Chapter 8 #2
A spacious foyer opens out onto a living area stacked with plush sofas arranged around a cozy fireplace. The floor-to-ceiling windows offer a panoramic view of London’s skyline, and on either side, there are two private rooms connected by the same wall.
Kai’s shoulders slump with relief, and I snicker.
“I hate you.” He takes off his boots and throws one at me. “You were messing with me?”
“In my defense, you looked very messable.” Something about his bed hair and the way his bangs are swept back by one of Sonia’s flower hairpins makes him look unguarded.
“I’ll get my revenge.” He groans, unceremoniously dropping his bag on the couch. “Just wait.”
My gaze drifts to the window, where the streetlights shine across the pavement.
I take a picture of the view and send it to Mia, but a knot forms in my chest when she just hearts it and doesn’t reply.
Our chats have been looking so dry lately, and I don’t know what to do.
I know friendships evolve, but it feels like my friendship with Mia is evolving into cold, empty space.
I ignore the tightness in my chest, chalking it up to the jet lag. I always get sad when I’m sleepy. Maybe I should just get some rest. Kai and I retreat to our rooms, but I keep tossing and turning, so I pull out my guitar and Pato—Tito for friends—my travel plushie.
If I can’t sleep, I might as well be productive.
Tito is a yellow duck I’ve had since I was a kid.
He was the first plushie Mom ever bought for me, and I always take him with me when I fly somewhere.
He’s so small he fits in my purse and keeps me company.
He’s also my assistant during late-night songwriting sessions.
I play and sing for him, and he holds my notebook.
In return, I take pictures of him with landmarks of the cities we visit.
You twist the knife, and I long for the touch of your hand … I hum a few lyrics, recording a sample for Shirley. They kind of suck, but at this point I’m just trying to get a feel of the melody.
One of the other songs I’m currently writing is inspired by this extremely sad fic I found. I wanted fluff but found permanent-emotional-damage angst instead. I spent a week unable to function after I read it, and I’ve been wanting to turn it into lyrics for some time.
Wait. Will people think this is about me and Kai?
It doesn’t really fit into the current narrative my label has built around us.
Or worse, what if, without context, it sounds like I got my heart broken in a horrible way?
Will they blame Kai and make up terrible stories about him?
I want our eventual breakup to be amicable.
I can’t sing about this, I realize, with a pang to my chest. I don’t want my relationship to dictate what I write about, but I can’t just write about whatever. It’s what got me into this mess to begin with. Except, the boyfriend has a face and a name now. My songs will come back to haunt him.
I delete the audio, letting out a faint sigh as I fall back on the bed. Maybe I should call it a night—
“Why did you stop? It sounded good.” Kai’s voice travels through the wall.
“Sorry.” I straighten, turning slightly toward the direction of his voice in the other room. I feel oddly exposed, even though it’s not the first time he’s heard me sing or that I’ve sung in front of him. “Did I wake you?”
“No. I was awake playing on my phone. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“Walls are thin. It’s not your fault.”
There’s a pause after that, and I don’t know what to say. I crack my knuckles, pressing my face against the pillow. I wonder if he thinks this is weird. We haven’t been alone like this—at night, just the two of us—since we went no contact.
“Sasha?” Kai says. “This is definitely the jet lag talking and I’ll probably regret bringing this up tomorrow, but can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” I shift, wishing I could decipher the emotion that lingers behind his voice. Ever since we found each other again, I’ve had this feeling, like he’s keeping something from me.
I can’t tell what it is.
“When we were together … did I ever … Ugh. I don’t know how to put this.”
My breath hitches uncomfortably. He wants to talk about our breakup?
“You can ask me anything.” I draw my legs up to my chest, feeling the coolness of the sheets against my skin. Part of me is worried that this conversation will end up turning into an argument. Maybe some things are better left unsaid.
“I’ve read that some aroace people force themselves to have sex. Did I ever…” I can’t see him, but his voice is uneven. “Did you ever feel like I made you?”
“What? No.” I tighten my grip on the sheets. “Are you serious?”
“I just—”
My instincts take over before he can finish speaking. I bolt from my room and into his, my footsteps pattering rapidly against the marble floor.
“Listen to me.” I land on the edge of his bed with a thud. He sits upright. “You never made me do anything that I didn’t want to try with you.”
“Yeah, but … aren’t you asexual?” I can feel his gaze on me. Even though we’re on opposite sides of the bed, it feels like his body eases a bit.
“Not all asexual people are sex-repulsed. Asexuality is just lack of sexual attraction, or very little—”
“But you were never into me that way.”
“I—” The air hangs heavy with the weight of the past. We had a similar conversation right before we broke up, and it ended with us not speaking.
Back then, I tried to reach for his hand, but he pulled back.
The memory still stings, and my jaw tenses until I feel it crack.
I know things are different now, but discussing my aroaceness caused us to fall apart in the first place.
I’m afraid of saying the wrong thing. Sometimes I feel like anything I say about it is meant to be misunderstood.
“I was confused about what I was supposed to feel.” I look down, twisting the edge of the blanket between my fingers. “If I had known from the start, I would have told you right away. Sometimes it takes a while to figure yourself out.”
“I think I understand that now,” he says. “You have nothing to feel sorry for.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. Sometimes it takes a while to know who you … if you…” He shifts. There’s a thread of unease in his voice, but before I can pull at it, he collapses against the pillow. “All that.”
“All that.” I let loose a sigh of relief and fall sideways onto the mattress, staring at the ceiling in the dark. “But yeah, it wasn’t you. I’ve never been into anyone that way.”
“You wound me. You mean my impeccable moves had no effect on you?” he teases, nudging my shoulder with his foot.
“What moves?” I kick him back. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy being with you at the time. I wanted to try it, and it made me feel closer to you.”
“You don’t have to say that to make me feel better.” Kai’s hand inches away slightly, out of my reach.
“I’m not.” The nerves in my stomach take flight like startled birds. I need him to believe me, but I don’t know how, or what to say. Being this open with him feels like stepping on shaky ground.
“How can you like having sex with someone you’re not attracted to?”
“For many reasons!” I say, grateful for the darkness and the small shield it gives me. “Okay, first of all, because it can feel good? Also, I’m sorry, but asexual people can get horny too! Or are kinky!”
To be fair, I don’t feel like I’m much of either, but I don’t tell him that.
I just don’t care about sex in any shape or form.
Back then, I often initiated because I thought I owed him intimacy.
Not because he expected it, but because that’s what couples do, and I didn’t know how else to be close to him in the way I saw everyone else be.
I don’t regret it, but knowing what I know about myself now, it’s probably not something I’ll ever want to do again with anyone.
I don’t like it or dislike it. I’m just not interested in it.
Kai leans his head on his hand. “But horny how? When I get horny it’s because I find someone hot. It’s literally in the word. Hot, as in, they make you hot. And you could see yourself kissing them or having sex with them.”
It feels weird to talk to him about this, but in a way, I feel like we need to. I wish he could understand that even though I personally could go the rest of my life without sex, that doesn’t mean that every asexual person is the same.
“Yeah, no, this is just my experience, but when I say someone’s hot, I just mean they look good. Like, hey, you seem aesthetically interesting! Let’s talk over a cup of tea. But that’s it.”
“A cup of tea?” Kai pushes himself to his elbows. “Sasha?” He chuckles. “Sorry, I don’t mean to laugh, but tea?! Not even … I don’t know, cake?”
“What’s wrong with tea?” Before I know it, my own laughter is spilling out. We experience the world so differently, but perhaps that’s okay.
I clutch my stomach to avoid falling off the bed, but Kai pushes me to the floor with a merciless kick. “Off my bed. Revenge for earlier. Thought I was going to have to sleep on the floor.”
I sit up, my chest still light with laughter.
It’s been ages since I laughed like this, heart-to-heart.
I want to cherish these moments while I can still have them.
I feel like I’m going to have to let go of this type of platonic intimacy.
Or intimacy in general, because it’s so inherently viewed as a romantic thing.
“Okay, wait, what about celebrity crushes?” Kai says. “You used to be obsessed with … what’s her name? The actress? What if you met her and she fell for you? You wouldn’t consider it?”
“Still tea,” I quip. I’m pan-oriented, and at first I thought that meant I was pansexual, because I was equally attracted to everyone—which meant …
not at all. Having a temporary crush on a celebrity or a fictional character like Gojo or Levi has been the closest I’ve ever been to feeling any sort of attraction.
But it feels too removed, like a faraway fascination.