Chat group, become my wings!

"Hey, Kevin!"

Kevin Cross opened the door to find a blonde foreign beauty, Gwen, standing there with a bright smile.

"You again?" Kevin said casually, with a tone that almost sounded like he was annoyed.

But Gwen didn't take offense. Why? Because this wasn't her first visit, and by now, she had figured out that Kevin simply wasn't good at talking to girls. Or more accurately, he didn't know how to talk like other people.

Kevin had a habit of speaking bluntly, often to the point of sounding rude. But once you got to know him, it became clear he rarely meant anything deeper than what he said. It was just his way.

So when he said "You again," it might've sounded like he was tired of her, but really, it was just a plain statement of fact. Nothing more.

"I actually came by yesterday, but you weren't home. Were you out having fun? I waited for a while and even tried calling, but your phone said you were out of service." Gwen smiled as she asked.

"Yesterday? Yeah, I wasn't home. I went to see my girlfriend," Kevin answered without even the slightest attempt to hide it.

"Your girlfriend again? Where exactly is this mysterious girlfriend? Can't you introduce her to me already?" Gwen rolled her eyes. Kevin had used the "girlfriend" excuse more than once he even claimed to have multiple girlfriends but Gwen had never seen a single trace of a woman in his apartment. No clothes, no stray hairs, no toiletries nothing.

Under normal circumstances, if a guy had a girlfriend and lived alone, she'd definitely be around from time to time. Maybe even stay over. But Kevin's place didn't show even a hint that another woman had ever been there. Gwen was growing skeptical.

"My girlfriend isn't from this world," Kevin said nonchalantly.

Gwen rolled her eyes again. Not from this world? What, was she dead? Because a dead girlfriend wouldn't be much competition.

As for Kevin's frequent disappearances and the whole "visiting his girlfriend" thing, Gwen had started to imagine that maybe he was visiting a grave. Maybe it was something sacred to him, and that's why he didn't want anyone disturbing him hence the turned-off phone.

The more she filled in the blanks, the more she found herself moved by Kevin's loyalty. A man who never forgot a lost love, still visiting her grave after who-knows-how-long? That was rare.

"Kevin, your place is really clean. It doesn't feel like a guy's apartment at all. You know, my brother's room is always a disaster, even though my mom cleans it all the time. But your place? Neat and spotless." Gwen stepped in like she owned the place, casually picking up some trash from the table. Looking around at the tidy floor and clean surfaces, she couldn't help but comment.

"I recommend a robot vacuum. It's a little dumb sometimes, but it keeps the place decent day to day." Kevin pointed to the round machine resting quietly in a corner.

As a homebody, Kevin rarely left things lying around, and with the vacuum robot on duty, the place practically cleaned itself.

Gwen looked at the vacuum and didn't know whether to laugh or groan. She had been complimenting him, and he just passed all the credit to that hunk of plastic and sensors.

But that was Kevin, the Kevin she'd come to know.

Looking at his handsome face, Gwen thought back to the first time she'd seen him at school. She still remembered the moment Kevin had completely taken her breath away. At the time, she could've sworn she had never seen a guy so ridiculously good-looking.

Kevin was Asian, which meant, under normal assumptions about cultural beauty standards and preferences, he shouldn't have fit her ideal "type." But even considering differences in background and aesthetics, she still thought he was hotter than any Hollywood heartthrob miles ahead of someone like Leonardo DiCaprio.

Sure, maybe it sounded superficial, but Gwen couldn't help it. His looks had drawn her in at first. And then, well, the attraction only grew.

She hadn't expected him to drop out of school, though. After something happened in his family, Kevin had applied for withdrawal. Gwen had assumed that would be the end of their contact.

But strangely enough, the opposite happened. Ever since Kevin stopped going to school, their relationship had actually gotten closer.

Why? Mostly because Gwen kept finding excuses to come to his place. She'd help clean a little, occasionally cook something for him it was all her initiative. Before long, they went from casual acquaintances to what could generously be called "pretty good friends."

But that wasn't enough. Not for Gwen. She wanted something more.

Because of Kevin, Gwen had actually gone out of her way to research Chinese culture and discovered that Chinese men were typically more reserved, often slow to warm up to people emotionally, and tended to be passive in relationships.

So, Gwen figured she needed to take the lead. But she was also afraid of coming on too strong and scaring Kevin off or making him think she was "easy." So she had to move slowly.

Which was how things had landed here still in the "pretty good friends" zone.

What Gwen didn't know was that her cultural research didn't really apply to Kevin.

Kevin Cross was the kind of guy who responded best to being straightforward. If Gwen had just told him she wanted to sleep with him from the start, it might've already happened. Instead, all this hesitation had just dragged things out.

Of course, there was another reason too Kevin already had a harem chat group. And through that group, he'd gained multiple girlfriends. Three of them, in fact, were already in pretty deep relationships with him.

So Kevin wasn't in a hurry. He wasn't desperate. That's why he was content to keep things with Gwen at a casual level.

"I learned a new recipe from my mom yesterday," Gwen said with a smile. "Lemon sea bass. It turned out really well. I'll make it for you today."

As for why she was offering to cook? It was thanks to a phrase she'd picked up from Chinese culture: "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach."