"Oh, okay. It's just very different from how I am and I'm not sure how to... relate to it."

"Yeah, I think that's - inconvenient, and you will be very much impaired in filling the 'straightforward to talk to' role."

"Yeah."

"I'd really like Lorica to have someone to fill that role and in some ways I seem well positioned for it but I don't actually... know how."

"It's awkward, right, because there are such strong practical incentives for her to get and stay very close to you - she doesn't even know what her esper power is yet - and she can just bull through whatever the obstacles to that are instead of trying to arrange a perfect path through ideal conditions, but that'll affect the quality of the end product, where product here means the relationship you wind up with."

Nod nod.

"I was previously imagining I would like, ask her out after she moved away and then she'd probably say no but if she said yes we'd go on a date and I'd probably be an anxious mess but if she didn't mind that than maybe we'd have a second date . And instead.... This happened."

"After she moved away?"

"She was staying at my place until shortly before her awakening, I probably would have asked her out that week."

"One thing that... might work, might not - is that you could offer to just pretend that whole week never happened."

"Sort of feels like that would be rude of me but I guess I'll trust you if you think it might not be?"

"I mean, yeah, one of the ways it might not work would be if you said it in a rude way."

"Is just saying 'May suggested this idea, does it sound like a good one to you' rude?"

"No, but like, the attitude you're bringing with you into the situation matters a lot here."

Nod.

"I don't have a super clear read on your attitude, which is fair, I'm a stranger to you, but if I'm going to be any help..."

"I'm genuinely not clear on what my attitude is either. I like Lorica and want to be a friend to her and I'm starting to worry I'm missing some important skills for helping her."

"Yeah... hm.

"She doesn't know what her esper power is yet and that's going to bother her, and she'd probably like to be able to evacuate more people from Earth Bet, and those are both pretty practical reasons for her to get over all the things that are bothering her and figure out some kind of workable partnership which involves efficient guiding with you. And I think she will do it, if you don't tell her that you'd rather she leave you alone.

"And I think there's a window, in this process, where she could also have feelings for you... and if you miss that window, she won't. She'll kiss you and maybe have sex with you and she will have no emotional entanglement about it and it won't at that point be an ongoingly available thing you two could do.

"I don't know if that's an opportunity you'd be really bummed to miss, but if you would be then - you've got a bit of hurrying to do on the emotional competence front."

Sigh.

"Yeah. I would be sad to miss that - I'll do guiding for her regardless, but I don't think I'll stop having feelings for her if that happens, and it will be pretty hard to know she could have had feelings for me, but that chance has passed."

"And I think that would be sad and awkward and suboptimal all around, so while I regret that you are being rushed, the alternative seems worse. Do you want to, like, try lines on me, do you have questions, is there context I might be missing that would inform my read on the situation..."

"I guess I'm still a bit confused about what exactly I should be... doing? Is it just a matter of not complicating talking to me?"

"...I really wish it were possible for you and the other Lucien to meet in person without it wrecking the possibility of anyone other than Lorica going back and forth, I feel like that might be edifying, but alas. Eventually, she is going to talk to you. She's either going to offer some - minimally informative open ended opportunity to talk - or she's going to get straight down to brass tacks about scheduling when you two make out for strictly businesslike guiding purposes, I'm not sure which way she'll land but I expect one of those two. And your options effectively boil down to being a gray rock who gets to kiss her for businesslike guiding purposes or displaying contentful emotions to the effect that you want more than that. If she winds up with the impression that you've decided you could just as easily take or leave the entire 'ever having a conversation with Lorica more interesting than "is Tuesday at three good"' thing by the wayside, then she'll shut right down and you will be having a lot of 'Tuesday at three' and nothing else."

"I am a bit worried if I attempt to display contentful emotions I will end up crying and seeming... needy? Or something like that."

"Well, if the thought of crying and seeming needy in front of Lorica is intolerable, after she fucking awakened in front of you, probably go ahead and don't try to date her."

"The bit I'm worried about is that she'd mind, not that I would."

"No. You're - you need to be telling her who exactly she awakened in front of, who you are to her now, and there exist worse answers than 'a near-stranger who would just as soon not interact ever again except that it would be so convenient to fuck on Tuesday at three' but there aren't, like, a lot of worse answers than that, and that seems by far the likeliest answer you might produce as far as I can tell."

"I'm doing a lot of emotional filtering right now because I don't really know - would it in fact not be bad if I ended up seeming needy? I'd expect that to like, add to her emotional burden, rather than help with it?"