“Dating is great—really great.”
Long ago, when Lu Xingyan spent day after day muttering, “My brother is so annoying,” all his close friends had already started dating early and gotten girlfriends.
“Seriously, you have to believe me,” Sun Cheng said. “How would you know how great dating is if you’ve never tried it? My girlfriend is super cute… ahhh!”
They were in their third year of middle school at the time, doing homework in a café near their neighborhood. Lu Xingyan rolled his eyes and twirled his pen until, with a clack, it flew from his hand.
Too lazy to pick it up, he irritably switched to another pen and kept writing.
Sun Cheng said, “Look at you. You walk around like some resentful spouse all day; that sour face of yours scares away every romantic prospect. You should listen to me and hurry up and find a girl to date. Whatever your brother wants to do, let him do it—why do you care…”
Lu Xingyan answered with a cold laugh.
“Keep pretending,” Sun Cheng said. “Have you ever held a girl’s hand? Kissed a girl’s cheek? You haven’t even seen the best side of this world yet… Forget it, you wouldn’t understand even if I told you!”
Sun Cheng was the bigger poser. He had only started dating, yet anyone who did not know better would have thought he had become the richest man in the world. He practically walked with wind beneath his feet, acted busy every day, skipped soccer because he had to accompany his girlfriend, bought everything in pairs because he had to give one to his girlfriend, filled his playlist with love songs, and started calling his girlfriend “wife” while she called him “husband” before he had even finished puberty…
Lu Xingyan was not jealous; he only thought Sun Cheng looked like an idiot.
As everyone might have expected, Sun Cheng’s first love ended before the semester was even over, and he switched straight into heartbreak mode, becoming a melancholy young man.
Lu Xingyan wickedly asked, “Still think dating is great?”
“Of course,” Sun Cheng stubbornly insisted. “On the road from boyhood to manhood, getting hurt a few times is inevitable…”
Lu Xingyan turned around and walked away.
Unfortunately, he happened to get into another argument with Jiang Ji that same day.
The reason was that a pink confession letter had fallen out of Jiang Ji’s schoolbag in the living room; Lu Xingyan froze when he saw it, then picked it up, tore it to pieces without hesitation, and threw it into the trash.
He had not thought much about it; some indistinct displeasure had driven him to do it. Jiang Ji came back immediately after he threw it away, frowned, and asked, “What are you doing?”
Lu Xingyan said nothing. Jiang Ji spotted the confession letter torn into pieces. “Who gave you permission to touch my schoolbag?”
“You’re about to take the Gaokao. You’re not allowed to date,” Lu Xingyan said righteously. “I’m doing this for your own good!”
Elio’s Notes: The Gaokao is China’s national college entrance examination.
“Save it.” Jiang Ji said coldly. “Touch my things again and I’ll knock your head off.”
“…”
Jiang Ji used to say things like that all the time and had never actually laid a hand on Lu Xingyan, but his attitude alone was sharp enough that every jab took Lu Xingyan at least three days to recover from.
Dating was great my ass—it wasn’t great at all.
Lu Xingyan hated couples, hated everyone who might possibly date, and hated Jiang Ji most of all. He cursed Jiang Ji to stay single for the rest of his life, never have a girl like him, be annoying and universally despised—then he would see whether Jiang Ji could still act so superior and who he would have left to lose his temper at.
Not long afterward, Sun Cheng got another girlfriend while Lu Xingyan tirelessly continued arguing with Jiang Ji.
So while Sun Cheng was heartbroken over girls, Lu Xingyan was shedding tears over Jiang Ji—from anger—and when Sun Cheng’s second relationship ended and he sighed, “Man, I’m kind of emotionally exhausted,” Lu Xingyan was still going strong, tirelessly insisting, “I hate my brother”…
Sun Cheng could not understand it. “Lu Xingyan, are you ever going to get away from your brother in this lifetime? Don’t tell me twenty years from now my kid will already be in school and you’ll still be going, ‘my brother, my brother, my brother.’”
“…”
“You need a life of your own—I’m begging you, go date someone.”
Sun Cheng advised him from middle school all the way through high school, and Lu Xingyan never listened to a single word.
Years later, today, Lu Xingyan remembered all this while resting his head against Jiang Ji’s bare shoulder, rubbing against him and kissing him repeatedly before letting out a foolish laugh. “Bro, you actually agreed.”
“…”
It was already late morning, and more than ten hours had passed since Jiang Ji agreed to date him; this idiot had started chanting endlessly again, only now the scripture had changed from “You really like me” to “You actually agreed.”
Jiang Ji could barely breathe beneath his weight. “Move off me a little.”
“No.” Lu Xingyan apparently had no idea how heavy he was and pressed his entire body down on him. “I’m your husband now, so if I want to lie on top of you, I can—isn’t that allowed?”
Jiang Ji said, “…”
He had certainly adapted to his new status quickly.
“Fine, husband,” Jiang Ji said expressionlessly. “Now move. I need to get up.”
Lu Xingyan’s entire face turned red. “Y-you’re really calling me that?”
Jiang Ji laughed. “You dare make me call you that, but you don’t dare hear it? Paper tiger.”
Jiang Ji got up, put on his clothes, and went into the bathroom.
The hotel’s disposable toiletries were terrible, so they could only wash up briefly. While Jiang Ji brushed his teeth, the “paper tiger” squeezed in beside him at the mirror and asked indistinctly, “Should we extend the room? How about staying another night?”
Jiang Ji rinsed his mouth and spat out the foam. “No. I have to meet a client this afternoon.”
“Oh.” Lu Xingyan looked a little disappointed. “But I still haven’t…”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing?” Jiang Ji turned to look at him.
Last night, Lu Xingyan had looked as though his brain had completely burned out. He had suddenly dropped to one knee and asked Jiang Ji if he wanted to date. Jiang Ji had gone a long time without answering, so Lu Xingyan simply stayed in that position and waited with endless patience.
Eventually, perhaps because he grew tired of waiting, Lu Xingyan suddenly leaned against Jiang Ji’s knees and pleaded pitifully, “Big brother, big brother, say yes, please.”
“…”
Jiang Ji got goosebumps all over from such clumsy attempts at acting spoiled and put on an affected air. “I’ll think about it.”
“Ten minutes,” Lu Xingyan said like a fish stranded out of water. “If you think about it even one second longer, I’ll die.”
How dramatic.
Jiang Ji deliberately refused. “One hour.”
Lu Xingyan bargained, “Half an hour.”
“Forty minutes,” Jiang Ji said seriously. “I won’t go any lower.”
“…Fine.”
Lu Xingyan actually did not stand up, remaining on his knees and looking up at Jiang Ji as though he were perfectly willing to look up to him like this for the rest of his life without a single complaint.
The atmosphere was so emotionally charged that anyone treated this way would have found it difficult not to feel something.
Jiang Ji certainly felt something, but it was not tenderness or an urge to help him up; instead, he pressed a hand to Lu Xingyan’s head and had him use his mouth on him.
Although Lu Xingyan usually acted arrogant toward others, he had no such pride when it came to things like this; whether he acted tough or yielded depended entirely on his mood at the time and what he wanted to achieve.
For example, right now his goal was to win more of his older brother’s affection, so the more obedient he was, the better; if he behaved himself, he would be liked.
There was something almost animalistic about this simple, direct way of thinking, unlike a man who had been thoroughly tamed by society.
Men were arrogant and annoying, and Jiang Ji could not get it up for that kind of man.
Admittedly, Lu Xingyan sometimes lost control of himself once he got worked up, but that was simply the other side of the same coin; Jiang Ji enjoyed the pleasure of toying with his younger brother and could accept his flaws as well.
The only thing he needed to consider was this: where was the safe boundary of this “toying”? Could things cross that line?
—No.
Jiang Ji could not draw a precise line marking that boundary, but he was confident that he had everything under control.
With his eyes closed, he came in Lu Xingyan’s mouth, took nearly a minute to recover, and when he opened his eyes again, he finally said yes: “Let’s date.”
“…Nothing means nothing.”
A night had passed, but Lu Xingyan was still no smarter, hemming and hawing and pretending to be reserved only to give himself away within seconds: “Fine. I meant I haven’t kissed you enough.”
He rinsed away the toothpaste foam and impatiently kissed Jiang Ji.
“Kiss me too…”
Jiang Ji refused to cooperate, so Lu Xingyan pleaded, “Jiang Ji, Jiang Ji…”
The way he said Jiang Ji’s name was different from everyone else’s: when angry, he said it fiercely; when acting spoiled, he drew it out clingily; either way, it was always saturated with emotion rather than being merely a form of address.
Jiang Ji’s ears tingled. He raised a hand to grip the back of Lu Xingyan’s neck and gave him a long, lingering deep kiss, like an owner soothing a puppy. Lu Xingyan finally settled down but still held him tightly, shamelessly saying, “Don’t go. I can’t be without you.”
“…”
When other people said they could not be without someone, it might merely be romantic talk; when Lu Xingyan said it, he genuinely meant it.
Jiang Ji tried to peel the octopus off himself and failed even after two minutes of effort.
“Don’t go, don’t go.” Lu Xingyan inhaled against his neck. “Stay with me. Stay with me.”
He even repeated himself when he spoke, making Jiang Ji laugh. “How long am I supposed to stay with you?”
“I don’t know.” Lu Xingyan asked in return, “Won’t you miss me?”
“No,” Jiang Ji said solemnly. “I only like you a little, remember? Not enough to miss you yet.”
“…Fine.” Lu Xingyan choked for a moment but did not get angry.
From the moment Jiang Ji said he liked him, Lu Xingyan seemed to have lost the ability to get angry, as though his older brother could torment him however he pleased.
What he did not know was that the more obedient he became, the more Jiang Ji’s hands itched to toy with him until he was completely dizzy.
“Let’s eat first.” Jiang Ji told him the day’s schedule. “We’ll have lunch together, then I’ll stop by the company; I have a client to meet later, so you don’t need to come with me—go do whatever you want.”
Lu Xingyan still refused to let go, so Jiang Ji forcefully peeled him off. “Don’t you have anything of your own to do, Lu Xingyan? When’s your thesis defense?”
Lu Xingyan had no choice but to answer, “Early June. I’m already prepared. No pressure.”
“All right.” Jiang Ji nodded. “Then let’s go. We’ll check out first.”
They left the hotel and casually found somewhere to eat.
After lunch, Lu Xingyan drove Jiang Ji to the company. Before they separated, he asked for another kiss. Jiang Ji already had one foot out of the car when Lu Xingyan tugged him back by the collar for a kiss; afterward, Jiang Ji took the sunglasses from Lu Xingyan’s car and slipped them on, hiding most of his expression.
Lu Xingyan watched his older brother walk away, closed the car door, then gave in to his emotions and collapsed over the steering wheel in a lovestruck daze.
—The first day of dating.
If he could, he wanted everyone to know that he and Jiang Ji were together.
And there was really nothing stopping him.
Reason had been dead for a long time, and now Lu Xingyan’s head was filled with nothing but being in love.
Excitedly, he opened his phone, found the WeChat group containing Sun Cheng, Gu Xiaobo, and the rest of his close friends, and sent ten large red packets in rapid succession.
The group exploded at once.
Gu Xiaobo: “Thanks, boss!”
Sun Cheng: “Did you win the lottery?”
Sun Cheng: “I don’t know why, but seeing Lu Xingyan hand out red packets gives me a certain premonition…”
Lu Xingyan’s face was still hot, the warmth of his older brother’s lips lingering on his own, and even his fingers felt weak as he typed: “I don’t know what your premonition is, but I hereby announce that I’m dating someone.”
Gu Xiaobo: “?”
Sun Cheng: “???”
There were too many people in the group, so Sun Cheng immediately sent him a private message: “Holy shit, who?”
Lu Xingyan deliberately kept him in suspense. “Guess.”
Sun Cheng: “…”
Did that fucking need guessing—who else could it be but Jiang Ji?
Sun Cheng: “Wait. When you say you’re ‘dating,’ do you mean what I think you mean?”
Lu Xingyan did not understand. “What do you think I mean?”
Sun Cheng: “…”
Sun Cheng: “The plan—your plan to seduce your brother finally progressed all the way to dating?”
After he sent that message, Lu Xingyan did not reply for five minutes.
WeChat fell deathly silent.
Sun Cheng: “Hello? Man? You still there?”
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