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Bella successfully manages to stay in all weekend except for when she joins packs of students headed for the dining hall. If the elves are still stalking her, she doesn't notice them. On Monday, the subtle artist elf is present in their shared course, and looks at her, but doesn't bother her - Bella leaves with another classmate anyway.
Traveling in packs is quite effective, she decides.
Except she doesn't do it in her own dorm.
It's pouring rain outside Tuesday afternoon and Bella doesn't want to go to the dining hall. She has some stuff in her room - not serious groceries, but enough that she can heat up some broth and noodles, liven it up with a handful of miscellaneous dried herbs, and call it soup. She is hanging out in the kitchen doing this when Brad from down the hall, the same fellow who attempted to interrupt Celo at his baking, chooses to bother her.
"Hey, Isabella."
"It's Bella."
"But your full name's so pretty," says Brad. "You should go by that instead. So Isabella, let's go out tomorrow, I'll show you a good time in town, we'll have some fun."
"No," says Bella, "thank you, and it's still Bella."
"Isabella's prettier. Like you, you're pretty. It's not like I asked you to make like a nymph or something, I just want to take you out," says Brad. "Is it the money, I bet it's that, I can cover it, we can go someplace nice and you can get whatever you want."
"It's still no. It's still Bella."
"Don't be such a bitch, you never have plans," snaps Brad, "what are you going to do, eat at the dining hall and re-read your textbooks, you can come out with me."
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subtly_artistic
"You tell me," he shrugs. "Don't think I've had one before."
subtly_artistic
"I've had friends but none of them substantially resembled you."
Celo laughs. "No shit?"
He giggles.
"I'd like to be your friend," he says. "I guess. Unless there's something horrible about it that I'm missing."
"I'd like to be your friend," he says. "I guess. Unless there's something horrible about it that I'm missing."
subtly_artistic
She shrugs. "You seem to have already signed up for bailing me out of hazardous situations. I think the rest is good."
Celo grins. "Okay, great."
subtly_artistic
"I really wish you could figure out that thing, though," she sighs. "I don't make a habit of telling my friends all the details you pick up. I know you've already got what you got, but that just means you'll definitely notice if anything changes."
"I've figured it out some," he says. "It's hard, though."
"Yeah?" he says. "Only some, though."
He shrugs. "Sure, okay."
The essential discovery is that, while there's no way to stop him from perceiving sexuality, he doesn't always have to interpret it. Actually doing so is a little like walking around with your eyes slightly unfocused all the time - difficult, kind of uncomfortable, easy to forget about and end up stopping by accident, but possible.
subtly_artistic
"Hmm. So you'd still notice if something changed but you wouldn't know what, unless you accidentally interpreted."
"Yeah," he says, "pretty much."
"...What's tricky?"
subtly_artistic
"This - entire thing. You're relying on it as a primary sense but it's invasive; you can avoid interpreting it but only so much and it takes all that attention."
"Yeah. Well - it takes whatever the opposite of attention is. Deliberately not looking at something."
subtly_artistic
"That's a kind of attention too. More outward-focused telepaths than me have to learn it." Pause. "Some of them find various forms of meditation helpful but I don't know if they're related enough to what you're doing."
"...I don't think it's a meditation thing," he says. "Well, I guess I don't know. But I don't think so."