"So Harry and Sasha get to date girls and I have to date a boy? That's not fair!" 

"It's not that I'm forbidding you from dating a girl because I'm mean! You literally metaphysically cannot date a girl."

"Isn't romance just dating and kissing and all that sappy shit you people here do? Why can't I do that with Lonnie Li if nobody's stopping me?" 

"True love is a special and powerful magic. It can break curses, lay waste to armies, and even bring the dead back to life. And it is a matter of magical fact that only one man and one woman in a healthy, functional romantic relationship are able to use true love magic."

"Laying waste to armies sounds fun, but I think I'd rather suck cock."

"Have other people tried? And what does that have to do with dating anyway, Jane and Carlos aren't bringing anyone back to life and I bet they're not doing any magic either." 

Sasha stays quiet. 

Fairy Godmother pointedly ignores Harry. "Of course other people have tried! The Isle didn't invent evil, you know. And it matters because if we know true love leads to certain powers, and people in a particular kind of relationship don't have those powers, then they must not really love each other."

He really should keep being quiet. 

But. Maybe he's too selfish to say the same but Kaleva really does love him, he's certain of that in a way he can't remember having been certain of anything. 

"I've been told that parents in Auradon love their children sometimes. So romantic love can't be the only kind of real love." 

"Of course! All parents love their children. And parental love is also the only other kind of love that can break curses and bring the dead back to life."

"Not all parents love their children. 

And do friends not care about each other here?" 

"Of course friends care about each other, but it's not the special kind of love that exists between a parent and a child or a man and a woman."

"Every parent and every child, huh." 

He can't tell how much he's trying to steer the conversation away from how heterosexual monogamy is the only option, how much he's bitter about his own family, and how much he's bitter about Kaleva's. 

"Well, some people on the Isle are very evil and that causes them not to love their children, but certainly in Auradon every parent loves their children!"

"My dad loved me."

"So did mine."

"See, even on the Isle parental love is strong!"

…Kaleva wouldn't want him to bring that up. 

"I guess. 

I still don't get what true love has to do with dating. If friends can care about each other without it being true love, why can't people date someone just because they like spending time around them?" 

"We want everyone to experience true love! If we encourage people to have relationships with people of the same gender, or more than one relationship at once, then a bunch of people will never get to experience love. That would be so sad."

How about he doesn't engage with that. 

The conversation moves on. 

The next time he's alone, Kaleva makes a second chart. 

The first item on it is "forcing Chen into sex".

Over the next couple of days, Chen is more visibly relaxed than he has been in a long time; he doesn't hold himself as stiffly and he's more comfortable with Sasha and Kaleva than he has been in weeks. 

Kaleva is glowing. 

For the first time in his life he gets a B on a test and he is physically incapable of experiencing any negative emotions about this whatsoever.

Huh. That's interesting. 

When Sasha and Kaleva arrive at their usual table, Prince Asher is there, eating gumbo. (The school cafeteria does not in fact serve gumbo.)

"…Hi. You're Asher, right? I'm Sasha."