"If I thought I had half a chance of getting into their parlor, I'd be on my way already," Alfred agreed. Sending these curt little letters back and forth was helping no one, and he was getting tired of killing time in the post office waiting for more angry mail. This would have been so easy to clear up in person, particularly since they'd done nothing wrong. His odds of ever being allowed enough time alone with Zelda to have a frank conversation about it, however, were slim to none. The last time he'd been able to talk freely with Zelda had been at Christmas, and he'd literally planned it weeks in advance. He didn't really want to leave Zelda stewing and angry for the next six weeks while he tried to work out how he could talk to her again.

"It's — complicated," Alfred continued, though it wasn't, particularly; it was just a story he didn't care to recount. It wasn't that he wanted to keep it from Pablo, necessarily, only that it had been too embarrassing when he'd lived through it for him to relish the idea of recounting it to anyone. But he couldn't really explain any of this without mentioning it, so...

He sighed, then glanced at the post office desk to make sure the clerk wasn't near enough to overhear. "There was some magical tomfoolery at a party we were at, and she might've gotten the idea that we were attracted to each other. I thought we'd gotten over it right there in the moment, but then Jo sent her a letter afterwards and I've no idea what exactly she said." Speaking of which, he was losing time here reliving the embarrassments of Sunday when he could have had an owl off to Jo already.

"I'm going to write her. Give me a second," he said, approaching the counter again and paying a small fee to use their quill and parchment.