Growing up, Jin Ling couldn't help but noticing something about his jiujiu. He was young, but he was old enough to notice Jiang Cheng had never really been in a relationship before. Even while rummaging through his young mind, he could find only a handful of time where his jiujiu had been dating.
And even then, it was never for a very long period of time. He was pretty sure those couple of relationships Jiang Cheng had only gone on for a couple of months before they broke up. He was even certain one only lasted a couple of days!
He then started to wonder, was it because of him? Was his jiujiu keeping from dating because he had to take care of him? After all, Jiang Cheng was rather young but he had dedicated the last couple of years of his life to raising his nephew. Had he been the reason his jiujiu never had a long relationship?
"Jiujiu... Am I the reason you are not dating anyone?" he ends up asking at diner one time, making Jiang Cheng nearly choke on his rice. Clearly, he had caught him off guard, quickly giving him some water to help.
"Of course not" his jiujiu assured him, "I was simply too busy with school, I wasn't even looking for a relationship, so don't worry about it A-Ling". The word did reassure him a bit, confident that Jiang Cheng wouldn't be lying to him about this. Although he wasn't sure if the man would have admitted to Jin Ling being in the way.
Either way, Jiang Cheng wasn't the best liar by time and Jin Ling was confident that he would have known if he had been lied to.
Now that he knew it wasn't his fault, Jin Ling had decided to help his jiujiu find someone he might like to date. It was vaguely subtle, often not really. Going "Isn't she pretty?", "Oh, she seems to like you", "Jiujiu, would she be your type?".
Even in his attempt, Jiang Cheng barely acknowledges these ladies or any ladies for that matter. Seeing how uninterested Jiang Cheng was, he decided to try with men instead, guessing that maybe his jiujiu was gay and he had simply never told him about it.
The results were just as disastrous, Jiang Cheng barely gives any of these people more than a glance. At most he while comment on the clothes or haircut.
Only around when Jin Ling enters tenth grade does he realise... his jiujiu actually look really uncomfortable when people are obviously flirting with him. He can see now that Jiang Cheng is not interested in anyone and when people are showing interest in him, he seems to panic a bit and tries to push them away as gently as possible.
This made the young man confused. Wasn't it a normal thing to want to date? Why did it seem like Jiang Cheng just... didn't have that?
Hence how he ended up asking his friends about it. He doesn't have anyone with whom he could talk about this other than them and Jiang Cheng is obviously out of the question. He also knows his friend wouldn't look down on his jiujiu, they all seemed to like him too.
"Guys, do you think jiujiu is alright?" he asks as everyone is laying lazily on Ouyang Zizhen's bed. The three other boys looked back at him, clearly, a bit confused by his question. Maybe he should have been a bit clearer.
"I told you about how I tried to help jiujiu date," he said, all the other boys nodding to show they remembered his obvious attempt at that. "I realised that... jiujiu doesn't seem like he is interested in any of that, every time someone flirts with him he looks very uncomfortable".
And it couldn't be a question of type. Jin Ling was sure many "type" of people had hit on him at some point. He himself had never found what type his jiujiu might have!
"Maybe he simply doesn't feel attracted to them?" first suggested Ouyang Zizhen, as though it wasn't really obvious. Jin Ling gave him a look, "Obviously he doesn't, otherwise he would probably flirt back or something" he pointed out.
"Maybe he's like Wen Ning?" suggested Lan Sizhui, only to have the three other boys stare at him a bit confused. None of them was really close to their friend's cousin. Sure, they obviously saw him from time to time since Lan Sizhui seems to have a good relationship with him, but it was pretty much it.
Seeing how they were all confused, he added "He just doesn't experience sexual or romantic attraction at all, though I forgot the word for it, I would probably need to ask him to know more about it".
This suddenly made a lot of sense in Jin Ling's mind. He didn't really understand how it worked since he knew he had felt some kind of attraction before, but when looking at his jiujiu, it did seem to apply.
"I don't really get how it's possible" admitted Ouyang Zizhen, gaining some laughter from his friends. "You have a new crush nearly every month, of course, you wouldn't understand" teased Lan Jingyi. "I don't have a new crush every month!" said his friend while blushing.
After this discovery, Jin Ling did some research about it and the more he read about it, the more he felt like this was similar to what he could see from Jiang Cheng. He assumed that his jiujiu already knew about this and simply never told him, not that he would have been obligated to do so.
He decided to help out Jiang Cheng instead, this time by shooing away anyone trying to flirt with his jiujiu. Some saw him as a brat? Then he would act like one, no one gets to make his jiujiu uncomfortable on his watch.
It got to a point that even when his three friends started doing the same if it ever seemed like it was happening when they were there too. Although they were much more subtle about it and would rather hint at Jiang Cheng already being in a relationship.
This sudden 180 from his nephew had clearly been noticed by Jiang Cheng. Jin Ling had to admit, it would probably have been hard to miss. This is also probably why his jiujiu had suddenly asked him about it. "A-Ling why did you suddenly started chasing everyone approaching me lately?".
Jin Ling looked a bit confused at his question. Wasn't it obvious? Couldn't Jiang Cheng understand why he was doing it? "Isn't jiujiu aromantic and asexual? Doesn't it make you uncomfortable when people do that?" he asked, clearly sounding confused because he thought it was obvious.
It must not have been obvious because now Jiang Cheng was the one looking extremely confused, as though he couldn't understand what he was talking about. Seeing how confused he was, Jin Ling started carefully explaining what each word meant. He had already done a lot of research and talk a bit more with Wen Ning to have someone opinion too.
In the end, Jin Ling was starting to feel a bit unsure. Had he assumed wrongly about Jiang Cheng again? He was so sure it could be it this time! How could he really know when he doesn't tell him much in that department?!
His nervousness grew more as his jiujiu wouldn't say anything, looking rather pensive after what he had just been told. He was about to talk again when he saw sudden realisation and relief flashing over Jiang Cheng's face, looking back up to him.
"You're telling me... there are other people who feel like this?" he asked.
And this is the exact moment that it downed on Jin Ling that his jiujiu never realised anything about this. He felt somewhat relieved that he had not assumed wrongly since Jiang Cheng seemed to relate to this idea.
Then he froze when he saw tears welling up in his jiujiu's eyes, looking to the side with a little frown. "So there isn't anything wrong with me? Other people feel like this too".
Oh.
His jiujiu thought something was wrong with him. Jin Ling's heart suddenly sank at the news, sad over the fact that his uncle had believed all these years that something must have been wrong. This also made him realised Jiang Cheng had also most likely forced himself into relationships he never wanted in the first place.
"No! There's nothing wrong with you!" he quickly replied, wanting to reassure his jiujiu about this. How could he think something was wrong with him?
He even got up, walking around their small table to quickly pull his jiujiu in his arms, the man reciprocating the hug after a while. Once they both calm down, as Jin Ling ended up getting emotional too, it wasn't every day he would see his jiujiu in such a state, they sat back down.
And they started talking. Jiang Cheng asks more questions since Jin Ling seems to know a lot compared to him, which the young man is happy to give what he learned. Seeing the reassurance and relied on his uncle's face is enough to make Jin Ling more than happy he ended up noticing his lack of attraction.
Jiang Cheng also ends up telling him about his parent expectation for his future. It had been shoving into his head that he will find a wife one day. This had lead to him feeling miserable over something else because he was failing them again. Even the people he had dated didn't react well to how he was trying to put into words his lack of real attraction to them when he was confronted about it. Even the couple of "friends" he thought he had made in college made him feel even worst and more broken about it.
"I just figured something was wrong with me and never told anyone else afterwards" finished Jiang Cheng with a sad smile, looking down at his coffee. "But now I know this isn't true and that there are actually other people like me in the world," he said with a smile.
After that Jin Ling kept his duty to be to most annoying brat ever as he protects his jiujiu from people who want to flirt with him. He promised himself to be the best ally to his jiujiu. He makes sure to make it really clear he supports him in all ways and remind him that nothing is wrong with him. After all, years of self-loathing about it cannot be erased in one night, but they are slowly getting there.
Even if its take time, Jin Ling is ready to take it if it's mean he can see his jiujiu happier and more confident than ever.