose and feigned interest by looking at the picture closely. The picture was obviously taken professionally; her eyes round and wide, her hair was black and long making her small face even smaller and her pale skin even whiter. With her white dress, ZZS thought she looked like an angel.

He blinked twice as he felt his view was getting blurry, unaware that the blurriness was caused by welled up tears.

"Ah Xiang?" He muttered under his breath as he drew in a deep one.

Sensing the change in ZZS's expression, Ma Wei in front of him asked, "Woaa bro, did she remind you of your ex-girlfriend or something?"

"Who is this?" ZZS asked with urgency. His gaze did not move from the face he had not seen for thousands of years.

"You don't know her? Are you serious? She's so popular nowadays." The other guy answered, rather perplexed but excited at the chance to tell more people of his favourite celebrity.

"So who is she?"

"She's Zhou Ye. An actress. What? Is she really your ex-girlfriend?" It was Meng En's turn to ask. He removed his arm around ZZS's shoulder and started looking more attentively towards the change in the man's face.

Again ignoring the question from the curious men, he asked, "You said that she's in trouble just now. Why is that?"

Looking at the serious face on ZZS, the guys just answered truthfully without joking around. In their heads, multiple conclusions were brewed, mainly of Zhou Ye being ZZS's ex but they did not dare to ask more. Eventhough ZZS was obviously newer to the place, his serious face and withdrawn demeanor sometimes made him seemed unapproachable.

"She got into another scandal. They said that she snatched another girl's boyfriend or something."

"Another?"

"Yeah, before this she was known for her leaked nudes but the photos have been proven to be edited. The last time she was in the scandal, almost all her contracts were cancelled, I'm sure it's gonna happen again this time. The netizens can be pretty vicious."

They ended up needed to explain the terms netizen to the man, and continued talking more on the topic until ZZS decided to ask, "Where can I find her?" ZZS was elated, but he knew better than to keep his hope to high so he decided to confirm the girl's face first before informing his husband. He could almost see the joy in WKX's face if he found out about it.

"Haha are you joking bro? If I know where to find her, I'd make her my wife already." The joke was somewhat vexing to ZZS's ears so he gave the man a sharp stare, basically saying 'Don't you dare!" causing the men to naturally thought that their assumptions were correct, that she was indeed his ex-girlfriend. Now excited at the chance of having a close contact with a well-known celebrity, they were more eager in answering ZZS's questions.

"You have to be made of money. You know, people like her only goes to VIP places, expensive restaurants, and ride on business class. People like us would never have the chance. If only I can meet her once in my life, I'm sure she'll fall for me." You Ming was so serious, he almost looked dejected at his own conclusion, making the others laugh at his improbable dream.

"Speaking of money, have you heard of our new benefactor? A man like him can have ten of Zhou Ye if he wanted to."