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It’s Friday and the night is still young, but Lan Jingyi feels like he’s aged about ten years waiting on this curb. His butt hurts from sitting on the fire hydrant and his bones feel all creaky from the tedious job of holding him mostly upright. He dares not stand up, though, because he drank way too much on this disaster of a date and had to call Sizhui for a ride.
Belatedly, it occurs to him that he could have just taken a cab. However, they were expensive and in any case, Jingyi really doesn’t want to be alone tonight. He knows that out of everyone, Sizhui would come to get him at his worst.
As such, he’s looking out so intently for Sizhui’s white sedan that he completely ignores the eggplant colored luxury model gliding to a stop just before him. Then, he hears his name. Jingyi looks around until he realizes it’s coming from the car...which, what?
“Lan Jingyi,” the driver calls him again, now a bit impatient. “Get in.”
Jingyi peeks warily into the fancy car, definitely expecting some sort of sunglasses-at-night wearing mafia type - but no, it’s Jin Ling’s jiujiu. What the hell is Jiang Cheng doing here? Maybe he was passing by and recognized Jingyi; oh god, what if Jiang Cheng tells the other adults that he saw Lan Jingyi drunkenly lolling about on the sidewalk?
A part of Jingyi reminds him that he’s an adult himself, surreal as that is, yet another part arranges his face into an expression of sobriety and cheer and waves stiffly. “Hi, Jiang-shushu, I’m just...uh, waiting on a ride,” he says. “Don’t trouble yourself!”
Jiang Cheng looks unimpressed. “I’m your ride,” he replies. “Get in.”
What the fuck? Indeed, there’s a text on his phone from Sizhui that Jingyi completely missed, explaining that he was indisposed but don’t worry because his dad called someone who was in the area. Wow, a top ten anime betrayal.
Seeing how he has no choice, Jingyi gets into the car. It’s nice. Actually, it’s more than nice; it looks and smells expensive as fuck. Jingyi really hopes he won’t throw up in it.
“If you need to, tell me and I’ll pull over,” Jiang Cheng says because shit. Yeah. Jingyi said that out loud. Jiang Cheng also hands him a shopping bag. It has the kind of minimalist logo that only expensive brands have, but it’s also proudly 99% recycled paper, which won’t hold his mostly liquid stomach contents for long, but will uh, contain the damage. Jingyi thanks him, red faced.
As Jiang Cheng pulls away from the curb, Jingyi braces for a wave of nausea - that doesn’t actually come. He barely registers any movement; like, the car is definitely speeding through a fairly noisy street, but the inside is muted, cool, and still. Like a spaceship.
“Holy shit, this is amazing,” Jingyi says wondrously. He relaxes his grip on the shopping bag.
Jiang Cheng grunts in acknowledgement, but doesn’t say anything more. Even his GPS is set to Jingyi’s address, which means they don’t have to talk. But it feels rude not to, as if Jiang Cheng is Jingyi’s driver or something. What would they talk about, though? If it were Sizhui, he’d wallow about his terrible date. He’d talk about how the girl was nice, but she didn’t get his humor, or she did, but Jingyi really didn’t see it going anywhere.
It would be Mostly True. As all things about his dating life were Mostly True. Lan Jingyi really didn’t want to tie himself down when he was young. Lan Jingyi really was spending too much time trying to pass school to even spare brainpower for dating. Lan Jingyi didn’t see the point in dating, because he just wasn’t attracted to anyone and that must just mean there’s a fated one for him, right? He’ll know it’s them when he finally does feel all the fluttering and the blushing, haha.
The light turns red, casting a pretty reflection on the bottom of the windshield and Lan Jingyi is remembering that he got Ouyang Zizhen’s engagement announcement in the post a couple weeks ago and it sent him spiraling into a quarter life crisis by the community mailboxes. That very evening, he took his mom’s neighbor’s aunt up on her offer of a blind date because he was panicking about the passage of time, about who’ll hold his hand when he’s old, or at least find his body if he dies on the toilet or something.
Stop panicking, he tells himself, and when that shockingly doesn’t work, Jingyi fights his way out of his own head by observing what’s outside it. The car really is nice, practically immaculate. Did Jiang Cheng detail it himself? Maybe. And maybe it stays nice because he’s the only one who uses it. The car that Sizhui shares with his papa doesn’t look like this.
Jingyi glances sideways at Jiang Cheng. He’s single, right? And he’s what, forty something? Jin Ling never mentioned an aunt or anyone who came close. An intense curiosity slithers down Jingyi’s spine. With the alcohol in his system and his general lack of filter making him dubiously bold, he asks, “Hey, Jiang-shushu, what’s your life plan?”
“My what?” Jiang Cheng takes his eyes off the road for a split second to look at him.
“Er, life plan,” Jingyi tightens his hold on the shopping bag again. “Like, I guess the normal way is all: get married and have kids so you don’t—” Don’t say die alone. Don’t say die alone. “I mean, is it cool? Being single?”
It must be for Jiang Cheng. He’s rich, he can probably afford a nice nursing home when he gets old, on the off chance that Jin Ling won’t take care of him. Lan Jingyi is a zero on the siblings-with-kids front, but maybe he can still be rich. It’s not too late to invest in crypto, is it?
“Being single is fine,” Jiang Cheng replies blandly. “Are you looking to get married?”
Oh, hello, visceral discomfort, my old friend. Jingyi squirms, like the fidgety child he was in kindergarten. “I guess I should. I’d be an awful single parent.”
“Do you know what you’re looking for in a partner?”
“I made a list once,” Jingyi confesses. “But it was basically a description of Sizhui, so I got nothing.”
“Sizhui is a good boy,” Jiang Cheng says.
“Ahaha, totally!” Jingyi agrees before Jiang Cheng gets any ideas. “I wouldn’t date him though, he’s my bro!”
It’s true. Jingyi would never ruin what he has with Sizhui, which is: the world’s most perfect friendship.
“Are you looking for someone like Sizhui?”
“Er, I guess. I haven’t found them yet, but they must exist, right?” Jingyi rambles for the sake of conversation. “Seven billion people in the world and all?”
Jiang Cheng’s mouth turns up in a little smirk. “You’d travel the world looking for this person?”
Jingyi makes a face. “No! I mean, I’d love to travel, but it seems like a waste - and a bit creepy - to go to other places looking for a spouse. I’d rather experience the culture and eat great food.”
“Then, why worry about a spouse?”
The question is so simple coming from Jiang Cheng, but the fact that it’s a question really gets to Jingyi. In his experience, this was the point in the conversation where people started giving advice, usually shitty advice about being confident or getting on a dating app.
“I think I’m worried for myself. I just feel nothing,” Jingyi brings the shopping bag closer to his chest because the car may be a spaceship but he’s making himself sick. “It used to be so easy when I was a kid. Everyone was horny but me and I thought: finally, a rule I didn’t care about breaking. But now I’m realizing that maybe I’m the one who’s broken.”
In the ensuing pause, Jingyi breathes, nose firmly in the shopping bag. He wants to curl up and disappear into his own pocket dimension like a cartoon flower, or maybe Jiang Cheng could push a button and launch him into actual space...
Instead, Jiang Cheng takes a left turn and brings them to a canteen.
It’s not a fancy place at all, just two stalls with some outdoor seating, but the smell of street food triggers a sudden, voracious hunger. Jingyi would kill for a plate of savory noodles right now or even a pork bun. He stumbles out of the spaceship, taking the shopping bag with him for good measure - he’s drooling and he isn’t sure if it’s his appetite or pre-vomit. Dizziness hits him as soon as he steps out into the cruel world, but Jiang Cheng is there, steadying him until everything stops spinning.
“Come on,” he ushers Jingyi into the dining area and deposits him in a seat before going to order.
Jingyi imagines the picture he must make right now: clad in his best date night outfit, hunched over a paper bag on a plastic table. He doesn’t know why he opens his mouth. Well, he does know: because Lan Jingyi is an amazing, interesting person with lots to say. He just doesn’t know why he said all of this. To Jiang Cheng, of all people, the man he only knows as Jin Ling’s jiujiu and their erstwhile babysitter.
Yeah, but there was always something about Jiang Cheng. Jingyi often sensed it even though he couldn’t describe it - the place he could unclench maybe, because Jiang Cheng never put him on the spot with sly questions about romance or dating, didn’t even seem to care about it other than to ensure that the teenagers occasionally thrust upon him were being safe. Once upon a time, Jingyi just chalked it up to Jiang Cheng just being his repressed self, but then, he heard the talk.
It was mostly people tittering at Jin Ling’s mom about how her brother still had no partner and oh, what a waste of an eligible man, but Jingyi didn’t think so. He thought Jiang Cheng was cool. Good looks and industrial success notwithstanding, Jiang Cheng was weirdly fashionable for a homebody, was unintentionally funny, caused problems on purpose, loved the shit out of his family, secretly paid the bill when Jingyi, Sizhui, and Jin Ling were kids on summer break in Yunmeng and ran around looting lotus farms - how could all of that be a waste? Just because...
Jingyi drops his sweaty forehead in his palms, and sighs.
A few minutes later, Jiang Cheng comes back with food and water. Bottled; fancy. Jingyi debates whether to acknowledge the elephant in the room and apologize or not mention anything and hope for it all to go away.
“Lan Jingyi, listen,” Jiang Cheng starts and waits until he looks up. “Whatever you are, you’re not broken.”
Jingyi drops his eyes again, feeling suddenly breathless. He knows it, of course, nobody is broken, everyone is different. But nobody has ever said it to him directly before, not even Sizhui. Which is not his fault because while Jingyi shows 99.9% of his disaster side to Sizhui, he still can’t talk to his friend about this.
“Thanks, Jiang-shushu,” he mumbles. “I know. I was being kinda dramatic, but that’s cool of you to say.”
Jiang Cheng nods. They both occupy themselves with soup for a bit; it’s as delicious as Jingyi anticipated and it’s all he can do to not raise the bowl to his lips and pour savory scalding liquid down his throat.
After a bit, Jiang Cheng speaks again. “When you said you feel nothing, or that everyone is horny but you - have you looked into these things?”
Jingyi chokes on soup upon hearing Jiang Cheng say the word horny. He’s so fucking matter-of-fact about it! “Yeah, I have,” he nods after recovering with the grace of a thousand swans. “The internet was pretty helpful.”
Jiang Cheng seems to be expecting more, but Jingyi pretends not to see the inquiring gaze and turns his attention to the plate of chicken wings instead. After a few more bites of food, Jiang Cheng says, “For me, the difficult part was trusting that others would understand.”
Oh god, he’s trying to be comforting and supportive. Jingyi is an ass for bringing all this up!
“I had done so much work coming to terms with myself,” Jiang Cheng continues. “It was hard to remember that others didn’t. It...hurt every time I had to explain myself to those who knew nothing about asexual—”
Jingyi’s stomach swoops. “Mmmh, please don’t say that!”
Jiang Cheng tips his head. “Why not?”
Jingyi can’t help the words crowding the front of his brain. He’s definitely going to regret everything tomorrow, but in this moment, drunk as he is, he needs Jiang Cheng to understand the real situation.
“Ok. Ok. When I was seventeen,” he starts. “I had this life plan, right? I would study hard and make decent money. Sizhui, Jin Ling, and Zizhen would all probably get hitched and have kids and I’d absolutely be the coolest uncle ever. And when I got too old, I’d, um—” Jingyi hesitates because this is too much, even for his brand of word vomit.
But Jiang Cheng is looking at him patiently and Jingyi is already shoulders deep in shit creek so he figures he might as well dunk his head.
“Well, I always thought: find a way to get one of those pills - the ones from James Bond that you put in your teeth in case you get captured by the enemy?” Jingyi prods through the plate of chicken wings, unwilling to see Jiang Cheng’s reaction to his bullshit. “That way I could, y’know, peace out whenever I wanted.”
“Jingyi…”
“Oh nonono!” Jingyi frantically shakes his head. “No, Jiang-shushu, I’m not like, depressed or anything. The opposite, in fact. I get that that’s some dark shit for a kid to come up with, but - do you see how this whole thing ends? Maybe I am all ace and aro, but I can’t be those things because that means I’m eventually just going to be a bother to everyone else!”
Is Jingyi yelling? He hopes he’s not yelling.
“Lan Jingyi, you’ll never be a bother to those who love you.”
The chicken wing slips out of Jingyi’s chopsticks. Wow, Jiang Cheng didn’t even hesitate.
Jiang Cheng pauses to gather his next thoughts, then looks at Jingyi very intensely the whole time. “I know it’s difficult to see a future in a world that’s not made for you,” he says. “but burying an honest part of yourself is not what will make it easier.”
Jingyi smiles, only a little defeatedly. He’s getting tired of difficult lately, especially when it's starting to look a lot like impossible. Attempt the impossible isn’t his family motto.
“In my experience, it’s better to use that honesty as a way to make things clearer for yourself,” Jiang Cheng continues, gentle in a way that Jingyi has never heard before. “I won’t lie: there's a lot of ignorance out there and you’ll see a lot of what you don’t want before you see something you do. But even if you have to build a future that nobody’s thought of yet...don’t assume we don’t want to be a part of it.”
Oh. Oh no. Jingyi’s chicken wing is all blurry before his eyes, but he can't help it. It's as if there was a wildfire in his chest, burning and burning and burning for days and Jiang Cheng just - put it out. Because yeah, the future was so frighteningly obscure and this whole time Jingyi thought it was his fault when it was really just pollution, and to have even one person affirm that shocks his whole system.
“Do you understand?” Jiang Cheng asks, making more intense eye contact.
Jingyi nods. “Mmhm!”
Jiang Cheng raises his brow. “What do you understand?”
“That I’m not hopeless, I guess,” Jingyi wipes his nose on the sleeve of his nice date night jacket. “And I should talk to my friends.”
“That you should,” Jiang Cheng agrees. “And possibly to a professional. But if you want, you can also start with me.”
“R-really?” Jingyi’s nose stings and he goes all watery again, out of gratitude this time rather than crushing melancholy. “Jiang-shushu...!”
Jiang Cheng simply shakes his head at the ebb and flow of moist sentiment. “Yes, really,” he replies and pushes a bottle closer to Jingyi. “Now, drink some water, you look awful.”