lillupon

Chi Cheng blinked at him, wondering distantly if something was wrong. Suo Wei looked odd. His hands were clenched at his sides, knuckles white. His jaw was set in that way it got when he was forcing himself through something difficult, like the time he'd given that presentation with food poisoning, or when his mom had been in the hospital and he'd insisted on going to their exam anyway.

"What's wrong?" Chi Cheng asked, sleep falling away.

Suo Wei's throat worked. His eyes were fixed somewhere near Chi Cheng's collarbone, refusing to meet his gaze. When he spoke, his voice shook despite the obvious effort to steady it.

"I love you."

Chi Cheng stared at him. The words hung in the narrow hallway between them, incomprehensible at first, like hearing a familiar phrase in the wrong language.

"I love you," Suo Wei repeated, quieter now. His breathing was uneven. "I'm—I'm sorry, I just needed to tell you. You don't have to say anything, you don't have to—I know you don't feel the same way, I just—"

He was trembling. Actually trembling. Chi Cheng had known Suo Wei for eighteen years—had seen him break his arm falling out of a tree without crying, had watched him stand up to bullies twice his size—and he had never seen him look this terrified.

"Wei-ge," Chi Cheng said softly, but he didn't know what came after that. His mind was still catching up, still processing. Love. Not friendship-love. Real love. The kind that made Suo Wei's voice crack and his hands shake.

The kind that changed everything.

Option B

Chi Cheng woke to the dull gray of early morning and the insistent pressure of a full bladder.

He groaned softly, dragged an arm over his face, and lay there for a few seconds trying to convince his body to go back to sleep. No luck. The pressure only got worse.

“Ugh…”

He rolled out of bed, hair sticking up in several directions, and shuffled toward the hallway in a pair of loose sweatpants. The apartment was quiet. Too quiet for Suo Wei to be awake, which meant Chi Cheng could pee in peace without having to listen to him ramble about some random video he’d watched at three in the morning.

Half-asleep, he pushed the bathroom door open—

—and immediately collided with a solid body.

“Oof—”

“Ah—!”

Chi Cheng blinked blearily as Suo Wei stumbled back a step, grabbing the doorframe to steady himself. Suo Wei was fully dressed—jeans, hoodie, sneakers tied. His backpack was slung over one shoulder like he was about to leave.

At… six in the morning?

Chi Cheng frowned. “Why are you—”

“I love you.”

The words dropped into the quiet hallway like a brick.

Chi Cheng blinked again, slower this time.

“…What?”

Suo Wei looked like he’d just jumped off a cliff and realized halfway down that he couldn’t fly.

His shoulders were stiff, his hands clenched tight around the strap of his backpack. He wasn’t looking at Chi Cheng—he was staring somewhere near Chi Cheng’s collarbone, breathing like he’d just run up five flights of stairs.

“I—” Suo Wei’s voice cracked. He swallowed and tried again. “I love you.”

There was a faint tremor in his voice. Not dramatic. Not loud. But unmistakable.

Chi Cheng stared at him.

It took a second for the words to actually process.

Then another second for the meaning to catch up.

“…You mean like—”

“I know.” Suo Wei rushed the words out immediately, like he was trying to outrun them. His fingers tightened on the backpack strap. “I know you don’t. I know. I just—”

He finally looked up.

His eyes were bright with something that looked a lot like pure, unfiltered terror.

“I just needed you to know.”

For a moment, neither of them moved.

Option C

It came out of nowhere as Chi Cheng, eyes still bleary with sleep, lumbered down the hallway to the toilet to take a piss:

“I love you.”

Startled by the way Suo Wei had accosted him, Chi Cheng said intelligently, “Uhhh… Okay. I love you too?” After a beat, he asked, “You’re not dying, are you?” 

Suo Wei had never, ever been the type to say I love you to his friends. At least, not to Chi Cheng. Chi Cheng cast his mind back weeks, months—even years—trying to recall a moment when Suo Wei said I love you to him, and came up with nothing. So the only reasonable conclusion he could arrive at was that either he was dying and didn’t know it, or Suo Wei was. Or maybe this was some sort of prank. 

But this was no joke, and the way Suo Wei was looking at him should have tipped him off. Suo Wei stood with his shoulders squared, chin jutted up in challenge, fists clenched so tightly at his sides that his arms shook with the tension. Suo Wei had sweet boyish features, with round eyes and soft cheeks, but right now, his dark eyes gleamed with intensity. A flush rode high on his cheeks. His jaw was set with determination, the muscle there ticking. Chi Cheng had never seen his best friend like this: face so sharp and hard that he looked carved from marble. Jesus, Suo Wei looked ready for a fight, like he was two seconds away from busting Chi Cheng’s nose.

“I love you as in: I’m in love with you,” Suo Wei said. His voice trembled. “As in romantic, sexual love.”

Chi Cheng blinked. The sleep-rusty gears in his brain creaked painfully as they turned, one slow click at a time. 

Suo Wei continued, “I’ve loved you since we were in middle school, and I thought my feelings would go away, but they haven’t. It’s gotten worse since we started rooming together, and I can’t ignore it anymore. So, this is me confessing to you.” 

Chi Cheng’s mind had abandoned him. Not a single thought clanked around in his skull. He could only stare at Suo Wei—who was looking at him expectantly, awaiting his response—and think, Huh???

Option D

The 6:00 AM sun filtered through the dusty blinds of their shared apartment, hitting Chi Cheng square in the eye. He groaned, the sound muffled by a pillow that smelled faintly of Suo Wei’s laundry detergent. His bladder was making a more compelling argument for consciousness than his brain was, so he dragged himself upright.

Chi Cheng stumbled down the hallway, his gait a heavy, uncoordinated trudge. He was still half-ensnared in a dream about a giant sandwich, his hair standing up in a static-charged crown. He didn't even notice the light was already on in the bathroom until he was nearly at the threshold.

Suo Wei was standing by the sink, a toothbrush in hand, but he wasn’t brushing. He was staring at his own reflection with the intensity of a man facing a firing squad.

"Move it, Wei-wei," Chi Cheng mumbled, eyes barely slit-open. He reached out to shove his friend aside so he could reach the toilet, his touch casual and entirely platonic—the way it had been for fifteen years.

Suo Wei didn't move. He felt rigid, like a statue.

"I love you."

The words were quiet, but they hit the tile floor and shattered the morning silence. Chi Cheng froze, his hand still resting on Suo Wei’s shoulder. The fog of sleep didn't lift so much as it was scorched away.

"What?" Chi Cheng blinked, finally looking at his best friend.

Suo Wei looked sick. His knuckles were white where they gripped the porcelain, and his chest was heaving in shallow, jagged hitches. He wasn't looking at Chi Cheng; he was looking at a spot on the wall as if expecting it to swallow him whole. His bottom lip trembled—a tiny, betraying twitch that made Chi Cheng’s heart skip a beat out of pure confusion.

"I’ve loved you since we were ten," Suo Wei choked out, the terror in his voice so thick it was almost tactile. "I can't... I can't keep it in the room anymore. It’s too crowded."

Chi Cheng stood there, hand hovering in mid-air, the mundane urge to pee suddenly the furthest thing from his mind. He looked at Suo Wei—really looked at him—and realized he had no idea what to do with his hands.

Update: March 15, 2026

Results from Twitter poll:

So the vast majority of respondents mistook AI-generated writing for human writing! These results are both terrifying and fascinating, and prompted many thoughts from me, which I will definitely be posting about later.

I pasted these same scenes into gptzero.me (not to be mistaken with zerogpt.com) and found that it accurately clocked AI-generated writing. There seems to be a lot of skepticism surrounding AI detectors (which is fair—no AI detector claims to be 100% accurate, anyway), so I plan to play around with them a bit more to see which ones are most (in)accurate and easiest to fool.

So option c was HUMAN and written by me! It's actually a fic I wrote back in 2019, with the names changed and edited to suit my current writing and fandom of interest.

Link to the fic: Give Me A Chance To Be Yours

Update: March 25, 2026

So I did actually end up testing GPTZero a bit more, along with other AI detectors. In my own testing, I found GPTZero and Pangram to be very effective at clocking raw, unedited AI generated creative writing (keyword being creative).

You can see some of tests I ran on this Twitter thread. I plan to write more about AI detectors and how humans can identify AI writing later, but for now, I encourage folks to run their own tests with GPTZero and Pangram. Try running writing through it where AI generation or AI assist was disclosed. Test your own human works, if you feel comfortable. Or even test mine! I tested probably a couple dozen AI generated creative writing pieces, and GPTZero and Pangram correctly flagged them as AI every single time. What I'd like to know is if anyone was able to find an AI fic or generate a piece of writing that GPTZero and Pangram failed to detect, or if they declared false positives.

It could escalate to mutual masturbation or sex. Afterwards, I see two possibilities:

After sleeping together, Chi Cheng shuts down hard. Says, “We shouldn’t have done that.” Tells Suo Wei that it was a mistake, and it can’t happen again. Suo Wei would feel used, humiliated, and discarded, and in the end, I couldn’t bear to put him through that. That’s irreparable damage to me. I wouldn’t know how to write chengwei out of that hole lol.

Sleeping together was a heat-of-the-moment thing, and afterwards they’re awkward and shy and bumbling… But they’d probably sit and talk about how they want their relationship to progress from this point onwards.

I decided not to go with this option because I felt that Chi Cheng had been holding back this entire time to avoid a power dynamic. He wouldn’t want their relationship to start on a transactional note, which it would if he accepted Suo Wei’s body as repayment for the tuition—regardless of how much Suo Wei wanted it. 

Option 2:

Suo Wei doesn’t make the blowjob proposition, but confesses his feelings. After which,

Chi Cheng rejects him, and the story follows a similar thread to the actual path I took, or 

Chi Cheng accepts Suo Wei’s feelings, and the fic turns into a story where Chi Cheng and Suo Wei need to navigate the difficulties of their newfound relationship. I didn’t feel like this was the right place for Chi Cheng to accept Suo Wei’s feelings. They both obviously have things that they’re hung up about—Chi Cheng, especially—and it made more sense to me for Chi Cheng to voice these issues first. I like the idea of Suo Wei and Chi Cheng coming to terms with their age and status difference, and confronting external pressures, but I kind of felt like that was material for part two/a sequel.

Option 3:

Lean into the sugar daddy-aspect of the fic. I thought that these were kind of fun and flirty, but I think Chi Cheng is way too sensitive about the whole money thing for this to realistically happen. Chi Cheng would not joke around about something that confirms a fear about himself (that he’s buying Suo Wei’s time and attention with his money)

But if I went this route, it would start with Suo Wei barging into Chi Cheng’s apartment and blurting out, “Am I your sugar baby?”

Possible responses from Chi Cheng:

Response 1: Chi Cheng considers him for a moment. “Do you want to be?” Suo Wei was the one who brought it up first, but having his own question turned back on him has him flushing hotly. “Do you want one?” he squeaks out. Chi Cheng hums, thinking. “That depends. What are the benefits of having one?” Suo Wei probably explodes on the spot, mind swan-diving straight into the gutter.

Response 2: Chi Cheng gives him a long look, and then turns away with a snort. “If you were my sugar baby, I’d be getting a lot more out of this arrangement.” “I made you a watch box,” Suo Wei points out. “True.” Chi Cheng smiles. “That was very sugar baby of you.” “I could also wash your car. And clean your house. And wash your car,” Suo Wei lists out. And maybe suck you off.

Response 3: Chi Cheng regards him from beneath half-lidded eyes. When Chi Cheng looks at him like that, it always puts a squirmy feeling in the pit of Suo Wei’s stomach. Makes him feel small and vulnerable, like he’s about to be eaten alive. “If you have to ask, you’re not,” Chi Cheng says. Suo Wei flushes with embarrassment. He knows he sounds a little defensive when he mutters, “Well, what was I supposed to think? You buy me expensive things. And you look at me like… like—” He can’t finish his sentence. Says huffily, “All my friends think you’re my sugar daddy.” Well, his one friend, Wang Shuo. “Is that right?” Chi Cheng says. “Well, if you were actually my sugar baby, I’d expect something in return.” “Like what?” Chi Cheng takes a step forward. Looms over him. Suo Wei’s insides shiver. His knees actually grow weak. “Like your time. Your attention. You, whenever I wanted you.”

Anyway, they do the whole sugar daddy-sugar baby thing, laying out their terms for the agreement. Lots of spoiling. Lots of hugging and touching and kissing. Sex, too. But, for some reason, this arrangement makes it hard for them to be honest about their feelings for each other. Suo Wei thinks Chi Cheng wants some no-strings-attached fun. Chi Cheng thinks Suo Wei only wants him for his money. Neither of them want to risk asking for more and losing what they already have.

So, yeah! I’m intrigued by the ideas, and will perhaps explore them in the future, but I really feel like it’s a separate fic.

Option 4 (but it's really an au):

OK so this one I wrote MONTHS ago when I first started brainstorming for this fic. Originally, I was going to have Chi Cheng and Gang Zi live together, and Suo Wei was Gang Zi’s friend who spent waaaay too much time at Gang Zi’s apartment—even when Gang Zi wasn’t there (lol). I ditched this idea pretty early on because I couldn’t imagine Chi Cheng and Gang Zi living together when they were both filthy rich and Chi Cheng is an established, independent adult. And also because Chi Cheng struck me as somewhat… slimy in this early rendition. Like, he’s aware of Suo Wei’s feelings, and encourages it because he thinks the kid is so cute. I feel like Suo Wei’s character is a little different, too.

Consider the following scene an AU! In this AU, Chi Cheng is still very much Suo Wei’s sexual awakening, and he’s still the indulgent older brother figure. In this scene, Suo Wei has a crush on Chi Cheng and wants to try experimenting:

Suo Wei was fidgeting on the couch cushion beside him, the leather seats squeaking with each motion. On the boy’s lap was a textbook, whose pages had not been flipped for the past quarter hour. Chi Cheng could feel eyes stealing peeks at him, the undercurrent of nerves radiating off the boy. Suo Wei clearly had something he wanted to say, but for whatever reason, was struggling to do it. 

Chi Cheng gave the boy some time to piece his thoughts together, swiping a finger across his iPad to peruse the morning news on Caixin Daily. Even on his days off, he dedicated some time in the morning to read the latest headlines in business and industry. But his focus had already been disturbed by Suo Wei’s strange and skittish behaviour. The characters on the screen melded into meaningless strokes of black. 

Conceding defeat, he flipped the cover of his iPad shut and turned his attention to Suo Wei. “You alright?”

Suo Wei jolted as though Chi Cheng’s voice had shocked him out of his thoughts. “Yup!” he chirped. “All good!” His quick eyes jumped around the living space, looking everywhere but at Chi Cheng.

“Hm,” Chi Cheng intoned, unconvinced. “What is it?”

“Nothing!”

“You look like you’re about to short-circuit.”

“I just, uh—” Suo Wei wrung his shirt with his fingers. “I was talking with Gang Zi the other day, and um—you came up, and he sort of mentioned…”

When Suo Wei trailed off for long seconds, Chi Cheng prompted him, “Go on.”

“Er.” Suo Wei scratched his nose. “Well, he mentioned that you… Hementionedthatyouweregay.”

The last part of the sentence tumbled out of Suo Wei so fast that it took Chi Cheng a moment to parse out the words. 

Ah, Chi Cheng thought, when he realized.

His sexuality wasn’t a secret. Not really. Everyone in his family knew. His friends (well, one friend—Cheng Yu) knew. People at his firm gossiped about it behind his back, the true reason why he divorced Yue Yue, but Chi Cheng had never given them anything concrete to work with, keeping his personal life firmly out of his profession.

Chi Cheng took a measured breath to compose himself, then said, “Yeah. I am.” He paused, cocking his head to study Suo Wei. The boy’s cheeks had turned an alarming shade of firetruck red. Chi Cheng’s lips twitched at the corners. Cute. “Is that a problem?” He didn’t think it was. Not with the way Suo Wei had been acting around him lately.

“No!” Suo Wei practically shouted, shaking his head. “No, no, no.”

“Alright,” Chi Cheng said easily, returning to his iPad. Feigning interest in the news, when in reality, he was more curious about how Suo Wei would respond to this revelation. 

The poor thing was like a kettle about to boil over, shaking with tension. Chi Cheng swore he could hear a loud whistling noise escaping from Suo Wei’s throat. Any moment now, the boy would explode. And as he thought that, Suo Wei blurted out, “I think I like boys.”

“I see,” Chi Cheng said carefully.

Suo Wei had used the word ‘think’, as though he were still uncertain, but Chi Cheng knew: as soon as you could confess something like that out loud, it was already a sure thing. Suo Wei had thought about it, probably for hours. Had probably focused too much on the man when watching straight porn. Suo Wei had probably studied the expression of pleasure on the man’s face, ears pricked up to catch the porn star’s low moans. He’d probably stared at the man’s cock, wondering what it would feel like in his hand, in his mouth. When he watched a woman’s pussy being pounded, he probably wondered what it would be like to be held down and have his ass plowed in the same way.

“Yeah, but I’m not sure. ‘Cause I’ve always liked girls, but there’s this guy…” Suo Wei peeked at him then, and oh, this kid was precious. Chi Cheng wanted to eat him right up. Could feel anticipation growing in his chest.

Easy now, he told himself. Don’t scare him. 

“How did you know? That you were gay?” Suo Wei asked.

Chi Cheng shrugged. “I was curious. I gave it a try. And I liked it.”

“You just… Gave it a try?” 

“Yeah. With a friend.”

“Wow,” Suo Wei breathed, wide-eyed. “You weren’t worried about messing up your friendship, or anything?”

“Not really. It just kind of happened naturally. I could tell he wanted it, too.”

“Wow,” Suo Wei said again. “I don’t know if there’s anyone like that for me. I don’t know anyone who likes boys. I don’t think. Well, except for you.” Suo Wei rolled his lower lip between his teeth, worrying at it. His gaze flickered to Chi Cheng, and then skittered away again. “Um, so… How did you know that your friend wanted it? Like, how did you bring it up?”

Chi Cheng cocked his head, studying Suo Wei, who was now staunchly refusing eye contact with him. “I didn’t have to bring anything up. Like I said, it just happened. We were watching a horror movie. He was scared, and got close. I let him. You can always tell if someone will be open to it by the way they look at your and their body language. If they don’t pull away when you touch them, if they touch back…” 

“But what if I’m reading it all wrong?” Suo Wei fretted. “And they’re just being nice? I don’t want to make things weird.”

Chi Cheng’s mouth curved into a smile, knowing. “If you’re not sure, you could always ask,” he prompted.

“Just ask?” Suo Wei grimaced at that. “That’s so scary…”

“It is, at first,” Chi Cheng agreed. “Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn’t. It’s worth it though, for the times when it works out.”

Suo Wei’s mouth twisted as though he were chewing on Chi Cheng’s words. Suo Wei got this look on his face, whenever he was thinking hard: brows pinched into a vee, a slight pout in his cheeks. What Chi Cheng would pay, to get a glimpse of what was going on in Suo Wei’s mind. After a long moment of contemplation that Chi Cheng patiently waited out, Suo Wei spoke.

“Okay,” Suo Wei started, looking determined. His voice wavered only a little when he said, “So, theoretically, if someone wanted to ask you. Because they were also curious—like you had been, when you were younger. If um, someone asked you to help them figure it out, how would you respond?” The colour had never quite faded from Suo Wei’s cheeks, and the blush returned with a vengeance now, making Suo Wei glow.

Chi Cheng tried not to smile. “It would depend on who’s asking. And what they’re asking for.”

“Um… I guess they’d be asking to try with you.”

“‘Try’,” Chi Cheng repeated. “Try what?”

“You know.” Suo Wei waved a vague hand around. “What you did with your friend.”

“What do you think I did with my friend?”

“I don’t know. Um. K-k-kiss, maybe?”

Chi Cheng swallowed down his amusement. They had done a lot more than kissing, back then. “I might be open to it. Who’s asking? Hypothetically.”

“Chi Cheng…” Suo Wei whined. Hid his face in his hands. The red tips of his ears were on full display. “You know…”

But then Suo Wei comes home from work looking drained, a dispirited slope in his shoulders, and the idea evaporates from his mind. He can’t let loose when Suo Wei is so obviously unhappy. A rough day at work, Suo Wei tells him, assuring him that he’ll feel better after a shower and some food. Chi Cheng wants to press, but Suo Wei runs off to his bedroom to get changed. Chi Cheng stands there for a moment, feeling off-kilter, then decides that he should get ready to leave, too. 

He’s at the door tying the laces of his boots when Suo Wei’s door flies open. Their eyes meet and Suo Wei freezes, staring at him like a deer caught in the headlights. A flush is climbing up his cheeks. Chi Cheng has no idea what prompted the outburst, but it’s instinct for him to approach Suo Wei. Pitching his voice low and comforting, he asks, “What’s wrong?”

He notices Suo Wei’s eyes jumping from his face, to his open throat where his chain rests, to his clothes. Suo Wei’s gaze lingers for a beat on his exposed chest, and then drops. His cheeks are sweetly pink. Chi Cheng swallows. Wonders if that response was prompted by his outfit. If Suo Wei liked what he saw. No… He’s reading too much into it. Projecting his own feelings onto Suo Wei’s reactions. 

“What’s wrong?” Chi Cheng asks again.

“Uh—” Suo Wei is jittery. His eyes won’t stay in one place, and he can’t stop fidgeting and squirming. Clearly, he has something he wants to say, but is too scared to admit it. His eyes flit around the apartment, as though the answer to Chi Cheng’s question is hidden between the furniture. He lights up when he sees his phone, practically shouts, “I was just looking for my phone!” as he scurries over to grab it. Shows Chi Cheng. 

“Okay… Well. If that’s all, I suppose I’m going to head out now,” Chi Cheng says hesitantly, taking a half-step in the direction of the door.

And that’s when everything bubbles out. 

“Um—! When will you be back?” Suo Wei’s voice is heartbreakingly tiny. “I mean… How will I know if you’re spending the night at… at—” The boy doesn’t finish his sentence. Tries a different line of questioning, “How will I know if you decided not to come home, or if something happened? Like, what if you get into a fight? You’ll probably drink, right? What if you get drunk and… and drive? And you get hurt?”

Oh. He was worried about me. Chi Cheng melts, every last atom of his being turning into a warm, soppy mess. He has to fight the grin that threatens to overcome him. Before Suo Wei can spiral into a full-on meltdown, he interrupts gently, “Suo Wei. I’m not going to get into a fight. I won’t get drunk.”

But Suo Wei isn’t done, and starts babbling about finding somewhere else to stay, and the thoughts are so disjointed and apropos of nothing that Chi Cheng doesn’t quite follow until Suo Wei stammers something about Chi Cheng possibly bringing someone home. 

Taken alone, Chi Cheng might have interpreted that comment as a considerate offer—Suo Wei genuinely not wanting to intrude in case Chi Cheng wanted to invite someone over. But taken in conjunction with Suo Wei’s earlier worries, and the nervous and embarrassed energy radiating off the boy… He realizes that Suo Wei isn’t just worried about his safety. He’s jealous, fearing that Chi Cheng will hook up with someone. 

Chi Cheng can’t help it—he laughs. So this is what had Suo Wei in a tizzy. And it makes Chi Cheng so irrationally, deliriously happy. He feels so fucking soft and fond for this boy. They’re not together, but he’s struck with guilt for even thinking about sleeping with someone else. He has the powerful urge to gather Suo Wei into his arms to soothe the fretting boy. He wants to bite Suo Wei’s soft, glowing cheeks, pepper kisses all over the heated skin and croon, Baby, don’t worry, I’m not looking at anyone but you, and then hug Suo Wei hard to his chest.

He comes close to doing it, but manages to stop himself at holding Suo Wei by the elbows. He brushes his thumbs back and forth over Suo Wei’s thin arms. Suo Wei looks sweet and tempting like this, with his eyes downcast and lashes dark fans against his pale skin. His lower lip juts out in an unhappy pout. 

Chi Cheng wants to eat him right up, kiss away his pout. He ends up going to the club, if only to keep himself from doing something crazy. But the entire time he’s there, he can’t stop thinking about Suo Wei. 

Suo Wei had been subdued since this morning when Chi Cheng said he had plans to go to the grand opening of Cheng Yu’s club. Suo Wei had come home from work upset. Suo Wei was at home alone, possibly freaking out about Chi Cheng being at the club. He feels like such an asshole for being here. He should have just stayed in tonight. Then maybe Suo Wei would be the one smiling at him, and not the bartender who keeps looking in his direction and asking if he needs another drink.

Chi Cheng shrugs off advances from the bartender and other strangers with a grunt, barely looking at their faces. Beneath the table, he pulls his phone out of his pocket to check his messages. There’s nothing. That’s a good thing, he tells himself. It means Suo Wei is asleep, or otherwise preoccupied.

“Are you waiting for a message from a client or something?” Cheng Yu asks.

Chi Cheng shoves his phone away, like a student caught on their device by the teacher. “No.”

“Really? It seemed like you were waiting for something important. You’ve checked your phone five times in the last ten minutes.”

Chi Cheng doesn’t check his phone for the next little while, no matter how much his fingers itch at his side. He drums them on the bartop to keep himself occupied.

Eventually, he can’t resist looking at his watch. It feels like he’s been here forever, but it hasn’t even been an hour yet. He knows this is an important night for Cheng Yu, but he keeps hearing Suo Wei’s voice in his head, thick with emotion and cracking with anxiousness; he feels arrested by the mere memory of Suo Wei’s big, damp eyes looking up at him. He doesn’t think he can bring himself to stay for any longer without going stir-crazy. He downs the rest of his beer. “I think I’m going to get going. It’s late.” It’s not even midnight yet. The version of him from ten years ago would mock him.

“Yeah, wouldn’t want to keep Suo Wei waiting,” Cheng Yu says.

Chi Cheng stares. He’s not one to show a blush on his face, but he can feel the heat gathering in his ears.

A grin grows across Cheng Yu’s face. “Oh shit. Was I right?” He barks out a laugh. “Damn! So are you guys a thing now?”

“No,” Chi Cheng says. “It’s not like that.”

“But you wish it was.”

Chi Cheng isn’t expecting Suo Wei to be up when he arrives home—he told Suo Wei to sleep, after all—but he feels strangely bereft when he comes back to a silent apartment and there’s no Suo Wei in sight.

He wouldn’t have minded, if Suo Wei waited up for him. 

He’s untying the laces to his boots—these things are such a fucking pain in the ass—when a door creaks. He looks up and his heart does a death-shudder in his chest. “Suo Wei,” he says, voice melting into something embarrassingly soft. “What are you doing up?”

Suo Wei looks shame-faced at being caught, but emerges from the bedroom with his blanket wrapped around his shoulders like a cape. “I… I heard you come home.” He walks over soft-footed to Chi Cheng.

“Sorry. I tried to be quiet.” 

Suo Wei shakes his head. “It’s okay. I was up anyway.” And then his eyes slide almost imperceptibly in the direction of Chi Cheng’s bedroom, as though wondering if Chi Cheng was hiding someone behind the door.

“It’s just me,” Chi Cheng says. “There’s no one else.”

“Ugh, fuck,” Suo Wei says, pulling his blanket over his head and hiding. “Sorry, I know I’m annoying.”

“You’re not,” Chi Cheng murmurs. “It’s cute.”

Suo Wei makes a tiny noise in the back of his throat.

“Come on. You should try to get some sleep.” Chi Cheng guides Suo Wei back to his bedroom with a hand between the boy’s shoulderblades and stops at the door. It’s his own apartment, but this feels like a threshold he shouldn’t cross. They make quiet conversation at the doorway, Suo Wei asking about how Cheng Yu was doing, how opening night went. 

As they talk, Suo Wei drifts towards bed and Chi Cheng finds himself following. Suo Wei crawls into bed and flumps down, shifting over to make room for Chi Cheng. Chi Cheng sits at the edge of the mattress.

Suo Wei bunches his blanket in his fists and draws them up to his chin. 

Conversation peters out. The air between them turns thick. Chi Cheng wants Suo Wei so much he aches with it. He thinks Suo Wei might feel it too, judging by the way the boy snatches looks at him, rolling his lower lip between his teeth. 

He should leave. Already, he has let himself get too close. Suo Wei is eighteen. His younger brother’s best friend. Off-limits to him. He needs to leave.

Instead, he finds himself staring at Suo Wei’s plush, pink mouth. He feels himself swallow. His tongue darts out to wet his lips, and he sees Suo Wei track the movement with dark eyes. Chi Cheng’s heart is going fucking insane in his chest; he hears it slamming all the way up in his ears. He’s not imagining this. Suo Wei wants him back, is practically pleading for Chi Cheng to cross the line. 

“Chi Cheng,” Suo Wei whispers.

“Hm?” The syllable rumbles from deep inside his chest, gravel-rough.

“You came home early tonight.”

“Yeah,” Chi Cheng says. “You were waiting for me.” And then he leans down and kisses Suo Wei.

He hears the click of Suo Wei’s throat as the boy swallows. “Okay,” Suo Wei whispers.

Chi Cheng goes to change out of his dress shirt and trousers, slipping into a plain t-shirt and plaid pajama bottoms. He forgoes the boxers. It’ll only get in the way. He freshens up in the bathroom, splashes some cold water on his face. He doesn’t rush, even though he’s eager to be close to Suo Wei. Lets the anticipation build instead.

When he returns to the living room, he finds that Suo Wei has discarded his sleep shorts off to the side. An oversized shirt covers his modesty. On the coffee table is a bottle of lube with the cap open. Chi Cheng scoops it up, squirts some of the gel into his palm, and sets the bottle down again. He takes a seat beside Suo Wei, reclining back against the sofa. Reaches into the slit at the front of his pajama bottoms to pull out his cock, which is already starting to fill. He gives himself a few cursory strokes to spread the lube along his shaft. Lets out a shuddering sigh as he does so. His eyes are on Suo Wei, watching the boy watching him. Suo Wei’s attention is riveted to his cock. He’s fidgeting a little. Hips moving. Thighs pressing together. A pink tongue darts out to wet those kiss-swollen lips. Chi Cheng smiles.

“Take a seat, baby,” he says, holding his cock at the base. “Keep me warm.”

Suo Wei hurries to obey, getting himself in position to sit back. Chi Cheng puts a steadying hand on Suo Wei’s hips, helping the boy sink down onto his cock. Suo Wei moans as he’s stretched open, lowering himself down inch by delicious inch. Chi Cheng groans as the velvet heat of Suo Wei’s body envelops him. Once Suo Wei is fully seated on him, Chi Cheng wraps his arms around Suo Wei’s waist, hooking his chin over the boy’s shoulder so they can watch the movie together. 

Chi Cheng has started to find watching horror movies a cozy and comforting experience, likely because he has come to associate them with cuddling, followed by sex. For the first little while, Suo Wei’s immersed in the movie. 

Jump scare after jump scare after jump scare. It’s the hallmark of a shitty horror movie—relying on cheap tactics to frighten the audience. It gets its intended effect out of Suo Wei though, who squirms and jumps in his lap, hole clenching around Chi Cheng’s dick during particularly stressful moments.

Chi Cheng groans, shifting to rest his forehead on Suo Wei’s shoulder.

He starts to get handsy. He likes touching Suo Wei while they’re like this, rubbing his palms up and down slim thighs. Gripping and squeezing. He plays absentmindedly with Suo Wei’s cute little cock, giving it a shake, rubbing the tip between his thumb and two-fingers. That has Suo Wei moaning, inner walls pulsing around Chi Cheng’s shaft. Sometimes, he holds Suo Wei’s balls kneading and rolling them in the cup of his palm. Suo Wei lets him touch as he pleases. When Chi Cheng starts kissing the line of his shoulders and the side of his neck, Suo Wei tilts his head to the side to offer him more access. 

Chi Cheng teases them both like this, giving each of them a taste of what they want, though it only serves to whet their appetite. It’s like taunting a dehydrated man with a drop of water on his tongue; it only makes him thirstier. Suo Wei’s cock is all hard and heated now, leaking profusely at the slit. Chi Cheng smears the wet around with the pad of his thumb.

The jolting movements that were at first startled out of Suo Wei turn deliberate. Suo Wei’s starting to grind down on him, swiveling his hips in circular motions. Little huffs escape him, barely audible over the discordant crashes of sound from the movie. 

Suo Wei’s small hand finds his, gripping. “Chi Cheng.” His voice is strained, edged with a plea, and Chi Cheng knows exactly what his baby is asking for. He needs it just as badly, and lets himself give in. 

He maneuvers them to lie down on their sides so that they’re pressed back to chest and Suo Wei’s ass is tucked into Chi Cheng’s pelvis. He gets a hand under Suo Wei’s thigh, hiking it up to give himself a better angle to fuck Suo Wei. 

“Yes,” Suo Wei moans as Chi Cheng begins to move, rolling his hips with slow, deep thrusts. 

He takes his time, savouring every clench of Suo Wei’s body around him. After the frenetic rush of his day, this is exactly what he needs: to be buried inside his lover, taking his pleasure, making Suo Wei feel good in turn. Chi Cheng groans, nuzzling his lips into the back of Suo Wei’s neck. “So good, baby. You’re always so perfect for me.” 

The praise makes Suo Wei whimper and tighten around him. 

Chi Cheng adjusts the angle slightly, searching for that place that’ll have Suo Wei crying out. He knows he’s found it when Suo Wei jerks in his arms, back arching. “Ah! Right there—oh, right there, please—”

Chi Cheng obliges, grinding against that spot, and Suo Wei practically sobs with it. The boy shudders in his hold, around his shaft.

Suo Wei’s moaning in earnest now, desperate little uh uh uh’s spilling from his lips. He’s always so loud and honest about how good he’s feeling. Doesn’t try to hold back his moans, just lets himself feel. It’s music to Chi Cheng’s ears: the sounds of Suo Wei’s pleasure interspersed with the squelching of lube and the slap of Chi Cheng’s balls against Suo Wei’s ass every time he snaps his pelvis forward. Chi Cheng feels his own orgasm building inside him, spurred higher and higher every time he drives his hips forward. He can feel Suo Wei’s inside fluttering insistently around his length, and knows that his boy is close, too.

He abandons his hold on Suo Wei’s thigh to wrap his arm around the boy’s chest, locking him in place so that he can fuck Suo Wei faster, harder. 

“Oh god, ohh.” Suo Wei’s voice has gone high and breathless. The unrelenting rhythm of Chi Cheng’s thrusts has turned his moans into staccato. “I’m gonna come, I wanna come, please—can I?” 

Chi Cheng thinks about saying not yet baby, just to hear how cute Suo Wei is when he whines about it. No matter how much Suo Wei complains about being denied, Chi Cheng knows his baby will obey him all the same, wanting to be good. He’ll let Chi Cheng fuck him and come inside him, all the while keeping a tight leash on his own orgasm even though he’ll probably cry with how much he wants it. But Chi Cheng is feeling especially indulgent towards Suo Wei right now. The boy likely has no idea how much he has helped Chi Cheng decompress tonight. 

“Yeah, baby. Let me have it,” Chi Cheng says, and just like that, Suo Wei shakes apart with a moan, his inner walls contracting and releasing around Chi Cheng’s cock. It yanks Chi Cheng’s own orgasm out of him and he groans hotly against Suo Wei’s neck as he spills into the hot clutch of the boy’s spasming hole. 

Regarding the inhuman rate of posting, this person published 1.5 million words since the beginning of this year (January 2025). That's an average of 1,500,000 words ÷ 235 days = 6,383 words a day, without a single day off. In the past thirty days alone, they've averaged posting 10k words a day. Anyone who has tried writing before knows how difficult it can be to write several hundred words a day, let alone a consistent (and coherent!) 10k a day. 

This same author also went from being an English learner to being able to apply native-level fluency in two years. Compare these sentences from the author's work: 

From 2022:

[You can Put it this way, it was Taehyung's first time to receive a marriage proposal.]

From 2024:

[The world was simple then—summer days that stretched forever, laughter that carried on the wind, and a friendship that seemed inevitable, like it had always been written somewhere in the stars above them.]

From 2025:

[The doors exploded inward with a flash of smoke and steel. In seconds, black-suited bodyguards stormed the warehouse like a wave of shadows—masks on, silencers up, tactical lasers slicing through the air.]

I'm not trying to diminish anyone's efforts to learn a language. As someone who was raised bilingual, I know how fucking hard it is to learn a language; I also studied French in school and spent the past two years grinding Japanese. But this is precisely why I know this is not a realistic rate of improvement for a normal human being. Understanding a high-level of English and being able to smoothly converse in it is a different skillset from being able to employ it in writing. Writing is hard, even for native speakers. So language learners, if you were truly able to make this kind of progress in two years, you are actually in the top 0.1% of the human population, and I would like to know all of your secrets. Again, language INPUT is not the same as language OUTPUT. Outputting language is far harder than understanding input. Conversational, day-to-day speech is not the same as the language encountered in longform writing. 

But at the end of the day, my "AI detection" isn't based on irrefutable evidence. Many AI-isms can be edited out. I know I can't participate in an AI witch hunt based on vibes alone. I know my own writing also contains AI-isms (though it is more accurate to say that AI sounds like a human because it was trained on millions of fanworks and published authors). I love em-dashes and italics for emphasis. I love fragments and "groups of three". I reuse the same phrases and expressions all the time. I still think "It wasn't just [A], it was [B], [C], and [D]" is a great structure to highlight contrast. Sometimes my metaphors are trite and nonsensical. I love cliched tropes and I think they are cliches for a reason: they're just so damn fun! AI can't keep a storyline straight, but neither can I, because I've fucking forgotten what I wrote two days ago. Inconsistent writing styles are often seen as a marker of AI usage. But you know what? Sometimes I am astounded by the brilliance of a sentence I came up with, and other times, I am astounded by the complete garbage of a sentence my brain cobbled together.

I just hate how AI has made me paranoid and critical of everything I read. Now I feel like I can only read fanfics with a unique voice, or fanfics that were written prior to 2023, or fanfics written by authors who have an established track record from years back. I recognize this is actually fucking stupid. This way of thinking pushes out new writers (who may even end up turning to AI to polish their works), and I know—I know—there are still fic writers who devote hundreds of hours to their craft. Who spend hours plotting and daydreaming scenarios. Who agonize over every word and sentence they write down. In fact, I imagine that these are the majority of fic writers. I think the majority of fic writers write fic because they love the world and the characters, and they love the process of creating!

I understand that AI is a tool, and that it's here to stay. I think traditional artists had the same fears when digitial art came about. I'm sure that photographers in the past felt that digital manipulation of images did not count as "real" photography, and now digital editing is the norm. Hell, artists went—are going?—through the same thing writers are contending with now. I'm trying not to be an old man shaking his fist at the clouds, but right now, I just cannot seem to reconcile my belief of what creative writing should be with new technology that is making writing more accessible. 

I don't know. I feel so conflicted... I think AI, especially when combined with fact-checking, is great for research. Nowadays, when you look something up on Google, the first thing that pops up is an AI overview, anyway. But where do we draw the line? Is it okay to use AI for research, but not for brainstorming? Is it okay to use AI to help with line editting, so long as you actually wrote everything yourself first? Is it okay to use AI to generate names and fic titles, but not summaries? Many people will agree that AI should not be used to generate entire fics, line by line. But there are so many other nuanced ways to use AI. Who is to decide what is acceptable use of AI, and what isn't? I feel like it's impossible to police AI use, and attempting to do so will hurt real writers more than writers who use AI. 

I love writing and all the exhilarating and agonizing moments that come with it, so I won't be using AI to write my fics for me. I love daydreaming and the act of writing itself too much to let a machine do it for me. If I knew an author was using AI to write prose, I would exit out immediately; I want to only engage with stories written by humans. But there is a tiny part of me that worries about how I'm going to keep up with fic writers—if you want to call them that—who are doubtless embracing AI and using it to enhance their writing, or generate entire fics. I feel stupid saying this even as I type it, because fic writing is not some capitalist venture. I don't make any money off it. And yet!

I guess why all of this bothers me so much is because I see AI-generated fanfics garnering hundreds—even thousands—of kudos and comments, while fics written by human authors are receiving crickets. As a fic writer, this is gutting. Like many other fic writers, I write for myself, but I share my work because this is my way of engaging with the fandom. Fic writers want to scream with their readers and fellow fans about their favourite blorbos—and yes, they would also like to be acknowledged for their work. It's the only kind of compensation and motivation they receive to keep creating, after all. 

I had to get this out because I've been struggling to re-engage with fandom now that it feels like AI has invaded the space. When I returned to AO3 a month ago and saw the amount of AI-generated or assisted work, I literally thought, "What's the point of me even writing anymore? People can just use ChatGPT to bring their stories to life." I'm slowly getting over that initial shock and dismay. I'm trying to remind myself that actual process of writing brings me joy, not just the finished product. I'm trying to convince myself that the majority of fic writers don't rely on AI, and that fanfic is very much still a labour of love.