[ He has to pause, because he doesn't have a ready answer to that soft question. He sets aside his many segments of uneaten orange, sets aside the spiraling peel, and twists around, pulling his hair out of Shi Qingxuan's hands as he does. He needs to see him right now, because for him, he's... he's not sure the issue, in his heart, has anything to do with sex, specifically. And he knows himself well enough not to let himself pretend it is. ]

You've taught me a lot about enjoying it, and I do, with you. But it's... it's not the making love I'd miss if I lost you.

[ His muddled way forward, and that's the truth under it all: loss, and losing, and loneliness. He's lived all his life until the last half year without sex, and yes, he enjoys it, and yes, it's fun, but most of all that has to do with his partner: has to do with Shi Qingxuan. He'd made a form of love with Konoha, but that... in so many ways, nothing about it had been the same. It's not something he yearns for; it's not her arms he wants to sink into, or her form he wants to hold.

It's not sex, but it is the brush of hands, sides leaned against, smiles given, hair brushed off foreheads and the press of an ear to a chest, listening to a heartbeat. It's shared warmth and curling up side by side or falling asleep with a head on a lap. It's everything in casual intimacy, the things which tell Shino he's not alone. ]

I just don't want to be why I lose you.