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“So?”
“So what?” Hua Cheng counters, and he refuses to look up from the project he’s working on, a mess of clashingly-colored threads knotted together in increasingly complex, symmetrical patterns. It doesn’t make any sense, but it’s not for anyone in particular, so it doesn’t have to. Besides, he might still be able to wrangle it into a scarf.
“Who was your first?”
Hua Cheng is already long exhausted by this conversation he’s being subjected to. He won’t let Pei Ming get what he wants, though, so he feigns innocence. “First what?”
Pei Mint chuckles. It’s one of those terrible, overconfident chuckles of his, like he’s just discovered that he has the opportunity to flaunt his evident superiority and extensive worldly knowledge to someone who clearly desperately needs it.
Hua Cheng suspects women get it a lot.
“Oh, you know! First love. First spark! First kiss, and what I’m assuming quickly followed after,” Pei Ming says, voice lilting, and at the last part he kneels down to lean onto the table Hua Cheng is currently stationed at and to prop one hand on the surface, the other hand held at his hip.
Hua Cheng bites back a sigh as he sets down his mess of a project and finally, sadly, looks Pei Ming in the eye. The guy has one brow cocked up in a way that makes it hard to bat down Hua Cheng’s impulse to send him flying out of the Heaven’s gates and down to the ground far below.
“I don’t know what you mean, general. Could you explain?”
Pei Ming grins, and Hua Cheng feels twenty years slip away right then and there.
“First... you know.” Pei Ming says way louder than necessary, as if Hua Cheng will be compelled to play along by the sheer force of his enthusiasm. Hua Cheng makes a bewildered expression, one that he hopes is artificial enough that it unnerves Pei Ming. But it doesn’t, because Pei Ming just rolls his eyes, stretches his smile even wider, and leans further over the table.
“First—” Pei Ming begins, and then brings out his hands in front of him and starts—oh, gods.
Hua Cheng wish he didn’t have his eye. Pei Ming starts gesturing in a way that couldn’t more clearly indicate that he’s talking about… what Hua Cheng knows he’s talking about. But, for the sake of keeping up the act, Hua Cheng just continues to look confused. He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, what does that mean?”
Pei Ming sighs, and puts away his terrible, terrible hands. “Sex.”
“Ooooh,” Hua Cheng says, eye widening, one hand going to cover his mouth. “That’s what that means?”
“God, you have a lot to learn. So? Who was it? What was she like?”
Hua Cheng’s eye twitches. “I wouldn’t… do that with a maiden.”
Pei Ming blinks. Blinks again. Hua Cheng weighs whether getting up and leaving right now would make this situation exponentially worse or better. Just as he sits up, resolved to make a run for it, Pei Ming reaches forward awkwardly and claps a hand on his shoulder.
“That’s fantastic for you! Whether it’s a man and a woman, two women, or two men, love is love. I see no difference.”
Hua Cheng stares off into the distance. Are you seeing this? his face says to the audience. Except that there is no audience. He is alone. With Pei Ming. And his failed attempt at a sweater, abandoned on the table.
“So,” Pei Ming continues, determined to prolong this conversation way after its natural lifespan. “The gentleman?”
Hua Cheng lets out a dramatic, sad sigh. “Well.... you see, the thing is...”
He waits until Pei Ming almost looks irritated by his pause, because he really truly does want to irritate Pei Ming as much as possible, then finally speaks, laying it on thick: “I never did get to fall in love, before I died. I died too young. I never met my special someone.”
Pei Ming gasps. He genuinely looks taken aback. “You’re a virgin?”
Dear gods, Hua Cheng wants to strangle this man to death. “I.... I am. I’m a virgin,” Hua Cheng says and covers his mouth with a fist, letting out a small sob. He shuts his eyes and turns away in shame.
“Oh, you poor fool,” Pei Ming says with much more tenderness and concern than Hua Cheng has ever heard in his voice—ever. “I didn’t even realize that was possible. So you’ve never—have you at least kissed someone?”
“No,” Hua Cheng replies with a dramatic sigh. He ducks his head in shame.
Pei Ming reaches over to pat his shoulder. “Heavens we’re in, you’d lived no life before you died.”
Hua Cheng shakes his head, and then attempts to look as dejected as possible when he’s filled with nothing but pure spite and rage. “No. I’m a god, but I could barely consider myself living when I was alive.”
Pei Ming nods solemnly, as if anything Hua Cheng said makes sense. “No, you cannot, my skinny friend.”
Hua Cheng, because he wants Pei Ming to fuck off more than he feels like pretending like he still has dignity, suddenly reaches out to take Pei Ming’s hands, which lay atop the table. “But things are different now, you see. Before, I knew nobody worth my time. Before, I barely knew anybody as a person. But you—you’re the first person I’ve met who I’ve truly known, General Pei. You’re the—”
“Ah, alright, I’ll have sex with you,” Pei Ming interrupts, so casually that Hua Cheng doesn’t actually comprehend what he says at first. He doesn’t register what he’s just been told until a few seconds pass.
“You’ll have sex with me?” Hua Cheng repeats, frowning, because—oh gods. Oh fucking hell. That was opposite to the response he’d intended.
“That is what I just said, yes,” Pei Ming says. He doesn’t seem embarrassed, or excited, or frustrated, or bored. He just looks like he always does. That is to say, stupid. And beefy, now that Hua Cheng is thinking about it.
“Oh. Well.” Hua Cheng continues running his mouth, because his mind is still reeling and he doesn’t know what the fuck else to do. “You should know that I won’t be very good. I’ve had zero experience.”
“Duh,” Pei Ming says, and then takes his hands out from under Hua Cheng’s in order to pat Hua Cheng’s own amicably. “Well! Let’s get going, then!”
Hua Cheng kind of wants to die a second time. Like, real badly, actually.
“Have you done it with another man before?” Hua Cheng rushes out, his hands reaching for Pei Ming’s once more.
“Nah. But whatever, it’s just the same thing with a different hole, right? Like...” Pei Ming accompanies this with another obscene gesture.
Hua Cheng makes an embarrassing choking noise, the likes of which he hopes never to repeat, particularly in this man’s presence.
Pei Ming wiggles his eyebrows. “Or holes.”
Hua Cheng’s face is probably red enough to match his robes.
Pei Ming snickers, then reaches forward and cups Hua Cheng’s face with both hands. “Come on, come on, let’s get on with it.” He leans in close enough for Hua Cheng to feel the general’s warm breath tingling on his lips, then raises an eyebrow.
A question.
Hua Cheng looks up into Pei Ming’s eyes, black and warm and shining.
“Keep going,” Hua Cheng answers.
And so they ██████.
For like, hours. In lots of positions. Pei Ming is surprisingly good at it, too, the proof of which lies in the fact that Hua Cheng spends only about a third of the time thinking about how much better this would be with Xie Lian.
Maybe next time, if he’s lucky.
(Gemini sun, please pull through.)
FIN.