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“Are we there yet?”
Jiang Cheng shoots an exasperated glance at his nephew, who is slumped in the passenger seat, half-turned towards him as far as the seatbelt will allow. A-Ling’s drawl is deeper with age, less toddler whine, more teenage sass. Jiang Cheng finds the deliberate harkening back to times gone by somewhat amusing, a second of respite from the aggravation of traffic. But only a second.
“Indicate, asshole!” He directs a moment’s rage to the white Toyota merging in front of him, then mutters, “How about you help look for a goddamn park?”
A-Ling rolls his eyes, a perfect copy of his own scoff, probably.
“Don’t have an aneurysm, Jiujiu.” But he shuffles his body to face the street, scanning the area like a Pointer sniffing out a hare. “Ooh, Target sighted, one o’clock!”
Jiang Cheng flips the indicator switch before he even sees the park. He and A-Ling are a well-oiled team, cut-throat parking acquisitions honed through years of playdates, archery club, swimming meets and please-Jiujiu-please-I’ll-die-if-I-miss-this-concert.
He smoothly backs into the car space, mentally giving himself a pat on the back when he sees A-Ling’s careful (and dare he say, admiring?) observation. A-Ling hasn’t asked him for driving lessons – yet. But there’s no harm in displaying his skills a little. Of all his uncles to ask for lessons, he’s surely the best bet, right? He’s aware of the jokes about his “Type A” driving behaviour, but who else are they going to ask? Wei Ying?
“C’mon. I need a coffee.” Jiang Cheng slams the door shut and waits for A-Ling to untangle himself from his seatbelt and join his place at his side. Their destination is only a short walk away, and Jiang Cheng uses this moment to observe his nephew covertly. With a pang, he notes that A-Ling has grown again, nearly his height now. It’s pointless to wish A-Ling was still small enough to pick up and carry on his hip. Circle of life, and all that crap. But even so, he’s achingly aware that every increase in A-Ling’s height is an inch further into adulthood – and away from Jiang Cheng. It’s not like he hasn’t already had plenty of experience with this.
“I’m starving. I want pizza!” A-Ling is practically bouncing down the sidewalk, flashing him a quick smile. For the past few years Jiang Cheng has been mentally bracing himself for A-Ling to start showing typical teenage embarrassment at being seen out with him, but for some reason this never seems to have eventuated. Maybe teenagers are different now? Hell if he knows.
“You always want pizza.” Jiang Cheng is aware he sounds disapproving as he says this, and is also aware that Jin Ling knows he’s being a hypocrite. The café door chimes as he pushes it open, he pauses to make sure A-Ling enters safely behind him. He lets A-Ling take the lead, ponytail swaying in front of him as the boy darts towards the counter. He follows with an assumption of casualness he knows will last only until the first doggy grin. He would be embarrassed, but he’s among like-minded people here. No shame, no judgement.
“Jiujiu, look, look!” Before Jiang Chang can protest, A-Ling has turned and is in his personal space, placing something on his head. Even as he reaches up to identify the object, A-Ling is placing a headband with dog-ears onto his own head, a grin disturbingly reminiscent of his other uncle on his face. Jiang Cheng snaps out a quick, “Take a photo and I’ll break your legs!” He rolls his eyes then turns to face the barista.
A-Ling lowers his phone with a scowl, but seems to have decided to pick his battles. Jiang Cheng orders coffee, soda for A-Ling and pizza and adds the price of the headbands. The truth is, he’d do a lot worse to humour A-Ling. A-Ling has already chosen their table and is currently crouched down in front of a friendly golden retriever, mussing its silky ears and murmuring nonsensical baby-talk. Honestly.
Jiang Cheng slides into the seat, carefully placing his phone on the tabletop. The golden snuffles his knee in a friendly fashion, and Jiang Cheng ruffles its neck fur. The next few moments are a happy meeting of minds as uncle, nephew and dog bliss out.
Jiang Cheng sneaks a look at A-Ling, surreptitiously scanning his expression. A-Ling only has eyes for the dog, a dopey smile on his face otherwise only seen when fussing over Fairy. Jiang Cheng never gets tired of seeing it, and is loathe to disturb it, although he’s certain A-Ling has an ulterior motive for arranging their usual meet up before schedule. When A-Ling called him, he had dithered in a manner unlike his usual confidence. Whatever it is, he can wait for A-Ling to bring up whatever it was he wanted to talk about. In the mean time, he allows himself to bask in this moment.
A-Ling doesn’t seem in a hurry to get to whatever’s on his mind. They exchange favourable opinions of the golden retriever at their feet, and various other approved breeds in the room. Dutiful questions about schoolwork are made and skilfully avoided. This doesn’t bother Jiang Cheng as he makes sure he’s updated on A-Ling’s academic progress by his sister, who understands him. His brother-in-law has, in the past, made some testy remarks about Overly Invested Uncles because he’s jealous that A-Ling likes Jiang Cheng better. Pizza and drinks are delivered and swiftly dealt with. Another order for food is made.
“So.” A-Ling seems to have sated the worst of his hunger as he finally looks up from his food. He’s still got pizza crust in his hand. “Jiujiu. I was wanting to ask you something.” The fact that A-Ling even begins this way is a red flag. Usually he just asks whatever he wants without hesitation. Jiang Cheng raises his eyebrows.
“So ask.”
A-Ling is too used to his uncle to be dismayed by this brusque response. His brows jut forward, with that same mulish expression often seen on his peacock father.
“How do you know if you like someone?”
Jiang Cheng freezes. He stares at his nephew for a pregnant moment, hoping his incredulous parting of lips conveys disapproval rather than horror. “You’re asking me?” The stress on the pronoun should encompass everything that is wrong with the question. Jiang Cheng cannot help but feel betrayed. He thought A-Ling understood him and was on his side. He knows that Jiang Cheng has been a bachelor for as long as A-Ling has been alive, and should know by now that questions about personal relationships are both futile and unwelcome in the extreme.
“Yes, I’m asking you.” A-Ling frowns at his uncle like he’s a teacher prodding a recalcitrant student. “How do you know if you like someone?”
“Isn’t this something you can ask your mother?” Jiang Cheng asks feebly. He busies himself with arranging an enterprising Pomeranian on his lap. It wanted food, but is getting pets instead. The Pomeranian seems to have philosophically accepted this deal.
“I’m not asking my mother, I’m asking you.”
Jiang Cheng is sure that A-Ling has had this statement directed at himself in the past and is now relishing the chance to use it against an adult. He has this little shit-eating smirk on his face that Jiang Cheng wants to smack off.
“That’s your first mistake,” he snaps. “Anyway, what do you mean by like? Is there… do you… like someone?”
Jiang Cheng directs his attention to carding his fingers through the pomeranian’s silky fur. He is vaguely aware that he’s using the dog as some sort of emotional shield, but he isn’t equipped to cope with these sorts of questions. A-Ling seems happy, but if he’s wrong and some sort of teenage emotional drama has occurred and consolation is required, the dogs in the café are better qualified to give that consolation than he is.
A-Ling pauses for a second and seems to consider his next words carefully. This really isn’t like him at all.
“Well… yes. There is.”
Jiang Cheng raises his eyebrows, jerks his chin towards A-Ling, a wordless prompt for more information. A-Ling shrugs and with a final pet of the dog, braces his elbows on the table.
“Um, well, how do you know if you LIKE like them?”
Jiang Cheng scoffs. “Like like?” he mimics, incredulous. “Are you sure you’re old enough to Like Like someone?”
A-Ling scoffs back with equal attitude. “Don’t try and avoid the question! Are you so old that you can’t remember what it’s like to fancy someone?”
A-Ling’s lighthearted accusation stings more than he could know, but he knows his nephew doesn’t mean to hurt him so he won’t let A-Ling realize he’s drawn blood. It is mortifying how fast memories shove their way to his consciousness. He’s weak and they take advantage of every vulnerable moment.
***
Oh… he’s Wei Ying’s brother so I guess we have to invite him.
***
A-Jie? Do you think anyone will ever like me?
***
Jiang Cheng? No way! He’s so stuck up and mean. Don’t say he likes me, that’s just gross.
***
Jiang Cheng tries to consider his past dispassionately as he possibly can – something he is phenomenally bad at. He was so stupid as a teen, making hopeless forays into Human Interactions spurred on by his well-meaning but ultimately naïve siblings. The memory of summers spent in his room, reading his sister’s YA romance books makes his face burn with shame.
“Don’t be so damn disrespectful! In any case, that sort of thing is none of your business.” Jiang Cheng feels how much of a cop-out this response is as soon as it leaves his mouth, and is not surprised when A-Ling pounces like a predator.
“Come on, Jiujiu. You have to have, y’know, been interested in people before, right?” A-Ling’s voice falters on this last word and his gaze suddenly sweeps downward, like he’s suddenly lost confidence. This is awful. Although the less said about his past few pitiful dating attempts the better, Jiang Cheng needs to do something before the awkwardness can reach critical mass.
“Well, yeah, sure.” When A-Ling glances back up, eyes alight, he continues uneasily, “Uh, look, A-Ling, you know I’m not great at the whole dating and relationship shit, right?”
A-Ling nods wisely. “Mama says you find it difficult to open up to strangers.”
What the ever-loving fuck?
Perhaps seeing the expression on is uncle’s face, A-Ling hastens to add, “It’s not a bad thing, Jiujiu! It’s just how you are. Not everyone has to be outgoing!”
Jiang Cheng sucks in a deep breath and clenches his jaw. Redirect. “We’re supposed to be talking about you, not me. So you like someone, but you’re not sure if you like them romantically or as a friend?”
A-Ling sits back in his chair, the speculative look on his face again. It feels almost… calculating. It reminds Jiang Cheng unpleasantly of Wei Ying when he’s contemplating madness.
“Well, I think that’s it.”
“You think that’s it?
“It’s complicated.”
“Relationships usually are.” If there’s one thing Jiang Cheng knows for sure, it’s that relationships are perplexing, painful, often unsatisfying and generally just not for him. And that’s just his parents.
“But what would life be without people we love, right?”
Jiang Cheng knows where A-Ling gets this optimism from. A-Jie is an angel on earth and he’s sure glad that at least A-Ling has a healthy and positive relationship his parents. On his more pessimistic days he thinks that even if he’s damaged beyond repair, at least A-Jie and Jin Zixuan have somehow risen above shitty parenting to make sure the next generation are untainted by the past. It warms him to know that sort of happiness is possible, even if not for him. As long as A-Ling is growing well, he’s satisfied with that.
“Um, right. So, uh… I don’t really know the answer to your question. And I think maybe…” Shit, he’s no good at this. “Um, I think you don’t have to put so much pressure on yourself to label what you feel for your friends.”
A-Ling blinks at him expectantly. He clearly wants more words, and Jiang Cheng doesn’t have them. Dammit.
“Uh…” Jiang Cheng blows out a frustrated breath. “I guess I think that there’s no big distinction between friendship and love. Or you could say that friendship becomes love. When you want to be with a friend forever, and live with them and whatever.” His face is practically on fire now, he can feel it. He feels like he’s confessing his own barely-formed teenage fantasies to A-Ling, something so mortifying he may not recover.
A-Ling seems to contemplate that for a bit.
“I guess I think the difference between friendship and romantic love is weather you want to uh, kiss them, or whatever.” Fuck it all, Jiang Cheng is officially at his limit. There is no way he is prepared to contemplate A-Ling starting to have sex, even if he’s at that age. Rationally, he knows A-Ling is indeed at that age. His heart, however, insists that A-Ling is baby and it’s too soon. Way too soon.
A-Ling grins a little at this. Right. A-Ling is actually more emotionally capable than Jiang Cheng.
“So, if you are friends with someone and want to kiss them, what do you say to them?”
Jiang Cheng scowls at the tabletop. “What the hell makes you think I know?”
“It’s so hard to find the right words to say. I want to say something, but when I’m standing in front of them it’s like…” A-Ling scrunches his nose, waving his hands vaguely in the air like he’s trying to find inspiration from The Beyond. “Like there’s a wall in my mind and the words can’t get through. Y’know?”
Jiang Cheng does know. It’s not exactly a secret that Jiang Cheng isn’t great at saying how he feels out loud. He’d kind of thought that his family had long ago understood and accepted his own ways of showing devotion. His sister did, at least, and he’d assumed that by extension so did A-Ling.
“Well, yeah, I guess,” he mutters. Even admitting this much out loud to his nephew gives him an unpleasant chill. Fuck, this is awful. He supposes that his nephew is one of the two people in the world he can safely expose his weak underbelly to, and yes he supposes that he should be leading by example and encouraging A-Ling to be able to express his emotions (for fucks sake) but does it have to be this embarrassing?
“What kind of words would you use, if you were standing in front of someone you like?”
Jiang Cheng has a sudden vision of himself standing in front of…
Nope.
No.
No.
Not going there. Ever.
He’s not ready for this. Not at any point, now or in the future. Time to evade and deflect. “I ask you again, what makes you think I know?”
A-Ling tuts. “Jiujiu you should be trying to be a positive role model for me and teaching me healthy communication abilities.”
Jiang Cheng glares at his nephew, who is saved from verbal evisceration by the appearance of a barista to collect their used dishes and deliver more pizza. What the hell. A-Ling knows perfectly well that Jiang Cheng does not have healthy communication abilities. Jiang Cheng has enough emotional insight to recognise this, even if he doesn’t know how to change it. He’s not sure why his nephew poured his heart out to him about his romantic woes in the first place, as he’s painfully aware that he’s not the uncle who has experience in real-capital-L-romantic love. But since the day A-Ling was born, Jiang Cheng has been ready to rip his still-beating heart out for this boy if requested, so if A-Ling wants to talk about… love… then Jiang Cheng will have to deal. Somehow.
A-Ling is momentarily occupied with keeping the Pomeranian from getting too interested in their food. Jiang Cheng pushes the pizza towards A-Ling and lifts the dog back into his own lap so that A-Ling can eat without distraction.
“Don’t be a smartass.” He absently cards his fingers through the silky fur. “Anyway. If you’re friends who says you have to say anything with words? Are there any special gestures that your friend would consider a confession?” This comes out sounding more like a question than dispensing of wisdom. Jiang Cheng wishes desperately to be the wise adult A-Ling needs here but is unhappily cognizant of the fact he has little practical experience and, like most other things in his adult life, he must wing it.
A-Ling doesn’t seem bothered.
“Maybe.”
This answer is vague and unsatisfactory, however there is blessed relief from emotional honesty for a while as pizza is inhaled and drinks are slurped. The Pomeranian is a warm bundle curled up on the seat at his side, and a greyhound has joined the golden retriever in a cuddle puddle at their feet. A-Ling is getting pizza sauce on his face, and with the cartoon dog pattern on his shirt, is a somewhat discordant mix of child and adult that makes Jiang Cheng’s heart ache, and he can’t decide if it’s in a good or bad way.
“I don’t know this person as well as I should, but I think this person would like to be told in words.”
Jiang Cheng furrows his brow. This has been weird from the get go, and now is getting weirder.
“You just said they were a friend but now you don’t know them as well as you should?”
Uh-oh. Jin Ling is fiddling with his phone strap again, and, worse, isn’t quite looking him in the eye. Jiang Cheng is no fool. He doesn’t know exactly what is about to happen here, but he knows whatever it is, he’s not prepared for it.
“Well, the thing is?” A-Ling leans back in his chair, his smile becoming a bit more anxious. “I’m not talking about me.”
What the hell? Jiang Cheng doesn’t bother to hide his confusion.
“Actually, I have been kinda dating Ouyang Zizhen for several weeks now. We’ve been keeping it quiet while we work out whether there’s anything there or not. I haven’t even told mom or dad yet.”
Huh?
A-Ling is dating? His baby is dating someone? What? It’s like A-Ling has casually let drop that Wednesday is clown shoes. This does not compute.
A-Ling has been dating someone for a few weeks and he’s only just now hearing about this? Before he can feel too hurt, he consoles himself with the fact that apparently even A-Jie and Peacock don’t know yet. Sorry, A-Jie.
Wait. If he already has a boyfriend then why this whole rigmarole? A-Ling wouldn’t make shit like this up just to make fun of him. It’s just not possible that A-Ling would be that cruel. It’s not possible. Jiang Cheng isn’t sure what kind of face he’s making, but A-Ling leans forward, and grabs one of his hands.
“Jiujiu. I love you.”
To his horror, Jiang Cheng can feel his nose and eyes start to prickle. He looks away, swallows, blinks rapidly and briefly entertains the fantasy of sudden cardiac arrest.
A-Ling continues earnestly, “I love you. And I’m not the only one. I want you to be happy.” Although it’s widely acknowledged that A-Ling has inherited all the Yu genes that skipped A-Jie, the boy has never looked more like his mother than he does now. “I think that you deserve to be happy too, and you have a chance to be.”
It takes a long while before Jiang Cheng can even speak, and he can hear how clogged up his voice sounds. “What makes you think I’m not already? I’m quite satisfied with my life as it is now. I have a good job. I have my family and my family is happy. You’re happy, right? That’s what makes me happy, A-Ling.”
“I know.” A-Ling gently nudges the golden out of his path and shuffles over to sit beside him, rubbing his shoulder with his own. This close, he lowers his voice even more. “But you could have more happy.” He takes Jiang Cheng’s hand again and threads their fingers together. It’s a good tactical move, Jiang Cheng can admit. It prevents both escape and retaliation as he tests with his next words:
“I think you like Lan Xichen, don’t you?”
Jiang Cheng’s thoughts momentarily blank out. Like his mind has, for a craven moment, decided to protect him by refusing to process words.
Sensing no immediate threat, Jin Ling gamely continues, “Jiujiu. Lan Xichen is really nice. And I think he likes you. And…. I think you like him. Right?”
What. How. What.
“Jiujiu. I know you. I know you find this sort of thing difficult. Like I do. But… please try. Okay? Wouldn’t it be great if the two of us can both make this journey together?
A-Ling looks so earnest it melts that ice wall in Jiang Cheng’s chest that makes him want to deny everything. And hell. It sounds like A-Ling has been practicing this speech. It’s so naïve. So sweet. It makes him want to puke, but...
It makes him, for one weak moment, remember that long-ago teenager who once had hope.
The Pomeranian is half curled up on his lap, deeply asleep. Jiang Cheng gently runs his fingertips over its fur, careful not to disturb it’s nap. This will probably be a disaster. There’s no way Lan Xichen likes him especially. He’s just the kind of guy who’s nice to everyone, and A-Ling is reading more into it because he wants to see it. This will end in disappointment – for A-Ling, obviously – but Jiang Cheng supposes A-Ling will have to confront heartbreak sooner or later, and better it be at Jiang Cheng’s expense first. He returns A-Ling’s gesture by nudging him with his shoulder.
“So what’s your master plan, genius?”
Everything is worth it when Jing Ling’s eyes light up.
THE END