I fill up the final copper bowl on the altar with fresh water, ensuring that the gap between all seven is equal. I would like to make more elaborate offerings like fruit and flowers, but since I live in England where I can't pick them for free from the garden year-round, water, light, and incense have to do for now. Photos of Ba and Bà Ngoại frame the Buddha statue at the centre. All the pictures that go further back on Má's side of the family were lost in the war and it would be awkward to ask Bà Nội, so the rest of my ancestry is left for me to imagine.

I prostrate thrice and sit in front of the altar to pray. Bà Ngoại taught me a chant for every situation though I've forgotten most of them by now. I weren't that interested as a kid and the language used in them ain't the kind I would use in daily speech; my Vietnamese even in casual conversation stumbles. But I've managed to re-learn the main ones: kinh a di đà, kinh vô lượng thọ, and bát nhã tâm kinh. I found some scripts in English online but it feels wrong to worship my ancestors in a language so removed from them.

I hope they find their way without photos. I hope they're not lost wandering around Vietnam, ghosts among the living, trying to find the ancestral homes that likely don't exist anymore. I hope that they can hear my prayers, that they know I haven't forgotten them even if the root that connects me to them is weak. I hope they bless me...

Ziri's shuffled footsteps move to my side followed by the unravelling of his prayer rug. He angles it away from me, toward quibla, and begins his own prayer.

We don't talk much as we get ready for work. During breakfast, Ziri occasionally interrupts my reading of the newest volume of No. 6, whichSonia put me on, to show me a Vine. He thanks me when I take his empty bowl to wash it. I grab my car keys and he pulls his bike helmet over his cornrows with nowt more than a sorry when he elbows me in the tiny entrance.

But when we walk down three flights of stairs, he excitedly rambles about the Great Gatsby film coming out next month — not because he cares about the story, he just loves Carey Mulligan and would watch a movie of her eating cereal. He has to cut himself off when I know he still has more to say when we reach the ground floor. 'Anyway, I love you. Enjoy work.'

'I love you.'

Iris thinks we're boring and maybe she's right. We don't do owt of the things other people our age do. We've not really got friends here other than each other. Ziri were in the LGBT Soc at uni and I'd join their events but after graduation, most of his friends moved elsewhere. We have people we talk to at work but no one we introduce to each other. Sometimes we go to a club to dance or a bar to listen to open mic but we're always home before midnight. But it's perfect.

            With his narrowed eyes adhered to the telly with super glue, I have to guide Ziri's hand to the bowl of cá kho tộ so that he don't drop it onto the sofa. The news are discussing yet another petition letter left by several Tory MPs to David Cameron to change his stance on legalising gay marriage.

Ziri picks up a piece of cod only to drop it back into his bowl with a hiss. 'Hot.' He finally tears his eyes from the TV to cast me a betrayed look. 'How am I supposed to eat this?'

I snap my chopsticks at him as I sit.

He hums contemptuously. 'Fingers are God's chopsticks, innit. That's an African proverb.'

I wrestle back my smile. 'Wise people,' I muse and watch in my periphery as he tentatively picks up another piece of caramelised fish, blowing on it before he eats it. 'They say "innit" a lot in Africa?'

'I didn't ask for your input.' His voice is sour to cover up the laughter in it.

As much as we hate it, our eyes glue to the telly. The reporter is interviewing one of the Tory MPs. They all look the same to me so I couldn't name him for a cash price. I've always been too stupid to understand politics work so, outside of listening to Ziri's rants, I don't normally pay attention. Until now.

'It's preposterous, really,' says the MP to the camera, his thinning hair tussled by the wind. 'Legalising gay marriage goes against all the interests of the party. Had Cameron brought this up earlier, I highly doubt he would have been voted as the leader of the party — much less the leader of the country. Is he going to wake up tomorrow and decide to switch to Labour? This is not what the people who voted him into office want.'

'But what about polls that show the majority of the country is in favour of this bill?' asks the interview.

The MP splutters a little. 'There are all sorts of riff-raff in the country. Who Cameron needs to be thinking about is the people who voted for him in the general election, those are the people to whom he needs to remain loyal and whose values he needs to represent — as he promised to do in becoming prime minister. I assure you that if you polled only those who voted conservative in the last election, you would not be getting a majority in support of this bill. In fact, I think you would be getting a very small percentage.'

The interviewer nods and hums to express her interest though her eyes are dead. 'Some people are of the opinion that it shouldn't matter so much, to just let people marry whom they like. If you aren't under the LGBT umbrella, it doesn't affect you. Why do you think that this has become such a paramount matter for the Tory Party?'

'Of course, it has. It goes against all the values of the party. Gay people live their lives as they like but what do they need marriage for? People will be marching to marry their goats next.'

The sound Ziri makes is so scathing, it's surprising that the MP don't drop dead. 'Freudian slip, innit. Hate to say it, but that's a you thing, bestie,' he says to the TV as if the MP will hear him before falling against the sofa cushions. 'I'm so tired of this being a debate.'

I totally understand what he means. Honestly, some part of me wishes they would just scrap the whole thing so we could go back to living our lives without having to hear about how we're disgusting on an every-other-day basis.

'Can we watch summat else?'

Ziri hands me the remote and I flip through to Channel 4, currently in the middle of Countdown. He leans over the puzzle still incomplete on the sofa table but there's only the sky left and all the pieces are the exact same shade of blue; he gives up within five minutes and resumes eating. I don't know if we'll ever finish it.

I look at my cá kho tộ, my appetite diminishing though it's one of my favourite meals. I draw my cheeks between my teeth, then let go, bite, let go, bite, let go. 'It's just a piece of paper, right? Ain't ya always on about the whole "nuclear family enforces heteronormativity" stuff? Ain't that what this is?'

After a beat of silence, Ziri nods. 'Yeah. You're right... We don't need our relationship to be validated by a government — much less the English government. Like, ew.'

But he scratches his cheek and turns just an increment away from me.

            Thankfully, the conversation is forgotten by the time we're in the bath two hours later. Ziri smiles with no fakeness as he scoops bubbles from the water to sculpt them around my chin. 'I think you should grow a beard,' he muses. 'Then you can be my ideal bear boyfriend.'

'Don't reckon I've enough chest hair for that.' I move my lips as little as possible to avoid getting soap into my mouth.

His palm plants onto my chest, flat over my heart. But his smile twitches with mischief. 'You can tattoo some on.'

This makes me wipe the bubbles off, using the webbing of my thumb like a squeegee. 'I am not tattooing on chest hair,' I say with faux irritation. 'Not even for you.'

'But I want a bear boyfriend.'

'Should've dated someone else then.'

Still smiling wide, Ziri shakes his head and picks up the rubber duck from the water. It's a duck dressed as a shark he bought from Poundland the day we moved in here. He pushes it to the bottom of the bathtub, then lets go so it bounces to the surface. He giggles and does it again.

We sit facing each other, legs at the other's side. His cornrows are collected under a shower cap so the conditioner will absorb better. I'm wearing one too; Ziri is reet adamant about me taking care of my hair even if I shave it to a buzzcut at least once a year and don't well see the point. We set up his LED tea lights in the bathroom along with two real candles at the edge of the sink because the tub's rim ain't wide enough.

The moisture in the air collects in his eyelashes and the hair over his upper lip like dew. His rich brown skin gleams. The light craves out the scars that lace up his arms, stopping two inches from his armpit where his mouth can't reach. I'm close enough to see the dip of each individual tooth on some of them.

His shark-duck zooms out of the water and knocks against my shoulder, then splats back onto the surface. 'Sorry.' Ziri kisses the sight of impact and moves the duck onto his side of the tub as if I'm deeply offended by its physical proximity.

'Not exactly what I had in mind when I fantasized about us taking baths together,' I say with the exaggerated tone I use for owt sex related so he don't think it's a passive-aggressive jab about how I'm cross he won't have sex with me. Though I s'pose that's not necessary anymore.

His eyebrows knit. 'When'd you fantasise about that?'

'I dunno, in school.'

At this, his eyebrows fly in the opposite direction. 'School?  Neither of our houses have bathtubs. Also, we weren't datin then.'

'Aye, I am aware of that.'

'So why would you fantasise about it?'

'Can't control my dreams, can I?' I say. 'Not like I chose to have sex dreams.'

'You what?'

'I've told you this before–'

'No, you haven't–'

'I've told you this several times before.' When I realise that his shock is genuine, I swallow a laugh though it laces a vibration into my voice. 'What did you think I meant when I said I had dreams about you?'

Ziri stutters. 'That-that-that we were holdin hands, walkin round Stockholm and lookin at pretty buildings.'

My head falls forward with my laughter. Ziri hits my knee which only makes me laugh more and he sucks his teeth. 'It weren't that. It were not that.'

'But you said you had those dreams since we met?' he says, adamant to stand his ground. 'I was mean to you — like, mean mean.'

I shrug. 'Aye, but you're fit.'

His face screws up with agony and he squeezed the rubber duck forgotten into his hand like a stress toy. 'You can't have sex dreams about people who are mean to you.'

It's my turn to gawk. 'Yes, I can. I can. I had a lot of them actually. Which were reet awkward cause there ain't no way my mum didn't know why I kept washing my sheets. So ta for that.' He continues to goggle at me and I laugh. 'Ziri, you do realise that you're asexual, right?'

'Yeah, but every time we talk about this stuff, you force me to completely rewrite my worldview. First, you can have sex dreams about strangers. Okay fine, I can accept that. But now you're tellin me you can have sex dreams about strangers who are mean to you? What's next? How am I weird because I need to know someone before they make me horny?'

Ziri stares at me, demanding an answer. More laughter bubbles from me and I shake my head to say I don't know. Eventually, he looks away, pushing the shark-duck back to the bottom of the tub to watch it bounce out.

He draws his lip between his teeth, immediately finding the fringe of a dry piece of skin to peel it off.

I caress his shin to coax his attention to me. 'Don't do that.'

Though I speak softly, it alerts him back into his body. He releases his lip. A crimson spot already blooms against brown and it must sting because guilt rises to the surface of his eyes. 'Thanks.' The bubbles are starting to disperse and I can see him wring his hands under the water. 'We don't have to ever have sex, you know,' he says abruptly. 'I know we've had this conversation before but only the other way around so I just wanted to make sure you know that I also don't need to have sex. It would be nice but I don't feel like I'm missin anythin.'

'Thank you.' I try to smile. 'Aye, I know.'

Though I don't. I fucked it up and as unreasonable as it is, I can't shake the fear he wants to break up with me, that he'll freeze me out, give me the silent treatment for weeks. Dominic would have. Dominic did. Even when he hugged me and told it were fine.

The distance between Ziri and Dominic is greater than that between the sun and pluto, I know. Still, there's an echo in my voice, somewhere between pathetic and miserable. 'But you feel like I'm not committed to our relationship.'

He shifts his attention to the rubber duck, watching it bob on the surface after he gently pulls it down just a centimetre. My thumb continues to run along his shin bone, up and down.

'That's nothin to do with sex,' he says, voice shriveled. 'You're so good to me. You always take care of me when I have episodes and you let me ramble about my nonsensical thoughts and even more nonsensical feelings at any time of the day. I just wish you'd let me be that person for you.'

'But... why? I don't understand why it's so important to you, I've just not got owt to say.'

'You're supposed to be my boyfriend, not my live-in therapist.' His eyes dart to me just long enough for me to see them glisten. 'We've been datin for almost five years, Miles. You won't talk to me about your family, you won't talk to me about him — you've never even complained to me about your boss. Are you afraid I'll judge you? Do you not trust me not to judge you?'

'It's not that. I–' The lump in my throat cuts me off and, tongue clamped to the roof of my mouth, I have to will it to shrink. 'It's not about you. I don't like bitching about people.'

'It's not bitching...' He starts to say summat else but changes his mind.

Ziri's legs withdraw from my sides as he hugs his knees to his chest. The rubber duck knocks against the wall of the tub from the ripples his movement form and it echoes through the enamel. The bathwater has gone cold, the pads of my fingers are wrinkled. The two real candles are too far away to build warmth.