"I think that was my fault for - uh, for not treating you like a friend."

"...I do not think I know what that means."

"Uh, when we were arguing about it earlier Fazil called it 'plausibly deniable flirting which you think is made less grave by the lack of any serious intentions behind it when that makes it moreso'."

" - oh."

She's still kind of confused, actually, but at least that makes sense of some things? Probably? It explains what he means by not treating her like a friend. Probably he - has some kind of passing interest in her and because things have gotten weird and outside of normal Osirian social scripts he has allowed that to influence his behavior more than he normally would. Okay. That makes sense. Kind of.

"Anyway that's not your fault at all and it's most of why I was - reacting more to our conversations than I normally would."

Nod. "I guess that makes sense. No serious harm done, anyway. Long as we're - okay."

"I want to be a good friend to you. I promise I won't - bring up anything else. I didn't mean to interfere with us being friends."

"I mean, I'm not mad, or anything. It's not a big deal. Just - don't want us to be going around both upset about accidentally upsetting each other. Seems like maybe we could try to do more skipping that step."

"Yeah. That sounds like a good idea."

"Okay. Maybe I can take up saying 'I'm worried I'm being an idiot' when I'm in fact upset about being an idiot and not about something else. Or something."

"I think the last time I offended you was when I - said I was an idiot around you? So I sort of expect this to not solve our problem, somehow. Though maybe that was an unusual circumstance."

"Well, the problem there, if you want a - metaphorical, I guess - after-action report, was that you seemed to think this was significant, and I did not immediately understand why, and before I could think very much about it you abruptly decided to leave. And then most of the me feeling like an idiot happened after you left."

“Oh. I’m sorry. I interpreted you as - taking my meaning and not much liking it, which would’ve been quite fair, and therefore wanting me to cut that out. So I left. Matt said later I could cut it out without leaving but I didn’t really think of that at the time.”

"Oh. That's - fair. I think I'm possibly very dense."

“I guess that’s good since I was out of line anyway and it wouldn’t have been better if I’d -   succeeded at whatever I was I guess on some level trying to do.”

"Yeah, probably not. I don't know that there was much risk of anything very bad happening, though."

... he makes a complicated set of faces in quick succession.

" - okay, I really have no idea what you think I just said, but I'm worried that it was idiotic."

“No, just, uh, I thought I understood it and then it occurred to me that the last few times I thought I understood something you said you had actually said something different, so maybe I should clarify, but that’d be obliging you to make more explicit something it feels like you have now told me very clearly five or six times and which also hurts, not that that’s really the point, so I couldn’t quite bring myself to clarify.”

" - okay. I'm - sorry?"

“I interpreted you as saying, even if I’d been clear that I liked you you would just have told me you weren’t interested, so there was no chance of anything bad happening. Was that the right interpretation.”

"Yeah."

...it is kind of bizarre for this to hurt given that it must be the opinion of every halfway-sensible girl in Osirion, but whatever.

"Sorry. I am told that rejections are often painful, and stuff. I wouldn't really know. But I guess it's normal."

“It’s -“ sigh. “Just didn’t want to bring it up again but I’d have felt very stupid if instead you meant something else.”

"I guess that makes sense. It's - I'm worried that anything I say here will just be more upsetting. I don't really know how not to be upsetting, people in Cheliax don't really think it's that big a deal, being interested in someone. But - I have common sense, okay? Nothing very bad is gonna happen because you talked to me. At least nothing worse than both of us feeling like idiots a lot."

He does not actually trust himself to speak but he nods.