He is going to sort of hug her arm and eat one handed if that's okay with everybody.

Ari doesn't complain, at least.  ....If she depockets her phone, does eating take up enough of his attention that she can get in a few rounds of puzzle game?

He's gonna give her puzzle hints.

That's a no.  Phone gets blanked and goes facedown on the counter.

"Sorry."

"- No, it's fine, sorry.  Uh, maybe after lunch we can play something actually collaborative."

"That would be nice, thank you."

"What do you normally like?"

"...books. I am normally an introvert in my introvert hole with a book. Or Civilization? I'm not sure if you can get multiplayer Civilization to be quite multiplayer enough for my symptoms to tolerate it but it might be worth a try if there are computers and Civilizations to hand. Or Alpha Centauri or, like, whatever alternate universe civilization-building game you might have."

"I have my laptop but I think not anything in that genre.  I have... some party games, which are kind of more about the party than about the game, and also like basic move-based puzzle stuff where the main limit to scoring high is how much thought you're willing to put into each move, such that two heads are way better than one?"

"Worth a try. It's probably too optimistic to imagine I could concentrate on Civ anyway."

"Mm.  ....Do you think you're having a better time than you would have at a hospital?"

"If the hospital's never heard of espers, almost certainly; even in my universe where the hospitals have heard of espers they left me home."

"That's good.  I kind of thought when I picked you up that something like that might be true, but it seemed good to like, check, now that you're here."

"I am still pretty confused about the hospitality but it's not bad qua hospitality at all."

"You're very interesting.  I now suspect you'll be a very useful person to have made a friend of, but even before that you were interesting."

"I'd have to be remarkably interesting to be worth a week of this. I guess perhaps you're planning to turn me out tomorrow."

"I would not necessarily class myself as an extrovert, but I think your own discomfort may be throwing off your calibration of how unpleasant this is for other parties."

"Maybe, but it turns out I'd really rather believe you're grudgingly tolerating me than believe that you don't exist."

"Hm.  ...Would you care to elaborate on that?"  Here's Ari's sandwich, and then her soup.

"My flavor options or whatever you want to call them that I have discovered so far are solipsism and, like, social anxiety, and touch starvation, and I'm mostly leaning on the last one but the first one is the one where I'd rather be dead."

"....Should I be touching you... less?"

"- no?? I mean I am trying to have the most touch starvation because it's the least fucking with my head option and doesn't make me want to be dead."

"And in order to get that, you don't need to do any actual starving of touch?"

"Right, I have a magical curse and not a thing that responds to reality at all in any way."