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1
Physical intimacy. Sae pretends to understand. For all it seems to be, it's an act, dressed into a set of words. Painted with labels. A mountain of societal expectations, built upon human frameworks. ‘Sin’ and ‘lust,’ reproduction, orgasms and stimulation. Words.
Physical intimacy. Instinct, a gut feeling? An attempt at uniting physicality with spirituality? An energy exchange?
Physical intimacy. A (too) roundabout way to describe the rather simple act of reproduction. It is, after everything, merely the coming together of bodies for purposes that lay beneath reason…no?
Physical intimacy. Sae still pretends to understand. That gnawing in his gut proves how his pretense falls short, gutted.
“August, right?”
“Mh. We are all so excited.”
“I can imagine! Six months really flew by in no time. So, what’cha think—boy or girl?”
“Dude, you can't just ask him that!”
“Nah, nah, it's alright. In the end, all we want is for the baby to be healthy. Gender doesn't really matter to us.”
“Well, you got a point there…but come on now. We know you. All that grand speech just for him to want a daughter anyways!”
“Can’t really argue with that…just imagine—my little princess wearing my jersey. Man, I'm getting teary just thinking about it!”
“Oh yeah!”
“I can just see it!”
Clinking of glasses, and then they toast to fatherhood. The image festers, settles. Little daughters bounced on the knee, boasting the jersey of their owner. Wives sitting in the stand, pristine and unattainable, leering over the post onto the pitch. The lure of a family.
Sae doesn't get it.
Next to his untouched rum, another glass is set onto the wooden table. The condensation drips onto the wood, staining it. Under the fluorescent lights of the bar, the maroon of the liquor reflects blonde and a sullen shade of pine.
“What’s with the attitude?”
“Nothing,” says Sae.
Luna nods, unimpressed. “Maybe you’d appreciate another drink?”
“No.”
“I see.”
“In case you forgot, you are invited to the baby shower.”
“Okay.”
“You going?”
“No.”
“Hm. Thought so,” hums Luna. Sae hears the self-satisfied smirk without needing to look at him.
“...You ever thought about it?”
“What?”
“Kids.”
“Oh,” Luna licks the rim of his dirty martini, smacks his lips. “Sure. Someday.”
Sae stares. Together, the bachelors linger in the tune of the bar, accompanied by the bartenders rustling.
“Why?”
A nocturne in solitude.
“Why not?”
He really doesn't get it.
2
He moves in hypotheses: H1, H2, H3. Research shows that physical intimacy takes many shapes and forms. There's intimacy in views from neuroscience. The research of the lack of physical intimacy in resident homes. How intimacy forms between a mother and child, creates a familial bond.
He looks over his own field notes.
Sae loves being alone. Sae loves his independence, the lack of questions and doubts and expectations. Sae, most of all, loves his freedom. Exploration comes easy to him, as long as there are no strings attached. He likes keeping his options open. Wide open, yet the door never really creaks open more than an inch. That's all he is allowed.
Therefore, the conclusion is definite: One doesn't need physicality to survive.
There's also limitations. Late at night, when the cracks start seeping out, Sae stumbles upon the idea of asexuality. Both a spectrum and an umbrella term that generally refers to those who experience low/no sexual attraction.
At some point the terminology starts morphing. Interest becomes curiosity, ‘straight’ to ‘unlabeled’ to ‘questioning.’ What he is questioning though, that's of true interest.
It feels frightening, being seen.
It feels frighteningly good, being denied.
Therefore, the conclusion is definite: Sae, in particular, doesn't need physicality to survive.
(If he were to re-do the study however, he’d tell his fellow researcher to consider feeble feelings. That void of not knowing. Consequences. Apprehension.)
In the end, it’s a study in doubt.
That weekend, Sae meets his brother. His brother, who appears to be—against all odds—happily taken.
Apparently, Rin managed to snag himself a partner. A miracle, as the stunted expression of their mother revealed, when he brought home one delighted Isagi Yoichi a mere eleven weeks ago.
The entire ‘meeting-the-boyfriends-parents’ thing went over without a hitch. Surprisingly, the two of them fit well. Perhaps too well, when Sae peers at how Isagi gently places a piece of Kintsuba in front of Rin without even batting an eye.
Sae merely hums, pretends that the revelation doesn't sting. He glances at Rin, across from him.
Five lashes. One, two, three, four, five. 6:31 AM and 9:47 PM, everyday, the mirror cackles at Sae. It's only with the sixth lash that Rin finally subsides, and Sae morphs back into Sae.
Glancing into that reflection means acknowledging innocence, one that's been shattered beyond repair.
“We're not similar,” they insisted, knowing they were of the same blood, the same muscle tissue, identical veins and organs grown from one womb. Knowing they were both socially inadept, awkward prodigies.
In that, Sae found solace. Rin would never, ever know about this shameful relief he felt year after year, both still seated across from their parents on Christmas eve. It meant he at least wasn't failing alone.
Now, Rin’s capable of human relationships. Sae is not. Though the thought is morbid, Rin is therefore capable of physical relationships as well.
Sae—indeed—is not. Not for the lack of trying, no. He’s just…not.
It shouldn't be this baffling.
Now, his age-old solitude came knocking again. Sae exhales as he watches Rin grunt at something Isagi said. On his lips, a begrudged smile curls.
Kamakura had been a tad too quiet for his liking anyway.
3
Nobody ever told Sae about the anxiety.
It almost always starts with a churning in his lower belly. At first, he couldn't confirm the feeling, didn't recognize it. Sae didn't feel anxious—Sae felt apathetic, neutral, at ease. There's nothing that could rattle him.
Then came the looks. The remarks. The lingering gazes. The lustful tongue, licking over lips. The idea, sparking alive in conversation. The image of him, splayed on a mattress, bent into curious shapes.
Sae knows he is desired. His body just doesn't know what to do with it. And so, it resorts to instilling fear.
Speaking to people who harbour interest in him renders him physically ill. Speaking to people who harbour no interest in him makes him question.
When would it ever be enough?
It's not as if Sae has never prepositioned for sex before. Shidou Ryuusei didn't exactly conceal his desire for the elder Itoshi, never had. In fact, he drew his interest very clearly, strokes of vivid magenta and hydrangea blue. To Sae’s dismay, paint dries painfully slowly.
“Why won't you say anything?”
He shrugs. Sees Shidou turn towards the window, stained with a pinkish tint. Sae regards the motion, crumbles it in his palm and stuffs it in his backpocket. He finds his palm cocooned in warmth, seeped from his own skin.
It's almost mocking.
“Ya know, I always thought you were beautiful. Sometimes I thought you were something that only exists outside the periphery, outside of what's attainable. It made me want to—want you even more.”
Advances such as these flock quite naturally to Sae. He pretends the words bounce off of him, as if the cold sweat permeating his neck is only a trick of his mind. A mere fleeting imagination.
“You were never like the others though. No, you were—mh. Different. Yeah, just different.”
Outside, the snowflakes lay beautifully. It's a shame they never last.
“Sometimes, I wish you were though,” Shidou then says, wistfully. “Just like the rest. Then, at very least, I would've had you.”
“What a shame then,” says Sae.
“Mh. Truly a shame,” says Shidou.
Amidst the greying white and tints of magenta, he is overspilling and doesn't know how to stop it.
4
All around him, humans have become plants. Flowers grow to be useless, though pretty. Purposeless, except for embellishing what has already withered. Colorful, all too eager to twist and pull and bloom.
Everyone only ever focuses on the petals, the stems and thorns and rusks. But underneath those rusks and stems, the pot remains. And the act of unmasking the pot, lifting it to reveal what has grown underneath, remains a task that Sae refuses profusely.
Bunny doesn't announce himself. Doesn't need to, as he has a key to Sae’s place, knows the passcode, the emergency passcode and his janitor's number by heart.
Sae never gave him the information himself. He merely gave up trying.
“Want some tea?”
“Sure. Black, if you have it.”
Twenty minutes later, Sae sets a steaming cup of oolong tea in front of Bunny. His own, orange blossom, lies across the glass table.
“The Ballon D’or is next week,” says Bunny, as his eyes rest on the steam.
“You going?”
“Dunno. Haven't found a strong enough reason yet.”
Sae blinks. “....You are literally nominated.”
“Oh,” Bunny retorts, eyes dead. “Ah. Right. I almost forgot.”
Bunny is very annoying, Sae thinks. “That doesn't convince you?”
“Nah,” he shrugs. “Not really.”
God, does Sae hate him. “You are so fucking annoying.”
Bunny breaks out in a fierce grin. “Now that's more like it.”
He thought he could do it, really. But lukewarm is the tea in Sae’s hands, just like the precarious peace he's been trying to maintain between them.
“Are you going?”
Sae thinks for a moment. “Yes,” he answers in the end.
“Huh,” Bunny smacks his lips, leans onto his palm. “That’s surprising.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah. Thought you were too busy and all that.”
“I am busy,” says Sae, deadpan.
“Right. You are,” agrees Bunny.
They don’t touch. Sae wants to, sometimes—especially when Bunny keeps his distance on his own. But they don't. Keeping his peace is worth more than risking the inevitable. That is, smashing Bunny’s head into the glass table, after all.
“Well, see you on the red carpet next week!” Bunny sings-songs later, when he leaves Sae’s apartment with a spring in step.
Jeez, Sae thinks as the door clicks shut. Bunny is very annoying indeed.
5
Touch starved is such a ridiculous sequence of words.
‘But everyone needs touch to survive—”
A whole load of bullshit, in Sae’s opinion. How can one be starved of something they've never grown accustomed to?
He's always found peace in the comfort of space. It’s a judgement free zone. Those who willingly strip themselves bare are weak, inviting scrutiny all for free. Why succumb to dissection, when he could spare himself such a probing examination?
Sometimes the body is a curse and the only solution is to cage it in isolation. Suppression works funny in some ways.
Sae moves away before he registers why. Isagi seems taken aback, when his hand remains outstretched in the space between them.
“Uhm—sorry,” he breathes, awkwardly. Then retracts his hand, to scratch at his scalp. All the while, the silver chain rattled to the ground, slipped through his fingers. From there, it seems to glare at Sae in accusation.
First, Sae only blinks. “It's okay,” he then says. He doesn't mean it though.
See! What you do?
He was only supposed to take the chain. Let his brother's boyfriend place it onto his neck and be grateful, say ‘Thank you for the consideration’ and be happy they have brought him a belated birthday gift.
Instead, Sae now sits on the far end of the coach, chain on the floor, between him and Isagi, with bile churning in his throat and a million of pricks stinging from where Isagi would have grazed his ice-cold skin.
Why can't you just function like a normal human being?
Isagi nods, perplexed. “It's okay, I could have said something first.”
Yeah, Sae thinks. He could've. Should've, even.
If you weren't so weird, he wouldn't have to, the chain snips.
Shut up, Sae snips back.
This was his business. And only his.
6
Sexuality. At times, the question arises.
What, who, when, why, how? What does it hold? What does it mean? A label? An assortment of colors? A flag? A need to explain, an itch to classify? What are you made of? What parts of you have been concealed? What have you discovered?
And at the end of it, only one question remains: Who are you?
Bunny comes by again, invited this time. He leans against the doorframe, crossing his scarred arms. “So, you want me to move the couch?”
“Yeah,” Sae replies, moving items from the couch table to the kitchen. “It's been annoying me. Thought I could try it against the window front.”
“Hm. Sure. Let's try it.”
As Bunny moves towards the space, Sae strategically moves away. Let the striker be of use for once and work him to the bone. All the while, he busies himself with re-arranging his shelves.
Then Bunny’s voice pierces through. “Sae, can you lift the edge here?”
Sae grunts, yet complies because he is not completely soulless. He moves next to Bunny, gripping the soft cushion. Suddenly, without warning, their fingers graze.
The touch sends goosebumps down his spine. Sae snaps his gaze towards Bunny, in schock—only to find him already leering at Sae. His mouth is twisted in a disgusting smirk. Shit. As if in victory, as if his eyes were to say ‘See? Wasn't so bad now!’
Fuck. Hate is too shallow a word to describe his loathing towards Bunny Iglesias. Sae hates his voice, his limbs, his thoughts, feelings, each inhale and matching exhale from his mouth. At least Ryuusei was respectful about boundaries. Bunny seems to regard them—and trample them with a sinister grin on his face.
Sae wills his racing pulse to calm. He moves away from the crime scene and pretends the brief second of contact hasn't unravelled him wholly.
“I don't like it there,” Sae says instead. “Move it back.”
“But Sae!” Bunny complains, “The couch is so heavy!”
“Too bad.”
They don't touch again. Shortly after, when the couch is back at its original place, Bunny takes the hint and leaves. “Bye bye, Sae! See you this weekend!”
Sae hears the door click shut and immediately appreciates the space. He glances at the couch. One step forward, ten back. Just like him.
He wonders if he’ll ever maintain a relationship without dying.
7
For a long time, Sae has wondered when exactly the notion of ‘intimacy’ comes into play when it comes to the word physical intimacy. After all, he can't remember the last time he felt intimate with someone who’s touched him.
Yes, his parents hug him goodbye and welcome home. Yes, his teammates clap his back when his pass leads to a goal. Yes, his physical therapist massages his calves.
Yet, there's absolutely nothing intimate about those touches. Bodies touching has nothing to do with intimacy. Not that Sae would be the ideal advisor anyway. What would he know about that?
He can't remember the last time he touched Rin outside the pitch. It's probably better this way, too. The only relationship in his life that actually mattered he mangled with his own hands and fickle tongue.
Against all odds, Sae is not actually a virgin. He was thirteen years old, barely into his first days of puberty. That first sprout of adulthood decided it was time for Sae to tread into muddy waters.
At first, it felt foreign, when Bunny traced his lips down his spine. Idly, gently. It itched. He wondered where that tenderness stemmed from, considering the welts and bandages from the left wrist shifted against his thigh, when he moved further down.
Rust clung onto him, where he expected smoothness. His eyelids fluttered shut, in an attempt to pull some fleeting emotion from the pit that was his stomach. He returned empty-handed.
Huh. Sae expected it to feel good, to feel bad. He expected it to feel anything but so…apathetic. As he clung onto Bunny's shoulder, rocking against his firm skin, he bathed in his own limpness.
It was the only time Sae would ever let another inch this close to his core.
Afterwards, Bunny just left. For how long the tension built up between them, how fierce the competition had become, their clashing had been frighteningly anti-climactic.
He wondered if it was his fault. He wondered if Bunny was like this with others. He decided he didn't want to find out.
The next morning, Sae took the soiled bedsheets and threw them away himself. Better let any evidence be buried for good.
8
He’s a sorry sight, unloved and unable. Bunny kneels before Sae, palms curled against each knee. His head rests in Sae’s lap, lavender curls a frenzied mess. They are still both in suits, the golden trophy lying uselessly next to Bunny on the floor.
Of course he's won the Ballon D’or.
“Why do you not like me?” Bunny whimpers, words slurred at the edges.
“I can't pretend,” replies Sae, flat.
“Can’t you try?”
He already is. Only that Bunny can't see what it takes, with his face heavily buried in Sae’s thighs.
“...I did,” Sae slowly says. “I really did.”
Underneath his knees, Bunny fiddles with his thumb, traces down a bulged line across his wrist. “Was it that bad? Back then?”
“We were kids.”
“Ah,” Bunny exhales. The scratching intensifies. “Kids. I see.”
“Stop. Don't do that.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“It’s not.”
“You know it is.”
“Just—come on. Your hands—Bunny. Hey. Stop doing that to yourself. That isn't going to solve anything.”
The sounds let up slightly. “You sound as if there ever was a solution.”
“You know it's not that simple,” Sae sighs. “It never was.”
Bunny grunts. “No. It actually is simple. You either try—or don't. It is you who refuses to acknowledge that.”
“And what gives you the right to say that? You don't know me. You've never known me and that's why you're here, kneeling. If you ever even knew me a bit, we wouldn't be here right now.”
“...”
“?”
“...”
“...Iglesias?”
“...”
“...You don't drink your tea hot.”
“You—what does that have to do—?”
“—You always wait until it cools down, just before it reaches room temperature. Something about warm beverages that kickstart digestion. Which yours suck at, so you drink that shit. And you always leave the bed with your left leg first. And you never listen to music over 80 decibels. And you hate tomatoes and their texture. You've always had those sensory issues. And your cleats have to match your socks, no matter the match. And you say you have never tried oat milk, despite the fact that—”
“—Bunny.”
“...Sae.”
“Stop. I get it.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah.”
“No. No! You don’t. I can tell.”
“...I’m sor—”
“No! Don’t. No, no. Just…don’t. I can't. Not you. Not from you.”
“...Okay.”
“Okay.”
A few moments pass. Then, Sae shifts. “...Is this how it's always going to be between us?”
“Hah.” Bunny snorts. It’s a mean sound. “Y’now, you’ll always keep resenting me. I don't know if you know it, but I do. I really, really do. Nothing will ever change that, and you can keep deluding yourself into thinking you are fine but you are not fine.
“As long as I am here, you'll never be.
“I'm a reminder of your mistakes, the culmination of everything you despise. Without me, you'd be—well, I don't know what you'd be, I can't look into the future. But at least you wouldn't have known and still maybe—I don't know, believed.
“You could’ve…experienced it differently. Maybe not grown to hate it so much. Fuck, I am what you hate. So, yes—this is how it is and will always be between us.”
“...Bunny?”
“Yes?”
“Get the fuck out of my room.”
“...Okay.”
Twenty minutes later, Sae still sits on the hotel bed. He finds his thighs pulsing, where Bunny was just lying on them.
Physical intimacy. In the end, it is an impossible possibility.
The admission is embarrassing. He’s always wanted to fall in love. He’s wanted it, yearned for that even. That flush rising to his cheeks at the slightest mention of it. He’s wanted a hand clutching at his wrist, and that devastating realization.
He’s even wanted the heartbreak, because then, at least it's proof he'd been loved at one point. Loved, at some point. Loved, against all odds. Loved, despite what he's been. Loved, despite what he's become.
But how can he love, when nothing in his body allows for it? How can he be loved, when he doesn't even know what love looks like?
On the hotel sheets, Sae lies awake, wide at night. Alone, as always. He'd never admit it, but he wishes someone was here. Bunny, Ryuusei, Isagi, Rin—it doesn't even matter who. He just wants to be seen, for once.
But his body remembers. It still keeps the door open, just a tiny bit.
Dysfunctionality disguises itself as comfort, when it comes to embrace him after hours. It stuffs his ears with cotton and sings him a lullaby, sweet sounds of how safe he will be in his solitude.
By sunrise, he regrets all over again.