Ari opened his mouth to warn her that rubbing her eye with so inkstained a hand was only going to make her look like a panda, but he decided not to interrupt, and merely let her go on.
He didn’t know what she felt like, exactly, but he knew her well enough to be certain, already, that there was something she needed to get off her chest. There was a burden on her shoulders. He wished he hadn’t seen her tonight; it only made him want to be useful, want to help.
It didn’t matter how she felt, but what she was working on mattered - there was a turmoil in all this, a whirlwind of thought around her that he couldn’t quite see past. But it was something to do with work, then.
“The good kind of hard?” Ari asked lightly, supposing that ‘showing interest’ was a largely inoffensive strategy. He did know a feeling or two when it came to work, though they did so in different fields: but they both solved problems, of a kind. Tried to fix things. “A puzzle that takes a bit of thinking? Or - bad hard? Like you don’t even know where to start?” Sometimes grappling with a problem that mattered - that had consequences - could be stimulating; one could throw all their time and energy into it, and plumb the depths of all logic and all ideas until coming up with a solution. (She looked like she’d been putting in rather a lot of thought.)
But there was a tipping point with every problem, wasn’t there? When it became too vast and too daunting and too painful to look at, let alone figure out.
He didn’t know what she felt like, exactly, but he knew her well enough to be certain, already, that there was something she needed to get off her chest. There was a burden on her shoulders. He wished he hadn’t seen her tonight; it only made him want to be useful, want to help.
It didn’t matter how she felt, but what she was working on mattered - there was a turmoil in all this, a whirlwind of thought around her that he couldn’t quite see past. But it was something to do with work, then.
“The good kind of hard?” Ari asked lightly, supposing that ‘showing interest’ was a largely inoffensive strategy. He did know a feeling or two when it came to work, though they did so in different fields: but they both solved problems, of a kind. Tried to fix things. “A puzzle that takes a bit of thinking? Or - bad hard? Like you don’t even know where to start?” Sometimes grappling with a problem that mattered - that had consequences - could be stimulating; one could throw all their time and energy into it, and plumb the depths of all logic and all ideas until coming up with a solution. (She looked like she’d been putting in rather a lot of thought.)
But there was a tipping point with every problem, wasn’t there? When it became too vast and too daunting and too painful to look at, let alone figure out.
