It happens a few more times, always with just the thinnest veneer of bro-y joking, until Xiao Zhan figures this is just a thing they do sometimes. Casual sexting among friends must just be something Yibo needs, and Xiao Zhan is selfishly glad he gets to provide it for him. He doesn't think about who else Yibo might have figured out as well as he's figured out Xiao Zhan, who else might get to do this with Yibo.

It'd be easier to stop, Xiao Zhan thinks, if it wasn't such great sex.

By the time Wang Yibo turns twenty, he's accepted that his dick is too big for sex, and he will be a virgin forever. Xiao Zhan begs to differ.

Xiao Zhan looks up, ears twitching. Yibo's staring straight at him, mouth hanging slightly open, a towel clutched around his waist. Oh, shit, Xiao Zhan thinks, blinking slowly once, twice, and then hops right back out the window again.

Xiao Zhan hears about it from Yu Bin, which probably should've been the first warning sign.

"That? That's your confession?" Yibo's toppled onto Xiao Zhan's side and is clutching his shoulder, trying not to fall over. "That's pathetic!" "Oh, what, you can do better?" Zhuocheng is pretty flushed and there's a challenge in his voice that Yibo just can't walk away from. "Hell yeah, I can. Hit me, Yu Bin." Yu Bin cheers and refills Yibo's shot glass. "All right!" Yibo downs the shot, gags only slightly, and says, "Everyone! I'm a fucking virgin!"

It's their last day of filming in Hengdian when the secret comes out.

Yibo opens his mouth and says, "I want to learn," barreling past the rapid rise of Xiao Zhan's eyebrows. "To last longer. Will you teach me?"

Wang Yibo's message reads: who do you think like initiates the first time

“Do you know how?” Wang Yizhou asks, but it’s all a light tease, and he’s already taking his hand away, as if in expectation. “Nope!” says Ji Li, confident. Then, in a move that he will recognise, in hindsight, to be the start of the complete undoing of his whole night, he adds, “But I’ll learn. Really quick.” He fishes out his phone from the pocket of his shorts, and holds it up, almost conspiratorial. “Bet I’ll have it down in one video. I’m very resourceful like that.”

Xiao Zhan doesn’t bother listening or saying anything in response to Yibo's ranting, just holds the phone a little closer to his face and lets a low moan hover at the edge of his breathing. He’s looking at the red tip of Yibo’s cock where it peeks out from his foreskin and thinking about licking it. Yibo’s indignation comes through clearly over the phone. “Are you— Are you jacking it, Xiao Zhan?” “Uh huh,” Xiao Zhan sighs, and tries his best to let the wet sounds of his hand on his cock get louder. Maybe he should grab lube for extra squelchiness. “Oh, no way. Nope, I can’t handle this,” Yibo declares and the line goes dead. Xiao Zhan laughs softly to himself, and somehow that transforms into the convulsions of orgasm and he comes all over his hand. He takes a picture and sends it to Yibo. see you tomorrow

"You're sure this is okay?" Yibo mumbles now, curling his knees beneath his chin on the toilet seat. "You don't have to check in with me every time," Xiao Zhan says, sounding warm over the fuzzy connection. His face is clear and his eyes are bright. Yibo feels himself relaxing. "Just tell me all about it later, yeah?"

Xiao Zhan has a side hustle he doesn’t want anyone to know about it. He’s building up a big stream following as a femboy, and his stream chat community is pushing to see someone touching him and giving him a good time. Wang Yibo is the only friend who knows—he helped him set up his stream—and the last person Xiao Zhan would consider asking to join him for the kinds of sex acts his stream wants to see. Yibo has a lot of opinions about that.

"You can't be serious," Xiao Zhan says. "Zhan-ge," Yibo cajoles, brandishing his PS4 controller and patting the couch next to him. "Just give me like, two minutes. I promise. I swear. I just gotta be online for this drop."

Two things happen simultaneously when their hands touch: first, the migraine that Xiao Zhan's been fighting all day dissipates so immediately that a loud gasp slips out of his mouth. Second, a torrential outpouring of warmth shoots up Xiao Zhan's arm so quickly that he almost loses his balance and falls off the bench. The next moment, Xiao Zhan drops Yibo's hand. He tries to convert the abrupt movement into something more graceful, but he doesn't think he succeeds. Yibo's eyes have gone wide. His neck bobs as he swallows. What the hell, Xiao Zhan thinks faintly, astonishment thick in his throat. He just manages to keep himself from passing out as the migraine lances through his head again with a vengeance.

Ji Li probably should have texted first. He’d been staying with Yizhou for a little while now and they’d fallen into a pretty easy rhythm. He felt so comfortable in the arrangement it had just slipped his mind. What could he possibly be doing anyway?

Xiao Zhan isn't sure when a normal evening drinking with his cast mates turned into watching porn with them, but the transition must have been both swift and head-spinning, and if pressed, he'd blame it on Yu Bin.

He’s inhaling his banmian in the small area where a few tables have been arranged for the crew when he remembers that he heard his phone ding earlier. He drags it out of his bag and thumbs his WeChat open, then promptly chokes on his noodles. Wang Yizhou sends Ji Li a shirtless, ambiguously horny selfie. Ji Li retaliates.

Ji Li gulps in air, and then converts a moan into a low, whiny exhale. Yizhou's arm tightens around Ji Li's back, seemingly involuntarily. "Let me guess," Ji Li says, "you wanted to reach through the screen and comfort me like this." "Nah, it would be a very different movie if I did."

Li Bowen can have a little intimacy. As a treat. (Or: the one where the Yi City actors have a threesome in a hotel room.)

Anything that Xiao Zhan puts on him, around his neck, is great, and most often that is simply his hands. Like now, as they land first on Yibo’s shoulders, and then stroke up the sides of his neck, one curling to the front, wrapping around and gripping lightly. Yibo lets out a shuddering breath and leans into the touch. “You really want this, huh,” Xiao Zhan says, and Yibo nods.

In which there was a picture of Wang Yibo looking very smart in a skirt on twitter, and it made me write my first fic in a year. aka: waxing, and spanking, and love, oh my.