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Cheng Xiaoshi had a problem.
More accurately, he’d made himself a problem by not coming clean from the get-go. Although, “coming clean” might imply he did something wrong … which he didn’t! Withholding information from a stranger wasn’t unusual. Only ... t’s been, um, years of rooming with Lu Guang and frankly his secret (which wasn’t all that serious to begin with) was starting to haunt his every waking day. The rising anxiety was causing his creature features to pop out at inconvenient times, which gave him more anxiety, and so continued the vicious cycle.
Wake up too early? Spend a few minutes willing his claws back into his cuticles.
Have a delicious meal? Suppress the joyful trill threatening to vibrate from his throat.
The seasons change too fast? Frantically whisk away the molted feathers before Lu Guang sees.
Survive a miserable day? Reluctantly avoid their (SHARED!) laundry basket, so that he doesn’t accidentally begin stress-nesting.
How embarrassing!!!
“You are an embarrassment,” Qiao Ling deadpanned. “Why can’t you buy his favorite fried chicken, sit him down, and just tell him!? Don’t you trust him? Shifters aren’t so rare that he’d be scared or anything. And if you just explain why, I’m sure he’d forgive you for not telling him sooner.”
“He’d forgive you anything, honestly,” she muttered under her breath. Cheng Xiaoshi graciously pretended to ignore her.
“Jie, it’ll be so awkward though! Ah, I’ve kept it quiet all these years, surely I can just keep … not mentioning it. Right? Right …?”
Qiao Ling clicked her tongue ferociously.
“Ow!” Cheng Xiaoshi got flour everywhere as his hands jerked, knuckles stinging from his sister’s metal chopsticks.
“You! You came to me this morning, like a wet baby bird, moaning on and on about how Lu Guang’s dumplings were the most delicious you’d ever had, and you wanted to pay him back with the best dumpling recipe, and jiejie can you please help me, blah blah BLAH. But you can’t man up and tell him you’re a freaking shifter? At least your animal is badass. I knew someone who was a worm.”
Cheng Xiaoshi’s eyes took on a misty glaze. “Would you still love me if I were a worm?” He gasped. “Would Lu Guang still love me if I were a worm!?”
Chopped chives were thrown at him.
Okay, jokes aside, Cheng Xiaoshi knew he was being a coward. It just felt like such a big deal, revealing something about himself that hadn't quite come up before. It felt a lot like when he first came out as gay to Lu Guang.
Back then, he’d just received an intense, scrutinizing look before his friend’s face softened. Thanks for telling me. Me too, by the way.
Would Lu Guang react like that again?
Probably. Minus the “me too” part, anyway.
So, after waffling on it for a few days, Cheng Xiaoshi finally summoned enough courage. They were both relaxing on the couch, doing nothing at all on their rare day off.
“Hey, Lu Guang …”
“Hm?”
“You know that couple yesterday?”
“The model and her partner, yes.”
“Her partner is a shifter, and you didn’t seem to mind? That’s nice. Very progressive of you!”
Lu Guang shut the book he was reading, and pinned Cheng Xiaoshi with a stern look. “Are you implying that you thought I was prejudiced against shifters? That I’m a genetic supremacist?”
“Ah! No!” He realized his misstep, and backtracked. “Well, objectively I know you wouldn’t. But you don’t seem close to any shifters and … uh …”
“I’m not very close to many people, Cheng Xiaoshi.”
“Oh. That’s true.”
He sighed. “Is this about you being a shifter? I know you are, but I was waiting for you to bring it up.”
“HUH!? No!! It’s not!” He was backtracking so far that he was falling over his metaphorical ass. Cheng Xiaoshi wanted to stop himself, but—“Yeah, no, what are you talking about? If I were a shifter, I’d have told you waaay earlier, haha, who do you think I am …”
Silence fell.
Cheng Xiaoshi covered his mouth and looked away. His thoughts were in a disarray, and he felt sick. This wasn’t how it was going to go. Stupid, stupid, stu—
“Cheng Xiaoshi. Look at me.”
With a groan, he did.
“I wanted you to bring it up because I … was afraid, too. I’m sorry. I didn’t know how much it was bothering you.”
Cheng Xiaoshi felt miserable, mirroring the look on Lu Guang’s face. “I know shifters aren’t called freaks anymore. But I’ve just had some bad experiences when people find out what kind of shift I have. And it’s not even a full shift, either.”
“I’m sorry,” Lu Guang repeated. He stood up. “I’m also sorry, because I could’ve broken the ice first.”
“What do you mean?”
And before he could squeeze out any more questions, Lu Guang started floating. Like, actually floating.
Suddenly, the room was filled with noises like ice cracking over a frozen lake. Bright white horns emerged from his temples as scales pushed to the surface of his skin. His skull and entire body elongated in a long, ribbon-like shape accentuated by swathes of ivory fur. His arms and legs bent oddly, and developed claws that shone like silver. The full transformation took seconds, culminating in a creature that was easily five times as long as Lu Guang had been tall.
Cheng Xiaoshi gasped, somehow more mesmerized than creeped out. The fully formed loong—a Chinese dragon—huffed softly and tilted his face down to brush whiskers over the crown of Cheng Xiaoshi’s head.
Familiar eyes blinked at him slowly. “… You’re not scared. Good.”
“Well. It’d be hard to be intimidated when you’re still wearing your shirt. And pants.”
Lu Guang glanced down as if to confirm. Surely enough, his clothes were comically stretched and distorted to accommodate his new shape, with a long expanse of scaly belly between. His dragon mouth made the odd huffing noise again.
Cheng Xiaoshi realized that was how Lu Guang laughed in this form.
“I shouldn’t be surprised. You’re unphased by the strangest things.”
“Not ‘things.’ You’re you, so of course it’s okay.”
“Hm. Fine, then let me see you.”
“Huh??”
“You think I shift just for fun?”
“I didn’t realize we were doing an exchange here.”
Lu Guang curled slowly in the air to get a better gauge of Cheng Xiaoshi’s expression. Playfully, he repeated, “You’re you, so of course it’ll be okay.”
“… not fair,” he muttered. “J-just give me a second. Unlike you, I can’t fly until after I shift, and definitely not indoors, so I need to clear a few things out of the way.”
Lu Guang gave an interested hum, and used his claws to carefully lift furniture from the center to the sides of the room. The other man focused on moving fragile objects onto the floor, just in case. Then, he stood stiffly in the newly spacious area. “Ready?”
Another huff.
He began the shift, accompanied by the sound of a thousand rustling leaves.
It, it felt really good. He exhaled as wings painlessly pushed out from between his shoulder blades. They went out and out and out, brushing from wall to wall of the sunroom. The afternoon light fell upon them, sucked in by the absolute blackness of his plumage. Feathers streamed down like oily ink from his hair, down his back, blooming into wings and spooling across the floor in magnificent, pheasant-like tail.
He gave his wings a light flutter and closed his eyes to savor the feeling.
No, actually, when was the last time he intentionally let the shift happen? He couldn’t recall. But he’s sure it didn’t feel this … light.
Cheng Xiaoshi was so deep in his thoughts that he almost missed the awed murmur.
“You’re beautiful.”
Cheng Xiaoshi’s eyes snapped open. He looked up to meet Lu Guang’s fervent gaze, withstanding it for just a second before his eyes dropped in embarrassment.
“Haha, so, it’s not even really a full shift, but I’m okay not being a full fenghuang—a Chinese phoenix—anyway. I think my wings are so inconveniently big because they need to support my heavy human bones. My mom and dad once said that I was lucky to have just enough shift in me to get the flying without the bird beak. I don’t really care but. Uh.” He cut himself off before he rambled further. “Lu Guang. Lu Guang. You’re not saying anything. Do you … not like it?”
“I said you’re beautiful, didn’t I? I love it.”
Oh. Oh my. He’d never seen that kind of … avarice in Lu Guang’s eyes before. And certainly not directed at him!
“Uh, um, okay, well, that’s great! Good! Uh, I’ll just put them away for now—”
“Don’t you dare.”
“… Lu Guang?”
“We match.”
“No, we don’t? You’re a dragon and I’m a phoenix??”
Lu Guang reached out with a single claw and stroked gently, tenderly, from the primaries to the softest inner coverts. The wings tremored slightly, but Cheng Xiaoshi refused to pull them in. He held his breath.
Lu Guang dipped his head closer, whiskers making contact with his face again, but drifting lower. They tickled his nape and collar bones. It tickled, sending tingles down his spine.
“Dragons and phoenixes, when coupled together, have been used to represent prominent marriages. Like the Emperor and Empress.”
“Ah.”
“Mmhm.”
“When you put it that way … well, you sound like you wanna get married! Haha. Wanna get married to me, Lu Guang?” Instantly, blood rushed to his face. Wait—!
“Cheng Xiaoshi. Don’t say things you don’t mean.”
Oh. Well. He kind of wanted to crow and trill and flag his wings in joy.
In for a penny, in for a pound.
He grinned and repeated his question.