Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Rain kept pouring from the sky, almost as if someone had tipped a giant bucket down over Hengdian World Studios, and it smattered against the window in Yibo’s hotel room. It had come out of nowhere — the weather prognoses had only predicted light rain at worst — and had thrown a curveball at their filming schedule as the cast and crew had rushed inside with costumes and equipment before they’d be completely drenched. What followed was an unplanned day of nothing to do but to wait it out.

Yibo was of course more used to this happening than he’d like to be. Setbacks like these always messed things up more than the surprise relaxation time was ever worth. Yeah, he could lie down in his hotel room for now, but every minute that needed to be pushed forward would have ripple effects on all his other engagements. It made it a little difficult to appreciate the time alone and take the chance to relax. He didn’t really feel like socialising, either.

Yibo rolled over and reached for his laptop with a sigh. Maybe taking a look through the long list of dramas and movies he’d been meaning to watch would help. His mind was still buzzing with all the lines he should have been saying on set that day, making him restless and frustrated. Characters lingering inside him had never been a problem for him, but it was different when one never got to let them out in the first place. It was the same with dance performances that got cut suddenly, after he’d already prepared. It would sit in his muscles and joints until he got the chance to move.

With the laptop on a pillow and lying flat on his chest on the bed, he typed in his password. He scrolled through video app after video app to find something to watch, yet nothing caught his interest. He’d saved shows to a watch later-list in each of them but— none of them felt right. One more scroll through, and then he closed the video app thinking perhaps he really should have joined his co-stars downstairs. But it was too late now that he was already comfortable in his ugliest sweatpants, and he’d opted to not dry his hair, making it an absolute mess. It’d be hidden under a wig again as soon as it stopped raining anyway.

His eyes then caught on an icon on his desktop that he’d still never clicked on. It was for the game FINAL FANTASY XIV ONLINE, and it had sat there unopened for a good few months already. Chen Ruoxuan, one of his co-stars at his last drama set, had convinced him to download it by singing its praises. He’d claimed it was a ‘great and engaging way to kill time without requiring you to keep it up when busy’, which Yibo was happy to admit sounded like a great combination. ‘Casual friendly’, he’d said, and went on and on about the game’s free trial, successfully getting Yibo to promise to give it a go some time, if only to get him to stop. A good time had just never presented itself since. But right then he had nothing but time.

It was quite far from the kind of games Yibo usually played, and an MMO with many years worth of content didn’t sound like the ideal thing to get into when one was as busy as he was but… he couldn’t deny that he was a little curious.

And maybe going to some other world for a bit was exactly what Yibo needed right now. So he scooted up into a sitting position, crossing his legs, and clicked the launcher icon.

Yibo had played a couple of entries in the franchise when younger — FFVII obviously, even though the game was as old as he was. Some things just had to be played if you wanted to be taken seriously, even if it required living through a terrible PC port of a game for a console that had been obsolete by the time you could even hold a controller in your hands. He’d never touched a multiplayer one, however.

First the game had him set up an account, and he filled out his usual fake details as comfortably as he would his real ones. Once registered though, another download started up on the screen. Yibo sighed. So much for instant entertainment. He rolled over and reached for his phone instead, opening Douyin to mindlessly scroll through content there while he waited. Just lying still didn’t feel like an option; while he was still exhausted,he felt restless now, frustrated that he had finally decided what he wanted to do only to come across delays and extra steps keeping him from getting into the game.

To his relief it only took about twenty minutes until the progress bar was replaced with a green “play” button. Yibo sat up again and clicked it, a small sense of excitement settling inside him.

Starting with creating a character made sense, even the kind of games Yibo usually played often did. But the extra delay the download had caused made him impatient enough that he clicked through it quickly without making any changes. The default human it started with looked cool enough as was, and Yibo just wanted to get started. Some choices he did need to make, and he wondered what kind of consequences there would be later, as he picked a ‘nameday’ and skimmed through the descriptions of the ‘classes’. Lancer looked pretty cool, but in the end he settled for a huge axe, and picked the tank class Marauder. Then finally, after the game chose a server for him to start on, he had to come up with a name.

He nibbled on his lower lip as he gave it a moment of thought. There was a randomiser, but for some reason he wanted to pick one himself. A little silly maybe, after not even customising his character. He hummed quietly, and then grinned as he reached forward and typed in his name of choice: Val Rossi.

“Begin a new game with this character?” the game asked, and Yibo clicked yes without hesitation.

The beginning cutscenes went on and on, and most of what was said went straight over his head. But the visuals were nice enough, and soon his character had arrived at a city by the sea by ship. To be an adventurer, the game said, making the simple premise of the story clear. As the game led him through the first few quests he was surprised to see just how alive the city he was in was. The city was packed with other players, especially in what seemed to be the main plaza. Everywhere around the strange, large crystal in the center (an aetheryte, the game called it, something apparently used for teleportation) there were people standing around, chatting, even playing music. At first he couldn’t recognise the song, but then it changed into what most definitely was the Attack on Titan opening theme. Wow.

He stood around for a moment, just listening and watching the activity around him, before continuing his quests. He was sent back and forth around the city, familiarising himself with Limsa Lominsa, which had turned out to be an ex-pirate town. He liked it a lot, and though barely half the things on screen made any sort of sense to him, he found himself enjoying it. The city was built from white stone, on cliffs sticking out of the sea and long bridges between them.

He was told to find and join The Marauders’ Guild and as soon as he had, he was sent out to kill his first monsters — giant ladybugs. He found them on some grassy fields right outside the city, and luckily they were very quick to kill. He really did not want to stare at giant bugs any longer than necessary. The gameplay started out with only one single skill, but it quickly grew up to three within minutes as he levelled up while hunting down the targets in his quest. Still, Yibo was used to fast-paced games and this battle system felt very slow. Hoping it would get faster later, he continued on.

Getting a little uncomfortable after too long in the same position, he lifted his laptop up and turned over, leaning back against the headboard and placing the computer on his lap instead. Slightly better. Moving to the desk felt like too much effort — his neck would not suffer from an hour or two like this.

So he quested on, his character being sent on various tasks and errands by the Adventurers’ Guild and the Marauders’ Guild, and he could see other players — who like him had a small sprout icon by their name signalling that they were also new to the game — completing the same tasks. There was a cat girl with purple hair that he kept running into. She was smacking solid rocks for the Marauders’ Guild with him, so she must have made the same choices as Yibo. She didn’t say anything in the chat, but ‘motioned joyfully’ at him once, making Yibo look through the menus to locate where to do actions like that. Once he found them, he spent a good moment going through all of them, testing what they looked like and what message the chat would display. Some were just plain silly-looking, while others seemed like they could come in handy for communicating.

The next time he saw the cat girl was as he’d made his way across the green fields of Middle La Noscea, fascinated by how the rainy weather made his character look wet. She was clearly there for the same quest target as he was. He typed /wave and was rewarded with another of those joyful motions. Yibo smiled.

By the time sleepiness finally started taking hold of him a couple of hours later he’d saved a smuggler from a dark hooded figure, retrieved stolen goods and stopped the destruction of a ship. And he was only level 14! The small tasks were honestly quite tedious, and navigating the areas was surprisingly difficult and slow, but… He’d had a good time. Who knew when he’d next have time for the game, but he could see himself logging in again.

As he brushed his teeth and cheated through his skincare routine he wondered what level one would need to be to get to ride on things. Other players would constantly be zooming past him both on land and in the air as he walked to his targets and it seemed so much faster. And he’d seen some really funny looking rides — in particular a giant glowing cactus and flying bear dressed in a Santa costume had stolen his attention. He could probably look up how to unlock them on baidu before next time. Man, maybe he’d actually missed gaming.

💻💻💻

Three weeks passed before Yibo got another chance to log in. Well — he had a day off in between, but those were reserved for the things he can’t do otherwise: riding his motorbike, skating and sleeping in his own bed. No, it was another one of those in-between nights that got him to flip open his laptop and open the launcher for the game again. He was stuck in a hotel room between yesterday’s work and the plane ride to where he needed to be the following day, and with no one online in the UNIQ group chat he needed something to do.

So. It was time for the return of Val Rossi.

His character appeared in the exact location he’d left him when he logged out, just to the side from the main aetheryte in Limsa Lominsa and he took a moment to look at his quest log to remember where he’d left off. Orange text kept popping up in his chatbox, messages from other players that seemed like a conversation he wasn’t part of. He ignored it, as everyone around him seemed to be doing — Until it became what was most definitely innuendo after innuendo. Closing his journal, he walked to the aetheryte and teleported up to where he needed to go, leaving the public sex talk behind.

This time, it seemed his character was getting rewarded for all the work he’d done last time. The leader of the city wanted to see him, and he even had to dress up to be able to continue the quest. Most of the gear he got so far was all butt-ugly, and came in the weirdest colours. In fact he was currently wearing trousers that… could barely be called briefs, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Whatever it was that allowed people to wear all the fancy clothes he saw around… He wanted it.

(All the dressing up he needed to do in the end was wear a specific set of shoes. The questionably yellow armoured briefs remained.)

Within a couple more quests, he was made to take his first steps outside of the now familiar area of Limsa Lominsa and its surrounding island region, La Noscea, by taking an airship to two other cities. One was a green city, buried deep in the woods and filled with small pathways between treehouses. The other was almost like a large fortress, built entirely of rock in the middle of a desert. He spent a moment in each, exploring and attuning to any of those aetheryte crystals he could find so he could teleport back later before continuing onwards and finally returning back to Limsa. The world he travelled through was vibrant and beautiful, and it seemed so alive wherever he went. Background noises of nature and people would follow him and both the time of day and the weather would change in natural cycles. It was nice. If he had one complaint, it would be how many different giant bugs he kept coming across. At least he had adequate weapons to smack them to death with, unlike the ones he encountered in real life.

He wanted to level up and unlock more places and things to do as fast as possible, to get to experience it all, and when looking around online earlier most people had recommended just following the main questline for that. So, that’s what he was going to do.

Quicker than he expected, the game asked him to complete a task together with other players. He gnawed on his lip for a moment, looked at the time, and decided that he might as well give it a go. It took him a moment to locate the ’Duty Finder’ the quest description mentioned, but once there, he selected the one dungeon listed and clicked ’join’. A new window popped up instantly, telling him the duty ’Sastasha’ was ready to commence.

Yibo sat up straighter, pulled his laptop closer, and pressed ’commence’.

Fitting to the story, the dungeon that he was presented with seemed to be located under the sea. Once the cutscene giving him a quick view of the place ended, his character was surrounded by three other players. One healer and two damage dealers — DPS — as indicated by quite clearly colour coded symbols on a party list on the top left. That was straight forward enough, he could guess his own job as the tank. There were greetings in a bright blue colour in the chat, so he typed in /wave and headed forward. The others followed.

Just around the first bend, they ran into several enemies, and he went ahead and aimed his one AoE skill at them as best he could. The DPS seemed to be running onwards though, and the monsters were following them, not him.

A message in his chat box read ”tank stance,” but he didn’t have time to figure out what that meant as he ran after the two DPS players further into the dungeon. He wasn’t sure where the healer had gone, but he couldn’t see them.

There the healer was. Yibo read the message, quickly hovered over his few skills and found the one mentioned. Ah — it made him generate more enmity, to keep the enemies focusing on him instead of the others. No wonder the enemies had gone after the DPS instead of him. He quickly turned it on. He probably should have read through his skills before going in, but learning by doing was just more his style.

Yibo raised an eyebrow, but headed off along the curving path, with the healer running right next to him. They were a Lalafell, and next to their name was a crown symbol, something the game had told Yibo meant ‘mentor’, supposedly someone happy to help new players like himself. Well, so far that seemed right.

They found the two others a bit further down, having successfully killed some enemies by themselves, and Yibo ran past them to grab the next set of enemies they needed to get through. He missed one with his attack, and again the DPS ran ahead and attracted the attention of more enemies, so he followed along as best he could.

Again, Yibo found himself staring through the handful of skills he had, but he wasn’t able to find any with that name.

Most info he’d found on Baidu had told him to focus on the main story, and so he’d done, not picking up any of the extra quests he’d come across this time. He figured he’d had to do the Marauder ones eventually but— He didn’t think it’d be critical. Perhaps that had been a miscalculation.

Yibo found himself staring at the chat feeling both a little embarrassed at his own lack of preparation and… grumpy at how rude this Penoa person was being. How was he supposed to know all this? There was so much to learn, and this dungeon came very soon.

The two DPS players continued to grab the attention of every single enemy in their vicinity and Yibo had no chance to get to them all even though he understood he was meant to. Eventually, this led to deaths, and even more grumpy comments in the chat, as he ran back to where they were from respawning at the start. Again, Little Prince instead gave him helpful tips.

Finally, they reached what was clearly a room of some sort, with three large colourful coral formations spread out around it. Little Prince ran ahead and interacted with one of them — the blue one, maybe that was what the earlier comment had been about — and then a strange, cougar-like monster appeared right in the middle. Yibo grabbed it right away, and did his best to dodge its attacks as they worked on it together. Penoa gave him some passive aggressive comments about needing to keep it still, but he ignored the sour mood and listened to the feedback instead.

The monster died in no time at all, and they proceeded onward. Now the cave became more of a pirates’ lair, and Yibo quite enjoyed the surroundings, still quite happy with the frequency of that theme. It was a lot more down to earth and less positively portrayed than in One Piece, but it did make him wish he’d made his character’s hair green. He could have lived his Zoro dreams.

Yibo levelled up several times along the way, and he did get more comfortable with using the skills he was able to use as well. But it seemed his mistakes early on had already pulled out the ire of this Penoa, as they kept commenting he was going too slow. Every time, Little Prince would respond that this was fine. Yibo stayed quiet, and continued on. It did suck the fun out of it quite fast, and after some twenty minutes he just wanted it to be over.

Even when it finally was, Penoa left a final message before leaving the dungeon.

Yibo swallowed, took what he could from the loot in the treasure chests at the end, and left. Just as he clicked on the exit one final message appeared in his chat.

The cutscenes continued as he exited, giving him the finish to the story surrounding the dungeon, and then finally delivering him back to the place he had entered from. Almost within seconds after he regained control of his character again, there was a loud pinging noise and a new message appeared in his chat box.

Yibo frowned, a little taken aback. He tried figuring out how to respond in the same way, but before he could find anything another notice showed up on his screen. “Join Little Prince’s party?” He clicked ‘yes’ without much thought.

Suddenly the little Lalafell he’d met in the dungeon appeared next to him, and he was ‘motioned joyfully’ at again. The movement was different than it had been for the catgirl, the little brown-haired character raised his arms happily into the air, one leg even swinging to the side. It looked, well, cute. He responded by typing /joy himself. Another different one, each race probably had their own animations.

Little Prince continued explaining the steps, and soon Yibo was filling out the details of what had transpired in the dungeon onto a form. They even asked him to copy-paste the chat log in, so he had to scroll all the way back up through all of the rude messages. Yeah— They had been quite a dick, huh. Yibo wasn’t one to report anything usually, he dealt with so much anonymous hate on a daily basis even in real life that… You ended up just sort of ignoring it. Not letting it in and so not letting it affect you. Didn’t mean it didn’t hurt, but it was easier to just let it slide and stay impenetrable. (He even wrote a song about it once.)

But this Little Prince seemed to think it was a good idea, and well, he clearly knew a lot more about this game than Yibo did. That was another thing Yibo was good at: learning from his seniors.

When finally done, he closed the window and typed ‘/joy’ again.

Without further explanation, first a friend request from the kind player appeared on his screen, and he couldn’t help but smile a little as he clicked the accept button. Then, barely seconds after, an invitation to join something called the ‘Novice Network’ appeared. He clicked ‘accept’ there too.

The Lalafell let out a laugh, and his voice was surprisingly deep for such a small, round character. Yibo smiled, and typed /joy one more time.

The little character waved, and then the teleportation animation played as he disappeared. Yibo sat back finally, not having realised just how at attention he’d been the entire time. In a not particularly ergonomic position either. His back would hate him.

But man. That guy was nice.

The smile on his lips lingered as he teleported back to Limsa Lominsa and closed the game for the night.

💻💻💻

He finally remembered to let Chen Ruoxuan know he’d started playing some days later, and sent the guy a message over wechat. He wasn’t sure if he’d actually cared, but Yibo had promised to let him know, and he didn’t like letting people down. He got a response later that night, and they messaged back and forth for a bit as his old co-star peppered him with questions about his character and his progress. There wasn’t much to tell yet, but Yibo answered what he could. And again, he was told the story and surroundings would get less confusing soon enough, and that it’d be ‘so worth it’.

It was confusing perhaps, but Yibo was enjoying it anyway. There had always been a freedom to playing games anonymously, but most games he played were highly competitive, and often player versus player. This— felt more like a world was opening up for him to explore, freely, without any of the complications of the real world.

He’d thought about this a lot over the last couple of days. How Little Prince had been so nice to him, a disaster of a new player, without knowing anything about Yibo at all. And while Yibo happily believed in the inherent goodness of people, when you were as famous as he was it was difficult not to see how personal gains motivated people. If fame had taught him anything, it was how easy it was to be dismissed and even hated for the most arbitrary reasons.

On the scale of negativity Yibo faced on a daily basis, that DPS player's words had been nothing much — never mind the things he would often come across in other games — yet Little Prince had been so kind, and so adamantly against their behaviour.

Yibo appreciated it. Whoever he was, Yibo hoped he’d get to talk to him again. He hoped he would get another chance to do so.

His phone vibrated with another message from Chen Ruoxuan. Why don’t we run something together sometime when you’ve gotten a little further in? it read. Yibo sent him a sticker in agreement, put his phone away and rolled over to reach for his laptop. He could play for an hour perhaps, before bed.

The hour he allowed himself was enough for him to follow the questline to another dungeon, this time buried under green hills towards the south from the forest city he had visited earlier. Clearing the dungeon itself, however, would go much too late, and with a flight at 5am there wasn’t much give to his sleeping schedule. No, he’d need to get any and all sleep he was able to.

Next time, he thought to himself as he closed his laptop and rolled over on his side. Next time he’d do those job quests and then see if he could find Little Prince again.

When that would be, he had no idea.

💻💻💻

Completing that one class quest he had left undone took him all the way up to level 20, and allowed him to do another one. Really wanting to avoid any more situations where he was not equipped with the tools he should have, he completed that one too, before staring at the main scenario quest task in his duty list.

“Use the Duty Finder to enter Tam-Tara Deepcroft,” it said.

He’d found his friends list a moment earlier, searching through the myriad of menus available, and there he had found that maybe luck really was on his side. Little Prince was online.

He couldn’t DM other players, not even people on his friends list, nor invite them to parties. He’d tried, and the game had informed him of the limits due to the free trial restrictions. So the only way he could think of was to use that chat channel he’d also been invited to. The Novice Network.

It was constantly busy, text flying through Yibo’s chatbox quickly enough that he’d taken to mostly ignoring it. For now it didn’t matter but… he hoped he’d be able to filter it out at some point. It was a little overwhelming. He had seen several helpful conversations though, and sucked in the information in them like a greedy sponge.

Now, he looked at the quickly flowing chat between names he had never seen before, and hoped he wouldn’t make a complete fool out of himself. Group chats had never been his strong side.

Yibo frowned at the conversation, unsure what to make of it. He… Probably had made a fool of himself, hadn’t he? Thinking that Little Prince would want to come and help him again, when he was just one of probably hundreds of new players someone who took welcoming newbies that seriously came across during their time in the game. It was unlikely that the Lalafell would even remember him, when he thought about it, it had already been weeks after all.

He was about to log out and leave the dungeon for another time again, as another message popped up in his chat.

Yibo bit his lip for a moment, then typed again.

The party invitation came almost instantly, and Yibo accepted it as quickly as his fingers would allow him. He was unsure what to make of Little Prince so clearly remembering him after all. In a way, it made him already less anonymous in this new virtual world. He was already someone that could be recognised.

But this time it was wanted. He smiled as a blue message appeared instead of the bright green ones from before.

Yibo smiled at the screen, feeling a wave of excitement inside him as Little Prince queued them up for the dungeon. The window to accept popped up instantly again, and Yibo did so after a quick ‘i will do my best’ in the party chat. Little Prince responded with ‘I know you will’ right away.

No one was rude this time, and equipped with the skills Yibo had gained since last time he felt he had a lot more control of what he was doing. Little Prince was still guiding him along, showing him where to go, which enemies to take where and what objects to interact with to clear the way. He was using emotes and jumps to gesture, and sometimes full explanations in the chat box. Like how it would be best if Yibo kept the enemies in place as much as possible while they are fighting them, and how he could run ahead and grab more of them at once — that he would not let Val die even if there were more enemies at once.

He didn’t, even though Yibo failed at dodging quite a few attacks he should have been able to avoid. But it made sense that such a beginner level dungeon would be a walk in the park for someone so clearly well-versed in the game, even though it felt like a challenge for Yibo despite only having four or five keys to press.

And through it all Little Prince was keeping a light hearted conversation going, easily multi-tasking both gameplay and chatting. Even though Yibo had to stop to respond, this time their fellow party members weren’t bothered. Instead, they even took part in the chat, recommending things to check out and try as he moved along in the game. In the end, once the final boss had been vanquished, they wished him good luck in the game and left, leaving him there with just Little Prince.

Yibo made his character do a thumbs up at Little Prince and then ran over to the exit. But even once he came out of the following cutscenes, and proceeded onward to the next quest, he found that Little Prince hadn’t disbanded the party they were in. He wondered whether maybe he’d just forgotten, or whether he’d really left it like that so Yibo could communicate with him.

Whichever it was, Yibo liked it, and wanted to keep the connection active.

He sent off the message, and teleported to the area where he next needed to go, this time outside the desert city-state of Ul’dah. The plot of the game had quickly turned him into an errand-boy for the guilds in the cities. The quests were a little tedious, if he was to be honest, especially as he couldn’t use any mounts yet and had to walk everywhere at a slower pace than how most players were travelling around. (Apparently he would be able to quite soon, which made him want to rush along despite his early start the following morning.)

As he was hurrying the tasks and the dialogues, trying to get to that next dungeon as quickly as possible, he suddenly wondered if there really was anything in it at all for Little Prince. Was running this type of old, low level content of any value for him in game? Or was Yibo just wasting his time? Yibo was thankful, and — somehow really enjoyed the Lalafell’s company, but the thought of being a bother did linger. And he would need to go without Little Prince sooner or later anyway.

Yibo frowned.

Yibo flexed his fingers, unsure what more to say without making it sound like he didn’t want the company. It was just… Social interactions were difficult. He sighed and sped through a few more steps on the questline, still feeling like he was only taking, not giving anything in return. Finally, he stopped in the middle of a dirt road in Western Thanalan and typed a question. Something to find out a bit more about this kind player.

Yibo grinned at his laptop, feeling almost giddy at how comfortable the conversation suddenly felt. This was not at all what he’d picked up the game for, but now he wanted Little Prince to be part of his journey in it. Maybe he could even make a friend.

The question made Yibo gnaw on his lip for a moment, as anything even vaguely related to his real life felt like a minefield. The easiest, safest thing to do would be to just say ‘yes’ and not elaborate, but that wasn’t really the truth, and Yibo did not want to lie.

Yibo snorted. Oh it sure got busy for him, too, but the reasons for that were not something he could tell Little Prince about. He’d have to strike the fine balance between not sharing too much, but not coming across as cold. Well, plenty of jobs were busy in waves, right?

Just the rush to get to the next dungeon before you have to log out, Yibo thought and just then he happened to finally reach it.

And so they went through yet another dungeon together, this time with another two DPS players that participated in the party chat, and it felt so… social. Nice. Some of the fights had more quirky mechanics than the previous two dungeons, and Yibo got a lot of explanations and help from both Little Prince and the other two players. It was clear all three of them knew the place well, guiding him along the winding tunnels, picking up the items needed before Yibo even noticed them and cooperating seamlessly in the fights. It was impressive, even knowing that it was ‘easy and low level’. He wondered just how many times Little Prince had been through this specific dungeon in all those years, if he often helped newcomers like Yibo. Many times, he was sure.

Once finished, he received two ‘commendations’, something Little Prince quickly explained are essentially thank you’s one can leave to players one did not join the duty with — for playing well, or simply for being nice even. Encouraging, but almost a little embarrassing, when he was most definitely the one who had no idea what he was doing! Surely Little Prince should have been the one receiving them?

Yibo felt a little warm suddenly, and was sure that he was blushing. Thankfully, there was no one there to see him, bundled up on a hotel bed as he was. A bed that he should really long since have been actually sleeping on.

💻💻💻

The next time Yibo played, Little Prince wasn’t online. He checked of course, as soon as he logged in, but the little symbol next to his name was not lit up. That was fine, of course, Yibo did not need anyone to hold his hand the entire way, he could explore and learn on his own. It was just it had been another couple of weeks and — he would quite have liked to have another friendly chat.

He had two days off this time, and there were plenty of things he wanted to do. He wanted to spend some hours skating, he wanted to sleep in his own bed and he wanted to eat his favourite shitty instant noodles, prepared by himself. And on top of all that, he wanted to explore Eorzea more from his own desk. He’d downloaded and installed the client onto his neglected desktop, and though it ran fine on his laptop there was still a noticeable difference in quality. And his gaming chair? Heavenly, compared to being crouched over a desk in a hotel room.

The story now introduced him to what he guessed was the main cast of NPCs. There was the catgirl, Y’shtola, that he’d met already early on outside of Limsa Lominsa, and a few other faces. They all congregated in this building a fair distance from the nearest aetheryte, making the constant running back and forth take quite some time. It would perhaps have been more frustrating, if there had not been several other new players doing the trek repeatedly alongside him. They shared some jokes in the general chat along the way. Once he’d finally been sent off to the next area, to investigate the potential summoning of some dangerous magical creature, his friends list had grown from one person to four. Eventually, it was alongside these three fellow new players that he vanquished his first “trial” of the game: Ifrit.

In the aftermath of the battle, as the consequences of this magical creature (a “primal”, as the game called it) having been summoned became clear, Yibo found himself staring at the screen, reading every word of the text boxes with full concentration.

Up to this point the story had been simple: he was an adventurer, completing tasks and errands for the people who needed him to. And though there had been plenty of hints towards whatever bigger things laid behind it all, it still surprised him, pleasantly so, how brutal the truth behind the ‘protection of Eorzea’ was.

And he still didn’t know if he wanted to punch or fuck this Thancred character.

Little Prince was still offline the second day of his little holiday, and in his absence Yibo joined a Grand Company (some kind of local military organisation), received his first mount in the shape of his very own chocobo companion (that he lovingly named Motorbeak) and reached level 30, unlocking his new job as a Warrior. And he’d even spent several hours skating in the enclosed backyard of his housing complex! He felt productive, and felt a strange urge to tell Little Prince about his accomplishments.

Yet the next time they were online at the same time, Yibo wasn’t in need of clearing any new duty, nor would he have time to stay online for long enough to unlock anything. He decided to not reach out. He still didn’t have any other way of doing so than to do so in a crowded chat in front of others and … it felt like too much for just a short chat. In the end it took him one more night like this before he reached the next dungeon and had his excuse to reach out to Little Prince again.

Much to his joy Little Prince responded immediately, and within minutes they entered what seemed to be a haunted mansion together. Yibo wouldn’t have minded just chatting a little first, but maybe he’d get his chance after. He couldn’t stay on for long, he had a long two days of filming Day Day Up again ahead of him, and while that was familiar and comfortable as always, it did require him to be social and more out there for longer periods than many other of his jobs. And his brothers always worried so much, if he didn’t seem rested enough, so he did his best to arrive as energised as possible.

Funnily, it felt like speaking to the cute little Lalafell he’d become so fond of was energising in its own way. That was probably a bit of a concern, if he was to be entirely honest with himself, but… It was easy enough to push to the side for now, as they ventured through dusty corridors together, unlocking door after door until they reached the final battle. They didn’t talk much this time — the chat was filled with mostly instructions for Yibo on what to do — and their two random companions seemed to quietly run through it as if it was routine. It was all calm and organised, and towards the end it felt almost too quiet. Yibo found his insides tying themselves into small knots with every room they’d cleared with nothing but tips and instructions for the duty. There was no trace of Little Prince’s usual chattiness.

Perhaps he had finally crossed the border of how friendly Little Prince wanted to be with him.

As soon as they left the dungeon, he quickly typed out a thank you, to make sure it would go through before Little Prince would feel the need to leave. He wanted to ask if something was wrong, but the realisation that he had gotten uncomfortably attached to this person he really knew nothing about at all lingered inside his belly, holding him back.

Yibo let out a long breath, relief spreading through him. Little Prince sounded like before.

Yibo was grinning widely now, sitting perfectly straight again and focusing on nothing but the blue text with Little Prince’s words. The friendly banter, the excited willingness to give him another way to contact him — even saying he looked forward to it. Yibo felt absolutely giddy.

Yibo barely understood half of those words, but an invitation to the newly created linkshell appeared on his screen not long after. He accepted it, staring at the name of it.

Oh.

Somehow, Yibo’s heart was suddenly beating so much faster. He swallowed, the sound of it loud over the silence of his hotel room.

💻💻💻

The new chat channel made everything easier, and Yibo couldn’t help but wish it had been created earlier. Maybe it was selfish of him, but the way even fifteen, twenty minutes online now meant he could exchange a few words with Little Prince made him log on more than ever before. And so, maybe his quest progress slowed down a little, but now it was done to pleasant commentary and discussion. When he complained about the current series of tasks, wasting time for some stupid banquet when there was a summoned primal looming around that needed killing, Little Prince would laugh and tell him that particular questline was infamous for how frustrating it was.

“You’ll be through it in no time though, and then the story really picks up,” he would say, and Yibo would push onward another few steps before having to log out.

It almost became a routine — stolen moments whenever his schedule would allow, and though he knew a large part of what made him so eager to spend his spare minutes in Eorzea was Little Prince himself, he was still excited for any days where he would have time to actually make some progress in the game. It took weeks for one of those days to arrive, and only then did he make it to that primal he’d been wanting to smack for so long — as well as the banquet before it. Little Prince joined him, and there was something in his words that made Yibo feel like he was up for a challenge. He couldn’t wait.

Soon enough he was left to watch the three other party members continuing the fight, as he himself lay deep at the bottom of a cliff, unable to be raised to continue the fight. Wow. The jump in difficulty was notable, but as soon as the others wiped the fight and he was allowed another try, he succeeded in figuring out the timing of dodging those large landslide AoEs that had knocked him off before. He was thankful he was at home, at his own PC, and not on the laptop on say, Hengdian’s wifi. That would have been even more disastrous. (“They say it used to be practically unplayable on harder difficulties on the global servers back when it was new! Though we never had that issue here in China,” Little Prince explained once they made it out and Yibo said he felt like he was going to have nightmares about boulders falling down on his head or being pushed off cliffs at night.)

Little Prince quickly nudged him to continue the story, and with his flight to Changsha not being until 8AM the next morning, he thought he might as well. It sounded like there was something good coming up, and he wanted to share his reactions to such moments. It seemed to please Little Prince, and Yibo liked that.

It might, however, still have been a bad decision to walk back into the Waking Sands at 11:34 PM when one had a plane to catch the next morning.

Again, the story took a sudden turn into darker territory, quite literally with piles of corpses that his character had to help carry out and bury. Yibo couldn’t say he’d taken note of any of these characters, but with the attention to detail that he was already finding this game to have, he had no doubts he could have spoken to them just an hour before even. Grim.

Yibo had pressed enter long before the meaning of his words properly made it through his own head— and once they did, panic drenched him all through, as though the skies had opened out of nowhere.

On his screen, though, Little Prince had already responded.

Yibo gnawed on his lip, rocks settling at the bottom of his stomach. He’d fucked this up now, hadn’t he? Of course he wanted Little Prince’s wechat but… There was no way he could just take the risk of giving out even his own secret, anonymous one. He knew nothing about the person behind Little Prince. Absolutely nothing. He’d gotten too comfortable in his anonymity. Finally he typed.

Closing his eyes, Yibo took a moment just to breathe. In, out, trying to calm his racing heart. Everything was fine, he’d not given himself away, he wasn’t going to — And even if he had connected and given his spare wechat ID, that wouldn’t mean Little Prince knew anything.

Just — He couldn’t just give it away like that, and now he’d made a fool out of himself.

There always is, Yibo thought, as he finished the gruesome task he was in the middle of. As soon as he was done, he quickly teleported back to the nearest settlement before logging out without any further messages. Suddenly exhausted to the bone, he hoped that meant that at least he would fall asleep easily and get rest.

If only it had been that way.

He wasn’t sure if he’d slept at all when Lele eventually knocked on his door in the early morning, but neither did he feel like he’d been able to think. Mostly he just felt silly and a little stupid. But the one thing he had managed to figure out while rolling around unable to find a comfortable position was that it had been that easy for those words to slide out because he was entirely comfortable when talking to Little Prince. He didn’t know him, not really, but it felt like he did. And it wasn’t often that Yibo felt so at ease when talking to someone.

Maybe it was just the kind of person Little Prince was.

Once on the plane, Yibo forced himself to shut out thoughts of chat boxes and friendly Lalafell, and managed to focus on the script and plans for this batch of DDU episodes to film. He cared far too much about his work to let it suffer because of some online crush.

Because that was exactly what it was. Yibo had been through enough of these attachments to older boys and men showing care for him through the years that there was no point in denying it to himself. It was just — He so often wondered how his fans grew so attached to him. What they saw in him, what they got out of being so attached to someone they didn’t actually know. Even when he would interact with them, at fan-meetings or events, it would be with a made up version of him. Yes, he did always make sure he was allowed to stay as true to himself as possible in his work, but still… a difference remained, and he had always liked that. That some parts of himself were still just his.

His thoughts would wander back to Little Prince during breaks throughout the day. He kept wondering what right he had to assume he knew anything about the guy? What he knew, what he had spoken to, was maybe only one tiny piece of his persona in that particular game. He had far less of a real connection to Little Prince than his fans had to him. It was just... genuinely stupid to be this hung up on the guy.

Of course Little Prince had offered him a chance to maybe get to know him outside of the game.

It’s just, Yibo couldn’t accept it. Shouldn’t.

Han-ge looked at him far too suspiciously as he bid his brothers good-night, so Yibo was sure his efforts to focus on work just like normal had not entirely worked out. He doubted anyone else would have noticed, but Han-ge always did. He knew the real Yibo, and Yibo loved it. Felt loved.

Maybe if these thoughts had not left him alone by the next time he’d be in Changsha, Yibo could talk to him. Tomorrow felt too soon.

💻💻💻

With his laptop coming along wherever he went it was so easy to just fall back into those short moments online before bed. And Little Prince never acted like anything had changed at all. Every time Yibo would log in he’d say hi, ask how Yibo is and how his quests are going. And every time, Yibo would progress yet a little further and grow more attached to the world he explored.

Once, he decided to backtrack a little and do some unlock quests he had left hanging when told to prioritise the story over anything else. That was what had him run into a very flamboyant Elezen in Limsa Lominsa and chase him around the city until he unlocked the aesthetician feature, a tool that would allow you to change your character’s hair and make-up. As a result, Little Prince got a little visual surprise when he came along to accompany Yibo through another dungeon: The Stone Vigil. (Apparently there was an airship crashed somewhere behind the fortress that made up the dungeon, and they needed to get to it to save Val’s NPC friends.)

The party ended up being quite chatty again, with Dark Mustard also being eager to explain mechanics to both Yibo and N’mae as they progressed through the frozen over hallways of the fortress, smacking various kinds of dragons.

Yibo quite liked the area the dungeon was in — earlier the sky had been clear, and he’d just sat on his chocobo at a high point of Camp Dragonhead, the central hub of the region, and watched the snowy landscape under the gorgeous sky while Little Prince was telling him about his most recent raid. Not much of it had made sense to Yibo, but it had been nice regardless. And the landscape with its snowy peaks and trees had made him miss snowboarding so much. It had been far too long since he’d been able to go on a holiday.

At a few levels over 40 now, there was finally a little bit more variety of skills for him to use. That, combined with the mechanics getting a little more complicated with each dungeon, made the fights start to feel more engaging. And Little Prince kept saying it would only improve as he progressed, as the jobs were always designed to be the best at the current max level.

Yibo was sure that he would get there too eventually. Whether or not he’d buy the full game soon enough was no longer a question. And the way both Little Prince and Dark Mustard clapped for him and the other first timer as the large ice dragon Isgebind fell to the ground and disappeared into thin air made him smile..

Somehow, Yibo’s interactions with Little Prince would always end with him grinning at his computer screen for a good while, even after logging off.

💻💻💻

It wasn’t until another few weeks and a few levels later that the thought of WeChat details crept into his mind again. There had been some changes in the scheduling for a movie project he was casted in several months ago, and now suddenly his manager had to scramble to shuffle things around in his personal schedule to allow for him to spend up to three weeks at a faraway location shoot. It was an exciting opportunity — There were several big names involved that all were far more “real” actors than him, and the project was partially funded by government money. In fact, Yibo still wondered why he of all people had been picked, but he was nothing but committed to the role.

And so, he knew that even disregarding the likely bad connection options, he would need to be social and connect with the rest of the cast. Sometimes filming sets became comfortable spaces where he truly did enjoy spending time with everyone, but sometimes it was the exact opposite. He never knew before he got there, surrounded by everyone. It was a part of his job, and he loved his job, but... being social with people he didn’t know well had just never been one of his strong sides. Unless you were a kind stranger in a video game, he supposed.

But the thing was, he knew that bringing his laptop was unnecessary bulk and weight, and that for entertainment the right choice this time was his switch.

So there he was, staring at the familiar little chat box and their ongoing casual conversation and thinking about the possibility of chatting to Little Prince even when not in game. Just a moment ago, Little Prince had admitted to owning a cat. Well — He’d said he needed to feed her. The real Little Prince, outside of the game. Needed to feed his cat. And Yibo was stuck wondering if he was about to make a big mistake.

He wanted it so much, though. With his teeth digging deep into his lower lip, he typed.

If he was sure. How was this guy this considerate? After Yibo pulled such a scene back then, too. With his stomach doing somersaults again, he responded.

Yibo’s heart was beating so quickly as he copied the ID into his own app, searching for Little Prince’s account to be able to add him. And there it was. He backed out to double and triple check that there was nothing personally identifying on his own, private account, but beyond his love for One Piece being fairly public knowledge there really wasn’t anything. But half the world loved One Piece. He was going to be fine.

He had plenty of contacts on this account, but it wasn’t like he knew most of them well. Somehow, not knowing Little Prince at all, but wanting so desperately to, made it all feel so very different. He went back to the user search again, and this time he pressed the add button. Now there was no going back.

Even less so, seconds later when Little Prince accepted the request.

Well. He could always block the guy if necessary, of course. But he hoped so much that he would never need to do that.

So he’d noticed. Well — That made sense, what with how little Yibo was actually online, despite making it quite clear he enjoyed being online. That would make anyone assume his real life was busy. But here Little Prince was making it sound like he cared.

Yibo looked down at his phone, still a little in disbelief about the whole thing, just as a message popped up. It was an image of a grey and white cat with short legs, looking like it was smiling widely. It was adorable.

Yibo looked at the cat photo again, saved it onto his phone and made it the background picture of their new message history. He could’ve dug out a screenshot of their characters, he had quite a few saved by now, but not only weren’t they particularly great (he had no idea how some people were taking such beautiful screenshots of the game, all of his own came out just… dark and uninspiring), it also felt like… this chat was for the Real Little Prince. And the only little piece of him that Yibo had at this point was Jianguo.

Gods, he was a bit of a creeper wasn’t he. He locked his phone and looked back up at the game.

Yibo swallowed, the fluttering in his stomach from earlier returning at full force.

💻💻💻

Funnily enough, having someone’s contact saved in your phone did not mean that one was brave enough to actually message them. For two days Yibo stared at the empty chat window, at the picture of Little Prince’s cat, without actually typing anything. Well — He’d take his phone out, look at it for a moment, and then put it back without doing anything. Or if he kept it out, for something to fiddle with, he would swap over to weibo or douyin to mindlessly scroll or even log in to his mobile games he never played anymore and grab the daily rewards.

Just as they were almost finished with the script reading, after hours and hours of reading lines out loud and discussing the scenes with the main cast, there was an unexpected notification on his screen as he dug his phone out.

He kept his face as blank as possible as he unlocked the phone and tapped it, even as his heartbeat sped up instantly.

Three simple messages, but they were far more than Yibo had managed to produce. And — it was normal that Yibo didn’t log in for days, even weeks. This was nothing new, but here Little Prince was, reaching out.

Maybe he wanted to chat too. Maybe Yibo wasn’t being stupid.

It only took a couple of minutes for Little Prince to respond, and then suddenly Yibo found himself in a conversation not much different to the ones they shared in game. Exactly as he had wanted. It felt like the universe was being a little too kind to him, but he’d take anything it was giving him. The rest of the day passed as he checked on his phone whenever he could, typing responses to Little Prince’s messages with a smile on his lips in those in-between moments when he wasn’t needed for the reading.

Yibo felt his face heat up at the thoughtful words, thankful that his fellow cast members had just finished up, and everyone was busy packing their scripts and getting up. Thankful, also, that it was far too late for anyone to expect him to have dinner with them. Room service sounded like the perfect idea.

Still, he felt shy and seen, and quickly tried to change the topic before sliding his phone back into his pocket and saying good night to everyone.

He walked back to his room, going up the stairs to avoid sharing an elevator with anyone, and then quickly placed an order for some late night noodles. And once he was out of his day clothes and comfortable, he reached for his phone again. There were several messages from Little Prince waiting for him.

Yibo felt his smile widening with each message that he read, Little Prince’s words appearing nothing but genuine, and a little more… free? Than usual. Perhaps not drunk, but definitely tipsy. It was cute.

Yibo wasn’t sure he’d actually seen this specific Wild Child player around, but he did remember seeing one or two other people with the same “<>” tag above their head that Little Prince had. He’d learned at some point that the tag indicated which Free Company, a kind of guild, a player belonged to, so they must have been Little Prince’s friends. But as a free trial player, he hadn’t been able to join one of those.

He wanted to accept. It felt like he was being allowed to carve this little safe, in-game bubble for himself, right in Little Prince’s space. He suddenly wanted it so much his chest ached. Gods, he was in deep.

Chewing on his lip, he started typing back.

He plugged in his phone and put it on the bedside table before turning over and grinning widely into his pillow.

What the fuck.

What the fuck.

💻💻💻