I hope

buddy I get what you’re saying but greyace and demiace people are also on the ace spectrum & romantic and sexual attraction are also different!! and it’s not like him (or any other ace person) potentially starting to catch feelings for another person negates his aceness in any way

Yeah I get that. But as someone who is probably ace (could also be gray/Demi/etc cause I haven’t “found the right person I guess”. Love reading romance and smut, don’t care if it ever happens to me.) I just want to see Aro/ace rep without it turning into another “I found the right person” trope. Cause I don’t feel like that’ll be handled well. Maybe it will in this story but I just want the rare few depictions of asexuality to stay away from romance and never feel like the ace person needs it to be “fixed”.

(Can’t recall examples atm but) When asexuality is depicted and later they fall for someone else it tends to come off as “oh I guess I was never ace in the first place. Just gay/straight”.

I’m also saying this as some who is very ace and very likely aro so I get u. Ace rep in general is still pretty rare so obviously you want stuff that feels closer to your experience. I think my problem is just like, as much as the “finding the right person” trope fucking sucks, going purely in the opposite direction is also. reductive. and in doing so erases huge parts of the spectrum. so in the end you still end up with one-dimensional representations & stereotypes (the ace who got “””fixed””” vs the ace who is divorced from sex and romance with no in between)
that being said every time I have found (specifically japanese) characters who are explicitly identified as (aro)ace [bc japanese usage of the term differs from english] (and not just like, you get the vibes from them bc they’ve “never felt anything before” and “don’t have any interest” re: sex & romance) they’re never put through “just met the right person” plot lines (in a sex/romance way at least) so idk. also important point to separate sexual from romantic attraction - there’s some great romantic ace characters in manga as well! unfortunately not the same can be said about aro characters who experience sexual attraction/have sexual libidos but that’s not limited to just japanese media.

Also I did go look this up in japanese and there’s four chapters left, with the two of them settling into a very qp-vibes partnership by the end so! there’s that!