When That Word Popped Up on His Phone, We Talked It Out Before It Turned Into a Fight

On a Friday night at the laundromat, the dryer was still counting down when Xiaomin handed her phone to Akai, saying she wanted to check whether the breakfast place would be closed tomorrow. Akai unlocked it and casually swiped over to the browser. The search history sitting right below the search bar was suddenly out in the open between them, and one line read 必利吉. Xiaomin said nothing. She looked back at the glass door of the dryer and watched the T-shirts tumble around and around. Akai took the phone back, his fingertip paused for a second, and he didn't explain either. The two of them just sat there until the machine buzzed.

On the way home, what kept turning over in Xiaomin's mind wasn't those three words themselves, but "why didn't he ask me." She remembered that a while back, Akai's coworker had forwarded a bunch of capsule ads in the group chat claiming to boost energy, and Akai had laughed then, saying those one-page websites looked sketchy. She had wanted to ask him directly, but the words died on her lips, afraid that the moment she opened her mouth it would turn into an interrogation. Akai wasn't having an easy time either. He had actually been looking something up for an old classmate. The guy had dropped a link in the group chat and asked whether this kind of thing even counted as medicine. Akai did a quick search, then forgot to close the tab.

The next morning, Xiaomin did something very concrete. She didn't dredge up old grievances. Instead, she set two cups of soy milk on the table, took out her phone, opened her own search history, and laid it out for Akai to see. On it were searches from a few days earlier: "what happens if you take too many health supplements," "what to watch out for when taking zinc and copper together," and a few news headlines about labeling regulations. She said, "I'll go first, then you go. That's fairer." Akai was caught off guard for a moment, then laughed and said that was a sneaky move, but he also genuinely felt relieved.

Akai explained that the line was something he had looked up for his classmate. The guy had been pitched to in the group chat with all kinds of over-the-top claims, plus a link to a very bare-bones shopping page. Akai said he had just felt something was off and wanted to confirm whether this kind of thing could even be bought and sold freely in Taiwan, and whether it required a prescription. Xiaomin didn't immediately believe him. She asked three questions: Did your classmate end up buying it? Did that page have a customer service number? Did you ever think about taking it yourself? Akai answered one by one. On the third question, he paused, then said, "Honestly, when I was searching, a thought did flash through my mind—maybe I should look into it. But once I saw that one-page ad, I lost interest."

Xiaomin nodded and said what worried her wasn't what he searched, but that when something like this came up, their first instinct was to keep it to themselves. She suggested treating this as a homework assignment: next time, no matter who sees something that sounds too good to be true, they should first drop it into their shared notes app, write down the source, what the packaging says, and whether anyone recommended it, then decide together whether to look into it further. Akai said it sounded like writing a report, but he agreed, because he didn't want a second time of sitting in the laundromat pretending everything was fine while staring at the dryer.

That weekend, they really did sit down and do the homework. Xiaomin took charge of the regulatory side and found that health supplement labeling and claims have clear boundaries—you can't just claim therapeutic effects. Akai took charge of organizing the information from his classmate and realized the guy couldn't even tell whether the product was food or medicine; all he remembered was the seller saying "you'll feel it fast." The two of them laid the materials side by side on the table. They didn't reach any earth-shattering conclusion, but at least they knew one thing: a page of unknown origin plus high-pressure sales tactics is itself a signal to stop.

Akai later called his classmate. He didn't lecture him, just asked one question: "Did you ask a pharmacist before buying?" The classmate said no, and then asked if Akai was being too nervous. Akai sent him the checklist the two of them had put together, which said: first confirm whether it's food or medicine, read the packaging labels carefully, and if you have doubts, bring what you're currently taking to ask a professional. The classmate went quiet for a few seconds, then said he wouldn't place the order for now. After the call, Akai turned to Xiaomin and said it turned out that talking things through was simpler than he'd imagined—the hard part was being willing to speak up first.

The dryer at the laundromat buzzed many more times after that. Xiaomin still occasionally caught a glimpse of Akai's search history, but now she just asks directly: "What are you looking up this time?" Akai answers honestly too—sometimes it's work, sometimes it's another weird link his classmate sent. They didn't become experts because of this. They just turned a night that could have become a cold war into a checklist stuck on the fridge. The last line on the checklist is in Xiaomin's handwriting: When in doubt, look it up together. Then decide whether to believe it.