She passes her the ivory donkey, and Liu a little marble statuette of a mouse. 

"Awww," says Liu. She shows the mouse to Xiao Xing, who sniffs it and then decides it is uninteresting.

Aww. 

"I'm really sorry for kissing you without your permission. I don't--want you to think--that I only like you because of, of a kink."

"You kissed her?"

"She was high on excess mana."

"That's no excuse for being inconsiderate." 

"If you say so."

"--I feel like I'm missing subtext? Am I missing subtext." 

"I don't think so! I wasn't even there, I have nothing to subtext about."

"Okay. You were making a face, though." 

"I haven't heard of people being high on mana, but also, you can hold a ton more than anyone else, so." Shrug.

"I mean, I think what I was actually high on was adrenaline, but it doesn't seem like it super matters?"

"It does not! Congratulations on finding mana storage! Have you filled it all yet?"

"Not all of it! In addition to buying these I also hired out our maintenance shifts, so a bunch of mana went into storage that I did not carry away with me." 

"Oh good, I keep getting really grody bathroom cleanings."

"Yeah. This stuff'll fill up pretty fast, though, I'd be surprised if it takes more than tomorrow." 

"Maybe you should make like the Muslim kids and just set up a charity. With the storage, not direct, in case some kid is sketchy."

"Maybe I should. It would make sense...maybe I could use this one for it." She plucks from the pile a piggybank-shaped piece of carved rose quartz. 

"Disgustingly adorable," pronounces Aadhya, patting the piggy.

"I had the same thought. I'm charmed, honestly." 

The next day through the end of classes goes by approximately as the past couple had, except that Lucia keeps failing to hide her fretting about how badly she had offended El. 

El seems determined to ignore this.

Valid of her. Lucia's mistake is Lucia's problem, and does not constitute an obligation on El's part to reassure her. 

Lucia decides to take her frustrations out on the mals. 

(There are more watchers, this time, and some of them linger to the end, when Lucia is taking the maintenance hatch down.)

"What do you lot want?" El asks them.

"Nothing," one of them says, and flees. The rest percolate out pretty quickly. 

"Rubberneckers," mutters El. Shower time.