“Shizuo, what does falling in love feel like?” Shinra laid on his stomach on the couch, his cheeks in his palms and a wide smile smushed on his face, dark eyes alight with amusement. 

“Shut. Up.” This was why Shizuo hated coming over here. 

But Shinra wasn’t done yet, finding too much enjoyment in tormenting and teasing the other man, up until the point he got his kicked. “It’s exactly why you’re like that that you don’t have a girlfriend. Or boyfriend. Or nonbinaryfriend.” 

Shizuo shattered the glass in his hand, the shards dropping into the bubbly water in the sink. Childhood friend be damned, Shinra was gonna die. He knew why Shizuo didn’t have a girlfriend. And even if he could, Shizuo hated getting asked stupid kiddy questions like that. What was he, five?

“You’re paying for that.” So bold was he today. 

“Um..” Shizuo startled at the voice, having completely forgotten she was there. At the front entrance to Shinra’s home stood a high school girl with short black bobbed hair and glasses. “I’m sorry, I can… I’ll go—“

“No worries, Anri, Mr. Grumpy-Pants here didn’t mean anything by it. You’re always welcome in our household.” Shizuo was once more feeling his hackles rise. The girl hadn’t even come in here for them. She was waiting for Celty to come back from a job so she could ask for some advice. She would be back soon, Shinra said what felt like hours ago but could have only been a few minutes. That was all he heard before he’d returned back to his job of cleaning the dishes they had eaten off of two hours ago. Celty had invited him to dinner and he’d accepted. “Shizuo just…” he turned around just in time to watch Shinra put a hand over the side of his mouth and quietly say, “has a secret love aversion.”

He broke another glass.

“Paying for that!”

Anri’s eyes were wide with confusion. She was probably too polite to tell Shinra to back off. It was obvious even to Shizuo that she was uncomfortable, and he was usually the last person to pick stuff like that up. “Oh.”

“Why were you asking? If you don’t mind me asking?” Shinra started to sit up. “And come on out of the foyer. Relax a little!”

She probably could if you weren’t such a creep, Shizuo thought but didn’t say. Instead, he worked on washing the rest of the dishes and picking up the shards of glass he’d dropped into the sink. 

She did, and to Shizuo’s surprise, she even walked over and sat next to Shinra. While he focused on cleaning, they whispered to themselves over on the couch. The glass door leading onto the balcony showed off the black night, stars nonexistent in the city’s sky. Celty should be coming back soon. She’d gotten a call right as they finished eating(they being Shizuo and Shinra, since Celty couldn’t eat) and left right after. They weren’t tight for money but they could always use more of it, and the job should be quick, she said, so she’d be back before it got too late. 

“Oh! Hm.” Shinra’s high, boyish voice rang out from behind Shizuo, grabbing his attention. 

Anri replied. “Yes, that’s why I wanted to talk to Celty about it. Since you and her are so… close.”

“You mean she’s my wife?” He said it happily, voice lilting at the end playfully, like he was a child teasing another kid on the playground. 

“Um..you two are married?”

Shizuo scoffed. No. 

“Might as well be!” Shinra said, a smile in his voice. “Shizuo,” He sang. “Would you come here for a minute?”

He’d just finished wiping off his hands when he got a look at the two now staring at him from across the room. Shinra, although his tone light, had a quite tame expression on his face, his dark brows set and the smile on his face nowhere near a frown but also definitely not a real smile. It was very chaste. Polite, even. Anri, on the other hand, had raised eyebrows under her black bangs and wide vulnerable eyes, parted slightly in surprise, probably because he’d been called. Now slightly curious as to what their previous conversation had been about, Shizuo made his way over to the couch and stood over the girl at the end of it, his eyes hidden beneath his blue-tinted sunglasses. He put his hands on his hips. “Yeah? What is it?”

Shinra motioned to the girl. “Anri here was just telling me about her troubles telling her feelings apart for someone. I don’t know why she’d think Celty would know anything about that—“

“I,” Anri butted in, then squeezed her hands into fists in her lap and looked at the coffee table, embarrassed. “I just wanted some advice..”

“Yes, of course. But, I was thinking something like this is more up your ally. Why don’t you tell him, Anri? It’s alright...” He cooed, voice gentle and suddenly kind rather than playful. 

Anri froze up, but only for a second, and then her shoulders relaxed and she spoke up. “There’s this boy. I’m..pretty sure he likes me, but..I don’t know if I really like him back. I don’t know if I know what it is to like someone. Like..how it’s explained in shows and manga..I kind of..feel that way with every one of my friends…So I, I wanted to know how Celty feels, when, when she’s in love…”

“She’s having boy trouble.” Shinra said in fewer words. 

Shizuo scoffed and began to turn away. What did this have to do with him? Shinra was teasing him again and he was ready to deck him, but his next words kept Shizuo still. 

“But she can’t tell whether what she’s feeling is actually romantic attraction or not.” He looked pointedly at him when he said that, and it suddenly clicked within Shizuo what he was talking about. “I thought, since you’re you, you could tell her about the arospec community.”

So that was it. He looked down at the little girl, her dainty hands balled up in her lap, all nervous and young. Terribly young. He wished he’d known when he was her age. Even now he didn’t fully know what to tell her. Where to start… he’d only found out about himself a few months ago. That’s barely enough time to settle in. It was still awkward. New. 

Anri looked between the two of them, confused. She was, what? Sixteen? Fifteen? 

Shizuo sighed. This was gonna be a long evening. 

 

He didn’t know much, himself. The internet existed, thank God; he knew what he was, though damn if he could pronounce any of it. It was all in English, goddammit. Cupio-lithro-mantic. Cupioromantic, lithromantic. Both on the aromantic spectrum. He knew the literal definitions but for him, it meant he fantasized about being in a relationship, and wanted it so badly, up until the point it starts to become a reality. He’d once been flirted with so intensely by an attractive woman, only minutes after he’d told Tom how much he’d wanted a girlfriend, that he’d become paralyzed and stayed frozen there until Tom got her to move on. The immediate distaste was jarring, but very telling. 

Anri was shocked to hear that he, the famous Shizuo Heiwajima, had “girl issues” or so it’s called. On the other hand, though, he had no idea what Anri was going through. He only had a set amount of friends, but liking all of them? Without exception? It was illogical. He only had Tom, Shinra, Celty, and, sometimes, if he was feeling nice, Simon. And his brother, of course, but that’s a cop out. She felt the same way about all of them? Isn’t that just what it’s like to be friends with people? To like all of them? But she said she can’t tell any of it apart…so maybe it was all just platonic. It couldn’t be polyamory…is that how that works? No..unless it was..

But if it all feels like how it does in the movies…

“Maybe..it’s not all that different in the first place.”

“What?”

He’d spoken aloud. He turned to her, brain working double time despite it being his day off. “Maybe it’s not all that different to you. Like, maybe it’s all the same.” He didn’t know how to explain it. “If you feel the way that you feel for that boy the same way you feel for all your other friends, then maybe, for you, romantic and platonic, they’re…all one thing.”

Her deep blue eyes were big, the gears behind them turning. 

Once in a blue moon, a coherent thought hits Shizuo, and at that very moment, it happened. “Wait, that sounds..familiar.” He stood up abruptly. “Shinra, I’m using your computer.”

He wasn’t asking. He walked straight out of the living room into the foyer where the door to Shinra’s office was. The man didn’t try to stop him, instead opting to stand up from his spot in the corner and follow him, along with Anri. 

Shizuo plopped down in the rolly chair and scooted forward to the desk that held Shinra’s laptop, then started typing. 

Aromantic spectrum romantic and platonic are the same 

The aromantic spectrum website was the second thing to pop up in the search engine, underneath a news article about a show. He clicked on it and quickly skimmed through the definitions under the label terminology list.

About halfway through the list, Shizuo found something that sounded vaguely similar, but wasn’t exactly right for what he was thinking. “How about this? Quoiual?”

Anri leaned over his shoulder to get a closer look at the definition. The idea or position that one does not know what constitutes ual attraction, or that one's ual orientation is not useful, irrelevant, or unwilling to be defined. Underneath was the romantic version of the word: Quoiromantic. It read slightly differently for some reason. An idea or position that you don't know what romantic attraction is, or that romantic orientation isn't useful to you, doesn't matter, or doesn't want to be defined. Beside the definition was a link. “I..that sounds..” Shizuo noticed the tightness in her voice. “Would you click that link, please?”

He did as she asked. It lead to a different page that further explained the definition of quoiromantic in detail. He let Anri have control of the computer as she read from the screen, her eyes moving across the page and her lips mouthing along the words. 

Shizuo turned to Shinra. “Could have sworn I was thinking of another word.”

“Maybe your brain is finally giving up on you?” Shinra poked his tongue out and shrugged, to which Shizuo finally got out of his seat— the chair flying back and hitting the wall just in time to miss Shinra as he ran out of the room, sensing danger. 

At that moment, Anri started talking again. “This..this is just..like..” Her eyes were glued to the screen, her glasses reflecting the blue light. Shinra came back in at the sound of Anri’s voice and Shizuo’s apparent lack of chasing. “I didn’t realize that not caring about labeling myself..or that feeling that romantic feelings didn’t make sense..made me queer.”

She didn't say it like it was a bad thing, but like she was in awe. He could see her face reflected on the screen, agape, her eyes hidden behind her glasses. 

She turned to Shizuo. “You said,” she swallowed, “that there was something else? What was it? Could you find it?”

Shizuo tensed up. What a pain, he thought. Being around high schoolers was weird, even when they weren't discovering themselves. He felt some kind of obligation towards her, as both an adult and as a queer man, to help her with her situation, even as it made him just as equally uncomfortable. 

He grabbed the chair from the floor and moved it back in front of the laptop, then sat down in it. He left the website and went back to his search, then tried the other results. Again, quoiromantic came up, and again, then again, all with slightly different definitions: difficulty distinguishing platonic attraction from romantic attraction, one said; which was the definition they were looking for, but wasn't the word Shizuo was thinking of. So he kept looking until finally, on the seventh result down—

There. He pointed at it so that the two leaned over his shoulders could see it. “That’s the one. Idemromantic.”

Shinra read the definition aloud with Anri mouthing along. “Idemromantic. Experiencing platonic and romantic feelings inscrutable from each other and using outside information to tell them apart, ie. social cues, gender roles, etcetera…”

Shizuo felt his back hit the chair as they both leaned back from the screen, his shoulders suddenly cold. 

Shinra spoke up, his voice loud in Shizuo’s left ear. “Huh. Does that sound right, Anri?”

Silence. 

“Anri?”

Shizuo looked over his shoulder, and flinched. Shinra leaned forward, trying to get a good look at Anri and her o-shaped mouth, then moved back, equally as surprised. Tears rolled down the girl’s face, her eyes blanketed white by her glasses but the wetness on her cheeks indisputable. “There’s a word for it…there’s people just like me..” her voice is clear and in awe. “I’m not alone..”

Shinra gave an awkward grin and looked at Shizuo, who felt completely out of his depth. He didn’t know how to react to crying teens. Especially ones who didn't cry with their entire face. They were silent tears; at least if she were bawling he could pat her on the back and offer a tissue, but with her just standing there, all quiet like that, he didn’t know what he was supposed to do.

 A grin was forming on her face. “I’m not alone..!” She said again. 

 

Celty got back as soon as Anri was leaving. They met just as she was entering the door. Celty worried over her a bit, waving her hands in concern and typing on her phone. 

“Why does it look like I’ve been crying? Haha..It’s a bit of a long story,” Anri smiled kindly. “I’ll text you about it when I get home. It’s kinda late.”

Celty typed something and held up her phone again. 

“Really? I mean, I couldn’t..I don’t want to bother you…”

More typing. 

Anri read it and nodded. “Ok, sure! I can tell you on the way. Oh! Uh, thank you Mr. Kiani! Uh, Shizuo!”

Shizuo raised two fingers in response, but didn’t say anything as he passed by the opposite end of the foyer back to the kitchen.

Shinra poked his head into the foyer with a grin. “Bye, Anri! And just call me Shinra from now on, OK?”

Celty and the teen soon left, and Shizuo let out a sigh of relief. 

“You did good there, kid.” Shinra went over to him and sat on the counter by where Shizuo was sitting on a barstool. 

“I’m the same age as you, .” His eyes were closed behind his glasses, his head tilted towards the ceiling and his elbows on the counter. 

“You sure? It’s hard to tell sometimes— OW! Rude…ouch! Hey, stop! Ow!”