050: Hobby
Sang Zhao was as good as his word.
He was not the kind of bad kitty who said things and did not follow through. He did not have any bad intentions. Even if he had harbored bad intentions toward a puppy before, now, toward Ye Ye the little dog, all his intentions were good ones.
Once he learned the date Xia Moye had picked for his birthday, he went on Taobao to contact a seller and custom-order a dog collar for him.
Custom! Ordered in advance! Make it nice!
When it was done, he would have them pop it into a gift box, then courier it to him first so he could check it over carefully. Only once he was sure it was perfectly pretty, with not a single flaw, would he give it to the Samoyed as Ye Ye’s very first birthday present.
He wanted the little dog to know he was a great little dog who also had cat friends.
Set. Decision made.
When he talked to the shop, he even drew a wobbly, crooked outline of a Samoyed by hand and sent it to them as the design to engrave on the dog tag.
He bought the store’s highest-tier option. Everything from top to bottom was “best quality.” For a big spender like this, the shop naturally had to bring out their full “Party B” skill set and flatter him with everything they had.
When they saw the hand-drawn picture, they praised him right away.
【Wow, you must be such a good owner, you even drew little cookies on the dog tag~~】
Fumbling on the twenty-six-key keyboard, Sang Zhao angrily typed: 【That is a dog!】
This was a dog he had drawn! How could they not see it was a dog? It was clearly a Samoyed!
The store replied with a sticker of a little dog, fawningly holding up the customer’s butt. Nice. They had patted the wrong end of the horse and smacked the dog’s butt instead.
With a snort, Sang Zhao hurried them along and told them to get it finished fast and send the package out as soon as possible.
Because the birthday date that Xia Moye had picked was coming up fast. It was set for the second-to-last weekend before school started.
The little dog had never had a single birthday in all this time, so he really was looking forward to it. But he was not completely focused on that.
Compared to “birthday,” something he had never experienced before, what Ye Ye the dog was looking forward to even more was everyone gathering together to play.
He loved playing with everyone, absolutely everyone. Anybody was fine, because everybody was his good friend. As long as they were all together, running back and forth, that was happiness to Ye Ye.
And the best part was, at a birthday party, he could claim that happiness with full confidence.
While he was busy preparing, Sang Zhao kept telling himself that since he had said he would throw Ye Ye a birthday party, he had to throw a proper one.
He mulled over it very seriously.
During a class at the Yao Bureau, he happened to mention the idea to the black panther while they were whispering on the side. The black panther instantly got excited and latched on, talking his ear off.
This guy really loved throwing parties. It was like whenever he was bored, the first thing he thought of was throwing another party.
“Perfect, birthdays are great. I have been wanting to hit an orchard. We can go pick fruit, eat what we can, then haul the rest to a stall downtown and sell it. That way we play, we eat, and we make money…”
Was that really a birthday party for the little dog? Or just using any excuse he could find to go play again?
Sang Zhao smiled politely.
He did not say a word, but the moment the black panther met his eyes, he stiffened and immediately got the message.
“Ha… haha.” He gave a dry laugh. “You are right. For a birthday party everybody will be dressed up like proper cats. It would not be great to be rolling around in the dirt.”
Of course, he still had plenty of ideas.
“I just found a really nice villa,” he went on. “You can rent the whole place for a day for a super sweet price. We could throw a house party there. What was the English? Hongma parti? Anyway, they have a movie room, foosball, a mahjong table…”
That actually did sound pretty good.
Sang Zhao fell into thought.
The loft apartment was really a bit small. For one yaoguai living alone it was cozy and comfortable. Two yaoguai could share it happily. Three yaoguai and it turned cramped.
And it was not just yaoguai coming to this party. Xia Moye had said he wanted to invite classmates too.
It was going to be chaotic. If they all squeezed into the loft, what would that even be?
An opportunity for elementary schoolers to pet a Pallas’s cat, or an opportunity for a lynx to gnaw on some little human skulls? No way. Absolutely not.
He needed to think this through carefully.
While Sang Zhao was busy organizing Ye Ye’s birthday party, Tang Yu had just taken on two new projects.
Right now, Corn Bean’s work enthusiasm was off the charts.
Before, after working long enough, he could not help sinking into a whirlpool of exhaustion. He would stand in the stairwell and smoke, gaze drifting out through the window, and inevitably slip into this vague kind of self-loathing.
It was not like anything particularly dramatic ever happened, but his days all tasted bland, permeated with a faint bitterness.
The aftertaste of life was not sweet. It was something inexplicable, mild but never-ending bitterness.
Most of the time, he did not even know what he was so tired about. He was just always tired and had to force himself to keep going.
Now, things were different.
Now, he was in love. The moment he opened his eyes each morning, he wanted a bite to eat.
In his free moments now, he did not unconsciously spiral into thinking, “Do I really have no talent and have to drag myself through life like this?” or “When will I ever achieve any kind of success people recognize?” or “I am already in my twenties. Why do I feel like I am still the same inside as I was in my teens?” or “Why cannot I just win four hundred million in the lottery?” or “If I did win, what would my life goals even be after that?”
All those thoughts that, once they started, never stopped.
Now, whenever his brain had a moment to spare, he just thought of Sang Zhao’s beautiful face.
Tang Yu admitted he was a bit of a face-snob. He liked good-looking people. Even when it came to kids, he preferred neat, pretty features.
He used to feel guilty about that. Now he did not at all.
Because Sang Zhao was his boyfriend.
What was wrong with thinking about his boyfriend? It was not like he could eat him. Was he not even allowed to think?
He was going to think about him. Think about him in the daytime, think about him at night. In the beginning he had just worried that Sang Zhao could not take care of himself alone and had wanted him to move in.
Now, it was different.
Now, every time he opened his eyes, he wanted two bites, so he really wanted Sang Zhao to move in and live with him.
He had actually brought it up again recently, twice. But every time, Sang Zhao refused flatly, staring at him with very clear eyes.
He did not get flustered or mad at all. There was no blowing up or getting all hot-blooded.
What kind of attitude was that? Was that what “not wanting to move in” was supposed to look like?
What was so bad about living together? He could take care of him. From head to toe, inside and out, meticulously, thoroughly. He was at the age where adults were supposed to be doing adult things. Where exactly was his mistake?
He was so mentally tormented that he was lying awake at night searching the internet for things like: “twenty-year-old guy has low physical desire, what is going on.”
One day, as usual, Tang Yu went in to work.
He walked into the office building and turned into the first-floor coffee shop to buy a latte, tucking a flaky croissant under one arm to bring up for Sang Zhao, then headed for the elevators.
He was the president, the boss, and he drove to work instead of taking the subway, so he tended to arrive a little earlier.
Right before nine, he could dodge the peak elevator crowding.
So he got an empty elevator.
He stepped in, pressed the top-floor button by the door, and watched the doors slide nearly shut as he looked down at the latte in his hand.
Right before they fully closed, a hand shot through the gap and jabbed hard at the sensor, forcing the doors back open in a very aggressive way.
Tang Yu jumped.
He took several steps back and pressed himself against the mirrored wall of the elevator, raising his head warily to see what was going on.
The one who had stopped the doors was a woman. She was tall and wearing a white camisole dress, bare arms on display, with clear muscle lines on her shoulders.
She was carrying an open plastic bag and chewing on something, clearly still working on her breakfast as she walked. She must have been eating her way here and had not finished yet, because she kept eating even after she stepped into the elevator.
She glanced at the elevator buttons and did not press anything else, which meant she worked at Tang Yu’s company too.
She came in and stood beside him and, seeing the coffee and pastry bag in Tang Yu’s hand, nodded to him.
“You have breakfast too?”
Now that he knew who she was, Tang Yu let out a small breath and nodded back. He was just about to say something when that breath got stuck halfway in his chest.
The doors closed, the elevator started its slow climb.
The air went quiet. She went back to eating.
Tang Yu gave a casual glance over, and that one glance froze him completely.
The breakfast she was scarfing down in the elevator was not a bun or sticky rice dumpling or anything like that. It was a chunk of raw meat.
She was eating fast, hard, and with plenty of enjoyment. There was blood smeared around her mouth, and the horrifying sound of teeth tearing into meat, the distinct gulp of swallowing…
It was honestly terrifying.
Tang Yu’s scalp prickled. He shrank into the corner of the elevator and stared fixedly at the little red numbers ticking upward on the screen, heart lodged in his throat as he silently begged the elevator to hurry up.
A sense of pure horror wrapped around him.
Was she really one of his employees? What kind of “hobby” was this?
He could accept that someone might like meat. Eating meat first thing in the morning was not incomprehensible. But who did it like this, with a big hunk of raw meat straight out of a plastic bag, gnawing at it right there?
What meat even was that…
He pressed himself so tightly against the mirrored wall it was a miracle he did not slide down it. What kind of meat? Beef? Beef could be eaten raw, sure. But one, it did not look like beef. And two, even if it was, who ate raw beef in the morning like it was nothing?
He did not dare look at the woman at all.
When the elevator at last reached the top floor and she stepped out, she gave him a puzzled look back. “You are not getting out?”
Instinctively, Tang Yu lifted his head. All he saw was her pale face with a ring of blood around her mouth.
Using the last bit of strength in his body, he waved her on. The woman shot him another baffled look and walked away alone.
Only after she left did Tang Yu stagger out, holding onto the wall.
He leaned there, taking several deep breaths, but still could not pull himself together.
Vice President Xiao happened to walk by. Seeing Tang Yu’s wobbly legs and barely upright posture, he had absolutely no conscience about it and just cracked a joke. “Wow, that intense?”
“Falling in love really is different,” he said, wearing the kind of stupid face that screamed, I get it, I get it.
Tang Yu had not a shred of flirtatious humor in him right then.
His legs were shaking, his hands were shaking, he could barely stand without the wall. With his voice trembling, he pointed weakly in the direction the girl had gone. “Who was that just now?”
He had no idea who she was, but the VP in charge of marketing knew perfectly well.
“Our new sales hire. Why?”
Tang Yu closed his eyes, face stiff.
That was it. His last hope was gone. She really was an employee of his company.
It was not like they were filming a horror movie in here. What did they need such a terrifying employee for?
Xiao Hengmiao was his friend, but he was not the sensitive sort. In fact, he was pretty dense. Seeing Tang Yu’s complicated expression, he did not comfort him or ask what was wrong. He just burst out laughing.
“Come on, it is not that bad. What do you think she is?”
Tang Yu could not even be bothered to answer.
Back in his office, he stared at his computer screen, completely unable to get any work done.
For once, his mind was full of something other than Sang Zhao’s pretty face and bright orange fur. All he could see was that tall woman with blood around her mouth.
If he thought about it, he felt sick. If he thought about it again, he felt afraid. He was scared and disgusted and yet could not stop replaying it in his mind. The more he thought, the more his stomach lurched, until he bent over and retched dryly.
That was when Sang Zhao knocked and came in.
He had been visiting the president’s office often enough to be quite at home. As he came in and walked over to the desk, he caught Tang Yu right in the middle of gagging.
He stopped, staring in surprise.
He looked around and confirmed there were no preserved-egg wontons anywhere nearby.
So what was Tang Yu retching about?
If there was nothing stinky here, then for a human, what else could dry heaving mean?
It had to be that.
Step by careful step, he walked over and rested a hand on Tang Yu’s back, voice trembling with emotion. “Oh my god.”
“We just started dating and you are already pregnant.”
On the verge of tears, he let out a string of sniffly, excited whimpers. “I am going to have a kitty. Corn Bean is going to give me a little kitty.”
Hand pressed over his heart, Tang Yu froze. His retching had been purely physical. Now he did not even feel like gagging. He just wanted to faint.
“No!” he protested loudly.
In an instant, that hair-raising sense of horror dropped away, leaving behind only long, speechless despair and an edge of madness.
He let out a low groan. “All you ever do is talk, and you never actually do anything.”
If you were going to talk about pregnancy, then do something that could actually get me pregnant first.
Even if, fine, we are tossing human biology and common sense out the window and I somehow really am going to get pregnant… Could I do that on my own? Did I do anything that would actually get me pregnant?
He had not gotten a single bite. Not one. All he had gotten was a kiss and a week’s worth of fantasies. Who was he supposed to complain to about that?
Pregnant with what, exactly? Pregnant with one of those honey melons you love so much?
Weakly, Tang Yu said, “Even if I was pregnant, it would still be a kid. I cannot give birth to kittens.”
“What if you could?” Sang Zhao asked hopefully.
Tang Yu thought he was joking. He liked playing along with him, so he followed the thread and turned it into a joke too.
It was all just fantasy anyway, so why not?
“If I could, what color cat would I have?” he asked.
He really was very gentle with Sang Zhao. He had a good temper too.
Even when the question was a little much, he would swallow the offense whole and laugh along as he changed the subject.
Sang Zhao started picturing it, hands moving in the air in front of Tang Yu as if outlining a kitten’s shape.
“Of course it would be a litter of orange cats. All orange, or orange and white, with white bellies or white paws… No, better just one full orange kitty.”
He added, “If you have more, it will be too hard on you.”
He did not want Corn Bean to suffer.
Well then. Even if the topic was wildly unrealistic, bizarre, and childish, Tang Yu was still moved in a strangely touching way.
Smiling, he asked, “Just like the little orange cat you keep, right?”
It took a second for Sang Zhao to react.
“The one I… Oh, right, the little orange cat I keep.”
Still shaken from the morning, Tang Yu felt much better after joking around with him. He pulled him into a hug and told him the whole story from start to finish.
In a shaky voice, he wailed, “Why? Why are there so many people around me with weird diets? You eat cat food, she eats raw meat. What kind of hobbies are these?”
“What kind of people work in my company?!” President Tang asked from the bottom of his heart.
…
What?! Were humans really that hardcore?
Sang Zhao did not get it, but he still put up a brave front. “Humans eat sashimi too,” he said.
“I am not scared of sashimi,” Tang Yu groaned, covering his face. “Do I look that timid? She was gnawing on a huge chunk of raw meat. When she wiped her mouth and the lower half of her face was covered in blood, I really, I… I was traumatized.”
Hurrying to comfort him, Sang Zhao wrapped him up in his arms.
He wanted to make him feel better, but he did not know how to do it in a way that would really help. Luckily, Tang Yu gave him an idea himself.
“I am coming over to your place tonight to see the cat, okay?” Tang Yu said, lifting his head from his chest. “I have only seen him once. I have not seen him since. I really want to pet a cat.”
Grinding his molars, Sang Zhao said, “…Sure. Of course.”
That night, they went back to the apartment together.
The moment they stepped inside, Tang Yu immediately started looking for the cat, so Sang Zhao quickly said, “I am going to go shower. You can play with the cat.”
“You are showering as soon as you get home?”
Tang Yu’s eyes were puzzled at first, then suddenly seemed to catch on to something.
He lowered his head, showing a sliver of pale neck below his small ponytail, and answered softly, “Okay.”
Then he asked, “Where is the cat?”
“Just call for him. He will come out,” Sang Zhao said in a rush, then dashed into the bathroom.
In reality, all he did in there was turn the shower on and let the water run while he pressed himself against the door to listen to what Tang Yu was doing.
Sure enough, Tang Yu searched everywhere for the cat.
While Tang Yu was upstairs looking, Sang Zhao slipped out of the downstairs bathroom in cat form, darted up the stairs, and crossed paths with Tang Yu.
“There you are,” Tang Yu said, delighted.
He crouched down and held out a fist for the cat to sniff, letting the orange kitty carefully check his scent.
Then he tried stroking his soft orange head.
“You are so bright, like a little sun, aren’t you?” he said gently, voice soft enough to melt.
His hand slid from the top of the cat’s head to his chin, scratching lightly, then drifted up behind his ears, giving him a full head-massage treatment.
It felt so good that Sang Zhao started purring, blinking slowly up at him with those little cat eyes.
Only then did Tang Yu pick him up. Holding him carefully, he walked downstairs and back into the living room.
He could hear the constant rush of the shower from the bathroom.
Under the cover of that white noise, he played with the cat for a bit, but soon got distracted.
Sitting on a chair with the cat in his lap, he gently stroked the orange fluff and started to whisper.
“He let me come over to his place. That definitely means what I think it means, right?”
He ruffled the cat’s head, voice dropping to a murmur as he talked to himself.
In the bathroom, where he was supposedly showering, Sang Zhao really could not hear anything. But the little orange cat nestled in Tang Yu’s arms heard every word loud and clear.
Little orange cat: What does it mean?
After a moment of indecision, Tang Yu told himself it was better to be fully prepared in advance. Just in case.
So, in front of Sang Zhao’s very eyes, he took out his phone and opened his delivery app.
At first, Sang Zhao thought Corn Bean was ordering food for him. His fluffy orange head leaned closer, tail high, eager to see. But it was not chips, or fried chicken, or ice cream.
It was condoms.
…Condoms? For what?
He fell into deep thought. Could Tang Yu really get pregnant?
Once the one-hour delivery order was placed, Tang Yu set his phone down and cleared his throat.
He stopped looking at his phone and mechanically kept petting the cat while his eyes drifted around the room, taking everything in.
That was when he saw something on the dining table.
Sang Zhao had not lived on his own for very long. As a little cat, he had not yet developed any real system for organizing his life. His things were always scattered around, but he could always find them again, so he did not see the problem.
What Tang Yu saw was the package he had received the day before: the dog collar he had bought for the Samoyed.
The collar had arrived before the tag. The seller knew he was in a rush, so they had sent the pieces separately.
He had followed all of Sang Zhao’s instructions and done it up as a gift box, and the seller had even thoughtfully pasted a pink ribbon bow on the top left corner of the neat little square lid.
Last night, after carefully checking it over, Sang Zhao had confirmed it was exactly the kind of dog collar the Samoyed had described.
Deep brown leather with a subtle pebbled texture, finely polished and crafted, without a single rough spot. The silver buckle shone brightly, paired just right with the rest of it. It was practically a work of art.
Pleased, he had put the lid back on and left the box on the table to wait for the dog tag to arrive so he could assemble it all together.
He had set it down casually and never pushed the lid all the way on.
So what Tang Yu saw was a gift box sitting on his boyfriend’s dining table. Naturally, he assumed it was something prepared for him.
Corn Bean was instantly delighted.
Technically, he knew he should not peek. But he was so excited. If he snuck a glance now, he could at least mentally prepare himself for when he actually received it.
So he pinched the corner of the crooked lid and lifted it just enough to peek inside.
He had gone in grinning. After that one glance, his whole face went blank.
…A dog collar?
Was he planning to give him a dog collar?
“Oh my god. He actually got this ready,” Tang Yu whispered, pressing a hand to his chest and hugging the cat tighter.
It had to be for him, he thought.
There was no dog tag on it, so it was not too over the top. The size looked fine, and the way it would fasten seemed… workable.
His arms started to shake as he held the cat.
Being jostled around, Sang Zhao: ??
“I had no idea he was into this,” Tang Yu murmured, ears going red. “He should have told me earlier.”
…Into what, exactly?
Suddenly wide awake, Tang Yu was practically brimming with energy.
All the sweet and proper talk went to Sang Zhao’s face. Everything else went into the cat’s ears.
“I will study hard and do my best to cooperate,” he whispered. “It does not matter what he is into. Whatever he likes is fine. I will accept all of it and love every part of him.”
Speaking into the cat’s ear, Tang Yu confessed things he would absolutely never say to Sang Zhao’s face.
He never would have imagined that the bathroom was empty except for the sound of running water.
The real Sang Zhao was right there in his arms.
A completely confused, utterly baffled Sang Zhao.
…So what hobby is this, exactly?
Why are you stopping halfway through the sentence?
Is it the noble hobby of buying birthday presents for good dog friends? Wow, was that really so over the line?
Author’s Note:
Fifty chapters, yay~
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