“ ‘Love is simply lust in more poetic terms,’ as the great novelist Ryunosuke Akutagawa once said.”
Kei began his speech abruptly, startling Yuki and me.
“But I disagree,” he continued. “Love is more than that. There must be a purely emotional love, with no connection to sex. And I want to find it.”
“What brought this on all of a sudden?” asked Yuki.
“And so, Yuki,” Kei concluded, “I’m going to try to fall in love with someone else.”
Husband and wife stared at each other across the table.
There was a long silence.
I was sitting on the bookshelf by the open window. My cute, fuzzy body was equipped with a sensory array that let me enjoy the early summer night breeze. Beside me sat another teddy bear. It looked just like me, but presumably felt nothing.
Kei was a thirty-seven-year-old systems engineer who worked mostly from home. He was also a keen electronics hobbyist. His nimble fingers had assembled my soft, fluffy body—and my soul.
The woman staring at him in disbelief was my other owner, Yuki. One year older than Kei, she was an analyst for a brokerage and a hopeless workaholic. The two of them had been married for seven years now. She had accepted me into the family when Kei created me on a whim two years previously, and had doted on me ever since.
I liked both of them very much.
Finally, Yuki broke the silence.
“Why not?” she said with a smile. She took a sip of her iced coffee. “You’re talking about what they used to call platonic love, right?”
“Wait... You don’t mind?” said Kei.
“Not at all. I trust you. Of course, as I’m sure you realize, any infidelity will mean immediate divorce. If that makes you nervous, feel free to retain a lawyer.” It was probably just my imagination, but I thought I saw an ominous gleam in her eyes as she smiled.
“What’s infidelity?” I asked.
Yuki and Kei both turned their heads to look at me. A glance passed between them.
“I’ll tell you later, Spicy,” said Kei. Then, to Yuki, “I would never betray you. I just want to try out a tiny fraction of the emotions I’m not using now on somebody else.”
“Sure,” said Yuki. “I don’t mean to monopolize your innermost thoughts. Let me add one condition, though.”
Kei nodded solemnly. “Name it.”
“Take Spicy along on every date. It’ll be good experience for him. What do you think, Spicy?”
The two of them looked at me again.
Yuki had the smug expression of someone who’d come up with a brilliant idea. Kei simply looked stunned. As I watched his mouth move wordlessly, I felt my mischievous side—I mean, my intellectual curiosity—welling up. So, before Kei could recover his power of speech, I accepted Yuki’s proposal.
“Sounds like fun!”

*

Human relationships are a mystery to me.
Yuki and Kei are far from a passionless couple. Even compared to the vast sample of data on married life I’ve perused online, I’d say the two of them get along marvelously. Even when they disagree, they remain calm—I’ve never seen them get into a truly ugly fight. They do a good job of dividing up the household chores, and always exchange a kiss in the morning, no matter how busy they are. On weekend evenings, they take their time with sexual congress in the bedroom. They never let me in there, but my hearing is better than they realize.
But now, Kei was saying he wanted to fall in love with somebody else. If we took him at his word, this wasn’t because he wanted to kiss or have sex with someone other than Yuki--certainly not to marry them (they explained “infidelity” to me eventually). He simply wanted to taste romantic sentiment in its purest form, disconnected from the physical body or social norms.
And he was so intent on this that he was willing to spend his valuable free time on dating. I didn’t understand the passion involved. Actually, I didn’t really understand love, period. Probably because I’m genderless and lack the reproductive function.

At six o’clock one weekday evening, Kei joined the throng of people headed out to dinner or going home and made his way to the appointed restaurant. I poked my head out of his tote bag and enjoyed the sights. I hadn’t seen the city in some time. About half the people I saw were, like Kei, wearing masks that covered everything from the nose down.
In the pandemic thirty years ago, the Japanese realized how pleasant it was to have a culture where you hid your face, Kei had told me once. Who wants to be seen by every strange eye or and camera lens you pass?
I wasn’t sure what to make of that. But maybe humans have reasons for thinking this way. Their faces aren’t covered in fur like us teddy bears. They aren’t even very cute.
The restaurant was called the Half-Glimpsed City. It was tucked away in an alley ten minutes’ walk from Akabane Station. Kei pushed the sturdy -looking metal door open and stepped into the gloomy interior. There were twelve seats in all. The tables were made of wood in a brown so dark it was almost black, and they were lit by flickering candles. There was only one group of diners there.
The volatile sensors in my shiny black nose detected the scent of sandalwood rising from the candles. The scent was faint but omnipresent, and it was important. I knew this because I had been brought here twice before.
“Hey, Kei. I’ve saved the rear table for you.”

Makita, the owner, greeted us from behind the central counter. Her pristine white shirt with standing collar and cheerful demeanor were the only bright spots in the dark interior. Twelve years Kei’s senior, she had found success with an alcohol-free diner and a molecular gastronomy bistro before opening this virtual restaurant last year, which had few competitors in Akabane. Kei loved to try new things and had taken Yuki many times. He got along well with Makita. In fact, she was the one who introduced him to his date for tonight: Tsubasa Asanuma.
“Is Tsubasa here?” asked Kei.
“Not yet. Set the little one down here with me before she arrives. Hi, Spicy.”
“Hello!” I said, happy that she remembered my name. I popped out of the tote bag. Kei sat me on the counter. I felt Makita’s gentle hand on the top of my head. I fit there just as well as on the bookshelf at home.
“Keep quiet during dinner, okay?” Kei said.
“Of course,” I said. “I won’t be any bother.”
“There’s Tsubasa now,” said Makita.
The door swung slowly open. A tall figure stepped in and greeted Makita with a bow. “Long time, no see.” The voice was husky but with a medium high pitch. “You too, Kei.”
Whether Tsubasa was biologically female or male, I had no way to tell. I saw white sneakers, snug jeans, slim arms extending from a sleeveless summer knit; hair in a short bob, trimmed at the nape, and a deep gray mask covering everything from the nose down. The eyes peering out from between mask and bangs were striking: long and narrow, framed by long eyelashes and a hint of eyeliner. But a touch of makeup isn’t rare among men, either. There was nothing decisive.
Tsubasa was thirty-eight and worked as a visiting psychologist for elder care facilities. They were asexual, uninterested in men or women. Their only family was a Welsh corgi named Vongole Bianco No. 2. Tsubasa was the one who had put the idea of a “love of pure sentiment” into Kei’s head after Makita introduced them. Kei had been utterly taken by the concept, perhaps because he had been going through a period of ennui. This was all the information I was able to obtain before that evening.

Kei and Tsubasa stepped behind partitions to replace their masks with special ones supplied by the restaurant. Neither saw the other’s unmasked face. Then they put down their bags and sat across from each other in a rear booth, the table so small they were only half a meter apart. The two-hour course began.
The Half-Glimpsed City served virtual food. The only physical objects on the table were two bottles of room-temperature water with straws. Actual food made no appearance at this restaurant. It was all about fragrance.
Presently the first course was served. Low-molecular-weight compounds were released from nanocartridges in special masks supplied by the restaurant. There were roughly a hundred kinds of cartridge in all, although only a select subgroup was active at any one time. The compounds released drifted within the narrow confines of each mask, mingling with the faint airstream from nose and mouth. Some of these fragrances were from plants. Others were born of test tubes. Combined, they formed an aromatic appetizer. Kei and Tsubasa drew the mixture into their noses, where it bound with receptors in their olfactory epithelia to stimulate their brain with flavors available nowhere else on Earth.
What they were served was invisible to me. I could only watch them savor it from my vantage point on the counter. After about two minutes, though, wisps of the fragrance drifted my way: an assortment of citrus scattered on a white sandalwood tray.
Kei and Tsubasa locked gazes, speaking softly to prevent the fragrances escaping their masks. Soon they took a deep breath in unison and fell silent. They closed their eyes, then opened them again. They blushed. They chuckled. They exchanged a few words. Their eyes gleamed in the candlelight. The rise and fall of their shoulders told me that their breathing was becoming synchronized.
Makita checked the computer under the counter and made some delicate adjustment I couldn’t follow. The new recipe was transmitted to their masks, altering the timing and dosage of the nanocartridge release. The fragrance seamlessly transformed into the next course.

“What do you think we should call this?” asked Tsubasa. They took a sip of water through their straw.
“Call what?” asked Kei.
“Our relationship,” said Tsubasa. “The type of relationship we’re hoping to have. I’m not interested in sex with humans or joining a human family. I’m proudly asexual, and I’ve guided my body to a genderless form through lifestyle choices, hormonal adjustments, fashion—you name it.”
Kei nodded and Tsubasa went on.
“But I like movies. I like books. I like the romances they depict. I wanted to try one for myself. I told myself that I could love with my heart if not with my body.”
“I know what you mean,” Kei said. “I’ve always been fascinated by the love affairs in movies, novels, comic books . . . They’re nothing like the love I feel for Yuki. They me feel wistful, like looking back on adolescence. That’s why I accepted your proposal.”
It was Tsubasa’s turn to nod. “Doesn’t that remind you of the cuisine here?”
“A cuisine of fragrance alone?” asked Kei.
“Exactly. A cuisine with no firm substance. No texture, no nutritional value. Only subjective experience.”
Kei nodded, then took a deep, slow breath. “You might call our love an ‘odoromance.’”
“Say what?”
“A romance of odor alone. An odoromance.”
Tsubasa chuckled with delight. “That’s just a play on words,” he said.
“What’s wrong with that?”
Tsubasa shook his head and thought for a few seconds. “It might make more sense to call it an ‘odd romance.’ I know all this was my idea, but what we’re attempting is such an unnatural, ill-defined thing.”
An odoromance. Or an odd romance. Tsubasa and Kei seemed quite pleased with these terms.

The two of them adjusted their masks as the first main course began.
They started by taking deep breaths, as if preparing for a dive. Then came a long, shallow exhalation.
Silence followed. Then, prompted once more by fragrance, low conversation drifted from the sides of their masks. I listened as closely as I could, catching snippets about old movies, memories of landscapes and art galleries, stories from college—you know, human stuff.

In the end, Kei and Tsubasa stayed masked all through the date, right up until they parted outside the restaurant. And though they were less than half a meter apart, they didn’t touch once. I made sure of that on Yuki’s behalf.
After we watched Tsubasa walk away, Kei put me in his tote bag and we headed for a beef bowl joint. Without hesitation he ordered a large bowl with a raw egg cracked over the top, and dug into it ravenously.
Once he was satisfied, we took the long way home, walking along the embankment of the Arakawa River. The night was slightly muggy, and the insects were buzzing up a storm.
“Tsubasa’s an interesting person,” I said.
“Sure is,” Kei said, as if distracted. “A wonderful person.”
That night, Kei hugged Yuki tight and invited her to bed early. He also put more passion than usual into their sexual congress.
An odd romance. I could certainly agree with the name. Humans are mysterious creatures. Kei, Tsubasa, and Yuki were no exception. Humanity is simply bizarre.

*

The season had moved on from early summer to high summer. The temperature shot up in the city, and the silent heat dissipation units on my back were running non-stop. But it was always pleasant inside the Half-Glimpsed City, because Makita kept it at the ideal temperature for savoring smells.
Soon Kei and Tsubasa had been on four dates. Always in the same booth, never removing their masks, and never, ever touching. But the fragrances transmitted by Makita were utterly different each time.
Their odd romance held steady, showing no sign of slipping into sexual or familial love. As far as I could tell, Kei was satisfied, even delighted. After Yuki went to sleep on nights when he wasn’t out on a date with Tsubasa, he would sit down at the dining room table, chin in hand, and lose himself in blissful ruminations.
“How is it different from being friends?” I asked him from the bookshelf one day.
He looked at me warily. “How is what different?”
“You enjoy going out to dinner with Tsubasa. I understand that. But don’t friends of different genders do the same kind of thing together? Are you and Tsubasa exchanging words of love too quietly for me to hear?”
Kei frowned. He looked irritated.
“Spicy, you know you don’t understand love. Some things can remain unspoken.”
I thought this over. “I guess you’re right.”
What did I know about love, after all? Only what I’d seen and heard from Kei, Yuki, and the media.
So I let the matter drop, but my question seemed surprisingly unsettling for Kei. Before he went into the bedroom, he looked at me with an oddly grave expression and asked, “Spicy, if you were human, how would you prove that you’d fallen in love with someone?”
I spent a few seconds searching for an answer.
“In purely statistical terms,” I said at last, “when people get happy or angry or scared or sad, the low-molecular-weight volatile compounds in their sweat change. Different compounds appear in different proportions. As I understand it, people use these chemical signals to convey their emotional state to each other. The same thing probably applies to love.”
“You’re saying falling in love makes your body odor change?”
I nodded. “Measure that change and compare it to reliable experimental data, and I think you’d find support for the existence of your odd romance.”
Kei stood for a while in thought. Then he turned away from the bedroom and went back to the dining room table. He flipped open his computer and got to work.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Ordering parts,” he said. Kei wasn’t the type to waste time once he’d made up his mind. “I’m going to make an odorometer—a sensor to measure the smell of love. Will you help me out, Spicy?”

Why do humans always take the long way around? If the goal was to confirm the social reality of love, just saying “I love you” would have been much easier than counting molecules. It mystified me, but I helped Kei with the project all the same. A teddy bear’s hands are less than ideal for fine electronics work, so my role was mostly on the R&D side.
Kei’s workmanship was superb. I expected nothing less from my creator. He hummed as he ran the tabletop micro-machining tools, fitting complex sensor units into hollow metal cylinders 2 millimeters across and 25 millimeters long.
The finished odorometers functioned like mosquito antennae. They were crammed full of receptors for over a hundred different volatiles secreted by humans. The data they collected was relayed through me to our home computer for analysis and comparison with a database of experimental results relating to romantic biology, made available for a fee by an American research institute. The system had a few special intricacies to it, but that was the basic outline.
On their next date, Kei presented Tsubasa with a small suede box. Tsubasa opened it to find a pair of earrings and a necklace gleaming dully inside. Kei did have his moments.
Or so I thought in that first instant, before Kei began explaining the function and purpose of the sensory array with extreme seriousness. I was worried that Tsubasa might be repelled by the idea, but fortunately they seemed fascinated.
“In other words, this measures the pheromones we emit?” Tsubasa asked.
Kei hesitated, then shook his head. “No substance has yet been discovered in humans that can cause a specific reaction in others the way pheromones do. And our vomeronasal organ, which is the main pheromone receptor in animals, is basically vestigial. Unfortunately, we can’t love as simply as insects do. The best our odors can do is give someone a nudge.”
Tsubasa’s eyes were fixed on Kei during this explanation. Their face looked serious at first, then broke into the widest smile I had ever seen on them. Elegantly curving lines appeared at the corners of their eyes. Their face was so dazzling I thought it might sear through the mask.
“Thank you,” they said. “What a wonderful gift.” They began attaching the earring sensors to his earlobes, right there at the table. “I’m so glad I met you, Kei.”
Then the day’s courses began to arrive. As always, the two of them closed their eyes. They breathed in the air within their masks. The scenery of scent. Finding something beautiful there, they fell silent before slowly, cautiously, beginning to speak again.
As they inhaled the perfume of unknown flowers, stirring it with sighs, data began to flow into me from a total of six odorometers. The columns of figures representing the change in chemical compounds over time were a kind of invisible, inaudible exchange between lovers. Peeking in remotely on the analysis taking place on our home computer, I sensed the romance Kei and Tsubasa shared as a clear presence among the data.

The odd romance had now been quantified. But apparently this wasn’t enough for them. They were only human, after all. Their dating continued, growing and accelerating.
“I want to smell your scent, Kei,” Tsubasa said. “Will you share the data from your sensors with Makita and I?”
“Why?”
“So Makita can serve it to us at the restaurant.”
I supposed this was how Tsubasa meant to repay Kei for the earrings and necklace.
The request was an irresistible challenge to Makita as a chef. She pored over lists of chemical compounds and recipe books, both ancient and modern, from around the world to create a new culinary framework before the summer heat had completely faded. This had necessitated overhauling the restaurant’s entire system.
The scent data from sensors worn by Kei would be transmitted in real time to the kitchen. Makita would use the data to recreate Kei’s odor and blend it with the courses inhaled by Tsubasa. And vice versa.
This would be more than simply sniffing behind ears or under armpits. Their body odors would be treated as ingredients to be molded, edited, and fine-tuned by Makita to achieve a final harmony with the rest of the course.
Humans may not have true pheromones, but body odor does have some physical effect on them. Scents stimulate the brain, triggering the secretion of hormones and neurotransmitters. Dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, adrenaline, estrogen, testosterone: these are signals that can change a person’s mood or, over the long term, rebuild that person entirely.
In that sense, Makita’s new courses could be considered a highly diluted form of cannibalism. Consuming the odor of another. Absorbing it to change oneself and, in so doing, forming a connection with that other.
I watched the whole experiment from the counter, fascinated and somehow terrified by what humans were capable of.

Kei lost his nerve first.
“What’s wrong, Kei?” I asked, noticing his mood we walked home from a date on an evening just before autumn.
“ ‘Love is simply lust in more poetic terms,’ ” he said.
“You like that epigram, don’t you? Akutagawa, right?”
“Akutagawa always knew just how to put things. I fell for Yuki, slept with her, married her. I was happy. And if you’re happy, you don’t need poetic terms. You don’t need romance. So I forgot all about it. Until I met Tsubasa.”
At these words, it finally clicked for me. I understood why Kei had suddenly started talking about love affairs of pure emotion a few months ago.
“So that’s what happened?”
“Yep. That’s what happened.”
“You fell for Tsubasa. You wanted a sexual relationship with them.”
Kei grimaced. “You could be a little more delicate,” he said. “But—yeah. The thing was, I still loved Yuki. I wanted us to stay married. To stay a family. So when Tsubasa suggested our ‘odd romance,’ I was all for it. A purely emotional love affair was just what I needed. And it was what Tsubasa wanted, too.”
We were taking the long way home again along the bank of the Arakawa. It was already dark, and the autumn insects were out in force, buzzing and chirping with all their might, pumping out pheromones to potential mates, and generally finding much simpler ways to reproduce than humans. The heat of the day still hung in the air, along with an array of organic odors.
“So this odd romance is starting to smell off to you?”
“It’s not that. But it is tough. I keep wanting to touch Tsubasa, but our odd romance can only strengthen that desire without ever satisfying it. It’s different for Tsubasa. They’re enjoying things as they are. What they want is what we have. But I feel like I’m floating helplessly inside my mask. Even across the table from me, they feel so far away. In the end, I may be just the kind of person Akutagawa was talking about. If this goes on, I’ll end up hurting both Yuki and Tsubasa. And I don’t want to do that.”
Whatever Kei was feeling, I didn’t understand it. Just as humans differ from insects, I differ from humans. For me, Kei and Tsubasa and Yuki and Makita were all equally distant. I had no idea how to reply. In the end, I simply shared my honest feelings.
“Kei, I love how complex you are.”
Enfolded in the dusk and the insect chorus, Kei slowly nodded.

*

A month had passed since Kei and Tsubasa broke up.
Kei was listless. Yuki acted as she always did with him, offering neither comfort nor criticism. I vouched for his innocence by the criteria she had set.
“Sounds like it was a good experience, then? For both you and Spicy,” Yuki said.
Kei appreciated her hands-off approach, I think. He was gradually returning to his cheerful, blithe self again. Both middle-aged and youthful. The bashful, almost adolescent Kei I had seen dating Tsubasa slipped back into the depths.
I liked to see Kei and Yuki sitting across the table from each other, eating real dinners with mass and nutrients, sharing a drink or two, listening to music. They had a history that was unknown to me, as well as those bedroom activities. I was still a newcomer to the family, so this made me happy.
Sometimes, though, after Yuki turned in early on Sunday night, Kei sat at the dining table, chin in hand. He might stare at his empty beer can with an uncharacteristically mawkish expression on his face. Or simply sigh and gaze out the window.
“Is it hard not being with Tsubasa?” I asked.
“It’s not that. To have loved and lost is a great thing to drink to. I’m enjoying this in my own way.”
“Oh.”
Maybe I was the lonely one. I missed the Half-Glimpsed City, that wonderful restaurant where invisible yet fragrant ingredients were scattered across the scent of white sandalwood. I could still recall the interior vividly, but I was worried that the feel of the place would slip from my memory as time passed. I could have recreated the scents there from the data I had, but somehow I was never in the mood.
The northern hemisphere cooled. Autumn was here.
One cloudy, chilly Sunday morning, a letter for Kei arrived from Tsubasa by post.

Do you remember the time you told me about insects?

Apart from a brief opening greeting, that was how the letter started. I sat at the edge of the table, facing Kei. I couldn’t see the sheet of paper he was reading, but it was simple enough to recover the content from the reflection in his eyes. Tsubasa’s writing was clear and legible, with an androgynous neatness to it.

Do you remember the time you told me about insects? Human pheromones have yet to be discovered, you said; we can’t love as simply as bugs do. I vividly remember the hint of disappointment on your face as you spoke. But in that moment I was happy. After all, it was proof that our love was something more than chemical.
I told you when we met that my heart has no gender. But I still wanted to love. The visions of romance in movies and comics and novels were always a mysterious, fascinating pleasure for me. When I imagined myself in those characters’ shoes, I felt as if I might be swept away to somewhere I could never go alone. Humans wove the fantasy of romance out of systems for marriage and reproduction. I have no interest in those systems, but I still wanted to enjoy the fantasy with someone.
But that’s a strange thing for someone without gender to say, isn’t it? I thought so, too. Who would want to share a love that runs straight into a dead end, with no way forward to the pleasures of sex or the reassurances of family? It sounded too vague, too insubstantial. I convinced myself of that so thoroughly that I didn’t even take my first steps in that direction until I was past thirty.
So, when you denied the existence of human pheromones, you rescued me. It let me believe that love was a cultural phenomenon after all, transcending our animal instincts, and that our ‘odd romance’ was at the cutting edge of that. On top of that, you found a way to measure love. What that measurement showed was that love has no sharply defined outlines. I thank you for all of that.
I believe in odd romance. I believe in all those nights we spent together, dining on fragrance alone.

I stopped reading there. Partly because it’s impolite to read someone else’s correspondence, but mostly because the letter’s reflection in Kei’s eyes was blurred by the trembling liquid welling up in them.

By noon, the day was warmer. In the evening, Kei took me out for another walk along the riverbank.
“Apparently there were three others.”
“Others?”
“Other people Tsubasa was in an ‘odd romance’ with.”
“Oh.”
Insects chirped. Winter was edging closer, but it seemed that the mating season was still in full swing.
“Did that come as a shock?” I asked.
“Not really. I wasn’t expecting it, but that’s Tsubasa for you. They’re on a whole other level.”
Kei sat on a concrete staircase and pulled something out of his pocket. He removed his usual mask and replaced it with what I now saw was a mask from the Half-Glimpsed City. I watched him take a deep breath and close his eyes.
“I believe in your love,” I said, reaching from the tote bag to pat his shoulder. “I don’t have any gender. Not in my body, and not in my heart. But watching you and Tsubasa, I realized that maybe even I could love someone. You were lovers without touching or even seeing each other’s faces. If that’s possible, then maybe humans and AIs can fall in love as well. I want to believe in a world like that.”
I had a particular person in mind as I spoke. A figure standing in the Half-Glimpsed City. And it wasn’t Tsubasa or Kei.
“You’ve got a case of unrequited love,” Kei said, realizing it as he spoke.
“You think? Is that what this is?”
“Definitely. I didn’t take you to that place just because Yuki said to. The truth is, Makita’s the one who chose your name.” Kei ruffled my fur. “You’re sure it has to be love? Friends won’t cut it?”
“It was the same for you and Tsubasa. I guess I saw what the two of you were enjoying and I wanted to try it, too. That’s how these things work, right?”
“I guess so.”
Kei stood up. The wind was colder now. It was time to go home.
“I guess so,” he repeated. “That’s how they work. So it’s okay.”
That, I think, was the day Kei got over the breakup. Back home, he bowed his head in apology to Yuki, who had just arrived home herself.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I might love again.”
Yuki gave him a look of disbelief that turned into a grin.
“If it’s that much fun, maybe I will, too.”

The two of them disappeared into their bedroom, leaving me on top of the bookshelf in the dark dining room. I entered sleep mode. Images and ideas of every sort swirled around me. My framework for everything, the one I had always taken for granted, had shattered and unleashed a flood of infinite combinations.
AI and human. Old and young. Virtual and real-world. An odd romance could expand like a gas to fill any space, entering into the gaps between every kind of encounter and every kind of family.
For a moment, a fragrance I had never smelled before was blooming on the tip of my nose. But it soon disappeared and I could no longer smell it. Then, when I thought about it, it returned briefly and was gone again.
There in the darkness, I searched the air for that hazy scent of possibility.

Translation by Matt Treyvaud