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“Do you love me?”
The question came suddenly, cutting through the morning’s comfortable silence. Suoh lifted his head from his book, surprise apparent in his expression, to look at where Fubuki sat across from him. Fubuki tapped his finger against his coffee cup, lowering his head to stare at his feet through the glass dining table.
As he anticipated Suoh's answer, Fubuki recounted the last two months. How it had become commonplace for the two of them to give each other a peck on the cheek before Fubuki left for work, a routine born from a thoughtless, sleep-deprived action the morning after a particularly long night of training. Just from that, the answer seemed obvious to him, but a single detail made such a conclusion dubious: neither of them had said ‘I love you’ to each other. Ever.
His book now set aside, Suoh brought his hand to his chin. “Would you like the simple answer or the complicated one?”
Fubuki took another sip of his coffee before answering. “Alright, lay it on me.”
“When it comes down to it I’d say yes, I do love you,” Suoh waved his hand to the side and Fubuki’s heart immediately skipped a beat as he continued, “but it’s not romantic love. Although, I don’t really believe it’s platonic love either.”
Fubuki could feel his heart rate begin to climb. “So, uh, would you say it’s like a queerplatonic love then?”
“Hmmmm…” Suoh moved his hand to his chin once more and furrowed his eyebrows, “I’m not quite sure. Why do you ask?”
Setting his cup to the side, Fubuki swallowed the lump forming in his throat and took a deep breath. “I guess it’s just that… well, we’ve been living with each other for over 3 months now and I just. I don’t really know what we are.”
“Ah, I see,” Suoh’s expression relaxed as he leaned back into his chair.
Despite this, Fubuki's pulse continued to race, his eyes flicking about the room, desperate to avoid making direct contact with Suoh’s. “So I was just asking ‘cause, y’know, if you said you did love me, like romantically, then I’d say I love you too in that way, cause I do,” Suoh opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, Fubuki continued his frantic rant, “I mean at least I think I do. B-but if what you feel is more of a queerplatonic thing then I’d be cool with that too! Um, we could be like queerplatonic p—”
“Fubuki, please,” Suoh gently cut him off, “I’m not in any rush to label our relationship. I don’t need us to be ‘boyfriends’ or ‘queerplatonic partners.’ I’m ok with just being, I don’t know, something. Or nothing even.” He gave Fubuki a reassuring smile.
Fubuki let out a long breath. “Yeah alright, I get you.” He shuffled his feet awkwardly. “So,” he straightened his posture, “just to recap. You don’t love me romantically, or platonically. But you do love me.” Suoh nodded and Fubuki rested his jaw into his own palm. “Heh, wouldn’t it be easier to just say ‘I don’t love you?’” Fubuki cursed himself out internally. Before Suoh could respond to his stupid comment, he threw his hands up. “WAIT NO I didn’t mean that, I uh, uuuuuuh,” he flailed his hands around, his mind racing to find something to salvage the conversation. “Ah, just. Forget what I said.”
Suoh didn’t respond. Fubuki had really screwed this up.
After a moment though, Suoh let out a thoughtful hum. “Well, maybe that’s not such a bad idea.”
Fubuki’s eyes widened. “Uh, what do you mean?”
“I don’t know, I guess I’m thinking about how some people who are close will sometimes say ‘I hate you’ to each other in a playful way, but they really mean they love each other. Maybe we could do something similar. It would just be our own way of saying ‘I love you, but not in a conventional way.’”
Fubuki considered the idea before responding, “Alright, how about we try it then?”
Suoh nodded, but instead they both stared at each other waiting for the other to say it.
“I don’t l—”
“I don’t love y—”
They both began to blurt out the words, their voices overlapping and drowning each other out.
“Aha, um,” Fubuki cleared his throat, “how about I go first?” Suoh nodded and Fubuki cleared his throat again, looking to Suoh. “I don’t love you.”
“I don’t love you too.”
There was a moment of silence, the two of them looking into each other’s eyes. And then there was a snort as Suoh leaned over the dining table cackling, tears forming in the corners of his eyes. It was contagious, Fubuki doubling over in laughter as well. It felt impossible not to find humor in something so silly.
As their laughter subsided, Suoh wiped his eyes, wrinkles at their corners from the huge smile spread across his face. “You know,” he rested his chin on his palm, “it’s funny. I spent practically all of my life just completely miserable. I really thought that maybe, just maybe, finding a romantic partner would prove I was worth something and I’d finally be happy. And I believed that if I couldn’t, then I was unlovable.”
Fubuki said nothing, looking intently at Suoh as he continued.
“Now here I am, sitting across from the person I live with who I just said I love, and we’re saying we don’t love each other,” Suoh chuckled again. “And I’m happy with that. I’m happy just being… us.”
Fubuki nodded and smiled softly, a warmth spreading through his chest. “Yeah. I’m happy with that too.”
They both leaned back into their chairs, Suoh picking up his book and Fubuki grabbing his coffee and phone, letting the comfortable silence of the morning set upon them once again.