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Chapter Text

It’s been well over thirty hours since Shang Qinghua last slept, possibly more. He’s losing track. Still, it’s worth it because he’s written over 40K words of his rent-saving stallion novel and if he can just finish off this last chapter before he crashes he won’t need to write again for a whole week’s worth of updates and can maybe even sneak in a few shifts of one of his shitty casual jobs. Right now the only thing keeping him going is spite at his demanding anti-fans, packet spicy ramen, and the wavering hallucination of his bed just out of reach.

It’s 4am when Shang Qinghua stumbles into the 24hr café, running on fumes and in desperate search of more caffeine. He also runs face-first into the bare pecs of a gorgeous hunk of a man too perfect to exist. He’s wearing tight blue jeans and an ice-blue vest open to display his bare chest, and earrings with a waterfall of crystal beads glitter in his pierced ears.

Sorry, he thinks, but it comes out as, “Bwah.”

He gazes up at the entrancing man he’s run into and looks into his eyes. No Chinese man has eyes that blue. They’re practically shining they’re so blue, and his vertical pupils are just narrow slits like a fucking cat’s! Right, I get it, he’s not real. He’s another hallucination. I really need to get some sleep. Or my dead eye special; three shots of espresso in my regular brew. Gotta finish this last chapter.

His head is pounding and his hands are shaking with fatigue as he dizzily puts his hands on the man’s chest and gives those gorgeous pecs a squeeze. His tits feel real. A little cold, maybe.

A woman’s sultry laugh rings out from somewhere to the side of them. “Hey king, is that your alleged boyfriend?”

The man looks down at him – a desperately tired, frazzled man in an old t-shirt and worn tracksuit pants with his long brown hair up in a messy bun – and his icy expression thaws into a tiny smile. “Yes.” His voice is low and sexy and rich like some imported chocolate Shang Qinghua can’t afford.

Ah, I’m dreaming! he concludes, with relief at solving the mystery. I must have fallen asleep at my desk. He gives those gorgeous tits another squish, kneading them like they’re dough. I want to bury my face in them.

Since it’s just a dream he figures he may as well go with that impulse. He lets his head drop back down onto that luscious chest and nuzzles his nose between his pecs. I live here now. The man’s arms wrap around him and hold him close like he’s something precious; further proof that this is just a dream.

“Really? This is your man? You have questionable taste,” a man scoffs.

“He’s not much of a man, Binghe. He’s more like a pet,” the woman laughs. “Well, I guess I was wrong about our Mobei-Jun being a pathetic, perpetually single virgin. What’s he called, then? Hey, you! Get your head out of his boobs and say hello!”

Shang Qinghua lifts his head and there’s a dopey smile on his face as he gazes up at his dream man, staring into those snow-tiger bright blue eyes. “Hello, my king!”

His king hesitates for a moment before patting his head gently and saying, “Hello, my little hamster.”

“Hamhua,” he corrects, “half hamster, half Shang Qinghua. I’m your pet now so you have to look after me.” There’s a chorus of laughter in the background but he doesn’t care because his king is smiling down at him like he’s adorable and precious and not a waste of space Qinghua uni dropout with parents who don’t even care if he starves to death on the streets of Beijing.

“This king will look after his hamhua,” he promises, with that forbidden-dark-chocolate voice, as he cradles him against his chest.

“That’s good because I think I’m asleep,” he says dazedly. “No, I mean, I will be soon. Or I am already? Why aren’t we in bed together, my king? It’s right over there.”

He wraps his arms around his king’s waist and leans against the eighth wonder of the world that is his bare chest, smooth and cool and smelling faintly like spices and musk, and lets his eyes droop close for just a second.

-0-

When he wakes up in a comfortable bed all curled up under a soft sheet with his legs tangled in a plush blanket Shang Qinghua is very, very confused.

Where the fuck am I? This isn’t my apartment!

It’s dark in the bedroom he has awoken in, but he can tell instantly that he’s not at home. His own mattress is so old that the springs inside it poke at him when he doesn’t sleep in precisely the right spot, while this one feels comparatively like sleeping on a cloud. Also, his whole apartment reeks of the stale tobacco scent that has permeated the wallpaper thanks to a chain-smoking former tenant (the main reason the rent was so cheap), while this place smells crisp and fresh like some pine-fresh fabric softener was used on the sheets.

Have I been kidnapped?! WTF?!

He wiggles a little and determines that he isn’t tied up in any way, just a bit entangled by the blanket. Then he freezes as he realises that if he has been kidnapped, he probably shouldn’t let his captor know he’s awake. He shuts his eyes and lies still and quiet, his mind racing furiously.

Let’s see… what do I remember? I was writing – 40K I was doing so well ‘til writer’s block hit me – then I… went out for a caffeine fix to that cheap 24hr place?

His mind whirls as he remembers hallucinating a sexy, blue-eyed beast of a man with cat eyes who was dating him.

My king? You’re not real… are you?

He moans softly and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes at the agonising realisation that maybe it hadn’t been a dream at all. What the fuck did I do? Did I really moosh my face into some guy’s tits? He must have been so confused. Can you die of humiliation? Guess I might find out…

He lets out a slow breath even though what he really wants to do is bury his face in the amazingly soft pillow he’s lying on and scream his embarrassment into it.

I think I passed out in that café. I owe that guy a big apology. Is this his house?

Desperate for answers and also desperately in need of a bathroom to pee in after two straight days of bingeing caffeine-rich drinks, he determinedly gets out of the quicksand-like overly comfortable bed that tries to draw him back into its soft embrace.

How long did I sleep for? It’s still night so maybe only a couple of hours… Ha ha, surely I didn’t sleep through a whole day. Right? Right?!

His stomach lurches with anxiety, and a touch of hunger. He feels too awake and coherent for it to have only been a couple of hours.

He fumbles around in the dark and taps a touch-activated bedside lamp, illuminating the bedroom with a gentle golden glow. He squints as his eyes adjust to the sudden influx of light, and then his eyes grow wide as he looks around.

Holy shit this bedroom is bigger than my whole apartment!

The bed is fucking enormous, a genuine four poster fit for a king with sheer blue curtains tied at each corner with bedside tables on either side. There’s a big flatscreen TV on the wall opposite the bed, with an executive-worthy shiny wooden desk underneath it. To the right of that, a big fancy wardrobe takes up half the whole wall and is so far away because the room is just that fucking big. There’s a door out of the room to the left of the bed, and to the right of the bed is just a big empty nothing for what feels like miles of wasted space. Heck, you could squeeze a toilet in there plus a little mini kitchenette so your shit landlord could raise the rent because it has a kitchen and a bathroom now. Instead of squishing all that in it’s just… empty, looking all classy and decorative as fuck. The wall has some moody snowy landscape painting and there’s a big fur rug on the floor. It looks like someone skinned a polar bear and just chucked the pelt down on the ground, minus its head. Maybe that’s exactly what they did! At the end of the room is a big, curtained window with a single armchair next to it. Qinghua pads over to the window – noting in passing that his feet are bare as his toes sink into that plush, soft fur rug – and peeks outside.

Damn, I’m up high. Not a house. This apartment must be wow, somewhere expensive. He looks out at the skyline, trying to place where he is. That’s CCTV Headquarters, there’s no mistaking that ‘Big Pants’ building with the gap in the middle. If I’ve been kidnapped, at least they didn’t take me very far. Hah! Who would kidnap me?

He finds his phone, keys, and battered wallet safe on a bedside table; reassuring evidence in favour of the not-kidnapped theory. He checks his phone and notes that he slept for approximately 15 hours. Shiiit I missed my posting deadline! He swipes open his notifications and sees an impatient rant on his previous chapter from Peerless Cucumber asking if Airplane is dead or just lazy as fuck, and demanding answers about what happened with the cave-in cliffhanger he promised to resolve in the next chapter.

Aww, I knew he cared!

He considers letting someone know that he’s probably-not-kidnapped somewhere in a luxury apartment in Bejing’s CBD but glumly realises he honestly can’t think of anyone who’d give a shit if he disappeared off the face of the earth. Apart from his more demanding fans like Peerless Cucumber, that is.

He types a quick ‘Not dead yet uploading soon sorry!’ reply to Cucumber-bro, then mutes his phone and ventures out of the bedroom in search of his host who may or may not be a hallucination of a gorgeous cat-eyed king with pillowy pecs.

He finds a bathroom immediately off the hallway – sweet relief! – before he locates the apartment’s resident. He eventually finds him sprawling on a sofa in his lounge room looking almost as majestic as he remembered in his sleepy confused state the night before. The man is scrolling through something on his phone, with his feet propped up on a coffee table.

“Um, hello?” he ventures quietly, and his actually-real king looks up at him from his phone. His king’s eyes are a warm, chocolate brown, not the probably-hallucinated blue cat’s eyes he remembered. He’s wearing a tight white t-shirt and blue jeans, and it’s simple but he makes it work, his drool-worthy muscles filling out the shirt in all the right ways.

“You’re awake,” the man says, fixing him with a cool expression.

“Sorry,” he apologises, on reflex. “Yeah. I uh… I guess I passed out? Did you… bring me to your home? Sorry about uh–”

Qinghua’s hands flail a complex dance through the air which is intended to convey his confused apologies for his half-remembered humiliating dream actions. I think I stuck my face in your tits a few times. Sorry about that. Sorry for passing out on you too.

“Sorry about everything,” he concludes weakly.

“Mn. It’s fine,” the man says, tossing his phone down on the coffee table.

Qinghua glances at it briefly. It’s open to a Baidu search page with results for ‘how to pamper a hamster’.

“Are you getting a pet for your apartment?” he asks curiously.

There’s a tiny smile on his stern face now, and Qinghua’s heart beats at the thrill of seeing it. Fuck he’s so sexy I think I might burst!

“I’m thinking about it,” the man replies. “You’re Shang Qinghua, right?”

“Right,” he says, with a nervous nod. “Sorry. If you introduced yourself ah, yesterday? Well… I forgot your name. All I remember is calling you my king.”

That tiny smile is back again to kill him through heart failure!

“’My king’ works,” he says. “My name’s Lin Mobei. Or Mobei-Jun, if you prefer. A lot of my… business associates call me that as a nickname. Some... friends, too.”

He nods. “So, uh, Mr. Lin, thanks for–”

His king frowns, and it’s like a storm cloud hid the sun. “No.”

“W-what?”

“I don’t like my family name. Call me Mobei. Besides, we’re dating, after all. We should use first names, Qinghua.”

“What?” he echoes dumbly.

“You felt me up in front of my friends, so now everyone thinks we’re dating,” Mobei says. “And I let them. By now Hualing will have told everyone she knows. Also, when I was trying to put you to bed you clung to my thighs and promised to follow me anywhere, especially to bed. Don’t you remember?”

Shang Qinghua thumps his fist on his head in an attempt to jar loose the relevant memory. It sounds vaguely familiar, and he has a flash of memory of someone prising his fingers off their legs and swaddling him in a blanket. “Oh. Uh. A bit.”

“Are you on drugs?” He asks the question calmly, a curious enquiry rather than a judgement.

Shang Qinghua flails his hands in frantic negation, all the same. “What? No! I couldn’t afford them! Not that I’d take them if I could afford them, my king! I’m just saying I couldn’t and wouldn’t. I was just all weird from not enough sleep and too much coffee and energy drinks.”

He buries his face in his hands and whimpers. “I’d like to go home now, please. I… I have a deadline.”

A large hand rests atop his head. “Don’t worry. I’ll take you home. We’ll talk on the way.”

-0-

It’s a thirty-minute drive to Qinghua’s shitty little studio apartment, which they make in a car so luxurious he feels like he’s contaminating it just by sitting in the smooth leather seat in his stained, ratty tracksuit pants.

“You will need new clothes for the party next week.”

“Uh? What party?”

“It’s a family function,” Mobei says, weaving through traffic at a speed that risks traffic fines, but with such smooth competence that Qinghua manages to suppress the urge to yelp at the too-frequent lane changes. “You’ll need a suit. Do you have a decent suit?”

“No, you pegged me right, I don’t have a nice suit. But uh… I can’t afford a suit. Are you… are you inviting me to a party?”

“No.”

Ha ha of course not. Don’t be stupid!

Mobei continues, “I’m telling you that you have to come, now we’re dating. I’ll pick you up on Wednesday at seven. Business attire, but not black tie. A regular suit and a tie will be fine.”

“We’re dating? You ah, are you sure? You don’t know anything about me,” he objects weakly. “I do like guys – that’s not a problem – but you’re clearly out of my league. Also, I can’t afford to buy a suit. Sorry, my king. I can barely afford my rent and noodles.”

Mobei nods; clearly the sensible agreement of a man who now understands Qinghua isn’t worth his time. “Hm. Tell me about yourself.”

“Really?” he asks, with a puzzled blink.

I’m really not that interesting.

“Yes.”

The rest of the ride is filled with Qinghua’s honest blathering about himself – surely enough to put off his poor deluded not-quite-boyfriend from wanting to date him. Or fake date him? He hasn’t said he actually wants to, just that his friends think they’re dating.

He rambles away about his parents’ divorce, his half a literature degree before the money ran out, his move to his tiny shoebox apartment, his terrible and exploitative casual jobs he squeezed in where he could around his writing schedule, and his increasingly awful sellout xianxia webnovel that he had to pimp out to the stallion fans for rent money, sacrificing artistic integrity and half his planned plotlines in favour of as much porn as the censors would let him get away with. Only the oldest fans like Peerless Cucumber who’ve been following him since the early chapters full of drama and angst expect anything more than Sexy Wife of the Week, now.

It’s like ripping off a bandaid, Qinghua. Tell him how terrible everything is so he dumps any idea of dating you before you get too attached.

He wonders if he could sneakily get some photos of his kingly Mobei-Jun for fap material to reminisce over before the guy dumps him and runs.

When they arrive at his apartment Mobei follows him to his door like they’re on a date, and he wonders if it is, and if that means he might get a kiss before the dream night ends. Then he pushes open his front door and Mobei-Jun’s face falls into a disgusted sneer.

“You live like this?”

“Aha! My king we’re not all rich,” he apologises. “It’s not like I have a choice. No steady job plus shitty parents with new families to pay for equals no money for Qinghua, remember?”

Mobei nods slowly. “I understand. You will have to move in with me if we are to convince people we’re seriously dating. I won’t visit here. It’s disgusting.”

“I… would lose my apartment if I moved out?” he says, and somehow it comes out less like an objection and more like a question.

“Good.”

Um. Well, yes, it’s a shithole of an apartment, but it’s my shithole and we only just met and I don’t know anything about you except that you’re hot and rich? And apparently into me? Which… actually those are three very good reasons to move in with you, come to think about it.

“Are you like, offering to be my sugar daddy, or something?” he asks hesitantly. “Because I’d need like, some money to cushion the fall in case you wise up and decide you’re bored of me and kick me out of your apartment; I can’t afford to share rent with you. Not that I’m saying you would kick me out, my king! Mobei-Jun you seem like a prince of a man, really, this all seems a bit too good to be true and the thing is I don’t know you that well yet so–”

Mobei holds up a finger for silence as he gets out his phone and taps away at it, so Qinghua snaps his mouth shut nervously. After a moment he looks up again. “Yes. I will be your sugar daddy in exchange for you acting like my boyfriend. Give me your bank account details and I will give you a deposit.”

Fuck, did he have to look that up? This precious man! Wait… money? Like, money money?

Lost in a ‘Pretty Woman’ daze he gives him his bank account details, snaps a sneaky photo of him as proof of existence (and something to text to god-knows-who in case he is about to be not-kidnapped again or worse), and distractedly agrees to movers showing up at his apartment sometime soon.

His brain switches off as Mobei lingers for a moment, standing so close he can smell his spicy, musky cologne. Unfortunately, by the time Shang Qinghua snaps out of his pecs-and-money induced haze and realises that this hunk of a man has maybe been hoping for a goodbye kiss, Mobei is already down the steps and heading for his car.

Qinghua slaps his cheeks to snap himself out of it. “Novel update time, Qinghua! Then think about your new career as a sugar baby!”

He hums the ‘Pretty Woman’ theme song happily as he uploads a new chapter of Proud Immortal Demon Way. It is probably full of typos – he hasn’t had much time to edit it properly. Fuck it. It’ll give Cucumber-bro something to pick at besides the sizes of the women’s tits.

     Pretty woman, I don't believe you, you're not the truth
     No one could look as good as you
     Mercy!

Inspired by real life, he suddenly realises how to get past his writer’s block. My demon emperor needs a hunky second in command to fix this problem! Ooo, how about an ice demon who can teleport?! I can use that demon lord he fought back in chapter 57 in his demon realm conquering arc! It’ll be like built-in foreshadowing! His fingers fly over the keyboard.

Chapter Text

There is a knock on his door the next morning, and while Shang Qinghua is still smacking his lips and blearily staring out his front door, a couple of professional-looking workmen in beige overalls barge past him into his apartment and start unfolding some cardboard boxes.

“Umm hello?” he asks sleepily.

“Good morning, sir,” one of the beige-uniformed duo says politely as he starts rummaging through his kitchen cupboards and efficiently swathing things in newspaper before packing them in a box. “Please secure any personal items you’d like to personally handle for the move and just leave the rest to us.”

It feels like an extremely polite robbery.

“Uh, and you are?”

“Baizhan Express Moving Company, sir. Mr. Lin hired us; we do all the employee relocations for Northern Desert Enterprises. Did you not receive our texts?”

Shang Qinghua checks his phone and finds a few messages he’d missed while either hyperfocused in his writing zone or dead asleep.

Mobei’s curt texts read simply: ‘Money deposited’ and ‘Movers at ten’.

The moving company has sent him a couple of lengthier texts about having been booked, and then a recent notification they were on their way.

“Huh.” Another few taps has him checking his bank balance.

C’mon sugar daddy give your baby that sweet sugar…

He mentally crosses his fingers and holds his breath as he checks his balance. Last time he’d looked he had 32 yuan left to his name after draining it dry to pay his rent.

“Holy shit 30,000 yuan!”

I’m rich, I’m rich! Okay not that rich but I could get a new computer and an extension cord thingy that doesn’t spark when I plug things in and rent and so many noodles! His eyes glaze over and he giggles as he strokes his phone. Wait, I don’t need to pay rent now. Hey, what about my deposit? My lease isn’t up for two months…

When he sees the movers start eyeing his desk, he darts over to secure his laptop and a pile of notebooks, shoving them into a bag. He retreats with his prizes to the temporary safety of his bedroom. “I’m getting changed! Don’t come in!” he calls out.

He picks out the nicest of his clothes – a passable button-up shirt and slacks combo he’d worn to his mother’s wedding to his new stepfather – and packs up the backpack with the rest of all his favourite stuff. There wasn’t a lot of it.

He opens up his phone to call his new… roommate? Sugar daddy? Boyfriend? Anyway, whatever he is, he is already in Qinghua’s phone contacts as ‘Mobei-Jun’.

Huh. Guess he did that while I was sleeping.

His new boss-sugar-daddy-roomie answers right away. “Qinghua.”

“Hey Mobei-Jun! The movers are here so uh… I’m moving in with you? I just wanted to check that’s like, for free, and I won’t need to pay you rent?”

“Yes.”

Man of few words, huh. That’s okay I have some spare. Holy shit, free luxury apartment!

“The thing is, I didn’t think you meant like, now. And are you really sure about this, because it’s not too late to cancel the movers? You see, I still have two months on my lease, and I rent direct from the owner and the thing is she’s a real bitch and likes to raise the rent on me and she just says, ‘Oh if you don’t like it move out’ but she’s going to go mental if I actually do, you know? She is likely to keep my security deposit – it’s not a lot to you maybe but it’s two months’ rent and it’s mine and I don’t want to lose it – and I think she’ll maybe try and get those extra upcoming few months of rent out of me too if I move out with no notice and don’t clean the apartment and all that… Like, maybe it would be easier if I just stay here for the next couple of months until…”

Until I can move out properly and keep my goddamn bond money. Until you’re sure you want me to move in. Until you wise up and realise only a fool would want me as a partner and you find someone nicer or prettier or less pathetic to be your fake arm candy.

“Mn. Text me her details. I will have someone handle it for you. I will see you at lunch. My place.”

SQH opens his mouth to reply but Mobei has already hung up. Ah, I guess… I’m moving in today? Well, 30,000 yuan buys you a lot of compliance, my king!

He sends an email to his landlady formally announcing his departure and gets a ranting angry reply almost straight away. He forwards screenshots of both messages to Mobei’s phone number, along with Mrs. Bitch’s mobile number.

By the time he and his backpack of belongings arrive at Mobei’s apartment building – luxuriously splashing out on a taxi since he felt comparatively rich today – there is a new suspiciously courteous email in his inbox from his landlady apologising for her former email and assuring him his security deposit has now been refunded in full to his bank account. She also assures him he will not of course be charged rent for the remainder of his now-cancelled lease, due to the ‘unliveable’ nature of the apartment.

He checks his bank balance again with gleeful anticipation and finds that both his extortionately substantial security deposit and his upcoming month’s rent that he’d recently paid have already been refunded to him.

Ah! You’re the best, my king!

He doesn’t know what Mobei’s underling said to her to gain her instant compliance, but he doubts it was merely a politely worded request. He honestly doesn’t care. He knows in theory he should feel bad about the likelihood of his landlady being threatened with legal action over trying to get what she is, technically, legally owed. He has a hunch that she was strongarmed into her accommodating response by threats of more than just legal action, given how uncharacteristically polite she is being to him. He should feel bad. But he doesn’t. It’s every man for himself in a dog-eat-dog world, and Mobei isn’t be the first person he’s met who indulges in activities that are perhaps a little dodgy. Just a bit.

One of Shang Qinghua’s more dubious part-time jobs is scrubbing the data off ‘secondhand’ phones and laptops for a reseller. He doesn’t ask questions about who his contact has ‘bought’ them from and why he doesn’t have any passwords, and he gets paid in cash. He’s not sure if it’s morally worse or better than pimping out his beloved webnovel to his horniest readers, but in either case he does what he has to.

Survive. That’s the goal in life.

As he gets out of his taxi he looks around the apartment building and whistles; a soft, impressed noise. He’d been too dazed to pay much attention to it last night, and besides they’d headed straight for the garage, but in the bright light of day everything is all lit up and shiny and so busy! The ground floor of the building is devoted to non-apartments in the way only fancy luxury apartment complexes bothered with. There’s a spacious entryway and sofas to lounge on, and he sees what looks like maybe like some cafes or bars or something off to the sides. His prior residence crammed as many tenants in as possible, dividing up some of the small apartments into even smaller, shittier apartments in a way that almost certainly wasn’t legal, but no-one objected to for fear of losing their cheap homes. It certainly didn’t have room to waste on a lobby!

Shit, what was the apartment number?

He texts Mobei, who sends back a curt ‘wait at reception’ text, so he waits gingerly on a plush sofa and admires the polished stone walls and stares out though the enormous plate glass window at the manicured garden, trying to avoid eye contact with the two women at the reception desk. They have empty customer service smiles on and politely leave him alone after he says he is waiting for someone. He’s glad he’d dressed up in his nicest clothes; this feels like the posh kind of apartment building that would’ve kicked him out if he’d worn his stained Naruto shirt and sweatpants. He wonders how Mobei had smuggled him into his apartment last night.

Mind you, who’d say no to the lordly Mobei-Jun? Anyway, it was the middle of the night. Surely reception’s all closed down at what, 3am? 4am?

He bounces to his feet when his king appears, and beams happily at him as he strides down the hallway. “My king!”

“Hamhua,” Mobei says, in a purring tone of voice. He walks straight up to Qinghua and enfolds him in a hug like they’ve done it a hundred times before. He is wearing a business suit today, not the sexy clubbing outfit his sleep-deprived-confused memories insisted he’d met him in, or the casual shirt and jeans of last night. It’s still sexy, just in an excitingly new I-wanna-fuck-my-boss kind of fantasy way. His ice-blue silk tie with a subtle snowflake pattern probably cost more than Qinghua’s whole outfit, which is still the most expensive outfit he owns.

Shang Qinghua is startled, but not so much as to reject the embrace of this gorgeous man. “It’s Qinghua,” he whispers.

“I thought we were using nicknames for each other?” Mobei asks. He draws back and pats him on the top of his head, then he tucks a stray strand of hair that has escaped Qinghua’s bun behind his ear, and looks at him with a soft, tiny smile.

While Qinghua is still processing that his boyfriend has a pet name for him already – what the heck?! – Mobei presses a keycard into his hand, then turns to the reception desk.

“Shang Qinghua lives with me now as my partner. Please be sure to assist him with anything he needs.”

“Yes, Mr. Lin.”

“Of course, Mobei-Jun. We’ll be happy to help your guest at any time.”

After checking his phone and tucking it away in a suit pocket, Mobei gives him a bit of a tour of the apartment building while he lays out their official dating history, speaking more words in a row than he’s heard from him in total so far. “You and I have been dating for a month today, if anyone asks. We met at the same café; you spilled iced coffee on me and agreed to a date to pay me back. You can call me ‘Mobei-Jun’ around my business associates, ‘my king’ if you’re being flirtatious, and ‘Mobei’ for everyday use.”

“Yes, my king,” he says, and daringly sneaks his hand into his new boyfriend’s.

“This is the restaurant, and there’s a café over there that’s good for lunches,” Mobei says, waving at a couple of expansive rooms as they pass. “The bar is that way, it’s open in the evenings. Here’s the gym. I expect you will want to visit at least a couple of times a week. I spend a lot of my free time here, usually early in the mornings, so let me show you around.”

This room he actually leads him into, tugging at his hand like an excited kid showing off his Favourite Place. It’s frankly adorable, and Qinghua makes polite approving noises at the rows of treadmills and exercise machines.

Mobei escorts him over to the free weight area, where a few regulars greet ‘Mobei-Jun’, and react with barely-hidden surprise at being introduced to himself.

“This is my partner, Qinghua. He’s moving in. Please help spot him if he needs it.”

“What do you lift?” one of the tanned, muscle-bound men asks, looking his slightly squishy body up and down with assessing, judgemental eyes that say, I bet it’s not much.

“Uh, nothing?” he replies, with a nervous laugh. “I might just stick to the treadmills for now. I haven’t had access to a good gym in ages.”

More like never.

“I wouldn’t want to hurt myself overdoing things,” he adds, defensively.

They nod politely and promptly dismiss him from their attention as they return to their workouts and their very important staring-at-their-phones. Ouch.

He’s shown the pool area next – another luxury that’s free for residents which now includes his pampered self – and then is led off to admire ‘Adventure Zone’. It’s a playground probably intended for young kids, but there’s also a few older teens laughing as they zoom down the colourful plastic slides, and scramble through the maze-like construction of netting and soft foam obstructions in primary colours.

“I thought you might like this too, Qinghua,” Mobei says.

He wonders why – he’s about a decade too old to play on slides – but he just nods politely and smiles which seems to satisfy his king.

“Come. Lunch.”

Up in the apartment there’s a stack of boxes awaiting him plus his TV and microwave, a small, sad pile of his possessions politely hidden inside crisp new cardboard boxes to give it all a veneer of dignity. Almost all the shitty furniture had belonged to the furnished apartment and has thus been left behind. “Uh, my desk and chair?”

“The desk has been moved in, the chair was terrible; I ordered you a new one.”

He looks around to see if he can spot it – he can’t – and his eyes land on the small wooden dining table which is covered with dishes to the point that a couple of plates are stacked on top of each other, with metal cloches protecting the layer of food underneath.

“I didn’t know what you’d prefer to eat so I got everything good on the menu,” Mobei-Jun says, like a rich bitch for whom ‘budgeting’ is something that lesser mortals have to worry about, and who has probably never in his life had to buy expired ramen to save a few extra yuan.

Mobei says it with a suave, confident tone of voice, his face impassive, but while he sounds all cool and collected Shang Qinghua can recognise with a surprising shock of empathy the move of a deeply anxious man who doesn’t want to get things wrong and is maybe overcompensating so that someone – him! Shang Qinghua! – will like him.

Like that was ever in doubt for a single moment!

“That looks amazing,” he replies, with a gentle smile, and something in that cool ice king’s façade eases just a smidgen. A little edge of relaxation has him quirking up the corner of his mouth, and there’s maybe a little less tightness around his shoulders now.

Shang Qinghua sits down and helps himself to a bowl of noodles loaded with toppings, a club sandwich, and some chips, and Mobei-Jun pushes some juice towards his new live-in minion/boyfriend.

He eats in silence for a little while, suppressing the urge to ask Mobei-Jun if he’s sure, really really sure, and why him? He’s pretty sure the answer is that it’s because Mobei’s friends saw him with him, and he’s… convenient. Biddable. Buyable.

Right on all counts, I guess.

Two and a half lunches in, his stomach is fit to burst and he would push his plate aside but there’s nowhere left on the table to put it, so he just ignores everything for now and moves to the sofa instead, followed by Mobei-Jun who’d devoured a steak and salad. “So… um, this is great and all, but what exactly do you expect of me?”

“…You live here for free, and don’t pay any bills, and act like my boyfriend?” Mobei says, and he looks a little thrown as if for some reason he didn’t expect a need to discuss this further.

“And uh…?” Shang Qinghua asks leadingly, but he only gets a blank look. “You want me to sleep with you? Like, for money? I mean, I think you’re hot, but technically prostitution is illegal…”

Mobei snorts like that’s amusing. “A lot of things are technically illegal. No. You don’t have to do that unless you want to. But… I do want you to share my bed. And… hold my hand and kiss me sometimes. Especially if we are out as a couple.”

“Around your friends? I think they were at the café?” He can’t remember their faces, but he vaguely remembers people laughing at and teasing his king.

“The people I spend time with, yes. Luo Binghe and Sha Hualing are the two you met, very briefly. Also, act attentive to me when we’re around my uncle Lin Guang, and anyone else I introduce you to. Lang Tian will be at the party on Wednesday; he often tries to set me up with his nephew, so please be sure to be affectionate in front of them.”

A little further delicate discussion reveals that Mobei is tentatively planning on paying him a modest sugar baby salary of 5,000 yuan a week (hell yes!) to cover ‘clothing and sundry expenses’. In exchange for which he’d like Shang Qinghua to pretend to be his established boyfriend of a month’s duration, be at his exclusive beck and call for dates and parties and not date anyone else, dress nicely, and implicitly work out a bit given the tour earlier. Also, when Shang Qinghua guiltily volunteers further assistance, he hints that it’d be good if Qinghua was available for assorted personal assistant jobs a boyfriend might manage like handling his beloved’s dry cleaning and making restaurant bookings.

“I’d probably work for less,” he says, feeling guilty about taking advantage of this beautiful, stupid man. Someone is bound to find out eventually, and will point out how Shang Qinghua is a dirty, money-grubbing gold digger who really isn’t worth that kind of cash.

But Mobei-Jun, like the wealthy lord he styles himself, just frowns at him. “You won’t be able to afford proper clothing and shoes on less than that. I expect you to spend it, not just hoard it.”

Ohh, he doesn’t want me to embarrass him! Yeah, that’s fair. “You got it, my king!”

So he goes shopping. After unpacking his stuff – and junking some of it immediately ‘cause damn it just grubs up the place and the movers packed everything right down to his waste basket – he heads out in search of a nice suit. He wears his nicest clothes for his shopping expedition (so that the shop assistants don’t look down at him) and that combined with his obvious willingness to spend big and take directions gets him quality assistance.

He picks up two tailored suits with a couple of shirts, two ties (one pale blue and one in a tarnished gold), and a nice pair of shoes for 3,600 yuan. He mourns the dip in his bank balance while reassuring himself that there’s still plenty left and now he has pretty clothes to show for it. He also buys himself some silk boxers with little airplanes on them, just so he has something cute to wear to bed, and a new powerboard and mouse for his laptop.

When he gets back to the apartment he finds Mobei hard at work on a desktop computer with two monitors in the study – because damn this place has a dedicated study, not just the desk in the bedroom. The latter is clearly now his territory, with his laptop and notebooks arranged on it, and a brand new dark blue chair in front of it that’s one of those expensive-as-fuck chairs that professional streamers use that looks like it belongs in the front seat of a race car, all sculpted with padded wings and armrests and proper lumbar support.

“Wheee!” he spins around and around in his chair and laughs, and when Mobei peeks in at him he just beams at him, stubbornly refusing to be embarrassed. “I love my new chair!”

If we’re going to live together sooner or later he’ll see a lot worse than this.

Mobei nods, with a little smile, and returns to his study.

Chapter Text

The party is… okay, he guesses. It’s not something he would ever have chosen to go to on his own, but for the sake of 5,000 yuan a week and the utterly priceless perk of getting to fall asleep snuggled up to his king’s gorgeous tits, he’s willing to suffer through some teeny cocktail snacks with a French name he can’t pronounce, awkward small talk, and some teasing from Mobei’s friends.

I can be rich guy arm candy! I can be great arm candy! he tells himself determinedly, trying not to be intimidated by how they rented out an entire fancy restaurant just for a party. I got my hair done and everything! And a good night’s sleep so the dark shadows under my eyes are gone!

He hasn’t grown his hair out as any kind of active choice or fashion statement, it’s more that he was previously too poor to want to waste money on haircuts and it just kind of… grew. For the party he’d found a hair stylist who worked with long hair, and they’d given the ends a little trim and tamed his hair into a much fancier bun than usual then decorated it with a cute little hanfu-worthy hair crown. It turned his look from an I-can’t-be-bothered mess to an I-did-this-on-purpose stylish updo.

Mobei wasn’t the most loquacious of men, to say the least, and in preparation for socialising with people who’d expect Shang Qinghua knew something about the man he’d allegedly dated for a month, Qinghua had done his best to eke out a bit of a bio.

Lin Mobei is the wealthy heir to his family’s shipping company, Northern Desert Enterprises, which also dabbles in stock trading, and imports, and other unspecified stuff Shang Qinghua doesn’t fully grasp yet but suspects is a little dodgy. His ailing father has terminal cancer and has put Mobei nominally in charge of his company, but Mobei’s uncle Lin Guang is a well-entrenched figure on the Board of Directors and apparently gives Mobei a lot of grief any time he tries to change anything significant.

Mobei’s hobbies are working out and martial arts (year round) and skiing (on winter vacations), and he’d been a champion javelin thrower in high school but dropped it after graduating. His dating history is bewilderingly worse than Shang Qinghua’s, somehow, for Mobei is still a virgin too and has dated less people. His friends blame his single-ness on ‘terminal pickiness’, ‘ice queen vibes’, and ‘resting bitch face’, according to Mobei-Jun’s dry summation. Mobei-Jun himself blames it on his last two prospective boyfriends having been corporate spies – one honeypot boytoy had been sent by his goddamn uncle – which has totally put him off conventional dating.

Qinghua meets Sha Hualing for the first time at Mobei’s company party… well, technically he’d met her before at the café but he can’t remember her, so it totally doesn’t count. She looks like the kind of mean girl who probably would have picked on him in high school, and her blood-red lipstick and nails match her stylish dress which is half skin-baring cut-outs and half red ribbons, the kind of thing that you wouldn’t dare to call suitable for a prostitute mostly because of the price tag. It’s probably something dreamt up by a famous designer that a fashionista would recognise on sight and call avant-garde. It instantly makes his expensive new suit feel cheap but fuck it, a suit was a suit and this one had some tailoring which was fancier than he’d ever had before, even if it wasn’t some posh name brand designer suit.

“Mobei-Jun, good to see you, even though this party is so dull I thought for a minute I might actually have died of boredom,” she drawls. “Clubbing this weekend, yeah? You can bring your… pet.”

“Boyfriend,” Mobei corrects her swiftly, with narrowed eyes.

Her laughter is bright and bell-like as she winks at Shang Qinghua.

Am I supposed to wink back? He just shrugs instead; being neither offended nor amused. “You can call me Qinghua. And you must be Sha Hualing, right? Your reputation precedes you.”

“I bet it does,” she says, as she circles him like a shark. “Passable. A bit scrawny. You sure he’s not on drugs? ‘Cause he was really out of it last time we met.”

“Hey! I’m not!”

“He’s not,” Mobei confirms curtly. He wraps an arm around Qinghua’s waist and pulls him in close. “Play nice, Hualing.”

Her idea of ‘playing nice’ appears to be pinching his bum with those claw-like nails.

He jumps a foot in the air as he yelps and spins to face her, pressing his back against his king to protect his poor rear end. “What the fuck, seriously?!”

She just laughs again, and this time he’s sure there’s a cruel edge to it. “He’s not a pro, at least. Not martial arts or… anything else. He’s not perceptive or relaxed enough.”

“Hualing?”

“Yes, Mobei-Jun?” she answers, almost respectfully.

“Leave.” His face is glacially impassive.

She freezes in place, her head cocked to the side. “You know I’m just trying to protect you. I don’t want you to get in trouble again like with… you know.”

The last two wanna-be-whores who tried to spy on him, Qinghua mentally finishes. He lights a metaphorical candle in his heart for his king’s hurt soul. I’m not like that, really I’m not!

Mobei-Jun’s face softens from its cold, regal rage, and he nods at her. “I understand. But you’re bothering Qinghua. You can stay at the party. Just… go elsewhere for a while.”

She literally bows to him – to Mobei-Jun, that is, not Qinghua, even though he feels that he is the one truly due an apology here. “Yes, Mobei-Jun. I’ll go bug the Liu siblings for a while.”

“Mn.”

The Liu siblings are hot; Shang Qinghua can see why she likes them both, and he isn’t even into women! The sister has to be a model; she’s tall, gorgeous, and nicely rounded in all the right places. She probably has men falling over themselves to give her their phone number. She has a willow-leaf patterned face mask on and puts her phone away as Sha Hualing starts talking to her; maybe the edgy bad girl has a chance with her!

The brother, however, looks distinctly disinterested in her. Rather than talk to Hualing, he is craning his neck to look past and around her, trying to find someone presumably more interesting in the crowded restaurant that is mostly full of boring businessman. He is a lean, buff man whose biceps strain the tight business shirt he has on, he has his hair tied back in a sleek ponytail, and there’s a cute beauty spot under one eye.

“Liu Mingyan, Liu Qingge,” Mobei says, introducing them with a discreetly pointed finger. “Influential, rich family. He does MMA and works in the family business when he must, she writes and studies feminism at university.”

“Oooh!” Qinghua perks up at the report that a fellow author is in the room. If he was single he’d make a beeline for the hunk, but Mobei-Jun is even hotter, in his opinion. Taller and broader than the twink, with a tsundere air he found frankly irresistible. “Introduce me to her later, pleeease?”

He clings to Mobei’s arm and ducks his head down to nuzzle it against his king’s bicep as he flutters his eyelashes pleadingly, half seriously and half putting on a show for the benefit of Lang Tian whom he’s just spotted watching them. The older, wealthy businessman – a hot silver fox of a man – wears an expensive-as-fuck tailored suit and a blood-red tie. His nephew Zhuzhi at his side looks to be maybe in his early 20s and has on a matching suit paired with a green silk tie; he looks chokingly uncomfortable in it.

“Alright.” Mobei bends down to softly kiss the top of his head, and Qinghua beams up at him with admiration that doesn’t need to be faked.

Don’t get too attached too fast or betray your feelings, he’ll wise up soon, says the devil on his shoulder. Just enjoy it while it lasts and have fun, his angel encourages. Qinghua wishes his brain would let him believe that it would last, but no part of him is capable of that level of self-delusion.

He rises up on tiptoe with one hand on Mobei’s shoulder and the other placed flat on his chest for balance as he whispers into his ear, “Do you want to go show me off to them? I can cling and be cute! Make sure they know you’re unavailable now.”

“You’ve done that already,” Mobei reassures him, covering the hand splayed on his chest with own broader palm. “Come on, I see Luo Binghe; I want to introduce you.”

“Okay! Hey, what about your uncle? I haven’t seen him yet.”

“He’s over there,” Mobei says, waving a dismissive hand at a dense cluster of men in suits, sitting at a table with drinks in hand and heads bowed over folders full of paperwork. “Later, maybe.”

He’s willing to be towed by the hand over to meet Mobei’s friend, insofar as his tsundere king admits to having such a lowborn, common thing as a friend. Person-he-goes-clubbing-with-and-spends-time-with was the closest he was willing to acknowledge so far.

Oh no, he’s hot! is his first thought. It’s easy to immediately drop any wishful gay thoughts, however, when he sees how the lean man with lightly permed hair is plastering himself all over a hot twink. As Qinghua watches, Binghe sneaks his hands under the man’s open suit jacket to slide his hands all over the ash-green silk shirt covering the twink’s lean chest. The twink hides his face behind a bamboo-patterned fan but while he looks embarrassed, he’s not pulling away. In fact, he reaches out one hand to pat Binghe’s fluffy hair and in return gets a look of such undiluted thirsty adoration from Binghe that Shang Qinghua cringes at this sudden force-feeding of dog food.

“New… friend?” Mobei asks leadingly, as they reach the lovey-dovey couple.

“New boyfriend,” Binghe pronounces with a smug, triumphant air.

“That’s right, we are definitely dating,” the twink agrees, a little too decidedly and loudly, as if trying to prove a point. He finally drags his eyes away from his beloved to look at the new arrivals, and blinks in surprise as he lowers his fan.

“Qinghua? Holy shit, it’s been what, two years?!”

Hey, I know this twink! “Shen Yuan! Fancy seeing you here! Beijing’s a small world sometimes, huh?”

Luo Binghe levels him a suspicious glare, all narrow-eyed threat that screams, You had better not be too good a friend or I will fucking cut you!

Or maybe it’s his imagination, because the man’s all sunny smiles again as soon as Shen Yuan turns to him and says, “This is Shang Qinghua, an old friend – we shared a couple of literature courses at university before he dropped out!”

They chat for a while about uni, and Shen Yuan commiserates with him about how his parental funding ran out, then recommends some new novels and shows he’s following these days. Qinghua speaks evasively about his own alleged ‘unfinished novel’ he’s working on and complains a bit about the woes of working customer service jobs. Mostly he just lets Yuan ramble and rant away about anime.

While they catch up Mobei and Binghe seem to indulge in some kind of tsundere communication method that mostly involves a lot of silent staring and also possessive and pointed hugging of their respective boyfriends.

Shen Yuan seems blissfully oblivious to the jealous undertones, but Qinghua is painfully aware of the growing tension.

“…So I said to mum, isn’t casual tutoring and online editing work enough?” Shen Yuan complains. “It is a real job, it’s just not full time! But she thinks I’m not doing enough with my literature degree.”

“At least you finished your degree,” he complains, to a rare sympathetic ear. “Half a degree is less than worthless.”

“My parents still aren’t impressed even though I finished. Dad says I should have done business administration, but that’s what I have two older brothers for! Anyway, I think mum’s going to buy me a magazine for my birthday, she says she’s tired of seeing me waste my life away like a salted fish.”

“A magazine? That’s a bit of a shitty gift,” he says, before the penny drops as everyone looks at him strangely. “Ohhh wait, your family is stupidly rich. You don’t mean like an issue.”

Shen Yuan laughs, but there’s no malice in it. “Yeah, it’s not a single issue, Qinghua. But you’re still dead right that it’s a shitty gift.”

Luo Binghe steps in between them, casually like it’s an accident, as he reaches out to grasp both of Shen Yuan’s hands in his. “I’ll help you manage it if they do, Shizun!” he promises earnestly. “I’ll help find a manager for you; you won’t have to do a thing.”

“Shizun?” Qinghua asks teasingly.

Shen Yuan peers around his big lump of a boyfriend to talk to him again. “Yeah, I tutored him for a while a few years ago when he was a senior in high school. It’s uh… like a pet name, I guess? Because we’re dating,” he emphasizes. “We’re very in love and happy together.”

Luo Binghe kisses his blushing boyfriend on one cheek, all starry-eyed.

“That’s cool bro, I’m very serious with Mobei-Jun here,” he replies, which eases Luo Binghe’s attitude back down from smouldering volcano to toasty fireplace. “We just moved in together!”

“He lives with me now,” Mobei agrees, then pulls him backwards into a tight hug that presses Qinghua’s back against Mobei’s chest, as Mobei arches his chin up to rest it atop Qinghua’s head.

He snuggles in willingly, entwining his arms with Mobei’s and leaning in that little bit closer. It’s weird being out and proud while in a fucking tailored suit eating caviar and other fancy shit, but he decides the little angel is right and he should enjoy the ride while it lasts.

They manage to exchange phone numbers before Luo Binghe’s puppy eyes win Shen Yuan’s compliance in moving on to mingle elsewhere. Binghe swaps numbers with him too, and he’s not sure how genuine that interest is but he is certainly willing to make friends with his old friend’s new boyfriend; the recently claimed rich heir to Huanhua Palace, and also a friend (associate?) of Mobei’s. Huanhua Palace was the gaudy hotel chain favoured by celebrities and other rich fucks who wanted to stay somewhere so pretentious it made Mobei’s apartment look like a hovel; it had recently been subject to a hostile takeover acquisition by Lang Tian. Qinghua doesn’t know the full details, only what he’d found with a quick search on Baidu for the CEO’s name before the party.

He doesn’t meet the dreaded evil vizier of an uncle until they’re about to leave, while Mobei is briefly distracted away from his side by some men who want to talk business.

The man sidles up to him and sneers down his nose at him, sipping at his half-empty glass flute of champagne. “So, you’re the new whore little Mobei found. I’ll give you 100,000 yuan to fuck off and never speak to him again. It’s the smart choice.”

What the actual fuck?!

He slides his hands into his pockets; an innocent nervous gesture as he hunches slightly. “Umm… sorry? Could you repeat that?”

“I said if you’re a smart whore you’ll take the money and fuck off, Shang Qinghua. 150,000 yuan to dump little Mobei and find someone more at your level. Final offer.”

“Yeah, no thanks, Mr. Lin,” he says, full of a quiet glee. “That’s not a very attractive offer.” He made a plan in advance for what to do if the man said anything especially shady, and delights that it’s working.

Lin Guang drains the last of his champagne and huffs. “Very well, 200,000 yuan. But I really won’t go higher than that. You should take what you can get in this world, and my offer is more than generous. You’re not worth more, and he’ll tire of you quickly.”

Holy shit that’s a lot of money! And yeah, he’s probably right, but I do have some principles. “Still a no, Uncle Lin, but thanks for showing that you at least think I’m an expensive whore.”

He walks away whistling, and as he rejoins Mobei he turns off the recording function on his phone. Got you, arsehole!

The next morning he shares the audio recording with Mobei, who is flatteringly deeply impressed. He then shares it in turn with a lawyer he has on retainer, adding it to a growing pile of evidence (or possibly blackmail material) to hit his uncle with when he’s ready.

“Name your reward,” Mobei says grandly, and he’s tempted to ask for 200,000 yuan, he really is.

If I can keep him as a boyfriend it would be even better, he thinks wistfully. “Take me out dancing?” he suggests, in the end, as wistful optimism wins out over greed.

“Mn.”

Mobei-Jun wears his clubbing gear, all bare-chested with a fucking fur-lined cloak thrown over his shoulders to cover him for the taxi ride to the club. His chest glitters, all silver sparkles from some kind of body makeup, and Qinghua can’t stop rubbing his hands over it and Mobei just lets him, like he’s used to being treated as a living icon for adoration, his perfect chest and belly rubbed for luck. As his latest worshipper, Qinghua’s hands are all silvery by the end of the night, and so is half his own outfit thanks to grinding up against his king at every opportunity, and he has zero fucking regrets. He stares into those ice-blue weird cat eyes because it wasn’t a fever dream it was coloured contacts, and hopes. Oh, how he hopes.

“We can… we can do whatever you like tonight,” he whispers. “You’re paying me more than enough, you know.”

“Hmm.” It’s all the answer he gets, and not as enthusiastic as he’d hoped for.

Take it slow, Qinghua. Wasn’t moving in after a day fast enough for you? You’ve barely known him a week, you idiot, he castigates himself. Of course he doesn’t find you as tempting as you find him. You should be glad he thinks you’re passably cute enough to fake date.

Unfortunately, Mobei doesn’t take full advantage of him that evening, but once they’re at home and the door to their apartment has closed behind them, his king grabs him by the shoulders and shoves him slowly up against the door, backing him up step by step until his back is flat against it. His breath catches as Mobei leans in closer.

“Mmm?” Mobei asks with a wordless hum, as he reaches up and strokes his cheek.

“Yes please,” he replies, as he tilts his head up in encouragement.

He licks his lips, just a brief flick of his pink tongue, and Mobei leans in further to claim them in a gentle kiss that grows hungrier and more fierce the longer it goes on.

They end the night in bed together, snuggling while kissing lazily. Their tongues twine together in slow exploration of each other’s mouths, and hands caress the polite zone above the belt. It is enough for now and gives him hope for the future.

Chapter Text

Qinghua loves his new desk almost as much as he enjoys sleeping in bed next to Mobei. As it’s in the bedroom he doesn’t even bother to get dressed most mornings, he just stumbles out of bed, drags on a dressing gown, and plonks himself down to scroll social media until he’s awake enough to start writing.

Most days Mobei-Jun hits the gym for a dawn workout, then dresses like the king he is in intimidatingly expensive suits as he heads out in the mornings for in-person meetings and whatever other executive things he needs to do to keep Northern Desert Enterprises running. He often returns home in the early afternoon to work from home in his study, teleconferencing and tapping away at his sleek computer with multiple monitors that probably costs as much as an ordinary person’s car.

Qinghua is not envious. At all. Not even a little bit.

Still! His shiny new blue chair makes up for a lot, and he throws himself back into writing Proud Immortal Demon Way with a new zest for his story. He still sets himself a punishing writing schedule, but without the need to scrape and save by working multiple shitty jobs it’s a lot easier to manage. He has time to plan now, and edit properly, and doesn’t have to include heaving bosoms in every scene to get the thirsty subscribers clicking to donate enough to pay his rent. Peerless Cucumber even leaves a review on one plot-rich chapter that is almost like praise! In uncommunicated gleeful thanks he writes a new multi-chapter arc with Machiavellian political intrigue centred around his protagonist helping out his new ice demon buddy with the assassins sent by his evil uncle, just for Peerless Cucumber. Okay, okay, maybe one of the assassins is a hot demon chick with enormous tits that his hero wins to the side of good via the usual method (a good dicking down) but apart from that it’s all plot! His subscriber and donation level doesn’t even drop, as good ol’ Cucumber drops in a little extra donation to encourage him along, so it’s all good!

With his mornings dedicated to writing, he helps out Mobei-Jun in the afternoons with a few little tasks, like booking meeting rooms and doing dry-cleaning runs for his suits. Sometimes he squeezes in a little cardio down in the gym in the afternoons, then it’s more writing in the evenings until dinner.

Outside of clubbing or workouts, Mobei wears a lot of traditional suits, but it’s clearly done for image management reasons, not out of any love for wearing a full three-piece suit in summer. He sheds layers of clothing as soon as all his meetings are over, tugging off his tie, shedding his jacket, and kicking off his shoes. He’ll roll up his sleeves and unbutton the top two buttons of his shirt in a way that has Qinghua stealing thirsty glances at the temptingly exposed skin. On a good day when he hasn’t run too late with business and has time to lounge around before dinner, Mobei will sometimes change into a tank top and shorts, showing off all the rippling muscles he’s worked so hard for.

In the evenings they alternate cooking, and sometimes his king orders in from the apartment complex’s restaurant when neither of them feel like exerting any effort. The only part of the arrangement that makes Qinghua pout is his king’s unwillingness to indulge him with oodles of desserts and junk food. Sure, he has his own money he can spend on that stuff, but Mobei always looks so damn disappointed at him when he goes overboard with treats, so most nights dinner has vegies and lean protein in it, and dessert isn’t anything more indulgent than imported fruit.

Some nights they go out clubbing with friends; Qinghua’s bought a few clothes just for hypothetically looking sexy in while dancing and feels he is when he sees how Mobei watches him dance, his eyes lingering on his tight pants or strategic cutouts in his shirts.

Once or twice a week they go to formal dinners or lunches together; boring business stuff but Qinghua is getting good at schmoozing whoever they’re meeting with. Mobei-Jun always looks quietly delighted to have a partner at his side to handle the chattier types; Qinghua flatters and charms them like a pro.

“How do you do it?” Mobei asks. “It’s impressive.”

He shrugs. “Mostly I just act interested in what they have to say. Most people love to talk about themselves, and have someone act interested in that. That’s the core of my technique and so far it’s working well, wouldn’t you say? You could try it too.”

“Mn. I’ll stick to my role, I think. I don’t need to be liked, just respected. You do what you do best, Qinghua.”

He nods. It’s nice to feel respected. I feel he respects how I help him, too!

Most nights they cuddle together on the sofa late in the evening. They watch anime that Shen Yuan recommended, and some sappy romances that Mobei claims Sha Hualing insisted he watch that he allegedly isn’t personally interested in, no matter how invested he always looks in the happy endings. At night they make out a little in bed, and Qinghua goes to sleep sexually frustrated maybe, but happy! He snuggles to sleep all tucked up against his king’s beautiful chest. He is loving this sugar baby life!

And then… then… Shen Yuan texts him again. And recommends Qinghua read his own webnovel!

He spins a couple of circles in his chair in glee as he lets out a quiet squeal of delight, then drums his feet happily on the ground as he texts back.

SQH: whats ur handle?

SY: Peerless Cucumber. I leave a lot of reviews! A lot of the work is utter trash NGL but the early stuff is good and recently the quality’s picked right up again. Just skim past the boring papapa is my advice. The protagonist is awesome and the monsters and lots of the fight scenes are really good too. Most of the women are unmemorable idiots but there’s a few good secondary characters in it.

Holy shit! He's Peerless Cucumber! This is amazing! 

SQH: hey guess what?

SY: You read it already?

SQH: I WROTE IT

SY: Fuck off. You did not.

SQH: did too, cucumber-bro! :D imma prove it magic word is cucumber-bro go look at PIDW

He logs in and hops into his own comments section, which he rarely bothers interacting with (free time previously being in short supply). He quickly finds the most recent glowing (for him) Peerless Cucumber review about how the ice king arc was ‘not as puerile as your usual work’ with the grudging admission that ‘the fight scenes weren’t bad’. He leaves a short reply which reads simply, “Thanks, Cucumber-bro! :)”

He uses proper punctuation, because he does know how to use it when he is willing to make the effort and isn’t trying to be deliberately irritating because someone told him off about leaving typos in his texts too many times in a row last week.

Shen Yuan’s reply is just a row of bouncing dots for a long while until he finally settles on a swear word.

SY: Holy shit! You’re really Airplane!

SQH: lol told u! u love my stupid sotry i knew u did cucumber-bro! all that hate but noone comments that much unless they love something right???

SY: …I have some constructive feedback for you.

“Holy shit,” he says out loud, and blanches as he realises the terrible mistake he’s just made. He hasn’t just told his friend Shen Yuan about his webnovel. He’s just doxxed himself to Peerless Cucumber who now knows how to get a hold of him night or day. “I regret everything. Fuck my life.”

The next few days pass in a haze of editing as Cucumber-bro emails him marked-up copies of every single chapter of PIDW. He accidentally skips enough meals that Mobei frets over it and starts to bring him food at his desk.

“Qinghua. You must eat,” he says, in a gentle, encouraging tone of voice.

He taps away at his keyboard, and ignores the plate set down near his left elbow. Yesterday his snack was a cup full of roasted and salted sunflower seeds – very more-ish. Today it’s fruit, which is duller. Besides, he’s on a roll with his writing. “Yeah, in just a bit. I’m in the zone. Editing chapter thirty-two again gave me a good foreshadowing idea that I can use now for an upcoming chapter.”

“You didn’t eat breakfast, either.”

Maybe Cucumber-bro had a point about keeping track of this stuff. Background characters are better with ongoing arcs. I wonder if he’d make a spreadsheet for me? I bet he would! Ooo I could have a fan wiki! Peerless Cucumber – official wiki mod.

“Qinghua. Open.”

He jolts as he finds a slice of apple poised in front of his mouth. He’s hand-feeding me?!

He looks up at Mobei, but his bland face doesn’t give anything away. He just waits patiently until Qinghua gives in and bites at the apple slice.

“Okay, okay, I’m eating,” he promises.

He grabs a grape from the bowl of fruit salad and pops it in his mouth as proof, then turns back to his draft.

That succubus from the Abyss can totally be someone who works for Madam Meiyin! And that can be a link to the brothel-going Shen Qingqiu, he decides. Maybe it’s worth putting in some actual backstory hints for him from my old draft notes, now I can literally afford to focus on plot more?

Another piece of fruit nudges at his lips, and he obediently munches what turns out to be a slice of pear while continuing to write.

“I really will eat,” he swears again, but as he doesn’t stop writing it seems that Mobei isn’t quite convinced, for he keeps on feeding him.

Sugar baby courtesan! he thinks gleefully, promptly adding in a scene into his story where the succubus hand feeds the willingly-captive protagonist, who’s come to the brothel to gather information on his former Shizun.

The grapes are fine to distractedly munch on, but eating the watermelon pieces ends up very messy. Focused on his writing he accidentally nips and sucks lightly at Mobei’s fingers on the last piece, but it’s so crisp and juicy that he still ends up with a trickle of pink watermelon juice running down his chin.

Mobei wipes it away with a swipe of his index finger, and as Qinghua looks up, startled, he sees Mobei lick his finger clean of the gathered juice.

He looks between his computer and Mobei-Jun. His chapter is calling him – he pauses to save the document, just in case of a tragic blue screen of death – but his king is standing right next to him and staring at him with bedroom eyes as he licks at his finger with unnecessary slow swipes of his tongue. He’s in black trousers and a white business shirt, of which he has rolled up the sleeves and unbuttoned the top few buttons, baring enough of his chest that Qinghua can see the swell of those beautiful pecs. He hopes he’s not drooling. He snaps his mouth shut as he realises he is gaping at the sight.

As his king sees Qinghua paying suddenly rapt attention to him he sucks his whole finger into his mouth with a tight seal, drawing his finger in and out of his mouth a couple of times before removing it and smiling at him seductively.

It’s not a very subtle gesture but damn if it doesn’t work because now all Qinghua can think about is blowjobs.

Mobei tilts his head and looks over at the nearby bed then back at Qinghua.

“Yeah…” he says, a breathless reply to the wordless question. “Yes… I… really would like to do… more. If my king wants to? If you’re ready?”

“Mn.” He unbuckles his pants, a very subtle hint that yes, yes he is ready.

They tumble into bed together, and Mobei brings the bowl of fruit with them to messily share. Mobei makes an excellent plate to eat fruit from! For dessert, he goes down on Mobei, choking messily on what turns out to be a truly king-sized cock.

“Sorry, I thought this would be easier, my king. It’s just, you’re so big! Even with well hung guys it always looks so effortless in porn,” he apologises, when he has to draw off again to catch his breath and settle his gag reflex. “I don’t have heaps of experience with this.” He doesn’t want to puke all over his king! He’s only tried giving one other guy a blow-job in the past, and yeah… he’d choked so badly the guy had told him not to bother and zipped his pants back up.

Mobei-Jun strokes his head gently. “It’s alright. I haven’t done it much either. Just practice, my hamhua.”

It takes work, and there’s one bad moment where Mobei grabs his head and pushes him down until he’s choking and has to slap Mobei’s thigh to remind him to let him goddamn breathe. But Mobei learns to stick to gentle touches, and Qinghua learns how to breathe through his nose and swallow around that monster cock. Eventually Mobei is spilling down his throat with a deep groan, and Qinghua manages to swallow most of his come. Okay he splutters out a little but his king doesn’t seem to mind.

Mobei’s return blowjob is even less expert than his own, as he doesn’t get the trick of keeping his teeth clear on his first few tries. He gives up for now and pulls Qinghua up to lie next to him as he offers him a handjob instead.

Qinghua is happy with that too, and is happy to lick and suck at one of Mobei’s nipples while being masturbated by his king until he comes all over his hand. He let out a muffled cry into his king’s chest as he pushes closer, clinging and grasping at him with desperate fervour as pleasure rushes through him. He glances down to see that his king is half-hard again.

“Another round?” he suggests hopefully.

“I have a meeting online in half an hour,” Mobei apologises, as he tidies himself up with a handful of tissues and redresses.

“Oh. Later?” he asks optimistically.

“Later tonight,” his king agrees, before hesitating. “If you want to?”

“I want to.”

-0-

After that encounter their nights transition from cuddling to blow jobs and hand jobs, and both of them learn how to manage them a bit better, with less choking, teeth, and messy sheets.

He boasts about how well hung Mobei is to Cucumber-bro, who insists he ‘doesn’t want to know’ before pettily insisting his boyfriend is even bigger.

SY: I’ve seen him a couple of times coming out of the shower. He’s a foot long, I swear! It’s a fucking Heavenly Pillar as thick as my wrist! Your ‘king’ can’t possibly be bigger than Binghe.

SQH: just a couple of times? i thought u were dating? any BJ tips for dealing w the well hung?

SY: Oh. Well, don’t tell Mobei-Jun or anyone else, but Binghe and I are just roommates. You see, he used to date Liu Mingyan, and he wants to make her jealous and prove to her he’s moved on and is happy without her, so we’re fake dating.

SQH: I saw u two kissing though? At the club the other night?? And lmy wans’t even there!

SY: Well, we have to look realistic. Binghe pointed out it’s not going to be convincing if I startle when we kiss. So we practice even if she’s not around.

SQH: ???? u sure hes not just really into u cucumberbro?? Bc I think he just is maybe making excuses to kiss u…

SY: Please. He’s straight, and so am I. It’s just an act, okay? But don’t ruin this for Binghe; you can’t tell Mobei-Jun, or Sha Hualing, or anyone else.

SQH: press x to doubt bro….. hey do u sleep together?

SY: We share a bed if that’s what you mean. He’s obviously too tall for the couch.

He can’t convince him that Binghe is into him, but he promises not to say anything to anyone about their ‘fake’ dating.

I saw what I saw. Multiple times. If Binghe was any thirstier he’d be dying of dehydration. Whatever, they’ll figure it out, and those of us living in glass penthouses shouldn’t throw stones! I too wanna crash at my crush’s house like a thirsty mooch.

He doesn’t point out to his friend that Luo Binghe must have plenty of income working for Northern Desert Enterprises, as well as reputedly being some kind of heir to Lang Tian, real estate mogul. He had absolutely zero need to crash at Shen Yuan’s apartment.

I’m not getting in the middle of that hot mess! They’ll sort it out eventually; I’ve done what I can and he’s just not listening. I don’t want to find out if that guy would literally murder me or not if I ruin his plan to woo Shen Yuan.

Chapter Text

Qinghua browses the web on his mobile while Mobei spoons him from behind, woken by the bright light shining in through the large bedroom window. Unlike his old gloomy apartment window that looked out onto the oh-so-attractive view of the stained brick wall of another apartment building, in Mobei’s lofty apartment there’s nothing but a big expanse of space to look out at, with most multi-storey buildings far below them. The only interruption to the skyline is the oddly shaped ‘Big Pants’ skyscraper, and that’s far enough away that it doesn’t block anything so light just streams in their window every morning. Sometimes far too early in the day for his taste! But with Mobei’s soft breath against his ear, and his warm, bare chest snuggled up against Qinghua’s back, he finds early mornings aren’t half so bad as they used to be. He doesn’t want to get up… but he also can’t resist the siren call of the internet.

He checks reviews on Proud Immortal Demon Way first and finds a new deluge of comments from Cucumber-Bro aka Shen Yuan, unofficial King of Gay Denial. There’s a lot of faint praise for his edits on old chapters; unsurprising given he’d used so many of his bro’s suggestions. There’s also some impressively positive comments on his latest chapters about the ‘close friendship’ being built between his demon lord protagonist and his new ice king right hand man.

Uh yeah. Friendship, he thinks, with a quiet snort. That’s totally what I had in mind! Still, it’s fair enough I guess; I left it deliberately ambiguous so as to not scare off all my stallion novel fans. Maybe I should start a second xianxia novel with some hot gay student/teacher forbidden romance… I have a sugar daddy patron! I could write a passion project, not just stallion bread and butter!

Then he thinks about all the work writing a second novel would take, and winces. Yeah, maybe not yet. Still, it’s something to think about.

He browses social media for a while, catches up on some news, and then checks his bank balance, wondering if he’s got enough savings for a new computer.

What the fuck, when did that get so high?! No wait… yeah… it’s been how many weeks here? Wow, that added up fast. I. Am. Rich!

He wiggles his feet joyously, and Mobei murmurs sleepily and tightens his hold on him, like he’s subconsciously worrying he’s trying to get away.

Not escaping, my king! Just happy! I don’t… I don’t deserve this. He strokes the man’s hands where they’re wrapped around his middle, and with a sinking heart he thinks, Yeah, I really don’t deserve all this.

He argues with himself mentally for a while, trying to suppress all the intrusive thoughts about how he doesn’t deserve money for mooching and was a wh- sugar baby.

I’m a real boyfriend now, and that’s okay, right? For your partner to look after you? Married people do that all the time! Not that he’s my husband. Who’d want to be married to me?! It’s not legal, anyway. Not here.

He shifts restlessly in bed, searching Baidu with questions like ‘am i mooching off my partner too much’ and ‘how to contribute when u hate housework’ and ‘what does a really good personal assistant do’ until he comes up with a plan to feel more like a partner and less like an expensive, decorative burden.

When Mobei eventually wakes and kisses his ear, then smiles sleepily at him, he immediately hits him with, “Can we talk?”

The dopey smile evaporates as his face falls into his resting bitch face expression instead, and Qinghua realises instantly he should have also searched the web for advice on ‘how to have a serious talk without making your boyfriend panic you’re dumping him’.

Fix this, Qinghua! he tells himself sternly.

“I… It’s not a bad talk. It’s just, I think I’m falling in love with you, and I… would like to be more like a boyfriend to you? Like… a better partner. Can we talk about that? If you feel the same way?” he babbles.

His king’s face relaxes out of its icy stillness, then he rolls over and pins Qinghua to the bed, his big hands trapping Qinghua’s wrists against the soft mattress. “Yes. I want that too. Very much.”

Qinghua gasps as Mobei presses into him and his teeth graze his neck. He moans as his king bites and suckles at his neck until he’s sure he’s gonna have hickeys for weeks. “Ah! Well, yes… that too, my king!” he says, panting for breath. “But I meant like… a talk? Serious talk time?”

Mobei stills and sighs, then rolls off him. He lies on his back and pulls Qinghua firmly against him, snuggling him into his side and forcibly rearranging him until Qinghua’s head is resting against his pecs – admittedly his favourite position to snuggle in. “Not that then. I thought… Hmm. You… want more money?”

“No. I want a job as your personal assistant, more officially. I want – I would like – to do more P.A. work for you, not just token chores. I want to help you more… earn my keep. Not full-time! I still want to write. But part-time? I did some of that P.A. stuff for my dad, when I was a teen. I know my way around all the usual programs, and I can do some basic coding, too! I’m pretty good at all that techie stuff. I have done a little admin work and plenty of tech support and all kinds of things. I can look after your calendar, do spreadsheet design, sort mail, manage social media posts or websites, that sort of thing. If you would like. If it’s helpful.”

Mobei-Jun is so quiet it makes him fret.

“I-If you don’t trust me, I understand,” he says quietly. “I don’t know if I’d trust me, in your shoes. If there’s something else I can do for you, I’m open to suggestions. It’s just an idea. You don’t have to show me anything confidential, or make me a real P.A. if you don’t want to. Just let me do something more for you that’s not… you know. In bed. Booking meeting rooms and restaurants is like, less than ten minutes a day, you know? Let me do more. But not cleaning. I suck at that. I hate it. You have a cleaning service already so there’s no point offering, right?”

“I have a real P.A. already,” Mobei rumbles, stroking Qinghua’s hair gently. “They used to work for my father.”

“Oh, well that’s–”

“They’re terrible,” he concludes. “You’re hired, Qinghua.”

-0-

The abruptly fired personal assistant, an elderly man named An Ding, spitefully dumps a massive load of unsorted files onto his successor via the company server with a curt and insulting, ‘Good luck, xiaojie!’ It includes a document called ‘Passwords List’ which is exactly what it says on the tin and is so not something he should have been given instant access to.

I am going to abuse the hell out of this, he thinks gleefully, as all the shit he can get into becomes clearer the more he looks.

Shang Qinghua immediately changes the password for An Ding’s email account and takes it over in case his predecessor wises up. Then he adds himself into a bunch of theoretically secure meetings Mr. Lin Guang is in as ‘Calendar Bot’ and begins giving himself admin permissions over practically everything he can find.

“Shang Qinghua, corporate spy. Shaken, not stirred,” he mutters contentedly to himself.

Lin Guang’s name appears in the ‘Passwords List’ a couple of times, as an admin account with access to managing some bulletins and also a mailing list. Shang Qinghua quickly finds a spreadsheet for the company mailing list; An Ding had recorded the names, emails, and passwords of all the members (goodness knows why, but he had). And the same password pops up for the third time in a row: ‘Linguang-Jun#1!’. Shang Qinghua is willing to bet a lot of money the guy uses the same password everywhere.

“Fucking Boomer noobs,” he sneers, but there’s a smile on his face that doesn’t go away for hours. He’s going to be so fucking useful that his king, that Mobei-fucking-Jun-#1 will never want to let him go.

Two days of intensive work later (and some temporary neglect of his webnovel), he joins Mobei at the dining table for a restaurant-ordered meal at home and lays out some of his work, starting with the easy stuff. “So, I’ve made lots of email templates for faster responses, created a couple of spreadsheets so I can track your expenses, fixed your calendar so you’re not double-booked for a bunch of stuff, and quietly added you into a meeting that you were previously excluded from. You were originally cut out of a stockholder’s meeting you should be chairing that your uncle is claiming you’ll be out of the country for.”

“Mn. Good!” Mobei says, straightening up in his seat.

His look of proud approval is like a balm to Qinghua’s soul. But the hardest part is yet to come.

“And… I uh,” he starts nervously, rubbing the back of his neck, “I might have uh, done a lot of corporate spying and put together a dossier of illegal shit your uncle is up to, including getting Northern Desert Enterprises all tangled up with the triads? Both of the rival triads Sun Yee On and 14K, in particular? I’m sure I can find more evidence of his criminal activities over time, but even with a few days there’s a lot here. And links to the triads seem… extensive.”

He plonks down a thick folder full of print-outs on the table. It was hastily pulled together but is probably still enough evidence to put Lin Guang in prison for decades, with the right lawyers and a fair judge. It might, however, cause significant problems for the business, too.

There’s silence for a long while, as Mobei chews and swallows his steak and takes a drink of wine. The scrape of his knife on his plate is loud in the quiet, as Qinghua anxiously waits for a response.

“I… know about the links to various triads,” Mobei says eventually. “It is… I would ask that you… not worry about it. At all.” He pointedly pushes the folder – still closed – to one side, as he stares at him.

Oh. Oh!

“Okaaaay…” he replies, very slowly, as his mind whirls. It’s cool, stay cool! “Uhhh… well. Well then. How about the embezzlement? Do you know he’s embezzling company funds?”

“…No. Tell me.”

He sorts through the folder on the table and flips past various paperclipped sheaves of papers with sticky notes identifying their contents. He ignores ‘extortion’, ‘money laundering’, ‘triads’, and ‘counterfeiting’, before pulling out the printouts of hastily hacked accounting department records and Lin Guang’s emails that he’s labelled ‘embezzlement’. He makes a mental note to buy a paper shredder later for the rest of the bundles.

It’s… it’s whatever, he thinks, trying to calm his mind, pondering how much he cares about the crimes the company is mixed up in when he is personally profiting from all of this. Also, he admits to himself that he would rather slap himself in the face than see his king arrested. Everyone’s gotta make a living. The most important thing to do in this world is just damn well SURVIVE.

It’s his motto, and he’s sticking to it.

-0-

Mobei seems very content these days, a well-fed tiger sated by a steady diet of affection and attention. Qinghua learns how to interpret his tiny little smiles and frowns; his king’s micro-expressions are a language he’s becoming fluent in.

Qinghua does his fiction writing in the morning, and dedicates his afternoons – while his boyfriend is around – to doing personal assistant and sneaky corporate spy stuff. Then they just… hang out together for a while after the day is done and have dinner. He maybe sneaks in a little more writing afterwards, because writing 10K words a day is not a fucking walk in the park and some days it’s only 5K now but his readers can just fucking deal with it. Then they go to bed together for some heavy make out sessions and eventually some sleep. More sleep than he used to get! These days if he stays up too late on the computer Mobei has a tendency to physically pick him up and haul him into bed, pinning him in place with heavy limbs like a sleepy tiger one dare not wake for fear of unhappy growls.

More than once, he amusedly overhears his king using him as an excuse to not go out and socialise with some unwanted business associate.

“My partner insists it’s our ‘monthaversary’,” he insists to one pushy associate, despite Qinghua not having tracked the date at all. He looks up when they met based on his email exchange with his old landlord, and it’s not their ‘monthaversary’ as far as he can deduce, and Mobei certainly doesn’t make any special effort that evening with dinner or gifts of any kind.

“This Mobei-Jun cannot attend. It is my regular date night with my partner,” he explains on another occasion, to a woman whose shrill tones can be faintly heard even though his mobile’s not on speaker.

When he hangs up, Qinghua asks, “Do we have a regular date night? I thought we were going to stay home and watch ‘Love Between Fairy and Devil’ in bed in our pyjamas?”

Mobei shrugs. “We have a date night now. If you want one.”

They go out that night to a fancy restaurant Sha Hualing had recommended to him, partly because of the ‘exceptionally good Italian food’ and partly because she is currently crushing on a cute, perky waitress who wears her hair up in braided loops. Mobei watches him dress for the evening with a proprietary interest, and eyes him with hungry approval when he puts on a new, tailored suit.

“Hand,” he orders, beckoning, and Qinghua obediently holds out his left hand. For a second there he wonders incredulously if his boyfriend is going to propose, and his heart starts beating fast like a frightened rabbit, but no.

It’s not a ring box that Mobei fishes out of his pocket, but a fancy wristwatch. His heartrate is still thundering away as Mobei kisses the inside of his wrist – a light, teasing brush of his lips – and straps it on him. It’s a steel watch with a navy leather band with an odd, chunky pattern, and the matching blue watch face has roman numerals on it and – most importantly – ‘Cartier’ written on it in crisp English letters. Sweet! Luxury watch.

“How much was this? Please don’t tell me you spent like a month’s rent on something that tells the time with less precision than my phone does. Not that I’m not grateful!” he adds hastily. He pulls his wrist closer to his body, a little worried that Mobei might want to take the watch back. It could happen! His dad had once reclaimed a birthday gift when he hadn’t shown sufficient appreciation for it. “I really do like it. Thank you, my king.”

“…Not a month’s rent,” he replies, but with the kind of pause that shows he clearly had to do some thinking about his answer first.

Shang Qinghua tries Mobei’s expectant eyebrow trick, giving him an encouraging look. “Hmm? How much…?”

“…55,000 yuan.”

Holy fuck! “Uh, I feel like at this point I should ask how much our rent is. Or would be. Given you own this place.”

“Well, my family’s corporation technically owns the apartment,” he says.

As Qinghua continues his expectant stare, he adds, “…Similar rented apartments in this building go for 62,000 yuan a month.”

Holy fuck. I… yeah. I guess I should have expected that but… damn.

“Would my king like a little sugar? Because I really want to suck your cock right now,” he says, still feeling a bit dazed.

“…Yes.”

They’re late for their restaurant reservation but still get their table.

“I think Sha Hualing likes me,” Qinghua boasts, over a bowl of tiramisu he’d ordered for dessert. He’s maybe had too much red wine with dinner, but ah, it was the expensive stuff that tasted so good! “She said I’m not just a pretty face. That means she thinks I’m cute and useful.”

His king is wearing a little jealous frown, his eyebrows are furrowed, and it is so cute he can’t resist the urge to poke at the spot with a finger.

“Don’t worry, my king! I don’t like women at all – not like that – and she knows I’m yours and yours alone.”

That little cross furrow disappears and he gets the even more adorable Smug Smile™ now. Qinghua fishes out a phone and takes a photo of it for posterity.

Mobei tilts his head and raises an eyebrow in an enquiring fashion.

“It’s because you looked so cute!” he explains.

He quickly changes the subject before Mobei has any possible chance to object to him keeping the pic. He glances around the thankfully not-too-busy restaurant to be sure they won’t be overheard, and leans forward as he whispers, “I know you said it’s okay to talk with her about uh… most stuff. To do with your uncle. When I mentioned one of his shell companies keeping their records in physical filing cabinets instead of online like any sensible fucking modern business so I could hack the fuck out of them, she offered to take Binghe with her and drug a security guard and break into their office to loot it for me. She said she also knows a guy who’s experienced at arson and uh- stuff. If I want the evidence of the break-in to go away afterwards. Uh… so I was wondering… was that a serious offer? Because I really couldn’t tell–”

“Yes.”

It’s a very quiet yes, but definitely a yes. Okay… right. Well… I guess I have options! I’m not freaking out that I get to boss around triad mobsters! What’s a triad boss’ partner called? If he’s a king am I a queen?! Which… fair. Raging queen. But also, wow. Do I need to pay them? Is there a spreadsheet for that? What’s it usually billed as? Ohh maybe that’s what Mobei-Jun’s big ‘private contractor’ budget is for…

Mobei looks concerned again as he reaches out to hold his hand awkwardly across the table. “Qinghua… you don’t have to do any of this if you don’t want to. You can just… stay home. Write. Nothing else.”

“Nothing else?” he asks, with wiggling eyebrows and a teasing grin.

“Maybe you could do that too,” his king replies, with a smile.

After a moment’s thought, Qinghua nods. He’s not in so deep he can’t back out but… he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t care. Well… mostly. “No murder,” he whispers, faint but determined. “No rape, either, of course. None of either of that – neither of us do that, okay? Was that clear? I wanna be clear. Anyway, apart from that sort of stuff”–he shrugs–“I guess I’m not too bothered. I want to help my king. My boyfriend. With whatever you need. And we’re so close to burying your uncle for good right now. Uh. Metaphorically.”

Shit happens. All a principled stand would accomplish would be at best life on the run or in a safe house, waiting fearfully for the usual fate that befell snitches. I want to see my king thrive. What’s the rest of the world ever done for me, ah?

“Mn. This Mobei-Jun agrees to your rules.” It’s a serious nod, a solid promise.

He huffs out a relieved breath, and teasingly replies formally in kind, “This Qinghua-fei is pleased.”

Mobei’s eyes darken as his pupils widen and his breath catches. His tongue darts out to lick at his lips, a flash of pink. “Again,” he orders.

Qinghua slips off a shoe underneath the table, and under the cover of the dangling folds of the red tablecloth he slides his sock-clad foot up Mobei’s calf, then brushes it against his inner thigh. “This Qinghua-fei is very pleased with his king. My king listens so well, agreeing to limit himself so quickly. Is there something this noble consort can do for his beloved king? Anything at all my lord has been craving?”

The sole of his foot brushes against Mobei’s hard cock – it’s straining against his trousers most impressively.

Mobei jerks in his chair, then looks around the restaurant, almost shyly. Not that his tsundere boyfriend would ever admit to it! Still, he looks embarrassed. “Later,” he insists.

“At home?” Qinghua suggests, removing his foot with some disappointment, and slipping his shoe back on. “Tonight?”

“Tomorrow.”

He’s not sure why Mobei wants to wait, but he can respect his decision anyway.

“This Qinghua-fei will hold you to that, my king.”

-0-

The next day dawns with a hangover, a cold bed with no boyfriend in it to snuggle since his king is already out of the apartment off at a series of meetings, a story writing deadline (it had seemed achievable pre-hangover!), and another page of semi-abusive editing from Cucumber-bro. And zero sex. Nada. After the very promising date last night, he’d had hopes of a glorious morning and instead it’s a very lonely and disappointing one.

He checks to see if Mobei’s left him any sexy messages on his phone but only finds a business address listed with the curt explanation of ‘Hamhua, see MQF at 10am’.

Yeah. Sexting really isn’t really my king’s thing. I suppose a cute nickname’s the best I’m getting!

He heads out like the obedient minion he is and finds that his bossy king has booked him a medical check up with Dr. Mu Qingfang. He seems nice enough… a friendly, average kind of man with a ridiculous thin moustache he should probably shave off.

“What brings you here today, Mr. Shang?” he asks politely, as he pulls up a file on his computer. “Or would you prefer Qinghua?”

“I… don’t know why I’m here?” he says, more a question than a statement. “This appointment was booked for me. Uh, Qinghua is fine.”

“Hmm… I see,” he replies distractedly, as he swiftly flicks through the electronic file. “General check up, sexual health advice, and blood tests for various STDs with priority processing. Any symptoms of concern or issues you would like to raise with me?”

“No? There’s nothing.”

The blood pressure check is fine, and his heart is fast but within the normal range (good enough for him!), and the blood draw isn’t too bad. Mu Qingfang promises same day results for him as a ‘VIP patient’, through which he learns that this doctor’s clinic is for really rich celebrities not your ordinary walk-in-off-the-street rabble. The talk about safe gay sex practices – holy fuck did Mobei-Jun tell him – is both more and less than he wanted to know, but he’s too embarrassed to ask a single question even though he really wants to know exactly how you can tell if you’ve found the prostate. He gets a card with his new doctor’s number and email, stern warnings about proper prep, and a free bottle of lube and some condoms in a discreet green paper bag.

He returns home in a bit of a daze, and flops down at his desk to crank out a relatively meagre 6K chapter then immediately emails it off to Shen Yuan. It’s a completely unedited first draft and has an attached typo-ridden demand to ‘fix it up if u don’t’ like it cucmber-bro yr help would be appricated’ because his king texted that he is on his way home and he wants off his computer ASAP. He meets him at the door and jumps on him as soon as it opens, clinging like a limpet and kissing him like he won’t survive without him. He needs his mouth, it’s vital for his life! He needs CPR kisses right now or else he thinks his heart might burst. As he clings and wraps his legs around Mobei’s waist, his boyfriend’s hands cradle and support his butt, holding him in place for more convenient and better supported kissing.

“Missed you. I waited all day. You owe me,” he insists, in between kisses.

“I have flowers,” Mobei says, when he can. “And chocolate. And… lube.”

Aww, almost romantic! He unclings long enough to accept a bouquet of chrysanthemums that Mobei fishes out of a carry bag, and can’t stop a little snicker from sneaking out at the surely deliberate floral message.

“I got lube too, but instead of flowers you get a clean bill of health printout. I can’t believe you booked a doctor’s appointment for me! Well, I can. Because obviously you did. Still. Talk about it next time? Or at least send a longer text? I had no idea why I was there.”

His boyfriend nods obediently, and hand feeds him a chocolate – cherry liqueur, nice! – before he kisses him on the nose, which makes Qinghua squeak with surprise around his treat, and provokes a little giggle.

“I have to look after you,” Mobei justifies, clearly unrepentant. “It’s my job now, too. I can’t promise not to do something like that again. Still… I will… send longer texts. Talk about things better with you. Next time.”

The flowers are left in their plastic wrapper and left leaning against the kitchen wall with their cut ends plonked in a tall glass of water when they discover they don’t have a vase anywhere in the kitchen. Unfortunately, the glass won’t hold the weight of the heavy bouquet upright without a bit of assistance.

Mobei huffs in frustration at the makeshift, unsatisfactory vase, and turns his back on it. Then he scoops him up and carries him to the bathroom.

“Do you want flower petals on the bed?” he offers. He puts him down and starts stripping. He loses the tie first and then starts unbuttoning his shirt. “The bouquet can clearly spare a few flowers.”

Qinghua watches the show with avid interest, not undressing himself yet. He turns on the bathroom’s overhead heat lamp then twists the knob to start the shower running. Nice and hot. Mmm!

Mobei strips out of his trousers and turns the temperature down a bit, then when Qinghua pouts, he turns it back up again with a quiet, resigned sigh.

Qinghua flashes him a sappy, pleased grin, and as a little reward undresses with record speed then hops in the shower, turning the hot tap down just a tiny bit as a compromise so it’s not completely scalding, for his king’s sake.

“Not really. My king did you search on the internet for romantic first time ideas?”

“…Maybe,” he admits, as he joins him.

He lathers up his hands with bodywash and reaches out for Qinghua, caressing and soaping up his chest first, with special attention given to his nipples. He tweaks and toys with them at length until they’re hard and stiff and Qinghua is pushing his chest hungrily into his hands for more when he dares to pull away. He laughs and gives them a final hard twist before letting them go.

Next, Mobei gives each arm individual attention, then his stomach and back. Then he drops to his knees, and the water pounds down on his head and face as he looks up at Qinghua, and his mouth is so close to where Qinghua desperately needs it. He smirks slightly as he looks up at him, and leans in teasingly close, but not close enough. His hands run slowly up Qinghua’s legs, slick and smooth with more lather.

“Please,” Qinghua whines, reaching out for his head and trying to pull him closer to his groin, where his hard cock stands stiffly at attention. The swollen head bobs slightly as Mobei licks the tip, a kittenish swipe of his tongue that makes his breath catch. “Please. I need you!”

“Patience,” he murmurs in reply. “Let go.” He pulls away from Qinghua’s cock again as his hands slide up his thighs, and shakes his head free of his greedy grip. He bats at Qinghua’s inner thighs with his palms until he obediently widens his stance.

“Now? Please suck me,” Qinghua begs, desperate to be touched, to be swallowed whole, to thrust into his throat. His mind can’t let go of the desire to be inside that beautiful mouth. He has other, bigger plans; he wants to be taken in bed, and he really does mean taken. But right now he just wants to come, wants that tight, warm suction around his cock, wants to see Mobei’s mouth filled with his come, wants to see Mobei choke on his cock until a trickle of white come trickles out of his mouth and down his chin. The vision is so fierce and strong and he wants it so badly his cock is aching with desire, and his hands yearn to grab Mobei’s head and force him down on his cock. He keeps them clenched tightly at his sides just to stave off the yearning impulse.

Mobei just teases him more and swirls his tongue around the head of his cock – good but not enough to assuage his desperate desire – as his hands slowly stroke circles on his buttocks before finally sliding between them. He scrubs gently at his arsehole, caressing the delicate skin and stroking him with one fingertip that pushes gently, slowly into his hole. The other hand moves to the front to gently roll his balls in his hand.

“My king!” he gasps. “Oh yes, please please please…”

The finger prying him open pushes in harder, and he can’t help but wince. The angle’s not great and he’s very tight. “Ow. A little soap suds are better than nothing, but they don’t really make the best lubricant.”

His king nods at the soft objection and tilts his head to look up at him, blinking away the spray of water from the shower that hits his face, staring up at where Qinghua is biting his lip. He immediately pulls his hand away. “Hmm. Bed.”

He rushes to rinse them both and turn the shower off. He bundles Qinghua up in a giant, fluffy towel, and has them both in bed almost before Qinghua can register the change in plans. His hair is still a damp mess, but most of the rest of him has been hastily scrubbed dry as Mobei pushes him down flat on his back in bed. He tucks his legs up a bit and lets his bent knees fall open, nervously displaying himself to his boyfriend’s greedy gaze.

Rough and impatient, Mobei quickly towels himself dry and crawls onto the bed too, peering down between his legs with a determined look and a bottle of lube at the ready.

“Yeah, good plan, lots of lube,” Qinghua says. “I promised Dr. Mu. Uh, and a condom too, okay?”

“Mn.” Mobei’s expression is distracted, but he nods obediently and rolls a condom onto his unflagging erection. His cock is truly king-sized, hard and erect and ready to utterly wreck him.

Mobei fingers him open gently and carefully. Slow wouldn’t be the right word, his king is too impatient for that and doesn’t pause in his attentions for an instant, but he’s careful not to force anything he’s not ready for. He kneels between Shang Qinghua’s legs and works a lubed finger inside him, smoothing the cold gel around the entrance and then pushing some more globs inside him. He watches with embarrassing intensity, quiet and focused, and he barely makes a sound, even when Qinghua begins gasping and begging for more. He simply turns his head to one side and starts mouthing at Qinghua’s thighs. He presses soft kisses into his inner thigh as he pushes in a second finger, then he sucks the skin in more firmly until it’s likely to bruise. He pulls back with satisfaction to admire the red mark left behind by the warm suction of his mouth.

“Good?” he checks, as he slowly slides his fingers in and out of his arse.

“Yes, that’s fine. Uh… more? Please? Please more, my king. I don’t want to be a virgin for a single second longer.”

Mobei freezes, his fingers deep inside him. “Qinghua, you have never…?”

“Other stuff but not this. Uh… just you know, I’ve never done much more than handjobs, really. One bad blowjob that didn’t work out. That’s it, before you. Not that I’ve had a lot of partners, just a few guys,” he babbles. “Dating other guys… it’s not easy. Well, not for me! It’s not like I’m that much of a catch, and women never ever really did it for me, not that they were interested either of course I’m not hot like you, uh–”

He’s cut off, jarred out of his instinctual self-deprecating talk as Mobei removes his thick fingers and slides up his body, capturing his mouth with hungry kisses. His wet tongue pushes inside his mouth, tangling with his own. “Mmph!”

“Qinghua… all mine…” his king says roughly, as he reaches down to position himself better, and the blunt head of his cock pushes insistently at his hole. He kisses him again, and groans into his mouth as the tip of his cock slides inside him, guided in by his hand.

“Slowly, ah!” he cries, at the startling ache and stretch of it all. He huffs out a couple of breaths and focuses on relaxing. He pushes back against the intrusion in his arse, trying to welcome it in despite the dull pain and weird sensations. “Fuck, yeah, I can do this. Slowly, just a little more now.” He lifts his legs up and wraps them around Mobei’s waist.

Mobei dips his head down to bite and suckle at his neck. “Qinghua, you feel so good, it’s hard to wait.” He goes obediently slowly though. His hips pump in tiny motions, in and out until he’s loosened Qinghua enough to slide in a little further, a bit at a time.

“God, I can feel you inside me,” Qinghua says dazedly, feeling so taken, his cock weeping hard and desperate and untouched against his belly. His only satisfaction there is the maddening slide as his cock rubs teasingly against Mobei’s stomach as he fucks into him. “So good, fuck, yeah, more Mobei-Jun, more my king. Fuck me! Fill me up!”

Mobei’s arms are down at either side of Qinghua’s shoulders on the mattress now, as he braces himself above him.

He feels caged, trapped, but excitingly so – it makes his breath come in fast, short pants. His king is in him deeper now, sliding back and forth with guttural moans and squelching sounds that really shouldn’t feel as sexy as they do. He doesn’t know if he’s hitting the prostate or not but he knows it feels good, it’s making him feel desperately excited, and the drag of the thick cock against his rim as Mobei thrusts in and out – so smooth and wet – makes him wild to finish.

He clutches at Mobei’s chest, running his hands over those gorgeous tits he can’t get enough of – his pecs are so bountiful he thinks they deserve that name. So big, so luscious, just right to squeeze with nipples that beg for his pinching touch. He pinches and twists them until they’re hard for him. He wants to suckle on them but isn’t sure he’s acrobatic enough to manage it without interrupting their rutting; he couldn’t bear for Mobei to slip out of him right now.

“Don’t you want to come in me, my king? I want you to,” he begs. He caves to his desperation, and sneaks a hand between them, palming his own cock. “If you don’t hurry up I’m going to come first.”

Mobei’s thrusts speed up, pounding away at his arse in a frantic, rough way Qinghua suspects he might personally regret later, but right now all he can do is moan at how thoroughly he’s being debauched.

His hand strokes frantically at his cock as he’s fucked hard and fast, stretched open and used furiously.

“Qinghua,” Mobei gasps. “Now. Please… you too.”

He comes with a strangled cry, and Mobei keeps pounding inside him as he spurts between them. It’s almost too much, but he wouldn’t want it any other way. His arse clenches around Mobei’s cock as he comes, which almost pushes his partner’s cock out for a second before he thrusts back in.

“Yesss,” Mobei groans, pushing deep and staying there as he comes, just making a few very shallow thrusts as he pulses inside him. He slumps down and holds him tightly while he kisses him, then he holds the base of the condom as he pulls out. After a moment’s rest he tidies up, removing the condom and tying a knot in it before discarding it. He wipes down Qinghua’s come-slathered belly and his lube-messy arse with a handful of tissues.

Qinghua just lies there – a happy, sated mess – as Mobei cleans him up then tucks him under a blanket to snuggle him to sleep. “Chest,” he says sleepily, a demand as curt as one of his king’s.

Luckily, Mobei knows what he means, and manoeuvres them into their favourite sleeping position, with Qinghua all curled up against his king’s side with his head on his chest.

He drifts off to sleep while Mobei is still gently stroking his hair.

-0-

Shang Qinghua wakes uncomfortably early in the morning, after the pleasantly exhausting early night they’d had the day before. He carefully prises Mobei’s heavy arm off his waist and tries to slip out of bed without waking him.

He thinks he’s made it and is padding to the bedroom door when he hears Mobei say softly, “You can’t leave.”

“…I’m… just going to the bathroom? Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

He trots back to bed to kiss Mobei on the forehead, and Mobei strikes like a serpent to seize his hand in a tight grasp. “Now we’ve slept together. You can’t leave me. I… I don’t want you to. You’re my boyfriend now; you can’t go. No matter if… someone is richer, or more handsome. I promise I can offer you more than they could.”

Shang Qinghua’s eyes soften, and he leans forward again to peck him on the forehead again, before capturing his lips in a passionate kiss. He didn’t even know Mobei was fretting about such a possibility.

Silly man! Don’t you realise utterly crazy I am about you? It stopped being about the money ages ago. Besides, I wanted to squeeze those pecs the literal instant I met you.

“My king… don’t you know? I’ll never leave you, not for anything or anyone. I love you. There’s nothing more I want than to follow you for the rest of my life.”

“My hamhua,” Mobei murmurs drowsily, kissing his arm before letting it slip free of his grasp. “Stay. Love you.”

“Your hamhua,” he promises. His heart pounds and his eyes tear up as he tucks the sheets back around his boyfriend, all snug and secure. “I love you too. I’m yours for always, my king.”