Ford stopped when she cut him off, and was only able to watch helplessly as she continued. She looked unhappy, he felt unhappy. He didn't know what to do about it. He did not actually want to encourage her to go and seize her moment with some other guy, but if the alternative was for her to be drowning in self-pity — well, this was hard to watch. He didn't think he could stomach it.

And it wasn't as though he had any reason to want to keep her here, at the end of the day. He didn't have anything to offer her. He couldn't have an actual future with anyone — and, and, and, he was in love with someone else, a fact which he had to keep reminding himself of. He wasn't in love with her, not really, so if she had some genuine feelings (or even an immature crush) on someone else, all the better for her —

Unless. Unless her crush wasn't real. She said tipsy, she said strange things; was there a chance that her feelings had come on just as suddenly as his had? Was there a chance that they might fade — that the competition for her affections might not be as persistent as he assumed? (The contradiction here — that if her crush faded, his would as well — had not occurred to him; no matter how many times he reminded himself that this infatuation wasn't real, it still felt so visceral he could not imagine it fading).

"Hey," he said softly. He had decided the best way forward was to endear himself to Miss Chang as much as possible, which meant being supportive in her moment of need... even if the moment of need was spurred on by her feelings for someone else. "You don't have to apologize. I did say I was willing to follow you while you went mad," he pointed out. Then, teasing: "Honestly, so far, it's a bit of a disappointment. I thought it'd be much stranger."

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