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Jiang Cheng is still safely buried under his numerous blankets when he hears his door open and close.
“Go away,” Jiang Cheng says, hoping that he can be heard through the layers, but whoever it is doesn’t listen to him, because a heavy weight comes to settle on top of Jiang Cheng.
“Not a chance in hell,” Nie Huaisang cheerfully says and then blindly pokes around with his fan until he hits Jiang Cheng’s head. “What’s going on, burrito man?”
Jiang Cheng wonders how Nie Huaisang is already here, when Jiang Cheng only came home ten minutes prior, but he guesses he has his siblings to thank for that.
Not that he ever would, because he doesn’t want to talk about it.
The afternoon left him drained enough as it is.
“Nothing,” he mutters but Nie Huaisang wiggles around on top of him in a clear indicator that he doesn’t believe him one damn bit.
“Wanyin,” he whines, dragging his name out unnecessary long and Jiang Cheng sighs, before he turns around, taking great pleasure in the shriek Nie Huaisang lets out as he slips off him.
“It’s just—” Jiang Cheng says when his head is freed but he’s not looking at Nie Huaisang and instead decides to stare at the ceiling.
“All these lovey-dovey couples,” Nie Huaisang finishes for him and Jiang Cheng sighs.
Trust Nie Huaisang to understand him without having to say anything.
“Don’t even pretend, I have seen you and Mo Xuanyu, you make me just as sick,” Jiang Cheng bites out, though his words lack heat and Nie Huaisang laughs.
“Ah, but we have the excuse of a new relationship. You have to give me at least a month until I get used to that,” Nie Huaisang gives back, and Jiang Cheng is glad to hear how happy he is.
“Don’t take Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji as your examples, please,” Jiang Cheng groans and curls up on his side, this time facing Nie Huaisang.
“I would never, they are disgusting,” Nie Huaisang says with fervour and wriggles around until Jiang Cheng lifts his blanket so that he can crawl under it.
They lay in silence for a long moment before Jiang Cheng sighs.
“I’m not mad that all of you have someone,” he then confesses and Nie Huaisang moves closer until he can rest their foreheads together. “It’s just—”
“You wish you had someone, too.” He hesitates for a moment. “And that they would tone down their PDA.”
It startles a laugh out of Jiang Cheng, but Nie Huaisang is right. He’s happy for his siblings—of course he is—and for all that he still doesn’t like the peacock he’s glad to see how he dotes on Jiang Yanli now but Jiang Cheng wishes his siblings could detach themselves from their boyfriends for at least a meal.
Surely they haven’t forgotten to eat on their own. Jiang Cheng just doesn’t see the need to hold someone’s hand through an entire meal or feed each other bits and crumbs.
It’s sickening if he’s being honest, and Jiang Cheng wondered more than once during lunch why he was even there. It wasn’t like any of them paid him any attention besides telling him that he should get a significant other as well.
As if it’s that easy.
Especially since Jiang Cheng is in love with Nie Mingjue of all people. It’s not like that’s something that will ever happen, but he can’t help his stupid feelings and that makes meeting someone else all the more impossible.
Jiang Cheng is just happy that he managed to keep his feelings a secret from his siblings so far. That is some teasing he definitely doesn’t need.
“I would just like to—” Jiang Cheng starts but he can’t finish his sentence.
“To have someone for yourself,” Nie Huaisang mutters, because he knows him far too well and Jiang Cheng shrugs.
He knows it’s stupid, that it doesn’t matter if he’s in a relationship or not, but he wants that closeness with someone, wants someone to dote on him like his siblings have, and he wants to dote on someone, too.
He just wants to have someone.
Jiang Cheng resolutely pushes the thought away that not even just someone would be enough, because his foolish heart is set on Nie Mingjue, but that is really not a helpful thought right now.
He already feels bad enough as it is.
“You know—” Nie Huaisang starts and Jiang Cheng already doesn’t like where this is going.
“No,” he pre-emptively says, before Nie Huaisang is even done and he gets slapped on the arm for his efforts.
“Will you just listen,” Nie Huaisang huffs out. “What about a blind-date?” he then asks and Jiang Cheng laughs in his face at that.
“Yeah, right. Because I’m the kind of person people typically like on the first meeting. Hell, most people don’t even like me after the tenth meeting, so how in the hell is this going to make me feel better?”
“Do you trust me?” Nie Huaisang wants to know and Jiang Cheng’s knee-jerk reaction is of course to say no.
So he does.
“No. You’re going to set me up with the most horrible human being and then I’ll be stuck with them.
“First of all, I don’t know any horrible human beings.” He pauses. “I would never set you up with any horrible human beings,” he then amends, because they both know that Wen Xu and Wen Chao are most definitely horrible human beings. “And besides. I’m not saying you have to marry them! It’s just one date.”
Yeah, one date where Jiang Cheng has to sit and make awkward conversation before ultimately being rejected. Nie Huaisang isn’t the first person to try and set him up to no avail, but Jiang Cheng had thought at least he—of all people—would know better.
Nie Huaisang had been single for a very long time before he met Mo Xuanyu as well and Jiang Cheng thought they had an understanding.
It seems like he was wrong about that.
“Huaisang, I don’t make good first impressions. I don’t even have anything interesting to talk about.”
“Your work. You swim. You volunteer at the vet and the shelter. You’re passionate about the most obscure movies and you know so goddamn much about music, which to this point, I still don’t understand. It’s music, what’s there to know.”
“Says the guy who can accurately tell if a fan is antique or not and then go on for hours about the technique with which it was made,” Jiang Cheng grumbles, embarrassed by what Nie Huaisang said.
He wishes he could just shrug it off like Nie Huaisang is doing right now.
“Come on, Jiang Cheng, you’re a great guy and I promise I will pick someone sensible. Someone I know you’ll like.”
Jiang Cheng doubts that Nie Huaisang knows someone sensible and it’s even more unlikely that he’ll pick someone who Jiang Cheng likes.
Well. Jiang Cheng might end up liking whoever Nie Huaisang sets him up with but the reverse will not be true and so there’s only one possible answer.
Of course Jiang Cheng says no.
~*~*~
Jiang Cheng still isn’t entirely clear on how he ends up at a restaurant, waiting for his blind date, but he hopes that Nie Huaisang is adequately smug about it.
Nie Huaisang was especially tight lipped about his date today, citing over and over again that if he gave Jiang Cheng even a hint it couldn’t be considered a blind date anymore and Jiang Cheng can’t deny that he’s a tiny bit nervous.
It doesn’t help that he’s way too early and his date is running–he checks his watch again—late by two minutes now.
Jiang Cheng is reluctantly reading the menu for the tenth time when a light knocking on the table alerts him to look up – and keep looking up until he is met with the charmingly bashful smile of Nie Mingjue.
No one can blame Jiang Cheng if the first words to leave his mouth that evening are, "I'm gonna kill Nie Huaisang."
“Why?” Nie Mingjue asks as he sits himself down at Jiang Cheng’s table without waiting for a direct invitation and it’s only then that it hits Jiang Cheng full force.
Nie Huaisang set Jiang Cheng up on a blind date with Nie Mingjue.
As if his life couldn’t get any worse, Jiang Cheng thinks and clenches his hands in his lap.
“I’m sorry you have to be here, Huaisang should have told you who you’re meeting,” Jiang Cheng says, because of course he knows how long Nie Huaisang has been trying to set Nie Mingjue up with someone.
It just never occurred to him that he would play such a cruel joke on Jiang Cheng.
“He did tell me,” Nie Mingjue says, still slightly frowning at him, but he leans back and he generally seems way too relaxed. “Of course he told me that it’s you, Wanyin.”
Jiang Cheng blinks at him.
“Then why the hell are you here?” he asks but it’s only a moment later that he can give the answer to himself. “Of course to get him off your back. It’s easier to give in to this one date—I mean not that this is a date—than argue with him. I—We can just have dinner and then go our ways?” Jiang Cheng rambles and he doesn’t understand why Nie Mingjue is still frowning at him.
“Wanyin, this is not a mistake or anything like that. I am here for a date with you.”
The words make absolutely no sense and so a confused noise leaves Jiang Cheng’s mouth.
“Which part did you not understand?” Nie Mingjue asks and Jiang Cheng’s stomach swoops when he smiles at him, clearly amused by the whole situation.
“All of it? The part where you are here and then the one where you apparently knew about this, and still came, and honestly, none of this makes any sense whatsoever.”
“I see now,” Nie Mingjue says as he leans forward and rests his head on his hand. “Is that the reason why you wouldn’t agree to a date before? Because you don’t think I want to date you?”
“Before?” Jiang Cheng splutters, because he would remember if Nie Mingjue had asked him out for a date before.
It’s only everything Jiang Cheng ever wanted.
“Wanyin, I asked you out multiple times and you always misunderstood. I thought it was deliberate despite what Huaisang said, but now I think I was wrong about that.”
“When did you ask me out for dates?” Jiang Cheng squeaks and he only barely realizes that the waitress chose that moment to step by, but luckily she has enough sense to turn right back around.
Jiang Cheng is in no way in any place to order something right now.
“All the times I asked you to go to dinner with me. To the movies. To the museum, just last week,” Nie Mingjue readily says and Jiang Cheng can only stare at him.
“You are my friend,” he whispers because that’s all they are.
That’s all they ever going to be because Nie Mingjue does not see him in any other way.
“I am your friend and I’m also in love with you,” Nie Mingjue shrugs, saying the words easily enough and clearly not caring one bit about what they do to Jiang Cheng’s poor heart.
“You’re in love with me,” Jiang Cheng repeats, but even then the words don’t make that much more sense.
“Yes.”
“And you willingly came to this blind date, with me, because you wanted to.”
“Yes.”
“Huh.”
It’s the only thing Jiang Cheng can come up with as he rapidly goes through all the instances Nie Mingjue just mentioned. He flushes bright red when he realizes—now, in hindsight, and with more knowledge—that Nie Mingjue is absolutely right and it prompts another chuckle out of Nie Mingjue.
“So now that we have that cleared up—do you want to go on with this date or would you rather not?” he asks him, though Jiang Cheng can tell by the twinkle in his eyes that he knows Jiang Cheng’s answer to that.
Jiang Cheng raises his hand, calling the waitress back over, and Nie Mingjue laughs.
Jiang Cheng is so in love with him.
And apparently that feeling is mutual.