Chapter Text
Dylan Zhou was not having a particularly successful morning. He was running on three hours of fitful sleep and half a cup of lukewarm oat milk latte.
Three hours, if one was feeling particularly generous about the definition of sleep. Most of it had been spent tossing and turning in his own bed, waking every forty minutes to check the time and staring at the ceiling while his brain helpfully reminded him of every unfinished calculation he'd been avoiding. Apparently, knowing he had an early flight was enough to convince his body that sleep was optional and his brain that this was an excellent opportunity to revisit every problem he'd failed to solve during the week.
By the time his alarm went off, Dylan had already been awake for long enough to resent it. His body had wanted sleep. His brain, however, had wanted to revisit quantum mechanics. Neither had gotten what it wanted.
The half cup of oat milk latte in his hand was not helping much either. It had probably been decent when he'd bought it, back when the coffee had still been hot enough to deserve the name. Now it was lukewarm and bitter, and it required more optimism than Dylan currently possessed.
Still, it was caffeine. That counted for something.
Barely.
“I think my boyfriend is cheating on me again,” Baifern said, dropping onto the seat beside him with all the grace of a falling anvil. Her heavy rolling suitcase came after her, veering dangerously close to an unsuspecting tourist before crashing into the base of a metal pillar with a loud clang.
Dylan didn't even look up. His attention stayed on his phone, where he was working his way through a game of Solitaire, tapping the screen with considerably more determination than the situation deserved. “Good morning to you, too, Fern. Happy departure day,” he said, still looking at his phone. “Glad to see your optimism packed its bags.”
Baifern had always had a talent for turning up with a problem. Dylan wasn't sure how she managed it so consistently, but there was something almost admirable about the timing. They were at the airport, they were supposed to be leaving for their conference, and within seconds of sitting down, she had announced that her boyfriend might be cheating on her again. Her suitcase had nearly taken out a stranger on the way in, too, which felt oddly appropriate.
Across from them, Gam continued highlighting her notes without looking up. Her colour-coded leather organiser sat neatly on her lap, the pages already divided into sections and covered in small marks. Nothing about her suggested that she had just arrived at an airport before the sun was properly up. She looked as though she'd been awake for hours and had spent those hours doing exactly what she had intended to do.
As a fellow PhD candidate, Gam approached most things with the same care she brought to her research. Her notes were organised, her schedule was organised, and Dylan had never once seen her search frantically through her bag because she'd forgotten where she'd put something.
Dylan had no idea how she managed it.
He was currently sitting in an airport at seven in the morning, half-asleep, playing Solitaire on his phone because he was too tired to trust himself with anything more complicated.
He figured that probably said enough about the difference between them.
“Babe,” Gam said, her voice taking on that calm, firm tone she used whenever Baifern was about to make a decision everyone else already knew was going to end badly. “When we specifically begged you not to go back to him after the first time he cheated, you looked us all in the eye and told us you both went to couples therapy. You said you worked past it. You said he had grown as a human being. Even though all four of us were ninety-nine per cent sure he possessed the moral complexity and emotional depth of a disposable plastic spoon.”
“I know!” Baifern groaned, burying her face into the sleeves of her oversized pastel knit sweater until only her dishevelled bangs were visible. “I know! But it’s just... intuition, okay? A woman’s intuition! I swear on my life I heard a Tinder notification chime go off on his phone right as I was closing the front door to catch my Grab to the airport.”
“Did you actually hear the chime, or did your brain manifest it because you subconsciously know he's garbage?” Dylan asked, turning his phone off and finally looking at her with bleary eyes. “Because if you want us to confront him, I can call his phone right now. I’ll pretend I’m a debt collector. Or a hitman. Honestly, given my current state of sleep deprivation, I could make either sound terrifyingly convincing.”
“Not really,” Baifern sighed heavily, her voice muffled by the knit wool pulled over her face. “That would be so awkward. What if he’s not actually cheating and I just look like an unhinged, paranoid lunatic?”
Gam lowered her highlighter and peered over the translucent rims of her glasses. “Fern. Let’s establish the framework here. Are you asking for an opinion, or do you want advice, or do you want us to actively intervene? What is the actionable goal of this conversation?”
“I don't know!” Baifern sat up straight, her dark hair standing up around her head in a halo of tragic static electricity. “It’s just that we’re all leaving Bangkok for Basel for two whole weeks for this intensive program. It’s our first big European conference! What if he hooks up with someone the exact second I’m up on stage presenting my paper on Dark Matter Candidates? How am I supposed to explain non-baryonic mass to a room full of Swiss professors when I'm wondering if my boyfriend is currently hosting a stranger in my apartment?”
"I am going to be brutally honest with you," Dylan said, leaning back against the rock-hard headrest and gesturing vaguely with his coffee cup. "There should be a baseline level of trust in a relationship where you can leave the country for fifteen days without worrying that your partner is going to trip, lose his balance, and land penis-first into a stranger. And if that trust doesn't exist because the partner in question is a world-class, certified douchebag, you should seriously reconsider his presence in your life."
"So... what do I do?" she whispered, looking between them with tragic eyes.
"Talk to him," Gam said simply, turning a page in her binder. "Use your words. Like an adult."
Before Baifern could construct a fresh defence for her terrible life choices, Pepper ambled over from the main terminal concourse. He was carrying a greasy brown paper bag from an airport bakery, chewing rhythmically, and looking like a man who had just been handed a surprise execution order. He flopped into the vacant seat next to Gam, staring blankly into the middle distance.
“Guys,” Pepper said, his tone entirely flat. “Our flight is delayed for two hours.”
"There is no fucking way," Dylan breathed, feeling a vein in his right temple begin to throb in rhythm with the terminal's overhead lights. "Gam. You made us wake up at five in the morning. You made us get to Suvarnabhumi three hours early. We've already been sitting on these agonising chairs for over an hour, and now I have to sit in this gateway to hell for two more hours? I am going to spontaneously combust. I am going to throw myself onto the luggage carousel."
"Okay, but wait," Baifern said, her teary eyes suddenly lighting up with a dangerous glint. "Maybe... maybe we can make something good out of this."
"If this something good is in any way related to your stupid boyfriend, I am officially opting out of this friendship," Dylan said, crossing his arms tightly over his chest. "I’m going to go sleep on the carpet near the duty-free liquor store."
"You didn't even hear me out!"
“I don't need to hear you out, Fern! I am not scheming against a man who, according to you, thinks getting a PhD is ‘for losers who can't handle the real world’ and who doesn't even care enough to learn the names of your closest friends let alone meet them!”
“He has met my friends!” Baifern protested defensively.
“Oh, what, subconsciously?” Pepper chimed in around a massive mouthful of almond croissant. He had clearly missed the first five minutes of the conversation, but Pepper’s default setting was joining in on any roast directed at Baifern's boyfriend. It was a beloved group activity.
"He just hasn't met my doctoral friends," Baifern corrected, her cheeks flushing a bright pink.
"So, basically, the people you spend forty-five hours a week with in the lab," Gam pointed out without looking up from her schedule. "The people who share your office, buy your coffee, and act as your court-appointed mental health handlers."
"Can you guys just do this for me? Please?" Baifern clasped her hands together in a desperate plea. "We have two hours to kill! two hours of dead time!"
Dylan rubbed his tired eyes. "What, precisely, are you asking us to do, Fern?"
"Just make a dating profile. Help me find him on Tinder while we're stuck here in the terminal."
A trio of immediate responses came from the three of them.
“Absolutely not,” Pepper said.
“No way,” Gam added.
“I’d rather eat this seat,” Dylan said.
The answers landed one after another with such complete certainty that there was clearly no room for negotiation.
"Why not?!" Baifern whined, slumping down in her seat. "It’s literally the most foolproof plan in history! He’s never met any of you in person! He has no idea what your faces look like!"
"There are layers of ethical and psychological reasons why this is a terrible idea," Pepper said, holding up a greasy finger. "For starters, Gam and I are in a committed, monogamous relationship. Hypothetically creating a dating profile—even for a sting operation—feels like crossing a weird digital boundary."
"Yeah, it feels gross," Gam agreed, nodding in solidarity with her boyfriend. "Even for espionage. It feels like pre-cheating."
"And I just don't want to," Dylan added firmly. "Dating sites are toxic. I like my romantic rejection delivered the old-fashioned way: in person, after three awkward dates and a deeply lingering sense of regret."
"Oh, come on!" Baifern leaned forward, her tactical mastermind persona fully overriding her previous emotional breakdown. "I’m not asking you to actually swipe on real people for romance! Look, Gam and Pepper can share one account using Gam’s picture. And Dylan can make one account. Tai is bisexual, okay? And you are the bisexual dream! He’ll definitely swipe on one of you!"
Pepper stopped chewing, looking deeply offended. "Wait. I can be a bisexual dream!"
Baifern gave him a look of pitying judgment. "Pepper, Tai has a very specific type. Gorgeous women, and pretty twinks. Gam is literally the most stunning woman in the entire Physics department, and Dylan..." She gestured broadly toward Dylan's face. "...have you looked at him? Have you seen a man prettier than Dylan Zhou? You have gym-bro muscles, Pepper. Tai doesn't like gym bros. He likes his male partners delicate and effeminate."
Pepper blinked, staring at his half-eaten croissant. "That... that feels wrong on so many levels. I feel strangely discriminated against? Is this reverse body-shaming?"
"Let's not break down the complex sociological implications of Tai's sexual preferences right now," Gam interjected smartly, tapping her pen against her chin.
"Actually, let's!" Dylan said, sitting up straight and throwing his hands in the air. "Let's talk about why you are dating the absolute weirdest, most pretentious dude on planet Earth. You are gorgeous, Baifern. You are literally going to Switzerland to explain the hidden mechanics of the universe to European scientists. Why are you willingly holding yourself hostage to a guy who looks like he washes his face with 3-in-1 dish soap and listens to crypto podcasts at 2x speed for fun?"
"Can we please just focus on catching him in the act?!" Baifern pleaded, her voice rising an octave.
"Go on, distract us from the impending two-hour delay," Pepper sighed, breaking off a piece of his pastry and offering it to Dylan as a peace offering.
"Guys. Please." Baifern hit them with her ultimate, undeniable weapon: the teary-eyed, trembling-lip, stress-induced puppy-dog stare of an exhausted student on the precipice of a complete mental breakdown.
For ten gruelling minutes, she launched a relentless barrage of begging, emotional guilt-tripping, and promises to cover their coffee runs in Basel for the entire two weeks.
Finally, Dylan caved with a dramatic groan.
"Fine. God, Baifern," Dylan muttered, pulling his phone back out of his pocket and opening the App Store with an aggressive tap. "You are terrifyingly good at weaponising your own misery."
"Yay!" Baifern clapped her hands together, her tragic, tearful demeanour vanishing in a fraction of a second to reveal a victorious grin. "Great! Okay, now start setting up the profiles. We need to make them look totally authentic. Pick photos that look natural, write a good bio—make it look attractive enough for him to swipe right without second-guessing it."
Dylan was eighty per cent sure that if Baifern breathed down his neck for one more second, he was going to completely lose it right there on the cold terrazzo floor of Gate E4. The remaining twenty percent was reserved for the possibility that he might simply walk away and leave her with his phone.
Every three seconds, her manic, over-caffeinated face appeared about six inches from his phone screen, her eyes wide with a terrifying combination of desperation and determination. She was treating his Tinder feed less like a dating app and more like evidence in an active investigation, scrutinising every profile.
“Did you find Tai yet? Is that him? Swipe right on him! Wait, no, swipe left! Did he upload a picture in a sheer tank top? He loves sheer tank tops when he’s looking for validation! Scroll down, check if he listed ‘crypto enthusiast’ in his bio!”
“Fern,” Dylan said, placing a firm but gentle hand on her shoulder and turning her around like a piece of misaligned furniture. “I love you. I want your heart to heal. I want you to find a partner who doesn't smell like cheap body spray and lies. But if you don't step back three paces, I am going to throw my phone onto the runway, jump after it, and let a Boeing 777 roll over my corpse.”
It was the closest thing to a boundary Dylan had managed to establish all morning.
Leaving Pepper and Gam on guard duty, Dylan finally escaped in search of sustenance. His stomach had reached the point where it was no longer politely reminding him that he hadn't eaten and had instead begun making increasingly aggressive demands for immediate intervention. If he was going to survive the morning, he needed food, preferably something hot and substantial enough to convince his body that he had not, in fact, been abandoned.
Which was how he found himself sitting at a dark-wood counter in a warmly lit Japanese ramen restaurant nestled between a high-end watch boutique and a luxury day spa in Terminal 2.
The air smelled heavenly. Seared pork belly. Rich pork-bone broth. Garlic oil. Toasted sesame. Dylan breathed in slowly, letting the smell settle somewhere deeper than his lungs.
It was a stark and deeply welcome contrast to the stale carpet-cleaner scent that seemed determined to follow him everywhere else in Suvarnabhumi. After hours of airport coffee and recycled air, the smell alone was enough to make him feel marginally more human.
It was almost 8 AM. Was pork tonkotsu ramen with extra soft-boiled eggs a traditional breakfast food? Absolutely not. Was rich, salty broth and springy noodles the only thing standing between Dylan and an early, stress-induced grave? One hundred percent.
The restaurant featured open-kitchen seating, with a circular wooden bar wrapping around a team of chefs who were furiously boiling noodles, torching slices of chashu pork with handheld blowtorches, and ladling steaming broth into deep ceramic bowls. The clatter of utensils, the hiss of the flames, and the constant movement behind the counter gave the room a comfortable energy without making it feel crowded. Steam curled upward from the bowls as they were set down, carrying the smell of pork, garlic, and sesame through the warm air.
Dylan had propped his phone against the napkin dispenser, its screen angled toward him while he ate. His left hand held his spoon, scooping up generous mouthfuls of steaming broth between bites, while his right thumb continued its lazy, repetitive movement across the screen.
Left. Left. Left.
A guy holding a massive python around his neck in his first profile picture. Dylan stared at the screen for a second, trying to decide whether there was any possible explanation for it that would make the photograph less alarming. There wasn't. Left.
The next profile was somehow worse. His entire bio consisted of his crypto portfolio breakdown, a link to his Telegram group, and the phrase Alpha Mindset written with enough confidence to suggest he believed those two words explained everything a potential partner needed to know about him. left. Instant block.
Then came a gym bro whose three photos were all taken in the exact same dimly lit gym bathroom mirror. Same angle. Same expression. Same neon tank top. Only the flex had changed slightly between photographs, as though Dylan were being given three separate demonstrations of the same muscle from marginally different directions. Left.
The next guy was posing confidently beside a matte-black sports car, one hand resting against the hood as though he owned it. Dylan's eyes wandered toward the rear windshield, where a rental-car sticker was still clearly visible.
He didn't even hesitate. Left.
left. Left. Left—
Dylan’s thumb froze mid-swipe.
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He blinked and lowered his spoon back into the bowl with a faint splash, staring at the screen for a moment as though his sleep-deprived brain had finally decided to malfunction. He tapped the profile open and zoomed in on the first photograph, just to make sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him.
They weren't.
The guy on the screen was ridiculously, offensively handsome. He had soft, messy dark hair parted slightly in the middle, warm crescent-moon eyes that crinkled at the corners when he smiled, and a jawline sharp enough to slice sushi. His broad shoulders were wrapped in a black cardigan that somehow made him look even more comfortable and approachable. There was something almost unfair about how good he looked without appearing to be trying very hard. He looked like the lead actor in a top-tier romantic drama about a gentle billionaire who buys a small-town bakery and spends half the movie pretending he doesn't have a heart.
Dylan tapped through the pictures with increasing suspicion. The second photo did nothing to explain why someone like this was apparently single and on Tinder. The third wasn't any more reassuring. If anything, each new picture seemed to make the whole thing more questionable, as though Dylan were gradually uncovering evidence that this profile had been assembled specifically to make ordinary people feel inadequate.
Then he tapped on the bio section and found, to his growing annoyance, that the man was apparently just as put-together there as he was in his photographs. He wasn't looking for anything casual. He wanted someone to share slow, sleepy mornings with, laugh at terrible jokes with, and eventually come home to. Someone who wouldn't mind being spoiled, sketched, and introduced to his cat, which Dylan thought was a suspiciously specific combination of requirements for someone who looked like he had stepped out of a romance novel.
And then there was the last part, about wanting someone who could make ordinary days feel a little more special.
Dylan read the whole thing twice.
Of course he did. The man couldn't simply be ridiculously handsome. Apparently, he also had to be looking for something real, loved cats, wanted a home with someone, and knew exactly how to make himself sound like the human equivalent of a warm blanket on a Sunday morning.
It was deeply inconvenient.
Dylan stared at the screen for a full ten seconds. He zoomed in on the cat, because apparently the cat required closer inspection. Then he zoomed in on the man's razor-sharp jawline, which was not useful to his investigation but was difficult to ignore. Finally, he read the bio for a third time, lingering over each word as though there might be some obvious explanation hidden between the lines.
There wasn't. At least, not one Dylan could see.
“There is no way in hell,” Dylan muttered under his breath, shaking his head as he stared at the profile in disbelief. “Absolute propaganda. An engineered product of the deep state.”
There was simply no logical universe in which a man who looked like a high-fashion model was also a paediatrician, a painter, a cat dad, and apparently looking for a serious, committed relationship. He was somehow both the man of Dylan's dreams and the exact sort of son-in-law his mother would have picked out for him, which was frankly offensive. That wasn't a dating profile. That was a carefully assembled list of everything Dylan was supposed to find appealing, packaged into one suspiciously handsome human being. The whole thing felt statistically impossible. Either the profile was a catfish run by some international syndicate preparing to harvest his kidneys, or—somehow worse—a performative man who had figured out exactly what soft-hearted boys wanted to hear before emotionally destroying them.
“Nice try, fake perfect guy,” Dylan whispered, his cynicism firmly taking over.
With one decisive flick of his thumb, he swiped LEFT.
“Ouch. A hard no for that one?” A deep, smooth voice sounded right beside his left ear, close enough to make Dylan's entire body jolt.
He flinched so violently that he nearly knocked his bowl over. His head whipped around, his heart pounding against his ribs like a trapped bird, already preparing a severe and thoroughly articulate verbal reprimand for whichever stranger had decided that his personal space was apparently optional.
The reprimand died somewhere between his brain and his mouth.
Standing right beside his stool, leaning casually against the counter, was the man from the screen. The same warm, crescent-moon eyes. The same ridiculously sharp jawline. The same soft, messy dark hair that fell effortlessly around his face.
Except this time he wasn't confined to a handful of carefully chosen photographs on Dylan's phone.
He was real.
He was wearing an oversized hoodie that made his shoulders look even broader, and he smelled faintly of clean linen and cedarwood, close enough for Dylan to catch it without having to consciously breathe in. And he was looking down at Dylan with an expression of theatrical hurt, as though Dylan had personally wounded him in a way he was still deciding how to recover from.
“Jesus!” Dylan gasped, clutching his chest with both hands. “You scared the absolute life out of me!”
“What’s wrong with me?” Jun asked. The wounded look on his face only made the ridiculous question worse, especially considering he was clearly trying not to laugh.
Dylan blinked, completely thrown off balance by the sheer absurdity of the physical manifestation. “I—what? You should know what’s wrong with you!”
“I meant with my profile,” Jun clarified, pulling out the stool right beside Dylan and taking a seat with smooth, unhurried grace. He gestured toward Dylan’s phone, which was still lit up on the napkin dispenser, the next Tinder profile waiting patiently on the screen. “Why swipe left? What was the dealbreaker?”
Dylan stared at him, his mouth opening and closing like a stranded carp. He had not prepared for the man himself to appear beside him and demand an explanation.
“Uh... just because? It’s a free country? It’s a free app?”
“No, please, tell me,” Jun said, turning his entire torso toward Dylan and propping his elbow on the counter before resting his chin in his palm. Up close, the amusement in his eyes was even more obvious, although there was genuine curiosity underneath it too. “I’m being completely serious right now. I haven’t been able to land a single date that isn’t just someone wanting a quick hookup, even though my bio explicitly says I want something real. I saw you pause on my profile. You zoomed in! You read the bio! You spent at least fifteen seconds inspecting my cat! And then you swiped left with the speed of light. You must have seen something wrong. What was it? Was it Moji? Is he too fluffy? Does he look manipulative?”
Dylan looked at Jun. Then he looked down at the noodles suspended above his ramen, a few strands dangling from his chopsticks. He looked back at Jun, who was watching him with wide, hopeful eyes that reminded Dylan unpleasantly of a golden retriever waiting for someone to throw a tennis ball across the lawn.
How was Dylan supposed to explain that he was actually on Tinder to hunt down a serial-cheating douchebag named Tai on behalf of his friend, and that the only reason he'd swiped left on Jun was because Jun looked too good to be true? There was no version of that explanation that didn't make Dylan sound completely unhinged. He could already hear how ridiculous it would sound out loud, especially to a stranger he'd known for approximately three minutes.
So Dylan chose the path of least resistance.
“No reason, dude,” he said, picking up his wooden chopsticks and trying to project an aura of unbothered indifference. “Just didn't like your profile. Not my style.”
“Why, though?” Jun pressed, leaning in a fraction of an inch closer. “Was it the bio? Is amateur painter pretentious? Should I have mentioned I mostly just draw digital art?”
“I really don't have time for a peer-review session of your romantic marketability,” Dylan said hastily.
He practically inhaled the rest of his noodles in three massive, thoroughly ungraceful bites, barely giving himself time to chew before reaching for the last of his broth. He set his chopsticks down, pulled a handful of hundred-baht bills from his wallet, and dropped them onto the bill tray with considerably more force than necessary. Then he grabbed his backpack and pushed himself to his feet. “Good luck. Hope you find your soulmate.”
Jun hadn't even ordered food yet, which meant he couldn't follow immediately without looking like an absolute stalker. So he remained where he was, one hand resting against the counter as he watched Dylan hurry out of the restaurant, backpack slung over his shoulder and his escape looking suspiciously close to a getaway. An intrigued, utterly fascinated grin slowly spread across Jun's face.
Twenty minutes later, Dylan had successfully hidden himself in a semi-secluded corner of the terminal. It was an unused seating area near a closed gate, washed in soft morning light filtering through the glass. A few tall potted tropical ferns stood nearby, their broad leaves offering what Dylan considered decent tactical cover from anyone who might be looking for him.
He leaned his head back against the metal headrest and let out a shuddering sigh of relief. The chill against his skin was strangely soothing after the warmth of the ramen restaurant.
“Okay,” he muttered to himself, pulling his phone back out of his pocket. “Back to the grind. Where is this bastard Tai...”
He tapped the screen. left. Left.
Dylan was beginning to wonder if Tai had somehow managed to vanish from the entire dating population of Bangkok.
“Do you even match with anyone, or is left-swiping just a warm-up exercise for your thumb?”
Dylan shrieked and jumped half a foot out of his metal seat. “JUN!”
Jun was standing directly behind the airport bench, holding two expensive-looking cups from an artisanal coffee kiosk in his hands. He wore a dimpled smile that suggested he was far too pleased with himself for someone who had just scared another person half to death. He walked around the bench without the slightest hint of embarrassment and casually slid into the empty seat beside Dylan, extending one of the cups toward him.
“I brought peace offerings,” Jun said smoothly, holding out the cup. “Iced oat milk latte with vanilla. It’s my favourite. If you don’t like it, we can get you something else.”
Dylan took the coffee purely out of shock, staring at Jun as though he'd just watched a magician pull a rabbit out of thin air. He looked down at the cup, then back at the man sitting beside him, still trying to work out how they had gone from an accidental Tinder rejection to this. “Are you stalking me? How did you even find me? Suvarnabhumi is massive!”
“Suvarnabhumi isn't that big if you walk fast and look near potted plants,” Jun said casually, taking a sip of his own drink. He looked entirely too pleased with himself. “And you didn't answer my question. I've been watching you from behind that fern for twenty seconds. You don't even spend more than two seconds on a profile. You just swipe left, swipe left, swipe left. Is it because you're at the airport? Are you leaving the country forever and looking for a... last thing?”
Dylan squinted at him, his brows drawing together. “A last thing? What even is a ‘last thing’?”
“You know,” Jun said, raising a dark eyebrow with a playful smirk. “A last Thai hookup before you fly off into the sunset? A terminal romance?”
“No! No, Jun, I am not,” Dylan groaned, dropping his head into his free hand and rubbing his temples. “I am swiping with absolutely zero intention to match with anyone.”
Jun’s eyes lit up almost immediately, the shift so quick that Dylan regretted the clarification before he had even finished speaking. “So... I still have a chance?”
Dylan turned to look at him, genuinely baffled by his resilience. Most people would have taken the hint by now. Jun, apparently, had decided that a rejection was merely an interesting obstacle. “Are you actually this desperate? You look like you could walk into any coffee shop in Bangkok and have five people drop their phone numbers in your lap.”
“No,” Jun said softly, and for once there was no teasing edge to his voice. What had been playful a moment ago settled into something quieter and surprisingly sincere. “It’s just... you’re really, really pretty. And back at the ramen place, I saw you look at my profile for way longer than anyone else would. You zoomed in on my face. You read every word. Something right at the end made you swipe left, which means if that specific thing wasn't an issue, you might actually like me.”
The certainty with which he said it caught Dylan completely off guard. Heat gathered beneath his skin before he could stop it, an uncomfortable, fluttery warmth blooming somewhere in his chest and making its way rapidly up his neck. You're really, really pretty. Great. Just great. As if the fake perfect guy wasn't already suspicious enough, he also had a voice that sounded like molten caramel and eyes that seemed to hold Dylan's attention far too easily.
“I didn't find anything wrong with your profile, Jun,” Dylan admitted, staring down at the condensation gathering on the outside of his iced latte. The cold cup felt good against his fingers, giving him something to focus on while he tried to figure out how to explain himself without sounding completely ridiculous.
“Then why—” Jun paused, leaning back slightly before tilting his head. His expression shifted as though he'd only just realised something rather important. “Wait. What’s your name?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“Because you know my age, my job, my cat’s name, my hobbies, and my ideal coffee order, and I don't even know what to call you while I try to convince you to give me five minutes of your time.”
Dylan sighed. The logic was annoyingly airtight, and he hated that he couldn't find a reasonable argument against it. “My name is Dylan. Dylan Zhou.”
“Dylan Zhou,” Jun repeated, letting the name linger for a moment as though he were committing it to memory. A soft, almost affectionate smile touched his mouth. “Okay, Dylan. Why did you swipe left?”
“I swiped left because, one: I wasn't looking to match with anyone,” Dylan said, holding up a finger. “And two: because you are performative.”
Jun blinked, looking genuinely lost for a second. The expression on his face was so bewildered that Dylan almost felt bad for him, like he'd just accused a golden retriever of stealing the neighbour’s slipper and was now waiting for it to explain itself. “I am... what?”
“Performative.”
“What am I performing?”
“Well...” Dylan turned in his seat to face him properly, settling into the explanation now that he'd finally found the words for it. “At first, I thought your profile was a catfish account. But then you materialised in front of me at a ramen shop, so fine, you're not a catfish. But there is simply no way everything on that profile is real. Nobody is built like that.”
Jun stared at him, his eyebrows lifting as he tried to figure out whether Dylan was insulting him or complimenting him. “Built like what?”
“You're telling me you're a doctor—a paediatrician—who owns a cat, paints seascapes, likes cooking, enjoys long drives, and is looking for a serious, committed relationship?” Dylan gestured with his free hand, warming to his argument as each point came to him. “No one is that perfect! It's a trap. It's a calculated profile designed to fool soft-hearted people into thinking they've finally found a decent man, only to discover six months later that he's been lying about everything.” He shook his head, still unable to believe the profile existed in the first place. “I know enough people who've been lied to by guys who seem great on paper. You have to understand how suspicious this looks.”
Jun sat in complete silence for two seconds. Then a slow, gentle laugh rumbled in his chest, deep enough that Dylan could feel some of the tension in the moment loosen despite himself.
Without saying a word, Jun unzipped the side pocket of his leather duffel and pulled out a sleek iPad. He tapped the screen awake, swiped into his photo gallery, and held it out toward Dylan. “Exhibit A,” Jun said, pointing to a photo of himself sitting on a wooden stool in a sunlit room, oil paint smudged across his left cheek as he held a palette in front of a half-finished canvas. “Me, actually painting. Not a stock photo.”
He swiped to the next picture. “Exhibit B: Moji actively knocking my glass of water off the desk while I was trying to study for my pediatric board exams at three in the morning.”
Another swipe. “Exhibit C: My medical school graduation with my extremely proud, sobbing parents.”
Another. “Exhibit D: A horrifyingly terrible, burnt lasagna I tried to cook last week. It turned into a brick of charcoal, but I ate half of it anyway because I refuse to waste food.”
Jun finally turned the tablet back toward himself and looked at Dylan with bright, expectant eyes, looking far too pleased with the evidence he'd just assembled. “Believe me now, Dylan Zhou?”
Dylan looked through the photos again, taking in the little details he'd been so determined to prove couldn't possibly exist together in one person. Then he looked at the real, live, slightly dorky man sitting beside him, holding an iPad full of embarrassing evidence that he was, in fact, a real human being with an actual life outside of Tinder.
“Oh, wow,” Dylan muttered, a reluctant flush of embarrassment creeping in as he looked back at the screen. He'd been so convinced there had to be some catch that he'd apparently forgotten the much simpler possibility that Jun was exactly who he'd claimed to be. “You're... actually real.”
Jun's smile widened, bright and completely unguarded, looking far too pleased with himself for someone who had just spent several minutes presenting photographic evidence of his burnt cooking and cat-related crimes. “So... go on a date with me?”
“Jun, I—”
“DYLAN!”
A sharp, shrill voice cut through the quiet of the terminal gate. Dylan whipped his head around to find Baifern and Gam marching toward them with the determined expressions of two people who had just uncovered something extremely important and were in no mood to keep it to themselves. Baifern was waving her phone frantically in the air, her face caught somewhere between pure rage and absolute triumph.
“We caught him!” Baifern yelled, completely unbothered by the fact that everyone within earshot could probably hear her. “We found Tai!”
Gam stepped up beside her and held out her own phone. “He matched with my fake profile within four minutes of creation. I sent a simple ‘hello,’ and his second message was literally asking if my apartment was free tonight.”
“What an absolute monster!” Baifern cried, although the anger in her voice was now mixed with something much lighter. There was unmistakable relief beneath it. “I took screenshots of everything! I just sent them to him with a message saying, ‘We're over, lose my number,’ and blocked him on every social media platform! It's over! I am a free woman!”
“Well,” Dylan said, letting out a long breath as the last of the morning’s ridiculous investigation finally came to an end. After all the frantic swiping, fake profiles, and Baifern practically breathing down his neck, they had their answer. “Took you long enough.”
“Yes!” Baifern clapped her hands together, looking happier than anyone who had discovered their boyfriend cheating had any reasonable right to be. Apparently, the satisfaction of finally being proven right was doing a lot of heavy lifting. She beamed down at Dylan, all traces of her earlier panic replaced by giddy relief. “Now you can delete that awful Tinder app off your phone! Thank you so much for helping me out, Dylan. You’re an absolute lifesaver!”
Behind Dylan, Jun let out a soft breath.
“Oh,” Jun said quietly.
Dylan turned around to look at him.
The pieces had fallen into place in Jun’s head almost immediately. Dylan hadn't been swiping through Tinder because he was looking for a romantic partner. He hadn't even been on the app for himself. He had been trying to help a friend catch her cheating boyfriend, which suddenly explained the suspicious amount of left-swiping, the complete lack of interest in actually matching with anyone, and why Dylan had looked so unimpressed by every profile Jun had watched him pass.
Jun had spent the last forty-five minutes following him around the airport, invading his personal space at the ramen restaurant, questioning him about why he'd rejected his profile, and generally making himself a nuisance to a guy who had only been trying to do something nice for his friend. And for all Jun knew, Dylan wasn't even single. He might not even be into guys.
A painful flush of crimson spread quickly across Jun’s neck and ears. The confidence he'd carried so easily all morning seemed to disappear at once, leaving him looking painfully aware of every ridiculous thing he'd done.
“I... I am so sorry,” Jun stammered softly, stepping back from the bench. His shoulders had dropped, and the easy confidence he'd had only moments ago was replaced by the unmistakable awkwardness of someone wishing he could rewind the last forty-five minutes.
“What for?” Dylan asked, getting to his feet and reaching a hand toward him. A sharp pang of guilt caught him when he saw just how genuinely crushed Jun looked.
“For... for being so persistent,” Jun muttered, looking down at his sneakers. His face had gone even redder. “You were just looking out for your friend. And here I was hounding you, running around the terminal like a lunatic, forcing you to look at photos of my cat and my ruined lasagna... I am so, so embarrassed.”
“Hey, no, Jun, wait—” Dylan started, taking a step forward.
“Have a great flight, Dylan,” Jun said quickly, backing away with a polite smile. “It was... really nice meeting you.”
Before Dylan could say another word or reach for his sleeve, Jun turned on his heel and walked away briskly, head lowered as he disappeared into the thick crowd of morning travellers moving through the central terminal concourse.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid Jun,” Jun muttered furiously to himself as he practically speed-walked down the long hallway.
His hand tightened around the strap of his leather duffel bag until his knuckles turned white. Every few steps, another humiliating moment from the last hour seemed to replay itself in his head, each one somehow worse now that he had the full picture. “What were you thinking, huh? Following a complete stranger around an international airport? Forcing him to inspect your iPad like a slideshow presentation? You looked so desperate! He’s probably laughing about you with his friends right now. ‘Hey guys, look at this loser who chased me down for an iced latte.’”
He winced at the imagined conversation and walked even faster. “This is why you don't get matches. You come off like a clingy golden retriever. You’re going to die alone in a house full of cats.”
The thought was especially insulting considering that Moji would probably approve.
Overhead, the chime of the airport public-address system rang out, clear and melodic against the steady noise of the terminal. “Boarding call for flight LX 181 to Zurich, with continuing service to Basel. All ticketed passengers, please proceed to Gate E4 immediately.”
Jun slowed to a stop.
For a moment, he simply stood there, staring ahead as the announcement settled over him. Then he let out a long sigh and reached into his jacket pocket for his passport and boarding pass. He looked down at them, the destination printed clearly across the paper, and felt the absurdity of the whole morning settle in all over again.
His solo vacation to Switzerland had been booked three months ago, back when he'd decided he desperately needed a break. Two weeks to sleep properly, see somewhere new, eat good food, and spend some time doing absolutely nothing related to medicine.
Solo, because apparently being a hopelessly, pathetically single man had finally caught up with him.
And now, before he'd even boarded the plane, he'd already managed to embarrass himself in front of the first man he'd found genuinely attractive in months. Wonderful start.
He made his way toward the gate, dragging his feet as though each step required more effort than the last, and pulled out his phone to switch it to Airplane Mode. He was still trying to shake off the embarrassment when the phone buzzed in his hand.
A notification banner appeared at the top of the screen.
Instagram
@dylan.zhou requested to follow you.
Jun stopped dead in front of the gate agent.
For a second, he simply stared at the notification, his brain refusing to catch up with what his eyes were seeing. Then his heart gave one violent backflip against his ribs. He opened the notification, accepted the request almost immediately, and barely had time to register that he was now following Dylan back before his direct messages lit up with a new message.
@dylan.zhou: Thank God. I thought I was going to have to buy Tinder Gold just to use the Rewind feature to find you again.
Jun stared at the message, the corners of his mouth already starting to lift.
Another message appeared almost immediately.
@dylan.zhou: Anyway, Dr Tangsakultham... I get back to Bangkok on the 20th. Is that date still on the cards?
Jun stood in the middle of the boarding line, staring at the glowing screen. He read the message once, then twice, then a third time just to make sure his brain wasn't playing some elaborate trick on him.
A slow grin spread across his face, growing wider until his dimples appeared in full force. The embarrassment from the last hour seemed to evaporate all at once, replaced by a giddy disbelief he hadn't felt in a very long time.
HELL YEAH. HE WAS NOT GOING TO DIE ALONE.
Ten minutes later, Jun was stowing his leather duffel bag in the overhead bin of the aircraft. He had treated himself to a Premium Economy seat for the long-haul flight, he had earned the extra legroom, wider seat, and slightly quieter cabin. He made sure the bag was secure before pulling the compartment shut and settling into his row, checking the seat number on his boarding stub one more time.
22K. Window seat.
He gave the flight attendant handing out hot towels a polite little nod, still humming a cheerful tune under his breath as he turned toward the aisle seat beside him.
Then he stopped.
Sitting there, already comfortably settled with a pair of noise-cancelling headphones resting around his neck and a cup of airport water in his hand, was a man with a very pretty face.
Dylan looked up from his magazine.
Jun froze, one hand still suspended over the leather seat cushion. After everything that had happened that morning, the sight of Dylan sitting there felt almost too perfectly ridiculous to be real.
“Oh.”
Dylan's mouth curved into a smile as he leaned back against his headrest, tilting his head with an insufferably charming ease. “You're my seatmate?”
“Looks like it,” Jun said, a breathless chuckle escaping him as he lowered himself into the soft leather seat beside Dylan.
“So,” Dylan said, turning toward Jun. There was a familiar glint of playful mischief in his eyes, one Jun was beginning to suspect he was going to have a difficult time resisting. “What do you say we get to know each other outside of dating apps? Like real loverboys should.”