Entry the First

    "Why does everyone think we're weird?" I wondered, nibbling on a piece of apple pie and staring out the window at a plaza across the street. The moon painted the city in grayscale, the street lights casting the only spots of golden color onto melancholy buildings. Behind me, Lei shuffled around, changing into their pajamas.

"We are weird, Eden," they answered, "I can't fall in love, you harass allos on the Internet, and we reject everyone who tries to sleep with us. You can turn around now." I heard Lei smirk as I scoffed, setting down my fork.

"That is so rude,” I grumbled, turning in my chair to face them, "Besides, being aroace isn’t weird. Relationships are tiring." Lei shrugged, adjusting the sleeves on their ashy gray sweater. A nonchalant tune slipped elegantly through their lips, a low, silent voice filling the living room and moving with its owner into Lei's bedroom.

"You're going to sleep already?" I called, hearing them crash onto the creaky mattress, "How boring."

"Fuck you," Lei said groggily.

"Disgusting," I muttered, downing the last of my apple pie. Despite the muffled sounds of the evening commuters knocking on our walls, a lonely silence descended on the apartment after Lei fell asleep.

Setting my plate in the sink, I opened the kitchen window. All at once, the swoosh of car engines rushed into the room.

I think there's a certain spell woven so carefully into the night air that only the most attentive can decipher its pattern. Whoever cast it allowed the artist to create and the laborer to rest.

If someone asks me what it's like to fall in love, I would take them outside in the small hours and let them sit in the dark. Let the moon sing them a peaceful lullaby, and the stars lift their burdens off their shoulders as a lover would.

Carefully padding into my room, I heard a muffled snoring from behind Lei’s door. When we moved into the apartment, their snoring was non-existent. It was as if Lei held them back and then pulled them out once they made sure I was stuck with them.

An analog clock ticking loudly from its place above my desk read 10:52. Maybe it's the ticking, the counting down of my life, that keeps me up at night.