“Oh, that one’s a lot easier!” Minoru grinned. “Just find a different word you both like!”

He was speaking from experience here too. Compared to figuring out how they felt about each other, deciding that they were dating and what to call their relationship was remarkably straightforward.

“It’s a little easier to call Ziggy my… um… girlfriend now. But at first, I was the one who was all weirded out by it. So, we used koibito instead.” It was a Japanese word, he explained. It was gender neutral, and basically meant partner. It didn’t carry any expectations about sexual activity, the way - at least to Minoru back then - that boyfriend and girlfriend did.