"I can say"-- he switches to Chinese-- "'hello, I'm so glad to be here in the wonderful country of China.'" His accent is atrocious.

He laughs a little, not unkindly, and corrects the pronunciation. 

Ben eventually gets it right!

His smile is huge.

He's so good. He's so, so good. Chen never wants him to stop smiling like that. 

He will just have to keep cuddling Chen and then he won't!

An excellent solution all around. 

The next morning, once Ben has gone off to class, Asher appears in Chen's room.

"Can we talk?"

He doesn't know what this is about. 

(He has a sinking feeling that he knows what this is about.) 

"Yes, of course." 

"Ben likes you. A lot."

"And I like Ben a lot." 

"--Ben is the most important person in my life."

"He's very quickly becoming the most important person in mine." 

"Right. So we should get on the same page."

About what, he doesn't say. 

"Yes," he says. 

"...Which I'm not entirely sure how to do because up until now all the other people in his life have been"-- he gestures-- "Audrey."

"At least they aren't dating anymore?" 

"She was. Unobjectionable."

"She was unobjectionable and he treated dates like they were a chore and I'm glad he isn't doing that anymore." 

And he won't have the twisting hollow pit in his stomach anymore. There's that too. 

"I hope he'll find someone to date that he doesn't object to."

"Not sure 'doesn't object' is the criteria I'd use, but yes." 

Asher is watching him very very closely.

"I imagine he has a very specific type."

"I'm not sure why you'd think that?" 

"When you're someone like Ben you can wind up having a public persona that's very different from the person you really are in private."

"...yes, I'm familiar with the phenomenon, but what does that have to do with having a specific type." 

He shrugs.

"Just that there's a certain kind of person Ben is supposed to like and I am pretty sure that is not the sort of person he actually does like."