The Straight Guy with Skin Hunger

Qi Jianan suffers from severe skin hunger. He's clearly straight, but has no choice except to look for people to cuddle with on social apps.

To keep himself from crossing any lines, Qi Jianan can only cuddle with men.

His profile says: Straight, BBS only.

BBS is slang on gay dating apps. It means "cuddle and sleep," referring to sleeping while holding someone, without doing anything else.

Every time Qi Jianan arranges to meet a man, the other person thinks he's joking.

That's because Qi Jianan is exactly the type of guy gay men dream of, and the men he meets are all top-tier handsome in their own ways. They don't believe he can control himself.

But after a night together, Qi Jianan really does just cuddle them to sleep. He doesn't do anything else.

The men all break down and message him, asking questions like, "Are you really not attracted to me at all?" "Am I really that unattractive?" and "Am I so ugly you won't even let me kiss you?"

Their self-esteem lies in pieces.

Qi Jianan gives them all the same reply: "No, I'm really straight. We agreed to just cuddle and sleep, so why won't you believe me?"

The men who've slept with him are even more upset:

"A straight guy goes around looking for men to sleep with? Are you serious?"

"If you're a scumbag, just admit it. Why pretend to be straight?"

"I'd find it easier to accept if you just said you weren't into me."

*

Qi Jianan, who's racked up a huge debt of "gay men," finally has his comeuppance one day.

That night, after drinking at a class reunion, Qi Jianan staggers to a date. He walks into a hotel room and throws his arms around a tall man in a suit, refusing to let go.

He even tugs at the man's tie, mumbling, "Why aren't you undressed and waiting for me?"

The man says nothing. Only when Qi Jianan grabs his hand, pulls him under the covers, and cuddles up to sleep does he speak in a low, magnetic voice. "...What comes next?"

Qi Jianan buries his face in the crook of the man's neck and gives a muffled grunt. "There is no next step."

The next morning, as soon as Qi Jianan wakes, he plans to pull the same old trick and explain that he's straight and won't agree to anything except sleeping while cuddling.

But before he can say a word, he sees the sleeping face beside him, handsome and sharply sculpted, and is stunned.

The man before him is the person he often sees on financial news, the distinguished alumnus who once gave a speech at his school, and the man rumored to be able to bankrupt a publicly traded company with a flick of his finger...

The heir to the wealthiest family in the country, Xing Zhenxiao.

Qi Jianan is so frightened that he runs off without even getting dressed properly.

*

Xing Zhenxiao suffers from severe insomnia and usually needs physical therapy just to manage a few hours of light sleep.

Then one night, a male college student knocks on his door. Without a word, he clings to him and says he wants to sleep together.

Xing Zhenxiao wants to refuse, but the other man is simply too beautiful. He clings to him like a koala, wanting every inch of their skin to touch, all while insisting they won't do anything.

Amazingly, Xing Zhenxiao falls asleep almost immediately that night.

It is the sweetest sleep he has had in twenty-eight years.

When he wakes, the person beside him has run off.

All that's left is a worn white T-shirt.

Xing Zhenxiao feels empty inside. He picks up the shirt, which still carries the scent of the young man from the night before, proof that it wasn't a dream.

From that day on, Xing Zhenxiao can only fall asleep holding that T-shirt every night.

But it can never compare to the sweet sleep he had holding the young man.

*

After sleeping with the wrong person, Qi Jianan no longer dares to arrange dates on the app.

He puts up with his skin hunger and hugs his shark plushie every night, suffering through months of sleeplessness.

As graduation approaches, Qi Jianan sends out resumes online with his portfolio and finally makes it to the last interview round at a Fortune 500 company.

The person sitting in the middle of the interview panel turns out to be Xing Zhenxiao.

Qi Jianan is so embarrassed he wants the ground to swallow him.

After the interview, Qi Jianan runs into Xing Zhenxiao downstairs at the company.

Xing Zhenxiao walks up to him with an impassive face, looks down at him, and asks coldly, "Want to run away again?"

Qi Jianan hurriedly apologizes. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to that night..."

"Is that so?" Xing Zhenxiao says mildly, raising an eyebrow. "Then try doing it on purpose tonight."

Qi Jianan is dumbfounded. "...Huh?"

A clingy, skin-hungry pup who seems straight but isn't as straight as he looks x a domineering CEO who seems powerful but is starved for love and can't sleep

Blurb archived 2026/02/08

Theme: True love can lead us through the fog