do you ever think about comphet wlw xie lian being the ultimate 'sex is supposed to be tolerable at best and attraction is fake' believer? sure, OTHER people can be gay, like her hot dyke coworker hua cheng, but that has nothing to do with xie lian

ok hua cheng isn't her coworker exactly, she's like....a work nemesis. the nemesis of xl's division anyway. she leads another division and has caused COUNTLESS problems for xl's team, who all hate her for this.

so xl knows her by reputation! a real gay person, being gay, in her company. she has no problem with this at all bc she isn't homophobic, and she kind of suspects her coworkers maybe are. due to their hc hatred >__>

anyway now i have to go to the grocery store to get kibbles for my horrible hungry cats but i do have a few more thoughts brb

so this is all theoretical for xl until the weekend when they're forced to share a room. there's some conference or trade show or something and due to a clerical error (hc's gay machinations) both xl and hc are going and there's Only One Hotel Room

xl is like, this is fine! i've shared hotel rooms with friends & coworkers before! this will be completely normal!

spoiler: things are not completely normal, because hua cheng is not completely normal.

not in a bad way!! she's very nice! they meet on the shuttle over from the airport & get to talking before xl even knows who she is and xl is thoroughly charmed

then hc puts on her company badge to check in at the hotel and xl puts together this incredibly beautiful and confident woman with her out of date work profile picture. xl is pretty bad at faces but this is...kind of embarrassing. it must be the eyepatch.

xl is like "haha you must think i'm so stupid, we were messaging about the room yesterday and today i didn't even recognize you!!" but hc effortlessly puts her at ease. inhi what she says bc i'm no good at putting people at ease but whatever it is it's VERY smooth.

hc is just...ultra nice?? she carries xl's suitcase for her and calls her jiejie and keeps xl company while she putters around the room getting herself settled in as if there's nowhere else she'd rather be

xl immediately decides that yes, all her coworkers must be homophobic bc how could you hate someone as easygoing and friendly as hc??

(it's because hc keeps committing deeply embarrassing white collar crimes against other divisions but ling wen etc can't expose her bc then they'd have to come clean about all *their* white collar crimes. xl is completely unaware of any of this)

hc accompanies xl to the mandatory networking happy hour & then to the mandatory dinner and xl is just like "omg new friend "

it does not occur to her that hc might be flirting when she pulls out xl's chair, touches her elbow, etc

flirting is a specific social dance that you do with men, and xl has never been very good at it. if you asked her to reflect on it she might conclude that yes, lesbians could also flirt, but it wouldn't occur to her organically!

so that's how the first day of the conference goes: xl passes it in blissful ignorance, very happy to be spending time with her new friend and goes to sleep in the bed she'd claimed feeling absolutely 0% awkward about any of it

the lack of awkwardness lasts until next morning when xl wakes up to the sounds of hc in the shower and a text from sqx all "were you flirting with hua cheng last night? did anything happen~?? spill the beans!!!!"

xl is suddenly forced to reframe the entire last 24 hours in her mind and is like: oh shit. WAS that flirting? but it was so nice and fun!! but sqx thought it was.....does hc think i'm gay?? no...maybe that's just how she is....

so by the time hc gets out of the shower xl is in huge overthinking mode & is feeling as awkward as she ever has in her LIFE.

hc is just wearing one of the small hotel towels wrapped around her torso and she's so tall it barely goes down to her hips. xl doesn't know where to look.

if she looks at hc will it send the wrong message? xl doesn't know how ~lesbian signalling works, like, at ALL. if she looks away will it seem like she's embarrassed or scared of hc?? that's even worse! xl is not afraid of gay people & super doesn't want to make hc feel bad :(

she ends up just holding a high-pitched conversation about the conference schedule with hc while staring determinedly at the center of her forehead, which hc thinks is the cutest & funniest thing ever. xl is pretty sure she doesn't breathe until she escapes to the bathroom.

hc is just as nice and solicitous today as yesterday - waits for xl to go down to breakfast together, saves her a seat at panels, generally acts like she has nothing of her own to do here and is attending solely to help xl -

- and xl feels like she shouldn't accept all this attention. it can't be for *her*, it has to be for some version of xl in hc's head who would like. want her. in a gay way. that's why someone would do all this, right?

if only hc knew xl was straight, surely she wouldn't be doting on her like this. but tragically xl is straight and she has nothing to give back!

for one hilarious moment, xl pictures having sex with hc - that's what she would be after if she was a guy, xl knows - or at least some heavy petting, bc xl is a good girl who doesn't let guys have sex with her without going through all the appropriate hurdles first

and it's so weird that she has to stuff her fist in her mouth while her body goes hot all over with embarrassment. that's just. a hilarious idea. unthinkable, almost. her mind keeps shying away from producing any details at all

so it's just the words, "sex with hua cheng," going around and around in xl's mind and she's like WOW what a weird thing to get obsessed over. i'm just like those creepy guys who make jokes about how do lesbians even have sex, why can't i stop thinking about it??

xl sadly concludes that she harbors a deep streak of homophobia in her subconscious and it took having a lesbian roommate for the weeked for it to come out. she'll just have to play it cool & not do anything hurtful to hc until they can part ways

so the second day is markedly more stilted and awkward, and when it's time for bed, xl cannot for the life of her remember how she managed to go to bed normally last night.

she overthinks where she changes, opting to change in the bathroom even though she's not showering again, and just hopes hc thinks she's extra modest and not afraid of being naked near a gay person

she tries to say goodnight normally as she crawls into bed & turns out the light, but doesn't know if she manages. hc asks if she's ok (how embarrassing) and offers to give jiejie a massage if she's feeling tense after the day? (xl's higher brain functions grind to a halt)

this is....definitely a come-on, right?? xl panics and is like "no thanks i'm straight! have a good night!!" and burritos herself protectively in the blankets

only after, when hc chuckles and wishes her goodnight back, does the embarrassment hit. straight people can get massages! friends can give each other massages to help each other relax! now hc *knows* xl is weird about her being gay, great.

the next day is awkward even though xl tries to hold it together. like, hc is being just as lovely as ever, but now xl is too self-aware and it all feels awkward anyway. she wishes they could go back to the uncomplicated times of the first day of the conference.

that had been so FUN and so NICE, before xl went and ruined it with her bigotry and overthinking :(((

(when xl tells sqx this later, sqx is like "wait so you DO or you DON'T want her to flirt with you?" and xl is like "d;dakgh i'm never telling you anything")

in the afternoon xl has to give a talk about [their specialty, just imagine one lol] as an official rep of their company. she doesn't love doing these things but she doesn't usually get nervous either - it is what it is.

but today she's so tense and worried already, it must show. hc rubs her shoulder and is like "are you nervous about your talk?" and xl is just like *miserable nod* because there's no way she can say what's really bothering her

"here, this will help," hc says, and tugs xl into one of those little alcoves conference hotels tend to have tons of. xl is like ??? but then hc is threading her fingers into xl's hair and leaning down and pressing their lips together and. what?

there's nothing but shock for a moment and then a crash of just - wow. hc has *really* soft lips. and she's scratching her fingernails against xl's scalp a little and it's making xl go all tingly and like, dreamy? is this some sort of traditional medicine thing?

hc pulls away after only a minute and it's really a very chaste kiss. xl's stomach must be swooping only because of the surprise, right? kissing has never done this to her before.

"what was that for?" she manages to squeak out

"for luck," hc assures her, squeezing her shoulder and beaming at her. "not that you need it. jiejie's going to crush it."

xl blushes at being overpraised, and goes and gives her talk to the approx 12 people who showed up and proceeds to absolutely crush it.

hc is one of the 12 people and tells xl she did great after the session ends. other people are milling around & telling her they liked her talk too but honestly she doesn't care what anyone else thinks.

she hadn't had the chance to think about the kiss while she was giving her talk, and now hc seems to be...over it? she's not acting like someone who expects anything in return, anyway. maybe she really does just give her friends platonic good luck kisses?

before xl knows it the conference is ending and they're saying goodbye. she had booked a different flight than hc so they don't even get to ride the shuttle back together ;__; hc is like "give me your boarding pass" and then does something on her phone and hands it back to xl

"now you can message me from the plane if you want," she says. "don't worry about bothering me, i'll always respond to jiejie."

xl finds out once she gets on the plane that hc had spent way too much money upgrading her to 1st class with onboard wifi :O

(hc had wanted to change her flight so they could sit together, but everything else was already sold out. press f for hc)

they message back and forth on the plane and then just don't stop once they get back to their regular lives. hc lives in a different city so they don't see each other, but it's nice to keep in touch!

slowly, xl starts to feel like maybe she didn't ruin things with her awkwardness after all if hc still wants to spend time messaging her.

and as long as she doesn't think about that good luck kiss, or hypothetical gay sex with hc, it's fine! she doesn't go into a weird obsessive thought spiral and doesn't have to worry about making things weird for hc, they can just be normal friends

[anyway i have to go do some work now but will i be thinking about platonic good luck kisses from tall dyke hua cheng for the rest of the day???? You Bet ]

top of the thread, if you are just seeing this! #hualesbians #tgcf https://twitter.com/bitterchord_/status/1387440365184106498?s=20

to take a brief detour to look back through the years.... xl and hc went to the same college, although xl almost certainly doesn't remember this. hc was a freshman when xl was a senior, and xl was part of the student committee that organized freshman orientation activities

the summer before freshman year of college was not a high point of hc's life. she was doing...not great. and here was this buff, gorgeous, perfect woman completely earnestly leading a group of gangly freshmen through doing trust falls and all the silliest icebreakers imaginable

hc was obsessed almost immediately. what really sealed the deal, though, was xl giving the intro to the diversity & inclusion policy. everyone else in the group was nodding off or chatting amongst themselves but hc was riveted.

it was just committee-written boilerplate, nothing that groundbreaking, but hc felt like the most perfect woman in the world was staring into her heart and telling her, hua cheng, personally, that it was ok to be herself

that she was important just because she was /herself/, in a way no one else could be, and she should be celebrated and cherished. hc's looming sexuality crises crested and broke during that talk, and she came out the other side utterly devoted to xl.

looking back, hc is pretty sure she owes xl her life, with little exaggeration. she came out to everyone on her floor in one big blast, not caring what anyone might think bc xie lian would have approved of her embracing her true self

she carried that confidence through her college career and when she graduated, she pulled some strings to get an internship at xl's company. she worked her way steadily up through the ranks and bided her time: one day she would be worthy of xl's time and attention.

as the years went by and hc continued to move up while xl stayed at the same rank in the same division, her goal evolved: she would become someone who could protect & take care of xl, in whatever capacity xl wanted her

so anyway, back in the main timeline, the conference xl and hc went to releases a whole bunch of candid photos from the conference in their like, "thank you for coming to Industry Event, see you again next year!" post

xl and hc feature in several of the shots, in the background or off to the side, but xl's coworkers zoom in on it and they're like "is that HUA CHENG?? i thought you just had to share a room, why are you looking so ~friendly~??"

xl is like "what! what's wrong with her!" [pleasant smile over a deep well of I Dare You To Say What You Really Think]

all the coworkers are just like...heh....be careful around her...she's bad news.... etc, none of which does anything to dispel xl's assumptions

she's like "i can take care of myself! i can spend time with whoever i want [INCLUDING LESBIANS], I don't have a problem with it >:)"

everyone in the heavenly court division is like "wait.....does xl know about all the white collar crime? surely not...." and just kind of wander away awkwardly. this is not the triumph over bigotry & workplace discrimination xl had dreamed of but she'll take it

privately, xl wonders if she *does* have a problem with it, though. with hc being gay. because it happened weeks ago and xl is still thinking about that one kiss.....a lot. like, multiple times a day, at the oddest times.

and she's not someone who gets hung up on kissing! instead of 800 years of celibacy, in this universe she's had a string of boyfriends who were ok, and the kissing was ok too. it was nothing she thought about when she wasn't doing it though.

xl should just let hc lead her own (gay) life without constantly thinking about it. dating girls, or whatever hc does. xl asks her idly in their chat if she's dating any girls rn, and hc replies earnestly that she's single right now.

/me too!/ xl sends back with a tiny thrill at having something in common. /it's kind of nice not having to worry about all that, isn't it?/

/dating?/ hc asks

/yeah/

/it can be good with the right person/ hc replies. /does jiejie not like dating?/

xl goes warm all over and she can't tell if it's from embarrassment or...or something else. this isn't the simple banter about the freedoms of being single she had envisioned! that's a conversation she knows how to have. this feels all new and a little scary.