"I haven't done anything yet but I'm trying to control my thoughts and it isn't working."

"Okay but what is the thing you want to... do? Hit me? Call me names? Run away and never see me again?"

(Kaleva looks like he's on the verge of doing the second thing himself and is stopped only by immense curiosity.)

"Kiss you."

Kaleva looks much less worried. Mostly he looks surprised.

"Guys can kiss other guys?"

"Yes. It's perverted and wrong, but it happens sometimes. . . . I promise I'll do everything I can to avoid it." 

Kaleva sits in Bruce's lap and kisses him.

Bruce involuntarily melts into the kiss for a fraction of a second, then jerks back. "What--but--you're okay with, with this??"

"--possibly this conversation should happen not in the sauna," Kaleva says. 

"Yes. Yes. Definitely not." Bruce gets to his feet and flees walks at a reasonable brisk pace back to his clothes.

Kaleva puts his clothes back on. "I didn't know that boys could kiss other boys."

Both of them being clothed makes Bruce feel about 1% less at sea. "They can't. I mean, it's physically possible, obviously, but. It's wrong. It's disgusting." It's nicer than disgusting things have any right to be.

Kaleva says, "I love you. I didn't know that guys could love guys-- maybe Auradonians can't, maybe it's a your-world-only thing and it's contagious-- but I love you and when you love someone you're supposed to kiss them."

"Guys can't love each other in my world either. It's just a perverted lust."

(So why does hearing Kaleva say "I love you" feel like seeing the sun rise?)

"...I don't think I know what either of those words mean."

Bruce makes solid eye contact with the floor. "Perverted means---it's like--" aaaaaaa why does he have to explain this out loud "some people--in my world, maybe not here--some men are interested in other men, or animals, or, or kids, the way they should be interested in women."

''...What's wrong with-- oh, I guess animals in your world aren't sapient."

"Yeah. Does that--do you understand the problem now?"

"--uh, I'm not sure I understand the problem? In our world two men can't be in true love with each other but that's... why men don't want to kiss other men. If they do want to kiss other men presumably they are in true love?"

"But I don't love you, it's like--messed-up fake love. It's like being hungry for toothpaste instead of food. We can't get married or have kids or do any of the things that love is for."

"...I am pretty sure that love is for love. It is an end in itself."

"Maybe it is here? In my world love is for coupling the strengths of men to the strengths of women, to form strong families that can bring up children well."

"...no, the purpose of love is to find someone who wants to spend time with you and take care of you and be taken care of by you and build a life with you, and to whom you are the most special and important and best person in the world."

"That sounds really nice. I hope you find someone who can give you that." Kaleva is so good and deserves to be loved by someone good.

Kaleva kisses Bruce's cheek. "And normally you don't want to kiss people unless you're in true love with them."

Bruce flinches. "I don't understand how you could love me. Even if men from your world can love each other." He hopes Kaleva does somehow love him, which is an awful thing to want on top of all the other awful things he wants; Kaleva should love someone good who can make him happy.