Hypnos and Figs

Lin Jia Ji, 30 years old, female.

An uptight bank manager, with her crisp tailored skirt, glasses that once worn – kept people at a distance – and an indescribable aura as she walked, Lin Jia Ji was a senior that commanded the admiration and respect of the younger workers.

“Manager Lin?” Her co-workers discussed privately, “She is the kind of person who doesn’t need a personal life at all and dedicates her life to her career; a role model for our generation.”

Lin Jia Ji returned home and entered the combination lock on the door, revealing three walls full of models and figurines.

Using one of the walls as a background, she took a photo of her newly acquired figurine. She then posted it on her account with the caption: “Wan Dai cut corners again.”

Lin Jia Ji, nicknamed Hypnos, is a model and figurines assembler—referred to as Jiao Lao in the community.

When she refreshed the page again, a row of comments appeared: “Hypnos, a role model for our generation!” “I’m new here, this H God must be a rich second-generation who doesn’t need to work, right?” “That’s right, brother, you need at least three gold mines in the family to engage in the hobby.”

In order to maintain her privacy as much as possible, Lin Jia Ji registered herself as a male on the site.

Hypnos is the God of sleep in ancient Greek mythology, and was also written into the Cthulhu myth by Lovecraft. Those who are not experienced and older may not necessarily understand her nickname. 

The first eighteen years of her life, Lin Jia Ji was a walking corpse whose sole purpose was to memorise problems and solutions for school, and there was nothing that took precedence over school.

Only after she started college, under the influence of a roommate, did she unlocked a new world.

Now that she has graduated for ten years, she occasionally still sees her roommate jumping up and down in the comments when posting pictures. However, even her roommates didn’t know who Hypnos really is.

Lin Jia Ji happens to have no interest in falling in love, and is more than  happy to make people around her think that she is a workaholic with no life. After all, “dedicating your life to a career” sounds much better than “dedicating your life to toys.”

But she is not young anymore, and her parents still grumbles occasionally, though their tone is not intense. They just say intentionally or unintentionally, “I don’t know if I can ever see you with a boyfriend before I die.”

The years when they would quarrel fiercely and bicker had long passed, and now they have lowered the standard from worrying about having grandsons to “just fall in love, even if it’s not fruitful, we’ll be okay with it.”

As for Lin Jia Ji, she gradually became tired from resisting ferociously, and began to understand her parents’ worries.

She made up her mind to have at least one relationship before her birthday this year, just so that she could let her parents know that she did work hard.

It just so happened that the bank had a new project to cooperate with a well-known corporation, and Lin Jia Ji led the team to the meeting. The project leader of the other party could very well be the male version of her: a crisp suit, cold thin-rimmed glasses, and lack of expressions except for occasional professional smiles. With formalities done away in the first three sentences, they got to the point by the fourth sentence. After the meeting, he turned around and left, as though the people in the room were not his colleagues and partners, leaving behind a gust of cold wind.

Fei Ge, thirty years old, male.

Lin Jia Ji heard his subordinates mutter, “What a robot.”

Lin Jia Ji’s spectacle lenses flashed.

Lin Jia Ji added Fei Ge’s WeChat account for work.

In fact, in the past month, she has sorted out the possible “dateable” candidates. Fei Ge is by far, the best option that also aligns with her personal standards. He really resembled the figurines on her table – no movements, no expressions.

So, in the evening, when Lin Jia Ji sent greetings to possible candidates in batches according to the procedures she had drawn up, she specially added an emoji package just for Fei Ge.

Note that this emoji is a fluffy bunny – Lin Jia Ji will never let anyone see through her true hobby from any angle.

To her surprise, Fei Ge actually replied. The contents of the reply however, is official: “Good work with today’s meeting, I’m looking forward to your cooperation in the future.”

Lin Jia Ji sent another emoji, feeling that tonight’s task was completed. So she jumped to log into her figurine account, and like a monarch patrolling their territory, she glanced briefly at her believers who lined up to worship.

One of the highly praised comments caught her attention: “Ah! This is too beautiful, is God H actually a ​God? I’m going to burst into tears of passion. Can I ask for permission to paint a picture for them?”

This comment exploded.

“Are eyes deceiving me, did I just see Mrs. Fig with God H?”

“Missus! Looking forward to your drawings!”

Someone also reminded her: “This person draws BL, will God H mind?”

Lin Jia Ji clicked on her account and when she looked at it, she went blind.

The first picture alone was two Gundams 69-ing.

As she swiped down further, the drawings ranged from normal human fetishes, a blonde priest with a black-haired prince, to the fetishes that bordered on “normal” fetishes, such as a dragon with a Gundam; anything you thought of, it had. The only thing they have in common is that… they were all pretty… provocative.

Weirdly well drawn, she thought.

She replied calmly: “Okay, draw as much as you like.” She then clicked “follow”.

Figs went mad.

She started a private message bombardment: “God H! The light of my life! The fire of desire! I have never seen a robot with more allure than in the photos of God H!”

Lin Jia Ji: “?”

She politely replied, “Allure…?”

Figs: “This delicate reflection, this expression of undercurrents surging in indifference, it’s only an object but the close-up of the curvy waist!”

Lin Jia Ji fell silent.

Figs seems to be aware of her excitement, so he carefully made up for it. “God H, did I offend you? I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just want to express my love for beauty. TuT.”

In fact, during the five minutes of silence, Lin Jia Ji kept looking at the photo and tried to appreciate the curvature of its waist.

She understood.

But she didn’t want to understand so quickly, it seemed rather uncool and suspicious.

So she replied, “I don’t understand, but I respect it.”

Fig: “You don’t need to understand, don’t have to! TuT. Please continue to be yourself, I’ll have fun by myself!”

That night, at three o’clock in the morning, Figs produced a new drawing and mentioned her, expressing that the inspiration came from her photos.

Lin Jia Ji only saw it on her way to work the next day. She admired the two cub as they engaged beautifully in a French kiss, walked into the company full of energy.

Today it was Fei Ge’s turn to lead the team to a meeting at the bank.

When he presented, Lin Jia Ji wanted to take a good look at his expressionless face, but unexpectedly found that his dark circles were a little heavy today, and his eyes were a little red, as if he had stayed up all night.

As expected of a workaholic, she thought.

During the break, Lin Jia Ji went to the tea room to make a cup of coffee, put it quietly by Fei Ge’s hand, and casually asked: “Stayed up late?”

This is part of her pick-up routine.

Fei Ge was stunned for a while, looked up at her seriously, and showed a professional smile: “Thank you.”

While admiring this emotionless smile, Lin Jia Ji calmly assessed: Maybe there’s hope. 

She turned away.

Behind her, Fei Ge looked at her back thoughtfully, thinking: Maybe there is hope.

Like Lin Jia Ji, Fei Ge is also planning a “try to date” plan. Unlike her, his situation was even much more complicated than hers.

A fudanshi may still find some people with common interests, but he has never met a straight fudanshi. 

Fei Ge, with the nickname “Fig”, drew R-18 drawings. 

Not only does he draw BL, he’s also into GL, robot fetishes, furries… Basically, except for heterosexual human pairings, he draws them all.

Romantically speaking, he could be straight. But for the first 30 years of his life, he never really fell in love.

Like Lin Jia Ji, he hated his own life very much in his youth. In order to find some sense of purpose in this boring world, he draw R-18 pictures.

In the first year or two, he also drew some BG, but later he felt that it projected too much of himself, and he himself was quite boring. So he embarked on various unventured paths.

He likes the question marks in the comments. The more question marks there are, the stronger the feeling of being alive.

Lin Jia Ji felt that there was no hope with Fei Ge.

To be honest, she didn’t believe that people like him would be interested in falling in love, so she gave up on him and started to communicate more with other fishes in the sea.

As a result, the more she talked about her personal life, the harder it was for her to conceal her exhaustion; it seems all successful men either play golf today or parachute tomorrow in order to show off their cash. 

Just like the world who doesn’t understand people who like figurines, she doesn’t understand why people spend time and money to stand under the scorching sun, endure the pain of dehydration, poking a ball around into a hole with a stick.

Especially whenever these people maintain the posture of holding up the stick just to take three pictures to post online, and have the guts say to her, “You should go out more, the sunshine is beautiful.”

Lin Jia Ji: “…Mmmm.”

Lin Jia Ji picked around and chose, but ended up thinking that nobody was really different.

In fact, this conclusion is no different from the conclusion she had already drawn in the past ten years.

She had already planned to grit her teeth and just choose one of them to make her parents happy. At least this one had claimed to watch a few episodes of animation.

When he tried to explain popular troupes to Lin Jia Ji with excessive enthusiasm, she smiled,  slightly embarrassment but tried to maintain her kindness.

The other party: “Do you think the second dimension is very childish?”

Lin Jia Ji said lovingly, “No, I just don’t understand it.”

The other party: “Actually, I think it is very important for people to maintain their childlike innocence.”

Lin Jia Ji: Cute Rabbit Expression Pack.jpg

On this day, Lin Jia Ji finished the project.

At the last meeting, she took a few more glances at Fei Ge’s face with a look of “I’m already starting to miss you”.

At the end of the meeting, Fei Ge packed up his documents again at the speed of light, walked straight out, but suddenly slowed down, and finally turned around slowly.

He seemed to have glanced at Lin Jia Ji, but quickly lowered his gaze and crouched down on the spot, as if he wanted to tie his shoelaces, but he was wearing leather shoes, so he had to pat the dust that didn’t exist on the shoes.

Lin Jia Ji watched his series of movements in disbelief, but did not move her feet.

When everyone in the conference room had withdrawn, Fei Ge slowly stood up and smiled at Lin Jia ji: “Are you free on weekends?”

Lin Jiaji admired his smile of  “I have already asked the question, the task is completed, check”, and smiled herself: “I should be.”

In the evening, Fei Ge took a long shower, finally made up his mind, and sent a WeChat message to Lin Jia Ji: “There is a new golf course in the suburbs, do you want to try it? I’ll invite you to dinner tonight.”

After sending WeChat, his eyes were dead.

Lin Jia Ji on the other end took a long shower, finally made up her mind, and replied, “Okay, but I’m not very good at playing.”

Fei Ge: “It doesn’t matter, I don’t know much either.”

Lin Jia Ji: Rabbit.jpg

On Sunday, Lin Jia Ji walked in front of the mirror with the dead fish eyes, took off her glasses and changed into contacts, put on a caramel-coloured windbreaker, an off-white scarf: a gentle, light-hearted outfit.

After going out, Fei Ge’s car was already waiting at the door. He was also dressed up, with a polo shirt and slacks, looking a few years younger and a lot more old-fashioned.

With bogus smiles, the two talked about some high-class topics along the way. After all, they are people who have lived for thirty years and are familiar with all social norms and safe topics.

Arriving at the place, a golf coach greeted him and taught them some basics while reciting humour from some textbook.

Lin Jia Ji smiled beautifully.

Until the coach handed over two snow-white leather gloves: “These can be worn on your left hands.”

Lin Jia Ji fell into a brief silence. She stared at the glove and thought: Seductive.

In order to hide her reactions, she quickly put on her gloves, then turned to look at Fei Ge with a smile.

Fei Ge’s movements were slower than hers, and he completed the movement of wearing gloves slowly and smoothly, his expression icy cold.

Lin Jia Ji: My, how seductive.

Fei Ge: My, how seductive.