Raine laughs at Anthony and will happily come over to the corner and talk to Lee. 

And Marlo keeps watching, trying not to be too obvious about it and not really succeeding. 

Raine!!!!!

"Hi!"

"Hi! How are things, aside from everyone staring." 

"Um. Mostly I am thinking about how great you are a lot. Also currency exchanges are really cool."

"You're very cute." 

And -- he's bad at words sometimes, not very good at people, and avoiding Lee has been working wonderfully for years, but he approaches their corner anyway. 

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa a cool person

"Hi," Lee says to Marlo.

"Hi," and his eyes still haven't left Lee, "what -- happened?" 

It doesn't sound like he's worried, or like he's disapproving, or like he's anything except very nervous. 

"Um," Lee says. "Raine-- read me a story and then touched me."

What what what what what. 

There is approximately a metric fuckton of subtext happening here and Raine has no idea what any of it is. 

".......if you want to hear the story you can?" she tries. "Maybe not here, but -- later today, or tomorrow?" 

"I'm not sure. Thank you, though." 

"It... might have been learning about the concept of currency exchanges?"

Marlo doesn't know what that means and if it turns you -- whatever this is -- he doesn't think he wants to know. He nods, thanks them again without really registering the words, and leaves. 

(He doesn't bother to check under his shirt; he knows what will be there. He puts the thoughts away and hopes it'll have stopped being there.) 

"...that was weird."

"....yeah, that was weird. I really don't like when there's obviously a ton of subtext and I have no idea what it is." 

"...what's subtext."

"....you know, the thing where you say words, and the words you are saying imply other things that you are not saying? Pretty much all good poetry does it." 

"I... did not know that was a thing. Um. That probably explains why that interaction was so confusing."

"Yeah. It's, uh, I'm guessing it's also why you didn't get Boy in the Bubble or Caged Bird really at all. I'm not sure if it's a Pleasantville thing or just a you thing, though." 

"Well. Apparently Marlo can do it?"

(Probably because he is cool and good at people and probably people have been going around SAYING THINGS and MEANING OTHER THINGS his entire life and he hasn't understood any of it and aaaaaaaaaaaa.)

"....do you want to go outside so I can hug you not in front of people." 

"Um. Yes?" His voice gets a little squeaky at the end. 

Then they can go outside and Raine can hug him. 

"For whatever it's worth I don't think everyone is doing the thing that interaction was doing and it's a you thing, I think most people just don't use subtext very much here."