"Sometime in the Near Future" The narrator is in the middle of a nervous breakdown. He's not in the hospital, but he's worried about what's going to happen to him when he gets home. He doesn't know what to do. He tries to reassure himself that he'll be fine, but his body is weak, and he can't do anything about it. He tells the narrator that he loves him, and that he can still love him even though his body isn't strong enough to bear a child. The narrator tells him that the two of them are a "bonded pair" , meaning that they have sex together during estrus, but they live separate lives. They're not able to have sex, though, because they're both too good at it to compromise. This is a "bittersweet boys love story" .