"I am! You must have been so scared."

"I was — you were burned really badly, I —" and he doesn't finish the sentence and kisses Ben instead. 

"But I'm fine now. Because you love me."

"You are." Kiss. "And I do." 

"We should get married! --Not right now, we're fifteen, but."

"Someday," he says softly. "...that's a really nice someday." 

"You say it's nice now but wait until the entertainment news people are constantly bugging you about your clothes choices."

"Oh, they do that anyway, there's a reason Lonnie wears the most touristy Auradonian version of Chinese formalwear you can possibly find." 

"So it's perfect! Asher will have so many questions for you to see if you'd make a good-- queen? King consort?"

"Shoot, I have to tell Asher."

"I'll go with you to tell him, if you want." 

"I really don't want him to think I'm weird and gross."

Meanwhile--

Since Ben and Chen are out of town, it's a great time for Asher to take the train back to New Orleans to see his family as well as certain other... entertainments.

It's night. They're in the bushes in a part of the park families never go to. The man's hands are in Asher's hair and he's fucking Asher's mouth with enthusiasm. White men are always risky-- sometimes they start commenting on your race, and then you have to figure out how to exit gracefully while minimizing the chance of getting beat up-- but this guy is keeping his comments to Asher being a good cocksucker who likes it when men use his mouth, so Asher is just happy and floaty and good.

The guy's breath hitches and he comes down Asher's throat and Asher swallows. 

"My wife never does that," the guy says. 

Asher sits back on his heels and shrugs, as if to say that it's obvious you don't get as good service from spouses as you do from randos in the bushes. 

The guy stares at Asher as if he wants to say something, then does up his pants and flees. 

Asher stands up, wipes the grass off his knees, and ponders whether he wants to suck another dick before he tries to get his dick sucked to finish the night off.

"...he was very specific that my job was to make sure you were happy. I don't think he'd be awful about it." 

"He was? That's cute. --But I don't know if he meant 'happy' in the sense of, like, kissing me. His dad was really mad when we were caught kissing."

"He was. — I don't know either, I just — think he'll care more about whether it affects Auradon than whether it's gross." 

"I dunno. We were caught kissing and then his dad looked really mad and started yelling and Naveen, like, never yells, and then Asher never talked to me about it again."

Chen doesn't know what to say, so he hugs him instead. 

"I'm sorry." 

"I'm going to tell him because I love you and I am not ashamed of you and Naveen can yell as much as he wants."

"I love you. And I'll be there, whatever Naveen says." 

"I mean, I'm literally going to be an unquestionable autocrat."

"You aren't wrong. It just — felt like it needed saying." 

Ben's face is extremely good and Chen is going to kiss it. 

Kissing!

"We should not have clothes on."

That sounds very much like an invitation to take Ben's shirt off. 

Ben thinks he should also not be wearing pants.