Okay ma'am (๑•ㅂ•)و✧
Groomers often begin by appearing kind, helpful, or mentoring, which makes it easier to gain the trust of the child and their family.The relationship often starts as "harmless" friendship, kindness, or support, but gradually shifts to inappropriate closeness.The victim may not recognize they are being groomed because they consider the adult a trusted friend, mentor, or, later, a partner. And all of this are present in the story
If you completely ignore the fact that he was his anonymous sponsor then they’re a cute couple. (Like, he didn’t start off with predatory intentions. ML helped MC financially and did so anonymously. Their contact was only via text and had nothing erotic. That continued till MC became of age and then ML cut contact because he feared he was just harming MC (MC tried to kill himself cause of emotional stress and poverty.) Now since he was no longer communicating with him, ML would just watch from afar and that’s when his parental feelings started developing into romantic feelings, more so when they met in person as both adults. So yeah, he wasn’t into him when he was helping him as a minor but it’s still very strange that he wound up developing interest in adult MC.

I feel like this story screaming a grooming