(Author's Note: Most of this fan fiction was inspired by my own experiences as an asexual. However, asexuality is defined primarily by a lack of sexual attraction and everyone's experiences are different. If you feel I've said something wrong or problematic I would absolutely love it if you messaged me to talk it out, but please be respectful and polite. I will not respond to flames or acephobia.)
Raimundo wasn't sure when he first noticed he was different from those around him.
It wasn't the magic powers that concerned him really. Yeah, it was strange and no one seemed to have an explanation for it, but the weird gusts of wind that he could seemingly summon from nothing came in handy far too often for him to think to complain.
No, what bothered him was much less noticeable to everyone but him. When his older brother, Daniel, would point out beautiful women on the beach and talked about all of the things he'd like to do to them Rai could only find himself listening with bored indifference. It wasn't that he didn't find those women beautiful too. He just didn't understand why them being beautiful would make him want to do things to them. Or why his brother felt the need to share.
Back then Raimundo's brothers insisted he was just too young to understand. Never mind that Tito, who was one year younger than Raimundo, was already starting to stare at women with that sort of glassy-eyed, hungry expression that Daniel insisted was normal and healthy. When his brothers' probing and pestering began to shift from mildly annoying to awkward and uncomfortable he reluctantly accepted the porn magazines Daniel kept shoving in his face if only to shut them up for a little while. Sometimes, only when Daniel or Tito were around to see, Raimundo would take them out and flip through the pages while trying to make it seem like he was attempting to hide. The pestering from his brothers didn't stop, exactly, but it did become less invasive, more accepting. His cheeks still burned whenever Daniel reminded him to wash the sheets.
When their sisters caught on to the teasing they immediately leaped to Raimundo's defense. Bia, the eldest, assured Raimundo that there was nothing wrong with him. He was normal. He was okay. He wasn't broken. Not all boys liked girls.
For a while Raimundo did consider the possibility that he was interested in boys. Whenever he and his siblings went to the beach he found himself looking at men, the shirtless sunbathers or capoeiristas practicing in the sand, but it made no difference. No matter how handsome or muscular they were they didn't do anything for him either.
Eventually pretending to be interested in his brother's magazines was no longer enough. He was supposed to look at real girls. He was supposed to flirt with them and admire their breasts and hips and thighs. He was supposed to try to kiss them and, well, he was too young to actually do anything right then, but he was supposed to want to have sex with them. Raimundo enjoyed the flirting. It was fun. The kissing he found he enjoyed as well, whether he was kissing a girl or a boy.
But sex? He just didn't see the appeal.
Daniel said he was probably just a late bloomer and Raimundo agreed with him. He did find girls pretty, after all, and he was still young. Maybe in a year or two or three he'd wake up and suddenly find himself feeling whatever it was his brothers felt that made them stare and smirk and openly fantasize.
He was shipped off to China before that 'someday' ever came.
Despite all the strangeness - the mystical destiny, the talking gecko, the obnoxious little bald kid with the glowing dots - it was actually a sort of a relief to be away from his brothers. He loved them dearly of course, but sometimes dealing with them was just exhausting. He flirted with the girl, Kimiko, a few times playfully in the beginning so he wouldn't appear abnormal, but it wasn't too long before he found he didn't have to. Of the two boys he was sharing the dormitory with, one was a little kid and the other was a chivalrous American cowboy, and neither of them talked about girls the way Raimundo's brothers did. Maybe his brothers were the strange ones and he was normal after all.
Thankfully he wasn't given much time to dwell on it. Although he treated the temple and his training as a game at first, it took up a lot of his time and energy. So much so that by the time four years had flown by Raimundo's single status remained a nonissue.
At least, until Raimundo noticed Omi early one morning dragging his sheets sheepishly out of his room, face red. The moment Omi realized that he'd been caught he babbled off a barely coherent excuse before darting off, soiled sheets trailing behind him. Raimundo had no idea how to react... so he didn't. Attempting to banish the image from his mind, Raimundo went about his day like nothing had changed, hoping Omi would be able to do the same.
Unfortunately, thanks to the close proximity the four teens lived in, it was inevitable that someone else would eventually catch Omi. Kimiko and Clay and a reluctant Raimundo sat Omi down and had a talk with him - because apparently Master Fung had never thought to broach the topic and Dojo had made himself conveniently scarce - about the birds and the bees. Omi seemed rather horrified by the conversation, and though Raimundo was rather convincing when he pretended otherwise, he was incredibly, awkwardly, painfully uncomfortable with the whole topic.
It wasn't that the mention of sex itself bothered him much. After a bit of contemplative thought and experimenting with various types of pornographic material Raimundo was fairly certain that he wasn't disgusted by sex. He just wasn't all that interested. What bothered him was the way Clay and Kimiko kept reassuring Omi that it was normal for him to be having these dreams, that they were an indication he was healthy, that all boys had these dreams.
Omi left feeling mortified, but relieved that there was nothing wrong with him after all. Raimundo left feeling more broken than ever.
He tried to put it out of his mind. After a few weeks had gone by the sit down hardly seemed relevant at all. Still, every so often, Raimundo found those intrusive thoughts creeping back, reminding him he wasn't normal. He was broken. Sometimes Rai thought it wouldn't be such a big deal if he didn't like people altogether, but that wasn't the case. He was still interested in flirting and dating. He liked being touched and held affectionately and kissing.
But dating... That was another matter altogether. Because Raimundo knew whether he ended up dating a man or woman they would eventually want to have sex, and he wasn't sure if he ever would. The idea that he might just have to suck it up and deal with it made him nauseous.
Raimundo started sleeping in a bit more than usual in the mornings in order to avoid Omi. Not that the little guy was having these dreams every night, but Raimundo couldn't predict when he would or wouldn't run into Omi dragging a crumpled wad of dirty laundry out of his room and this way things were just less awkward for both of them.
A couple more years went by. Raimundo was promoted to Shoku Warrior, the balance had - temporarily - swung in the favor of the Xiaolin, and things were more or less peaceful for everyone. Raimundo threw himself into his studies and his training, determined to live up to the expectations placed on him as the leader of the Xiaolin Dragons. When his siblings wrote to him at the temple asking how he was and whether or not he'd found a girlfriend yet he stated plainly that he was too busy to consider dating before he enthusiastically described the training he was doing and the awesome new uniform and how his powers had developed. His family seemed to accept the 'too busy' excuse, though Daniel couldn't resist making a comment about how blue Raimundo's balls 'must be.'
Eventually, however, the dating issue came up again, this time with the other Dragons. Omi started talking about a girl he recently met at the village and thankfully the way he talked about her wasn't anywhere near as graphic as how Raimundo's brothers talked about the girls they fancied, but Rai couldn't help feeling bad when Omi would go on and on about how the sunlight looked when it reflected off her hair or how nice she smelled or how her hips swayed just so when she walked and he just couldn't do more than fake an interest in anything Omi was saying.
It wasn't long before Clay started talking about a girl he was sweet on back home in America. Apparently they'd been writing back and forth to each other for a while now and the last time he went to visit they started kissing and touching and Clay was so sure he wanted to lose his virginity to her and Rai excused himself from the room before the conversation could go any further.
After the other two Rai knew he shouldn't have been surprised when Kimiko started sighing dreamily and dropping hints that she had someone she was interested in. He was very surprised, however, when she came back from a two week long visit to Japan announcing happily that she was now dating her best friend, Keiko.
All three of the boys had been stunned by the news. Especially Omi to whom the possibility of two people of the same gender dating had never occurred. After another quick lesson for Omi on same sex relationships the little monk congratulated Kimiko on her newfound romance before going on his way. Clay took a little more time adjusting to the news. His own family, he admitted, wasn't exactly open to anything other than traditional one-man-one-woman relationships, but he was happy for Kimiko nonetheless.
Raimundo also took the time to congratulate Kimiko - the next morning over dishes because he'd made an early escape the previous day when Omi's lesson became uncomfortably similar to their previous 'birds and bees' talk - on her new relationship, though he couldn't help expressing some surprise since she'd never mentioned being attracted to girls.
"It's not that I'm attracted to girls," Kimiko had explained as she fought to scrub away a caked on bit of food. "I just... I guess I just like who I like."
"So, you're bisexual then?" Raimundo asked, admittedly a bit curious. He was a little jealous of Kimiko for having found someone.
"Pansexual, actually." Finally that caked on crust came off and Kimiko passed the plate to Raimundo for drying. "Like, I'm attracted regardless of gender, not because of it."
Her explanation sounded simple, but Rai still struggled to wrap his head around it. After a short vocabulary lesson and a mild debate over the difference between bisexuality and pansexuality Kimiko decided it was better to show Raimundo some of her sources. Once the dishes were cleaned and stacked up and their hands were dry Kimiko grabbed Raimundo and dragged him to her cubicle so they could use her laptop.
Kimiko pulled up a webpage dedicated to the LGBT+ community and opened a user-submitted article on pansexuality before leaving Raimundo to his research, mostly because her phone was buzzing and she was eager to talk to her girlfriend.
The topic ended up being more interesting than Raimundo had expected it to be. Some of the terms used on the site were unfamiliar to him but, fortunately the page was also linked to a glossary of terms. He wanted to understand what Kimiko was feeling, even though he'd already decided he would accept her regardless. It felt important.
He read through the complete article on pansexuality before he swapped tabs to look up the terms he wasn't familiar with. He'd not even started to scroll down when one word at the very top of the screen, completely unrelated to the article he'd just been reading, caught his eye.
Asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction to anyone, or low or absent interest in or desire for sexual activity. It may be considered the lack of a sexual orientation, or one of the variations thereof, alongside heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality.
He read it. He reread it. He read it a third time before his mind fully processed the words and it clicked.
'There's a word for that?'
Raimundo hadn't forgotten what he was supposed to be using Kimiko's computer for, but now that he had seen this he couldn't ignore it. He clicked the highlighted link and was redirected to a page of user-submitted articles, each about their experiences with asexuality. Eagerly Raimundo clicked on the first one and began reading.
Kimiko was gone for quite a while, which left Raimundo plenty of time to read through most of the articles. He recognized bits of himself in each article as the authors described their dawning realizations that they weren't like the people around them, their fear of being unwanted because of their inability to reciprocate sexual feelings, their helpless fear that they were broken.
Each article ended more or less the same way. You are not alone. You are not broken.
'There's a word for it,' Raimundo told himself. 'I'm not broken. I'm not broken. I'm not broken!'
Kimiko came back before it could fully sink in, giddily pleased by whatever she and Keiko had been talking about or maybe just from talking to Keiko at all. She asked Raimundo what he thought of the article and instead of answering Raimundo blurted out the first thing that came to mind:
"So, I think I may be asexual."
Kimiko just stared at him. After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence Raimundo began to squirm in place. Maybe he shouldn't have said anything after all. The articles had said that only about one percent of the population was asexual, after all, and he did find girls - and some guys - pleasant to look at. What if that was what sexual attraction was supposed to feel like? His mouth was open to take it back when-
"Huh, so that explains it."
Raimundo blinked.
"Wait, what?"
Sighing, Kimiko took a seat next to Raimundo. Her eyes skimmed over the webpage Raimundo had open as she spoke and for a moment Rai felt a little guilty that he'd deviated from what he was supposed to be doing.
"Well, I mean, I kinda got the impression for while now that you liked me, and I tried dropping hints that I was interested too, but then you never made a move. Honestly, I was starting to think you liked guys."
Raimundo coughed and sputtered and flushed a furious shade of red before admitting that he had already considered that himself.
Kimiko apparently didn't mind that he'd been sidetracked. In fact, she seemed more than happy to talk to Raimundo about his newfound discovery. Until that moment Rai didn't realize how badly he'd wanted to be able to talk to someone about it. They reread a few of the articles together and Raimundo pointed out a few of the things the authors wrote that he identified with and recognized in himself. Kimiko asked a few questions, careful not to delve into anything too personal.
Raimundo told her about all the little things that didn't seem significant but added up over the years to make him feel... wrong. Mostly the obnoxious prying from his older brother, but also a few offhand comments made by the other Dragons that weren't even directed at him but still managed to make him feel abnormal. Saying them aloud, they seemed so silly and insignificant. Kimiko never accused him of being too sensitive or overreacting, however, and when he told her that one word he'd identified as for so long - broken - she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him in a gentle embrace.
Somehow just having a word for it lifted a huge weight off of Raimundo. He decided not to come out to the other monks right away. They didn't really need to know, and he was more or less satisfied knowing he wasn't broken like he'd always thought. He did, however, decide to come out to his siblings the next time he wrote home. Bia wrote back congratulating him on discovering that part of himself and promising to drill the concept into Daniel's thick skull. Tito, for whatever reason, thought the whole thing was... cool? Raimundo didn't really understand his younger brother's reaction, but he was happy to be accepted.
It was kind of strange to think that Kimiko had been interested in him, still would have been even if she had known at the time that he was asexual. Rai felt like an idiot who'd missed out big time, but at the same time he was genuinely happy for Kimiko because she had a girlfriend who she loved and talked to all the time, and anyway, wouldn't it be selfish for him to try and date someone who he knew wanted something he didn't?
He didn't voice this thought to Kimiko. He'd already read stories by other asexuals who had entered into relationships with non-asexuals; those who had compromised and decided to have sex with their partners to please them or just decided they liked sex, even if they didn't feel any attraction, but also those whose partners had compromised and chosen to give up sex for them.
Rai wasn't really sure of his own boundaries yet. He knew he liked cuddling and touching and holding and being held. He'd tried kissing a few times before and that felt nice. He was pretty sure that was all he would ever want, though, and he didn't want to force anyone to give up something that most people considered a vital part of any romantic relationship.
So, dating anyone who wasn't also asexual seemed difficult, if not impossible. And it wasn't like meeting people his age was easy in the first place, let alone those who were also asexual. The only people he had regular contact with were the other monks and his siblings back home. He didn't have a childhood sweetheart waiting for him back home like Clay and so much of his time was devoted to studying and traning already that following Omi's example and going to the village to meet people wasn't really a feasible option.
But, that was something he could worry about in the future. For now, Raimundo was happy to have finally found a word that fit him. He was happy to no longer feel like he had to flirt in order to be normal, although he still did it from time to time because, hey, it was fun! And he was happy to have someone to talk to when the invasive, detrimental thoughts began to creep back.
He no longer had to deal with them alone.
He was valid.
He was whole.
And he was loved.