◎ Prescription: A daily dose of abs, three times a day. A full recovery in one week. ◎

Suit yourself.

Suit yourself?

Was the emphasis on “suit” or on “yourself”?

Was it a helpless surrender or just a casual, noncommittal response?

I stared at those two words for a long time, flipping them over in my mind, until I realized I was overanalyzing again.

In the end, the outcome was the same.

From that day on, my private chats with X became more frequent. No matter what I sent, he would always reply. Every time I posted a note, he would like it without fail.

Some curious netizens even wandered over from his profile to mine, leaving comments on my posts:

“As expected from the No Name Teacher.”

Compared to X’s comprehensive fitness notes, which focus on both exercise and diet, mine seem rather lacking. I’ve set myself up as an “amateur healthy meal enthusiast.”

But it’s not entirely a facade. At the very least, my daily meal deliveries have become a spectacle for my colleagues, who jokingly accuse me of “betraying the organization.”

There are many restaurants on food delivery platforms that specialize in light meals. I can see the effort they put into making bland and tasteless healthy meals more palatable, yet I still find them as dull as chewing wax.

One night before bed, while drying my hair after a shower, I seized the moment to chat briefly with X. Unable to endure it any longer, I complained about the torment my taste buds had suffered these past few days.

“Teacher X, you know what? My admiration for you has reached its peak today. How have you managed to eat these bland, bird-food-like meals for ten years straight?”

X: Make good use of seasoning.”

I ran my fingers through my hair and casually replied, “Heavy flavors? Isn’t that a bit contradictory to the whole idea of healthy meals?”

X: “Please don’t talk about toxicity without considering dosage, Seagull.”

His offhand joke made me smile. “Like what kind of seasonings?”

X: “What food do you dislike the most?”

I frowned at my screen, my fingers weakly typing: “Boiled eggs.”

I acknowledge that eggs are an excellent ingredient, but my aversion is solely toward plain boiled eggs. I can never shake off that lingering eggy smell.

X: “Can you handle spicy food?”

“Absolutely! The spicier, the better!”

Even though it was just a casual topic, I responded with a small sense of pride.

X: “There are two types of chili seasonings that go well with boiled eggs.”

I was puzzled. “Chili? Sauce? Powder?”

X: “Both.”

“Really?”

Boiled eggs with chili?

I tried to picture it, but from what I knew about food pairings, it seemed a little odd.

X: “Sounds weird, doesn’t it?”

A moment later, he sent me two product screenshots along with a long message.

“If you’re okay with it, give me a secure public address, and I’ll place an order online. The flagship store will ship it directly, and it won’t go through me. If that’s inconvenient, no worries—these are the two types I mentioned. You can try them if you’re interested.”

The sudden directness caught me off guard.

I wasn’t expecting the conversation to take this turn. Following my principle of asking when in doubt, I replied honestly: “Teacher X, why are you…?”

X: “Why am I what?”

I hesitated for a moment before wording it more tactfully. “Why are you not following the usual script?”

“What’s the usual script?”

He countered with a question of his own.

I paused, set down my hairdryer, held my phone with both hands, and started taking the conversation seriously. At the same time, I deliberately reversed the power dynamic in terms of security.

“We’re just online strangers connected by a single thread. Aren’t you afraid I might scam you?”

X sent over a long screenshot—it was his private message inbox. He had blurred out the usernames, only showing me a glimpse of just how crowded his messages were. As expected, many enthusiastic women had sent the same joke I had: “Hi, are you there? Look at the abs.”

I didn’t examine it closely, just skimmed over it. But as I scrolled, I suddenly froze.

All the messages were marked as unread—except for mine.

At that moment, X sent another message. His tone was firm, emphasizing and making it clear:

“I only replied to you.”

I was completely stunned. My first reaction was to quickly check my own profile.

It was a nameless account. I used to have a default system avatar, but I had recently changed it to a seagull snatching fries at a dock. My posts were all photos of healthy meals that I had painstakingly arranged. The composition was decent, and the filters were well-chosen, but no matter how much I carved vegetables into fancy shapes, there was no denying that my account was utterly unremarkable.

X’s claim that he only responded to me was impossible to verify. But for now, I decided to take his word for it.

Still confused, I returned to our chat and asked, “Huh? Why?”

Almost instantly, X replied:

“You’re asking why, but I don’t really know either. When I saw your message, I just replied without thinking much about it. It’s like I asked you before—there are so many fitness influencers posting their photos, but why do you specifically follow mine? Connections are always made at a specific moment. If you hadn’t visited my profile, if I hadn’t seen your message, we might have missed each other. But hypothetical scenarios don’t matter. What matters is that the person I responded to happened to be you.”

A long paragraph landed in our chat, and suddenly, I realized that X had subtly shifted from defense to offense.

Wait a second—why does this story suddenly feel like it’s turning into a pure romance?

No.

This wasn’t what I intended. I just wanted a little harmless eye candy to relieve stress.

My internal alarm bells rang loudly. Forget taking things into real life—I wasn’t even comfortable forming a deep, long-term online connection. It felt like too much of a burden.

Panicking slightly, I switched to nonsense mode.

“Hey, do you believe in the multiverse? What if, in another timeline, I was drooling over some other handsome guy’s profile while you were chatting deeply with another girl?”

The beauty of adult communication lies in understanding unspoken words. I was sure X caught my subtle hint to create some distance.

For a moment, the chat was silent. Then, X replied, “That’s possible.”

For once, I didn’t know how to follow up. I curled my fingers slightly, hesitating before resorting to a move I usually despised—ghosting.

“It’s too late now. If I stay up any longer, I won’t wake up in time for work tomorrow. Goodnight, Teacher X.”

X: “Goodnight.”

I locked my screen, and the light went out, leaving the phone in darkness.

Looking up, I saw my own slightly dazed expression in the mirror.

Step by step, I slowly swayed back to bed. My heart was a mess of emotions, compelling me to unlock my phone again and sneak a peek at X’s profile.

After observing for a while, I became convinced that all these complicated feelings were just hormones acting up and that the real culprit was the photos. Look at all these muscles—chest muscles, deltoids—both imposing and restrained. Whether in control or being controlled, they were the perfect material. Seriously, what woman could possibly resist this intoxicating temptation?

I sighed, accepting my fate with a hint of resignation. Then, I tapped into my chat with X and reread his lengthy, thoughtful messages. My gaze moved downward to the abrupt shift in his tone—short and distant:

X: Maybe.

X: Good night.

I let out a small sigh at how measured and appropriate X was.

I wouldn’t call it disappointment exactly. I didn’t regret setting clear boundaries early on. What left me feeling a little deflated was how far he had retreated—so much so that he had stepped out of the space where I had hoped he would stay.

It was just a fleeting impulse. Without overthinking it, I carefully typed out a message:

“Teacher X, are you still awake?”

By the time I sent it, I had already made up my mind—if he remained distant, I’d take the hint and retreat. There were plenty of abs on the internet. If one didn’t work out, I’d just move on. My main priority was to avoid unnecessary emotional exhaustion.

I really was a cold and ruthless woman. The moment I hit send, I was already trying to recall the name of the fitness influencer my trainer had recommended, planning to look him up later.

But X didn’t give me the chance. He didn’t reply instantly, but his response came quickly enough:

“I checked just now. You already said good night.”

I pursed my lips and tried to cover it up:

“That was just my social good night.”

I figured X would understand, but he didn’t call me out on it. Maybe he didn’t want to scare me away again. Instead, he simply followed my lead and asked:

“And this one?”

I pulled the conversation back into my comfort zone:

“This is the late-night talk show for grown-ups.”

X played along appropriately:

“Am I the listener or the host?”

I pretended to be a radio host answering a caller:

“Hello, caller ‘Seagull at the Dock,’ your call has been connected. I’m your guest host for the night—French Fry.”

Jokes create the perfect wrapper for the truth, allowing honesty to slip through undetected.

Feeling a little nervous, I even cleared my throat in real life, even though it made no difference to the text.

I typed quickly and sent my message in a few taps:

“Hello, host. I have a question. My real-life job is exhausting, and flirting with handsome strangers online is my only source of fun in this dull existence. Considering how many times I’ve called X male ‘Bodhisattva,’ could you convince him not to take away my one insignificant hobby?”

Screw it. I might as well play the victim first.

X: “Doesn’t seem like there’s anything in it for me.”

I shamelessly insisted:

“Of course there is! You’d get a 360-degree, no-dead-angle praise machine.”

X: “That’s not what I had in mind.”

Sensing that he was about to steer the conversation toward something more serious and pure-hearted, I quickly dodged:

“Teacher X, I’m in pain.”

“Where does it hurt?”

He asked immediately, sounding almost concerned.

Real or not, his response made me feel a little giddy. Smiling, I typed:

“Work. It hurts so much it’s killing me.”

Before X could reply, I seized the moment and went in for the win:

“I even went to the doctor. The prescription? A daily dose of abs, three times a day. One week, and I’ll be cured.”

X: “……”