it was 

fortunately half remembered platitudes were enough but it was so awkward. the most awkward. 

possibly he just needs someone to be nice to him?

it is hard to imagine "people who are nice to you" is a thing a billionaire would have a shortage of though

apparently he has literally never had a friend! I am not super sure how that works but you know what I'm not gonna ask about 

really bad social anxiety?

how do you... found a company... without having friends

he was working on the algorithm as a side project, his cofounder offered him money to keep doing it, he said sure because he needed the money and three years later he found out he was a multimillionaire 

he is not nearly socially together enough to be doing the business part of the business 

lucky for him his cofounder didn't just steal the money

it is ALSO weird that the cofounder of yenta is this bad at people

it really is 

idk he's real good at teaching math? and the skills needed to make a good algorithm are plausibly really different from the skills needed to hold a normal conversation that is neither hopelessly depressing nor about science fiction 

for example in order to write an algorithm you don't need to have, like, some aspect of your life that is not depressing

yeah that 

love you <3

you can text me when you need a break from being Luna, I'll keep my phone on me

you're the best and I love you 

💙 💙 💙

When he wakes up in the morning, there's a note:

something at my foundation exploded, sorry, I don't know when I'll be done working

edith can get you food. feel free to go explore the city or hang out in my library or the movie theater. there's money in the wallet and you can ask alex to drive you places

and then something scribbled out.

....is the scribbled out thing about the right length to be "love you"? 

It is a little bit too long to be love you!

That's alright then. Sasha is going to grab books from the library and hang out in the movie theater with his art tablet and draw and watch movies and read. 

And in the midafternoon Lev is going to appear in the movie theater!

"Sorry. I hope you had a nice day."

He puts Luna back on. "I did!" 

"I hope that's not going to happen again, but uh. Things."

"Sometimes stuff explodes unexpectedly, I get it. Hug me?" 

"Yeah." He does. "I won't bother to explain all of it, it's probably really boring to people who aren't me."

"I don't know, lots of things are interesting," he says, and hugs Lev. 

"I can try," he says, "but you have to stop me if you're bored."

"I promise if I'm bored I will stop you." 

"The short version is that we check whether our grantees are actually doing the program they claim to be doing, and the study on the charity that gives cash to people in the developing world came in, and only about sixty percent of people cash was offered to actually took up the cash. So I was in a meeting talking about what the fuck was going on."

"That's not boring, but alright." He puts his head on Lev's shoulder. "You have a really nice movie theater. And really soft hair, have I mentioned that?"