Happens to be Zhang

chapter 1

XIU XIAOCHEN DOESN'T KNOW WHAT LOVE IS. It is a complicated concept, where the frivolity of the human mind transcends the predicted stroke of his pen on the graphic tablet. People in real life aren't as lucky as they are in his manhuas. Real life, though far greater than what the greatest imagination can build up, is mundane and frictionless. Like a clockwork of sullen routines and dull textbook psychology.

Xiaochen likes playing a fictitious matchmaker. A conceited CEO with a sweet hearted baker, a clumsy artist and an arrogant pianist, a heartbroken single parent and the chirpy education major with a nose ring, the list stands endless. Conjuring up scenarios in his head, the meet cutes, the slow burn friends to lovers, painful misunderstandings and nights spent alone, crying tears of honeyed heartbreak.

Xiaochen enjoys those heartbreaks, because he knows the two will end up together. And when they do, he has to draw five chapters of them having the tearful, first night sex.

It's aggressive and his hand hurts, but the readers love it.

Xiaochen, or Xius, is unpredictable. He doesn't have a release schedule. It makes his fans hate him and love him. Getting a chapter notification at the most random of times is something they all despise, because they don't know when that notification will ring up again. And his updates make people cry. Xiaochen can't say he doesn't love reading the curse words and violet-tinted vexation thrown in the comments section. He craves those reactions as the sole source of inspiration, lustrous attention, in his otherwise dull life.

Xius is enigmatic, sporadic, made of watery love-making and a spring of spontaneous ideas. Xiaochen is a boring twenty four year old with a degree in animation and art and a part time job in a Caffeination outlet. It's a coffee/cake shop, like any other ones, but just for the rich.

Not the best of the jobs, definitely not the best of the places but a paradise for Xius. He has seen everything in that little corner of the world, from young women making out in the washroom to a wife throwing boiling coffee on the face of her husband's paramour (this went in Xius' story) to a closeted gay homophobe rejecting a cute boy with purple highlights (also went into a story), to lovely young couples bantering over what cake should they choose.

Everything. It goes straight into Xius' stories.

"Here's your macchiato, Ma'am," he says to a teenage girl, settling a delicate tray on the table before her. "And a vanilla latte for your friend."

Xiaochen doesn't drink coffee himself. It's a mystery how he pulls all nighters without coffee but he himself can't (and hence his characters never meet in a coffee shop because they never drink coffee either.) He can't make coffee, for goodness sake. The coffee thrown on the paramour was made by him, and lacked coffee (yes, he can make coffee without adding coffee) — "that bastard put in cocoa instead," words of his manager— so he works as a waiter and mans the counter.

The girls ignore him and resume their chatting, as he silently waits for them to take a sip and give their verdict. Whether they want it re-done or not.

"Did you see the last chapter?" Says the girl with the vanilla latte. "I cried."

Xius' ears perk up.

"No," the girl with macchiato squeals, "why what happened? Did they get together? Finally? Ah no, don't give me spoilers. I'll read it myself."

"Siqi broke up."

"What! Oh my gosh no!" The girl with macchiato clutches her face with her sparkly gel polished nails; a bitter cry of syphoned agony and borrowed angst. "You liar... no, they can't..."

Xius smiles. Siqi's battling cancer. It's time she breaks up. Yuan Yang should be destroyed, nonetheless but there's a whole lot of fun with that plot, isn't it?