I think I just saw someone who looks like you, you text me on a Sunday morning in Berlin. Are you here somewhere?

Not yet, I reply. That’s not me. Still getting dressed. But I’m coming.

Eleven in the morning is a little too early for Berghain when you aren’t trying to catch a particular DJ set, even for me, but what I don’t tell you, and what I’m trying not to admit to myself, is that I was not yet dressed when I said I was getting dressed — I rushed the process to see you, the handsome new friend I have an embarrassingly huge crush on. Luckily, the club is easy to dress for.

Berghain is at that strange transition time on Sunday morning, when I arrive. The tourists of Saturday night have either hooked up or struck out, and are now slowly filtering out of the club, spent, making room for the next wave — the real Berliners — to take their place after brunchtime. It’s far emptier than I’m used to, but having enough space on the dance floor for myself and both of my hand-fans is a rare and special privilege that I intend to enjoy. Two last minute stragglers approach me — a couple, from the looks of it. A little too close for comfort given how much room there currently is. “You look like Rihanna,” the girl tells me. I do not look like Rihanna. Smoky black eyes and blue lipstick do not Robyn Fenty make, but it’s a compliment and I thank her awkwardly, mildly bemused to realise that they see me as a prospective unicorn — a potential third in a threesome. I am also very uninterested and I don’t quite know how to escape this conversation.

You and the three black crows on your shoulder swoop in out of the smoke and shadows like a dark daydream and sort that problem out for me. She’s spoken for is the message that doesn’t need to be said to be made very clear when you take my hand. They say goodbye and head for the stairs behind us, presumably for the exit.

You and I, we dance.

Weeks later, after we’ve fallen in love and refuse to admit it to ourselves or to each other, I will tease you relentlessly about your inability to tell one Asian girl from another. “Remember that time you thought you saw me in Berghain? I mean, come on, I don’t actually look like every other Asian girl.”

“You idiot,” you’ll tell me then. “Didn’t you get it? I knew you weren’t there. I wanted to find out if you were coming but I didn’t want to make it obvious.”

For all that I consider myself clever, I’ll be surprised by that revelation. I’ll think it’s the sweetest thing.

It’s the ways we fell asleep that I think I’ll always remember.

Sometimes I would close my eyes and press my ear to his chest to hear his heart beating, just a minute or two, before turning over and away. There was a part of me that always understood all too well: I could have it in that moment, but only for a moment. It was never really something I would ever possess.

For a time, that was enough.

Beyond the fire, the little tenderness that always followed. Sleepy kisses on my forehead, on my bare shoulder, along my spine. The gentle graze of fingertips back and forth on my arm, draped across him, as I fell in and out of slumber. The featherlike brush of hands as they traced the curve of my hip, the dip of my side. Memorising with his skin the texture of my own skin. His touch is seared into my memory.

Sometimes he would pull me close, an arm slung over my waist, his hand on my chest, or holding my hand, so close I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. A soft kiss, a whisper.

Sometimes we were face to face, with foreheads pressed together, hands clasped between us.

Sometimes, apart, our fingers twined across the small gap that separated us, holding on to each other as we both slipped away into dreams.

Sometimes I would wake in the middle of the night, or whatever hour of morning or midday passed for night with us, and gaze briefly upon his sleeping face. Lips pursed, brow knit ever so slightly, hair tousled, eyes shut under long lashes, peaceful. Then I would close my own eyes again.

It will always be impossibly strange to me, that in those moments I felt like I had never been so close to — but also so very far away from — another person. So comfortable, but so tense. So safe, but so afraid. So warm, but so cold.

He would plant three kisses on my lips before leaving me in the mornings. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

I knew I would always be saying goodbye from the first time that I kissed him and felt it in my chest, in my belly. Every kiss started to mean something after that. Every kiss I gave him was a farewell.

I would sleep in the remnants of his warmth for as long as I wanted to. And when I woke, I would make his bed. I would gather my things. I would gather myself. I would lock his front door behind me, and then I would be gone. Like I’d never been there at all.

It’s the ways we fell asleep that I think I’ll always remember.