I recently released a physical print edition of Even Without Romance in Japanese. The book is priced at 1,500 JPY, and I will be donating 1,000 JPY from each sale to an NPO that supports the AroAce community.
Unfortunately, I am not able to offer international shipping, so the physical book is only available within Japan. However, for those who have been following this series on AO3, I wanted to share a translation of the book's afterword with you here.
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Author’s Note: Afterword for the Even Without Romance
I have been writing fanfiction in the M/M shipping space for over twenty years. It has also been nearly a decade since I realized I am AroAce. Partly because I used to identify as aegosexual, the media I consumed taught me how to depict fictional homosocial relationships and translate them into romance and sexual attraction, but they never taught me how to sublimate the AroAce orientation into creative writing.
Recently, the number of commercial works depicting the A-spectrum has increased, but to be honest, they haven't quite clicked with me. While I felt "empathy," I didn't feel that intense fan passion (moe), so the otaku side of me couldn't get fully absorbed in them.
I did headcanon Murderbot, the protagonist of Martha Wells’s sci-fi novel The Murderbot Diaries, as A-spec, nonbinary, and autistic, and I felt a deep attachment to it by projecting myself onto the character. However, I was satisfied just reading the original books and never developed the strong passion needed to write fanfiction for it (though perhaps my ability to interpret characters as AroAce was steadily building up during that time).
A major turning point came when I found my "oshi," Bartholomew Roberts, in FGO—a game I've played for a long time—and realized I could read him as AroAce based on his historical background and the game's scenarios. Around the same time, the first AroAce fanfiction web-only event, "Sonzai Shoumei" (Proof of Existence), was held, allowing me to share A-spec-focused works with fellow creators across different fandoms. This changed everything.
Of course, I have countless fond memories from my long life as a shipper. I still love the world of massive, intense emotions between same-sex characters, and there’s always a chance I might fall for a pairing and write M/M fics again.
However, when I finished writing the first story of this series, Even Without Romance, balancing the act of "writing as a proof of our existence" with "writing my oshi looking cool" (something I’ve always strived for as a shipper), I felt a profound sense of fulfillment. I realized, this is what empowerment feels like to me.
When I was younger, I struggled with my sexuality, hit the walls of an amatonormative society, and went through a lot of pain. But now, freed from all of that, and from a place where I feel absolutely no issue with my life as an AroAce, I was able to write an "anthem" for the life of my oshi, interpreted as AroAce. Nothing makes me happier.
Bartholomew in this series does not struggle with his sexuality. There are even stories with (almost) no mention of his sexuality at all. This is because we don't exist simply "to reject romance and sex"; we are individuals with our own unique personalities, lives, and joys.
Naturally, the world needs works that empathize with the struggles surrounding sexuality, but I'll leave that to others. For my part, I plan to keep enjoying writing "swoon-worthy AroAce characters."
Last but not least, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to: the organizers of Sonzai Shoumei; the person who reached out when I tweeted that I had missed the event registration deadline; everyone who read and commented on my work during the web-only event; my social media mutuals who researched Bartholomew and read my stories despite not knowing the fandom; the overseas readers who left passionate comments on the English versions on AO3; my real-life friends who listened to me geek out about AroAce headcanons over a cup of tea; and finally, to everyone who has picked up this book. Thank you so much.














