There is someone standing in the doorway when she turns around from getting one of the corners.

The note she - he, he feels very much like a guy all of a sudden with someone else to see - was holding cuts off into a surprised yell.  The rich lady said there wasn't anyone coming, so this is probably an intruder of some sort - is there anything he can use as a weapon; the vacuum's too unwieldy - not really - she doesn't really look like an intruder, she's just standing there looking equally confused to see him, and she's dressed nicely and doesn't have shoes on; that's probably not standard burgler behavior -

He turns off the vacuum and fumbles to find his phone so he can pause the Carly Rae coming from the sound system far too loudly to talk over.

"Sorry for startling you."

"Uh, no problem.  Miss.  I just - I wasn't told to expect anyone yet."  Probably.  Maybe he forgot, or maybe a text came in - it's probably rude to check his phone even briefly while she's trying to talk to him, so he'll just not do that.  He should definitely say something to explain the way he's dressed - obviously it can't be the truth - "Sorry about, um, this," he says, gesturing, "it's just - I really thought there wouldn't be - I had a dare, from some of my friends - but it was still very unprofessional, and - "

"I don't mind."

"Oh.  Okay.  I'll just - go change, then.  - Unless you wanted anything.  Which I can get you."

"I don't need anything."

"Okay, then."  And he leaves to do that.

His other clothes are not actually very great for being around fancy rich people who are probably involved somehow with the ones paying you, either, but he puts on jeans and a different sweater.  Makes a concession to - herself - the barrette isn't so bulky that it can't be clipped at the back without being visible; the hair above it is long enough to keep it covered.

She He takes a moment to try and process the situation, and heads back out.

"Hey, uh, miss, did you want me to clear out of the bedroom for you?"

She looks up from her phone.  "No, I don't think that will be necessary."

It's dark out and kind of late and it doesn't seem like she just came in to grab something, so probably she's planning on staying the night - but oh right, there's another bedroom.  It also isn't ready to be slept in, Ariel's pretty sure.  He's just - not going to ask about that, for now, though, she looks occupied and that's probably something he can figure out later.  He can just put away the vacuum, and wash the mug he used earlier, even though he just had water in it and it really doesn't need it since he'll almost certainly be using it again, and then he can . . . dust.  Dusting is a good activity that will keep him out of her way but also on hand to be interrupted if she needs something, and won't make it look like he's trying to hide from her and/or responsibility.

She finishes whatever she was doing on her phone, then goes and sits on the couch and does absolutely nothing for several minutes.

Eventually: "You're here because of my aunt, I presume?"

This person is not the same race as the person who hired him.  - Could be through marriage.

"Depends who your aunt is, ma'am."

"Kimberly Rohner."

"Then yes.  Miss."

She props her elbows on her knees and puts her face in her hands.

"If you skip the misses and ma'ams, I won't be the one to tell her."

. . . huh.

"Sure."

She doesn't seem very inclined to respond or move.

"Are you like - feel free to tell me to go buzz off, but . . . are you okay?"

"Yeah, sorry, that's a hard question - um, are you sure you don't want anything?  A hot drink or some water or - something?"

"That might be nice."

If she wanted something specific she probably would have said that; Ariel goes off to grab something for her.

The kitchen is pretty sparse; he was going to go shopping later in the week.  Looks like he's limited to latte mix and water, which at least means he doesn't really have to make a decision?  He heats up a mug of water and tries to spoon the mix out of the can but finds it solid.  It does come apart after some determined jabbing with the plastic scoop it came with, but trying to stir it in leads more to clumps and slightly murky water than a proper drink.

He fills a glass with tap water and brings both that and the mug back over.

She inspects the drink dubiously and takes a sip after a moment.  There's a slight change in her expression, but it's hard to tell if it's a grimace or something neutral.

"Thank you.  It's - I appreciate it."

It is definitely a grimace.

"Hey, no problem.  Sorry it's - there isn't much here yet; I could go see if anywhere's open this late if you n - "

"That's fine."

" - Oh.  Okay."

" - Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.  It's - I've had a - "  She takes a beat to compose herself.  "I suspect they're all closed anyway."

"Yeah probably.

"Uh - do you want - me to go hide out in the loft, or get the other room ready for you, or - hang out with you; I don't want to be presumptuous - but . . ."

"But what."

He holds his hands out in a conciliatory gesture.  "Sorry, nothing.  Uh, I'll just go . . . do something else."

"No, wait - I just meant . . . I really was asking."

"Oh.  Uh, you just look like you could use it.  I guess.  Like, not a lot or anything, but . . ."

Saying this was a terrible terrible idea and he shouldn't have brought it up in the first place and now he has to live with the awkwardness and is probably going to get fired or something - or murdered - probably not murdered; the broad strokes of this situation sound super sketchy but he doesn't actually feel in danger at all, and that seems fairly based in reality, with how she's acting, and not like he's ignoring red flags.  Which is good but doesn't eliminate the awkward aspect - ugh, why is he like this -

"Yes."

" - Hm?"

"I - think I could use some company.  If you felt like it.  - Only if you felt like it."

"Hey, sure; I mean I wouldn't've offered if I didn't mean it."  (Yes he would have.  But it's a little funny to think that he wouldn't prefer hanging out over cleaning or whatever.)  "Do you want to - I haven't checked whether any of the movies here are good yet,  but if they are do you want to watch a movie?"

"I don't think there are any.  But we could check anyway."

They walk over to the cabinet where the DVDs are lined up.  "Yeah wow, absolutely none of these seem - like the right mood, even if they're good.  But maybe you know them better than I do."

"No, I don't think so either."  She looks down at the floor and fails to not react to something on it.

Possibly Ariel would want to politely pretend not to notice if he took a moment to think about it, but instead he looks to see what it is, fairly automatically.

There are wet footprints where she padded over, and her patterned tights are visibly wet up to a level closer to her knee than her ankle.

"I walked here . . ." she attempts to justify.

"You - walked?  Here?"

"Yes."

"Up a mountain?  In the snow??  At night???"

"Yes."

"From where?  - Never mind, do you want - I don't know, should I light the fire, or . . ."

That is kind of a weird response but he's not going to interrupt it unless she takes a really long time to say something.

"My apologies.  A fire.  Might be nice."

"Sure!  I'll get on that."  Look at him, being so successfully casual in the face of like forty-five seconds of deeply awkward silence.  Probably it was less than forty-five seconds.  Sure did feel like it, though.

And he does, indeed, get on it.

She sits back down on the couch, looking relieved.

Ariel is, externally, intensely absorbed with fire building, and doesn't notice any particular affect of hers.

Then he also won't notice her dropping that expression in favor of an indecisive one after a few moments, nor that one turning careful and tentative, but with a hint of determination.

He will presumably notice her asking, "Would you like help with that?"

He looks over.  "Naw, I'm good.  I mean," he goes back to his work.  "I'm not the one who walked up a mountain in the snow at night, so."

"Okay."

Everything about this is awkward and terrible but conveniently he can just keep building this fire and not deal with that.

Well, he can keep building this fire until the fire is built.  Then he can no longer do that.

"Thank you; this is very kind.  I feel warmer already."

There was something incredibly off about that delivery, but hey, he already knew this was awkward and terrible; under other circumstances he'd find that suspicious or something but this is just kind of how things are right now, it seems.

"No problem, boblem.  You want anything else?"

She gives him an odd look for several seconds before her brain appears to catch up with her.  " - No thank you; this is already so much."

"It really isn't!  But uh no biggie if you don't have anything you want."

Nod.

"So, uh, we didn't want to watch a movie, right?  What should we do instead."

"Hm.

You were listening to music earlier?"

"I sure was."

Somewhat shyly: "Well, maybe we could do that now?  That's a thing people do sometimes, right?  Just - hang out and listen to music?"

"Heh.  Yeah, that's a thing people do sometimes, I guess.  What do you want to listen to?"

"I think whatever you had on before would probably be fine."

" - You don't want to pick something?"

"Not really.  I don't have - or, I only have a very narrow range of genres.  And they also don't seem like the right thing for right now.  And even if they did, I think I don't have good enough signal here."

"Uh, sure.  I've got some stuff downloaded.  How about - do you still not want to pick something if it's from my - collection, I guess - instead of yours?"  He does a bit of navigating on his phone and holds it out for her to take.

She does, and looks through the available selection a bit.

Then she looks up at him, scrutinizing, for a long moment.

"Casey?"

What.

"Uhhhh . . ."

" - Sorry - are you not . . ."

"Uh, no, sorry - I mean I am - or was; I go by Ariel now - just - do I know you?"

"Oh - all right, Ariel then - I think we might have had a year in school together - "

"Oh - yeah, totally!  You were - uh," he feigns recognition.  Hopefully he will at all start to remember who this person is within the next thirty seconds or so.

"Hana!"

"Oh, yeah, Hana!  Wow, it's been - how long has it been."

"I think it must have been seventh - no, sixth grade - "

"Wow!  The time really does fly, huh."  He is maybe getting a tiny hint of memory about this person, but absolutely nothing concrete yet.  ". . . What made you recognize me?"

"Well it was a couple minutes ago - with the um, 'no problem, boblem'; I started to remember something, and then I - accidentally hit the settings icon in your music app, and it shows the name on your profile - "

"Oh, yeah, I've got to update that, wow.  - How've you been?"

" - I've been fine."

". . . If you say so."

" - No, really, I mean - my life is much better in general than it was back then.  Even if there are . . . rough patches."

"Fair enough."

"And what about you, how have you been doing?"

"Oh, you know, pretty good, I keep on keepin' on."

"Well, that's good."

There are a few beats of awkward silence.

"Yep."

And then a few more.

She goes back to looking at the music selection, after a moment.

Well.  Ariel sits down on the floor.

" - You can be on the couch, you know."

"Sure."  He slides down into the couch pit.  Probably there is some sort of actual term for this, but he definitely doesn't know it.  - Shoot, now he's next to her, he abruptly realizes; he should have gone around to the other side before entering it, which would have been awkward but not as awkward as sitting next to her.  Turns out it's very easy for him to not fully process that people are very attractive when they're a reasonable distance away, and very difficult to ignore when he's stuck next to them.

He's not even that close, the couch can easily fit three people and they're on opposite ends of it, but he could have been in the other corner of this weird inset square instead and that would have felt better.

(He's definitely not staring at her; he doesn't even think he's looked at her since he sat down, although who can say, but - the physical proximity makes it click that she has been very pretty this whole time.)

He gazes intently at his hands.

Hoobastank's "The Reason" starts playing.

His volume was up enough that this is kind of startling!

She jumps slightly at his jumping, or perhaps just also at the sudden sound, and gets it turned it down in pretty short order.

- Once the initial startle passes, that's actually pretty funny.  He still doesn't look up at her, but his hands get a smile directed down at them.

"Is this okay?"

He looks up.  (Oh no, she's still pretty.  That's fine.  He's fine.)  "Yeah, for sure.  I mean, I'm the one who downloaded it?  So there's probably not anything you can play that I wouldn't be okay with, I don't think."

"Okay."

She hums along, after a bit.  It's - not bad, definitely, but it drifts between styles, at times far too classical and operatic for the song and at others more casual and fitting.

. . . Cute.  He doesn't join in with the humming, but he starts patting his thigh in rhythm and doing a touch of torso grooving.

Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" is next.

Ah, so this is that playlist.  "I see you've gone for my impeccable taste in pre-curated early aughts pop.  A wise choice, truly."

"Thank you."

Her smile fades and she becomes rather pensive looking once they hit the chorus.

He's not gonna ask.  He is not going to ask.

"Bad breakup?"

For some reason, she seems to find this funny, although not enough to quite bring back a smile.  "Not as such, no.

"I wish.  - Almost.  Not - I wouldn't.  It would be a terrible idea, and things will be fine later.  Just, for now . . ."

"Do you want to talk about it."

"It's - " She adjusts her torso to face Ariel and puts all of her attention on him.  "Do you . . . know.  Things."

Aaaaaaa that's a lot of pretty-lady eye contact being beamed directly at him.  He leans away from it and shrinks into himself a bit.  " - What sort of things - "

(He almost puts another 'miss' at the end there, but catches himself before actually doing it.)

She seems kind of taken aback by his body language, and breaks focus and leans back against the couch herself.  " - Sorry.  Never mind."

"It's okay!  Just uh, sorry.  Sorry."  He considers and rejects the idea of asking for clarification on 'things' again; she did tell him to never mind.  ". . . If you still want to talk about that - and can, while avoiding whatever that is, I'm, you know.  Here."

"My aunt is.  She has certain ideas about how to act.  Which can be difficult to live up to, sometimes.  And, some of the things she thinks are - just wrong, but some aren't that bad, but can still be hard.  And.  She's done a lot for me - she's done so much for me - but sometimes I still just can't take it.  And I wish, right now, that I could just leave and never see her again, but that's just - something I have right now, and it's not going to stay that way forever.  But sometimes I just have to . . ."

That contained absolutely no specifics which he can say anything insightful or helpful (or seeming it) about.  Probably better not to push anything.  Or any 'things'.

"Do you want a hug?"

A small, short nod.

He scoots towards her.  The logistics of hugging while sitting down are kind of - oh, she can just go kind of sideways against him, there, okay.  It's more of holding her than a hug proper, but it's still nice.  Very nice.  He tries to think of the last time he had a hug and comes up short, which is pretty sad.  He is - definitely going to keep a careful eye out for signs she doesn't want to be in contact anymore; the absolute last thing he wants is to be creepy about hugging the pretty girl.  But it's not even the fact that she's pretty that's the main appeal, just - wow yeah it sure has been a long time since he's had something like this, and he hopes it keeps going on for a while.  Even though he is so carefully looking out for even the slightest sign that she thinks it should be over.

Hana also is not really giving off the impression of someone who has had a particularly sufficient number of hugs recently.

In the background, the song changes again.

Ariel's internal forces of 'need hug' are battling against those of 'sitting in one place for too long, especially with another person's body weight pressing against you, gets pretty darn uncomfortable'.  Also what if she does want it to end but just doesn't feel comfortable in making the first move?  That would still be creepy of him.  Aaa.

He still fails to move or act upon that thought, though.

She shifts a bit eventually, but not particularly in a way that permits Ariel to pull back.

A few moments after that, she lets out a small noise of - realization, perhaps?  Or possibly just comfort.

Oh.  Probably that's fine, then, and she wants to be here, right?  He still watches out for signs she wants to leave, but not quite as closely.

He must've relaxed a bit with that realization, too, because midway into the next song he realizes he's still not feeling fidgety even though it's been a while since that position change.

This is kind of an absurdly long hug, but she still hasn't moved away.  It's not entirely clear whether she's even still awake.

Well she did like, climb up a mountain and stuff; that's probably pretty tiring.  Possibly he should be devoting more effort into making sure she's like, actually okay and stuff, but she seems warm and looks fine?  Maybe she came from a relatively adjacent cabin or something and it wasn't really very far.

He has the urge to rub circles on her back or pet her hair or something, which probably isn't that weird considering they are several minutes into this cuddle.  But even if she likes it and is fine with it - and she might not and that's scary - it would still probably be worth commenting on in some way and then the bubble of this moment, the two of them, sitting together but without quite interacting, would burst.  Also this is literally the first time in his life that he's sat comfortably still for this long and he's kind of curious how long it'll last.

It lasts until several songs later, when Ariel's playlist shifts from relatively quiet songs, the most recent of which is Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek", to the loud and abrupt "The Call" by The Backstreet Boys, at which point Hana jerks into an upright position.

Ariel has listened to this playlist enough times to start anticipating the next song at the tail end of the previous one, but not with enough warning to really do anything about it except wonder if it might be jarring.  Especially since moving at all is the hard part and the phone is kind of out of reach, so he'd have to unsnuggle anyway.

She blinks several times, confusedly, in a manner consistent with someone who had in fact been dozing.

"Hey."

(Aw, now that they're sat up probably all the uncomfortableness that usually manifests as needing to fidget will all come at once and he'll be stuck with a bunch of built-up soreness.  Ugh.)

". . . . Hey . . ."

(The soreness has not arrived yet, if it's going to at all.)

Well now that he's already unentangled he can pause the music.  He spends slightly longer than necessary looking down at his phone, debating whether to - okay yeah, he's just going to stay over here on this side of the couch.  And then if she wants him back on that side, she'll ask him, which will be nice in its own right and also infinitely better than him assuming he's welcome over there and her telling him to go away or staying silent but trying to slip away after a bit, or worst of all her just bearing it without any outward indication she dislikes it and growing to resent him and it just seems safer.

"How long was that?"

"'Bout ten or fifteen minutes, I think."

"I'm - sorry . . ."

"Oh - uh, don't be.  I mean it's fine.  It was fine."

"That's very nice of you to say."

" - What are you sorry for?  Exactly?"

She freezes up a bit, in the way she did before when he asked her if she was okay, looking away, then at the floor, then up again but still well away from Ariel's face.

She looks - fearful?

" - Sorry.  Sorry.  Just uh, if you had something specific, then - I could let you know with more confidence that there wasn't anything to be sorry for?  Like if I didn't mind that specific thing.  In case you thought I was just saying that to say it.  Uh."

She nods, but doesn't seem to be able to make words come out yet even though she is clearly trying.

He'll wait for her this time.

"It was wrong of me to fall asleep on you when you're - being paid for something else - and - had just offered a hug, and - just a hug, not being.  You know.  Fallen asleep on.

"And I'm sorry."

"It's seriously fine.  I didn't mind."

"Okay."

She does not really seem okay about it - or not like not-okay but like she could use some further reassurance about it - probably it won't be too creepy if he admits -

"I mean - I liked it?  At least a little, like, uh, extended hugs:  not actually that unpleasant."

". . . Some hugs can be unpleasant."

(Oh huh, the soreness hasn't kicked in and by this point probably isn't going to, that's nice and weird and nice.)

"Well, that one wasn't."

"Oh."

"We could.  Keep doing it, if you wanted?  Only if you wanted," he says, parroting the last part with a hint of a smile to let her know he's doing it intentionally, and because it's better for her to have an opportunity to laugh it off if she in fact doesn't want to.

In answer, she scoots over to him this time, and tentatively starts wrapping her arms around him.

Objectively this should not be that different from them already sitting pretty close to each other, which (thankfully) lost its novelty pretty quickly.  However, the fact that he is now something that could loosely be described as 'cornered', even though if Hana has literally any amount of domminess she's certainly not displaying it here, has him a bit flustered again.  For some goddamn reason.

Conveniently, hugging someone back does not involve anything particularly complicated, so the fact that his brain has a program that's freezing everything else up and needs to be shut down manually with the task manager is not super a problem.

Hug hug.

. . . Very tentative back rub?

"Mm."  Hopefully-probably that conveyed an appropriate level of 'that is nice you can definitely keep doing that'.

It seems so!  Slightly less tentative backrubs ensue.

Well, he'll just have to reciprocate, then, won't he.

This gets him a slightly lean-ier Hana.

Over the course of several moments, she trends upwards and eventually starts playing with the bottom of his hair.

A slightly lean-ier Hana is just what he wanted!  Or well not that specifically, but - definitely a desirable outcome, even if he hadn't been aiming for that in particular.

The bottom of Hana's hair is substantially lower than his own!  (He has a brief pang of jealousy.  It's not particularly salient, but it's definitely there for a moment.)  He turns his hand into a very wide comb of sorts and starts passing it through the tips of her hair, making sure to press gently on her back as well and being very careful not to pull at all.

Hana continues playing with his hair, and gradually works her way upward.

At the back of his head, she - hits upon something.

She gives a gently questioning "Mm?"

Oh shit the barrette.  Don't panic don't panic don't panic -

"Oh that?  It's just a - " pick a less girly word than 'barrette' " - hair clip.  Which I have."

She pulls back from the hug to look at him.

"For reasons."

Casually: "What are your pronouns, Ariel?"

"Uh," he she they he they she he they say.

"She/her."

Her expression is - not surprised, particularly, but also not the face of someone who knows what the right response to that is supposed to be.

"Congratulations?"  She immediately buries her face in one of her hands.  "Or - oh, that's probably not - I'm sorry . . .  Thank you?  For telling me?"

Conveniently for Hana, Ariel's internal monologue is entirely too occupied with aaaaaaaaaaaaaaas and oh shits to particularly care about, or even really notice, her awkward reaction.

"You're welcome.  I guess."

She closes the distance on the hug again.

Oh.  That's . . . surprising enough that it jars them out of their internal screaming for a second, and then once it's interrupted there doesn't seem to be much point in bringing it back.  This is fine, probably.

They hug back again.

She cards her fingers through their hair for several moments, avoiding the clip.

Eventually: "Do you want me to take that out?  Not - um.  Just, sometimes, when I have things in my hair, I want them out, if it's going to be touched.

"That's fine."

" - Are you sure?  You don't have to . . ."

"No, it's fine; I just needed a second to think about it."

"If you say so."

She unclips it from the back of their head and holds it out behind them to take a better look.

"It's pretty," she evaluates.  And, after a moment's thought, she once again unfolds herself from the hug, brushes his bangs to one side, and reclips the barrette onto them, relatively out of the way.

Hugs resume and a full-on scalp massage commences.

It's good that hugs resume (for more than the obvious reason) and also that their blush takes several seconds to fully set in.  (She was touching their face.  What.)

After a few seconds their brain repairs itself enough to figure it's probably polite to mirror the scalp massage.

It doesn't stay mirroring for very long, because from the moment they start, Hana's hand starts to slow, and then it slips down out of their hair, very gradually, and trails down their back until it falls to rest on the seat of the couch.  And that's just her hand; the rest of her is not particularly capable of supporting itself either.  Her head sinks into their shoulder and her whole body just sort of melts.

They pause the scritches long enough to ask, "Are you - or, is this okay?"

The noise she makes is somewhat hard to describe, but definitely complain-y, possibly even veering into whiny, and is pretty clearly about the fact that Ari stopped rather than her disliking the action.

She does not bother to take her face out of their shoulder for it.

Ari resumes!  That is very cute and pretty endearing and probably scritches can just continue for a while.

. . . Hana is clearly not paying much attention to anything but Ari's hand.  Relatively unobserved, 'they' start slipping back into 'she'.  And thinking about that aspect of the situation.

Obviously she's a girl; she's been aware of and fine with that for a pretty decent amount of time.  She is, however, pretty completely unused to other people being aware of and fine with that.  So - for now, not forever; she reminds herself several times a day that it's not forever - she usually thinks of herself as 'he'.  It's much easier to fool other people that way, just because it's much easier for her to act right.

She thought this place was isolated enough that she could be a girl.  She was wrong about the isolation, but it's looking like maybe that was the only part.

(Do girls get this all the time?  The cuddles and the casual affection, this fast?  It would be pretty presumptuous to assume it was romantic, but Hana did, uh, reverse-clock her pretty quickly, so maybe she just has a really excellent trans-ceiver and decided that falling asleep on her would totally fine platonically.  . . . Or as much of a trans-ceiver as you need to make the call on someone you saw wearing a skirt, she guesses; that was probably a bit of a giveaway.)

(It at least makes more sense than anything else she can think of.)

Hana is unavailable for comment, what with her head being semi-permanently attached to Ari's arm and being ambiguously conscious.

Ari's still not getting uncomfortable, despite this position being arguably more unsustainable than the last.

Possibly she should just marry become best friends forever with this girl immediately, since she apparently has the miraculous ability to make cuddles not terrible (and in fact really great, actually) for longer than four minutes.  Substantially longer.

Her hair is so soft, too.  Pet pet pet pet scritch.

If Hana is unwilling to receive pets indefinitely, she has not done anything at all to make that clear.  And it doesn't seem like she intends on it for the immediate future, either.

Well eventually Ari's hand is probably going to get tired.  - Or is it?  None of the rest of her has gotten uncomfortable.  But those seem like different sorts of things probably, and she probably shouldn't assume one will say anything about the other.

If her hand doesn't get tired for long enough, though, something else might stop her: a playful mean-spirited streak.  (And perhaps wondering something - a hint of memory, maybe . . .)

She stops, fairly abruptly.

"Nooooooooooo . . ."

She laughs and starts up again.  "Okay, okay, sorry."

After a much longer pause than is conversationally standard, and with breaks in between of the sort people have when they're having trouble putting words together: "Sorry.  I.  You don't have to . . . if you didn't want, you shouldn't . . ."

She isn't really making any effort to get up, though.

"Don't worry about it."  And she ups the scritching again to make any further comments even more apparently effortful.

This works well enough that she has several minutes for something to click together in the back of her mind, and she jerks up and says, somewhat loudly and extremely incredulously, "Hana?"

"Yes?"

"Oh my god, Hana; I literally didn't recognize you this whole time.  Oh my god.  Holy shit, you're - different.  Uh.  You're really different."

She's sitting up under her own power and isn't angling to get back to hair-related activities, but is blinking repeatedly in response to this and otherwise seems to be lagging a bit in her processing of it.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, you're like - you were so - " don't say annoying " - uh.  Boisterous?  And like.  Talkative.  And now you're like," beautiful, elegant, tolerable "not."

"Oh.  I suppose you're right."

"You look much better without the self-cut bangs!  - Sorry about pretending to know who you were when I didn't; I just - you're much less recognizable without the windbreaker," she laughs.  "Gosh."

"Oh.

"It's fine that you didn't recognize me until now."

"Did I say something wrong?  Sorry, if - yeah."

She doesn't say anything for a what probably feels to Ari like quite a long moment, then shakes her head as if to clear it.  "No, you're right.  It's - I'm better now.  Right?"

What on earth did she hit on.  Possibly it has something to do with 'things'.

"Uh.  Probably it's not as bad as I was remembering; I was a real judgy little monster back then.  It's just - different looks, you know?  And - I think you look nice now. But probably you also looked fine back then.  - Not that - kids shouldn't have to look nice; they should just get to be kids.  But."

(aaaaaa she is going to melt into the floor)

"Oh.  You're probably right.

"We all have to grow up sometime, though, don't we."

"Yeah."

Ari is not entirely sure she agrees with that in the sense Hana means it, but it's probably better than whatever was going on inside her head before.

She tips her head back onto Ari's shoulder, lightly and no longer face first.

"If you wanted to put your other outfit back on, you could.  - That wasn't a - I wasn't asking you to,  indirectly, because I wanted it for myself.  But if you were more comfortable."

"Maybe in a few minutes."

"Okay.

"Are you sure that you don't know about anything that could plausibly be what I called 'things'."

"I don't . . . . think?  So?"

"Not," she opens her mouth and taps her upper teeth, off to the side a bit, "this?"

"Did you have braces, when we were in school together?"

"No," she sighs.  "I think it would be pretty obvious if you did know it."

What a stressful thing for her to say.  Not even because of the fact that whatever it is seems important, either.  Just, Ari has found herself in enough positions where people thought things should be obvious that definitely weren't that she doesn't trust it.  Whether because of a shortcoming in her own, very fallible memory, or the fact that she can sometimes be very dense, or because they were actually bad at predicting stuff.

"Well.  If you say so."

"You don't sound very sure."

"I'm not!"

Hana considers this for a moment.  She sits up.

She - very slowly, giving plenty of time for her to move away,  reaches out and takes Ari's wrist.  She, clear and precise in her mindfulness, brings it towards her, and up, in front of her mouth; her breath is warm on its inside.

She does not break eye contact the entire time.

"I guess not."  She gives Ari's hand back.

no take it back that was so hot  Hopefully that thought didn't show on her face.

It kind of looks like some of it might have shown on her face, given the fact that Hana takes Ari's hand in both of hers.  Although, it's rather less . . .dommily, this time.  She starts massaging it, though.  That might make up for the lack of piercing eye contact.

It kind of does, which is weird.  She doesn't recall having had a hand massage before; are they always this . . . this?  She's not getting all melty like Hana was with the hair, but there is absolutely definitely something to this.  Is that normal?  Have hands always been like this?  She feels like she should have noticed, if they were.  It's very interesting how the hairpetting made Hana go basically unconscious and not really noticing things while Ari kind of feels like literally all of her attention is just located in her hand.  She doesn't feel melty at all; she is in fact concentrating quite hard on keeping completely still and - she wants to give off a relaxed vibe but she in fact doesn't know how to just rest her hands without holding them in some sort of place, so she's trying very hard to put them where they would probably flop if that was a things she was capable of.

(It kind of sucks that she can't just turn off her brain and enjoy things.  But like, wow, this sure is still an experience even with the background noise, huh.)

"Now the other one?"

Oh yeah wow, she has a whole 'nother hand, doesn't she.  She trades them off.

The lack of new sensation in the one which had previously been getting all the attention feels very strange.  She shakes it out and presses it to her side, between her ribs and her other elbow, which seems to help.

"You're okay?"

"Hm?  - Yeah, I am.  Uh, thanks for asking, though."

"Good.

"Good girl."

- She instantly looks very embarrassed and like she regretted saying that immensely.  Her hands still, but she doesn't move them away.

Ari is herself blushing pretty hard!  She stutters out a few syllables none of which are particularly coherent.

"I'm so sorry," she rather squeaks.  "I'll just um - "  Dropping Ari's hand, she scrambles back to the other end of the couch.

"It's, uh, fine - "

"It really isn't.  Even if - that's - it's not something you can just say, to someone you know as well as I know you."  She pulls her knees up to her chest.  "Or to - someone who's being paid to be here and not for that."

"I . . . didn't?  Mind?"

"It's not about that.  It - is wrong to act certain ways, with people you have any sort of power over, and saying that sort of thing to someone you haven't very clearly established that it's okay with in advance, especially when that person is your cleaning staff, is very definitely one of them!  Even if they ended up liking it!  - Or . . . not minding it."

What Hana's saying is in fact probably right in important ways, but given that Ari did, in fact, like it (even though this is mildly embarrassing to be called out on), she does not feel super inclined to let Hana spiral guiltily about it.

It's kind of a gamble but - "I mind how uneven my hands feel."

"What?"

"Well, you know, you did the right one for a lot longer than this one.  And I don't mind the thing you said, but the obvious lack of symmetry is really distracting, so.  You don't have to pick it back up again; I mean you do you, but if you were trying to fix the situation.  Then that is the part I actually care about."

(It is bad and manipulative of her to say this, but she can live with being a bad and manipulative person, that's fine.)

Hana looks deeply conflicted about this.

Well, Ari's hardly going to interrupt her.

Her hands do feel terribly uneven and it would sure be nice if Hana would pick back up again, but even if she decides that she doesn't want to, then it'll probably be - on her own end, as it were, and that would be a win too.

She starts to scoot back towards Ari a bit, then stops and looks at the coffee table.  "I . . . was going to make another latte.  Did you want one?"

" - Another one?  Did you even like the first one; it didn't look like you did.  And I mean, it didn't look very likable; I didn't mean that as a you thing."

Since it looks like hand . . . pets, aren't imminently going to be a thing again, she sits on her hands to try and even out the sensations between them.  It helps a little.

"I want another just like it."

That was the weirdest 'very carefully not a 'yes'' answer she's heard in a while.  "If you say so; I'll pass on this one.  - Might take a plain hot water if you felt like it, though?"

"I can do that."

Probably this is some sort of thing where she's attempting to shove this interaction into a friend shape instead of an employer/employee shape by doing something for Ari, so she's just going to let her do that without interfering or offering to help.  She plays a little of the sequel to Temple Run while she waits but isn't focused enough for any of the runs to last very long.

She's back in a couple minutes with Ari's . . . plain . . . hot . . . water, as well as her own terrible, thin yet chunky, cappuccino soup.

Ari isn't invested enough in this to even pause; she lets herself run into a flame spigot thing.  "Thanks!"

"You're welcome!"  She visibly considers doing something else, but ultimately takes a seat in the same place as she did initially, on the other end of the same couch as Ari.

Ari belatedly realizes she could have used that time to go change, but also that does sound kind of scary even though there's a lot of evidence that it would be fine and she's kind of already sent that ship off sailing and therefore it's a dumb thing to be scared about.  So phone games was probably fine.

The water is a bit too hot to drink but the mug is quite nice to hold in her hands.  "How's yours?"

"It's good."

"Liar," she smiles.  It's slightly aaa to say something so bold and able to be taken as mean, but she thinks maybe it'll help with the like, subordination thing going on here and then it's already out of her mouth.

"Well.  It's nostalgic, then.  How's yours, then, and don't try and tell me it's better."

Thank fucking god.  "It is to me!  I realize we have like, exactly two things here, and one of them is the awful concoction you're somehow enjoying, but even when there are more things I like this one sometimes."

"I'd say your taste is all in your mouth but that does seem to be included in the affected area."  Regret flashes across her face for a beat.  "And also it would be very rude and I would never actually say that to mean it."

She curls into herself a bit and tries to hide it with another sip.

Oh no can she salvage this - "Well, I mean, if people who can't see are blind, and people who can't hear are deaf, and people who can't smell are . . ."  She snaps repeatedly, trying to find the word.

". . . Having anosmia?  Anos . . . mic?"

"Anosmic, yeah!  - Then what does that make me, who's got no taste?"

"I don't know!  - Wait, do you actually - is that why just the water or - "

"No yeah that was really unclear - I just meant like, bad, uh, what is literally any other word that means taste in the like, non-literal sense.  For my actual sense of taste, which I have."