Against the Algorithm

Chapter 31: Orbit

Jinyang, watching the exchange unfold like the world's most intense domestic drama over dumplings, leaned toward Ai Jia with a grin and whispered, "Should we go? I feel like this is about to turn into a lovers' quarrel and I'd rather not be caught in the crossfire."

Ai Jia, holding Yao's snacks and clearly already regretting being part of this dynamic, just sighed.

And Yao?

Still red. Still wide-eyed. Still backed up slightly against the fridge like she wasn't sure if she was about to be scolded or kissed. Stammered faintly, "I—I can stop replying if you want..."

Sicheng's response was instant. "You're not stopping," he said quietly, stepping into her space. "But I am changing your settings."

Yao blinked. "...My Weibo settings?"

Sicheng leaned in, one brow raised in absolute deadpan certainty. "From now on," he said, "they message me first especially if it's from boys that need to remain in their own lane."

And the boys?

Absolutely lost it.

Yue fell off the chair, wheezing.

Lao Mao howled.

Ming and Lao K smirked as they glanced to one another with an amused look.

Pang clapped once and declared, "There it is! Possessive, territorial mode activated. Someone go make popcorn!"

And Yao?

Yao was still blushing furiously but she didn't move away. Because territorial or not. He was hers and she, absolutely, was his.

Sicheng didn't say another word—not to the peanut gallery still wheezing behind him, not to the flushed, wide-eyed girl half-hiding behind the refrigerator door, and definitely not to the smug Midlaner across the room who looked one sarcastic breath away from saying something else that would earn him an eraser to the face. Instead, he reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone with the slow, deliberate calm of a man calculating revenge with perfect clarity, and unlocked it with a flick of his thumb. His fingers moved quickly across the screen, the corners of his mouth twitching downward into something half annoyed, half resigned.

To: Hierophant [Delivered]
Stop messaging my girlfriend, you clingy raccoon. I know she's polite and sunshine incarnate, but that doesn't mean she's accepting applications for new orbiting idiots. Get your own emotional support human.

He hit send.

Then sighed.

Because of course Kun Hyeok would respond. The man was incapable of reading the tone when it suited him. And the worst part? He liked Yao. Not in any kind of threatening way but in the infuriating, gleeful, soft-eyed way that everyone who met her eventually did. Because she was just like that. Warm without trying, sharp when needed, and polite even when she was internally panicking. It wasn't her fault. She didn't even realize she drew people in. She was just... her. His little sunshine-brained strategist who still apologized to vending machines when she bumped into them and got flustered when people praised her too directly.

Sicheng turned, gaze sweeping across the room as he caught her peeking around the fridge door again like a startled fox kit. He muttered under his breath, more to himself than anyone else, "Why is it that my girlfriend is basically a gravitational anomaly?"

No one answered.

But Pang did lift a hand and call out helpfully, "Because you pulled the sun down from the sky, Captain. Now the rest of us are getting the tan!"