He puts his head into Sasha's shoulder. "Sorry."

He pets Lev's hair. "I'm honestly mostly curious." 

"About what?"

"What you found, how you did that, why. You know. The usual things you wonder." He kisses the top of Lev's head. 

"Uh. I paid a lot of attention to you because I have a crush on you? And like. --You don't do your homework but you have a way of thinking about things and approaching problems that is really interesting, I don't know how to describe it, you're good at... subtext and underlying meanings and implications and things like that? You like beautiful things a lot, it made you really happy when we did the poetry unit, and you liked the art appreciation part of art class. You're tired in class a lot, especially in the past year or so, and sometimes you disappear for an afternoon, and sometimes you look injured but you're good enough at hiding that no one would notice it. I assume that's because of your family thing. I'm not going to ask about it, I know you don't want to tell people." 

Sasha is very quietly glowing. 

"I have the best boyfriend ever. That is not nearly enough but it'll have to do for now." 

"I'm your boyfriend?!"

"I am pretty sure once I have taken you to my apartment where we have cuddled on the couch while you had your shirt off, we're boyfriends, although admittedly I have never done this before and don't know what I'm doing." 

"I guess you're my boyfriend! This is pretty awesome. I have never had a boyfriend before."

"Neither have I! I like it a lot so far though." A kiss on Lev's cheek. 

Lev kisses Sasha's cheek and his nose and his forehead and his lips.

Lev has a very good face and Sasha is going to kiss all of it. 

"...um," he says, when they get to a point at which nobody's face is actively at that moment being kissed and so he can say things, "there's someone I'm... we're not dating, but the thing we're doing is kind of like dating? and might at some point transition to being dating? I don't know what the word for this person is but I have one of those. I have not kissed him." 

"That's okay," Lev says. "Can I meet him?"

"....maybe at some point but I would not expect that point to be soon, he has his own family issues." 

"Families are terrible."

"My family issues aren't actually my family's fault, they're great. But they sure can be." 

Lev is pretty skeptical of this because Sasha's family issues keep getting him injured!

But he doesn't want to push. 

"I'm good at keeping secrets if he ever decides he wants to... be less closeted."

He nods. "I'll let him know." When I tell him about you, which I haven't yet but will. 

"But is he cute though."

"He has strong opinions about pizza and gets really excited about cities and takes pictures of the plants that grow in sidewalk cracks and texts me weird 4AM thoughts and is generally adorable." 

"I'm taking notes! Plant pictures, 4am thoughts, pizza opinions."

"Strong opinions and being excited about things in general, it's not specifically the plants I find endearing. 

You're also adorable. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this but just in case." 

"Good for me, if there are two things I'm good at it's strong opinions and being excited about things."

That sounds like a very good excuse to kiss Lev again. 

Kissing!

"Right now, for example, I have the strong opinion that kissing you is good, and I am excited about kissing you."