Chapter Text
it starts like this:
Tubbo is a boy. Other kids his age point out girls to each other. He notices at recess when girls giggle at each other, discussing crushes. He doesn’t get it. He’s pretty sure they’re still just kids so why —
He gets older. Boys ask objects of their attention out. Tubbo feels nothing. He pretends to, but he doesn’t feel the attraction. Or maybe he does? Maybe this is what it’s like, adoring a friend and wanting to be with them all the time. Maybe that’s romance. Maybe that means he has a crush. In school, a girl teases him. He teases back, but it’s just banter, he thinks. Is teasing flirting? Is that the way it’s always perceived?
He doubts but he thinks that yes, that’s a crush, so he teases - flirts - back and that’s the end of it.
Then, years later, Tubbo is asking Eret what a flag he found in a cousin’s room means. He doesn’t think it’s a flag for a country, he probably would’ve recognized it if it were thanks to the times he’s spoken to Wilbur about flags.
Especially considering that when he’d looked at the flag curiously, his cousin had caught his gaze and laughed. They said, “Oh, yeah, sorry, I use she, he and they pronouns. It just depends on the day if I like one more than the other.”
He’s fine with that, of course! Whatever pronouns make said cousin feel safer and more comfortable in themself is great! Tubbo just— He wishes he’d recognized the flag. Recognized what it meant. So, after he'd gotten home, he’d messaged Eret.
Tubbo
heyyyy eret i have a question about a flag
im pretty sure its for an lgbt identity
help
In lieu of a message back, Tubbo hears the familiar Discord ringtone. He answers on his computer, because it has the better mic, and says, “Uh, hey, sorry I didn’t mean to inconvenience you or anything. Are you busy?”
“Not at all,” Eret’s deep voice says back, “I just thought I’d call. Maybe we can talk about other flags so you’ll recognize them in the future, if you’d like?”
“Oh!” Tubbo says, because that’s really nice of Eret to offer and why not, it’d be good for a popular content creator to be educated on LGBT culture, wouldn’t it? “Sure, yeah, that sounds good.”
“First of all, what did the flag look like?”
“Uhhh,” Tubbo tries to picture it in his head, “Five horizontal stripes. Pink then white then magenta-y purple then black then blue, I think.”
“That sounds like the genderfluid flag,” Eret says without missing a beat. Tubbo’s brows furrow because he definitely recognizes the term but not quite what it means. Before he can ask, Eret is delving into an explanation.
Tubbo isn’t sure how much time passes with Eret explaining what flags look like and what they mean before Eret mentions the identity aromantic and describes it as someone who, quote, “doesn’t experience romantic attraction.”
Tubbo is good at holding his tongue usually but he can’t stop himself from asking, “That’s a thing?”
“Yeah, of course. You know how asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction, yeah?” Tubbo hums as confirmation. “Aromanticism means you don’t feel romantic attraction.” Eret keeps talking, explaining how there’s demiromantics and grayromantices, similar to the different degrees of asexuality.
Tubbo doesn’t hear any of it.
He knows Eret doesn’t mean him when he said ‘you’, that it was just a general explanation, but nonetheless it has Tubbo thinking about it. Because—
Because Tubbo doesn’t know if he has ever crushed on anyone. He adores people and loves platonically so strongly and he has eyes , obviously people are pretty, but he doesn’t know if he has felt that attraction—
Shouldn’t I know if I have? Tubbo wonders, because he’s gone through phases with his identity and nothing ever feeling right - he’s not straight, he’s not gay, he’s not bi, what is he - and everyone he’s asked said that you kind of just know . He doesn’t understand that. He’s never just known . He’s always had to think about it consciously and pick someone to crush on. It’s never felt like it’ll just happen, like he just likes someone, just like that.
“Tubbo?” Eret’s voice snaps Tubbo back into focus. He tries to stop thinking about the fact that people don’t experience romantic attraction.
“Yeah?” It doesn’t work very well. All he can think about is just wanting to befriend someone, about friends pointing out someone they want to date and Tubbo thinking, ‘Aren’t we too young? You already want to date someone?’ and never wanting to ask out anyone on a date himself.
“Does that make sense?”
“Yes,” Tubbo lies through his teeth, considering he didn’t hear half of it. He pauses, pretends to hear someone calling for him and clears his throat, an apologetic tone at the ready. “Hey, uh, sorry, but my family and I have plans. We’re leaving in ten minutes so I should go. Thank you for this though! Bye Eret!”
Eret’s startled goodbye back gets cut off when Tubbo hangs up. He leans back in his chair and stares up at the ceiling and thinks about it. He thinks about the word aromantic, and he wonders if that label would feel more right.
He thinks about how the idea of romance seems appealing because it’s always there in the media but the thought of actually experiencing it himself is a little terrifying and not nearly as intriguing as it’s maybe supposed to be. He’s watched shows and wanted the couple to get together so badly , watched them pine for each other hopelessly and then get together and have that dramatic kiss and go on dates and be sickeningly romantic, and he thinks he’s never really actually yearned for that himself.
He returns to his computer, goes onto Google and searches up ‘aromantic’. He finds Tumblr posts and articles about people discovering their identity and he goes through them and reads and learns and relates .
The identity feels safe and it seems— It seems so right in a way nothing he’s tried has been before.
He stares blankly at the tabs he has open on aromanticism and queerplatonic relationships and being romance repulsed and aromantics who do date and demiros and greyros and the different ways to be aromantic, how there’s seemingly no wrong way.
So, he decides to identify as that. To at least try it for a while.
and so the story goes.