Re: log: louis & ren - diner
Louis waited until the waitress had come and gone, and they had a modicum of privacy. She might come back with the food, at some point, but now they had a little space to talk without interruption. He held his mug of coffee in both hands, and smiled when Ren promised to be a good world ruler. "A benefactor, not a dictator," he said, as if correcting someone who had made just such a mistake. He imagined himself as the second in command with a hand on Ren's shoulder, and he smiled - but there was a spark of mirth, too. Who knew? Maybe he would run the world, and Ren would be his second.
Now that they had the space to themselves, he clutched the mug a little tighter. He smiled in the same way - warm, but a little tighter now. "So I wanted to talk to you about us," he said. "I know I mentioned it before the party. I'm sorry for holding you in suspense. I don't like talking about this sort of thing online. It doesn't seem real. I don't know." He smiled had faded, and a more typical vision of him emerged, a little tired, more than a little worried, doing his best to keep his worry organized and under wraps.
Actually saying it was absolutely pulling teeth. His confidence waned, briefly, but he thought about it, in the pause. "I've been thinking about this quite a bit," he said. "I wanted to talk to you about how you would feel being my friend." The look was meaningful enough, but implication, asking Ren to do the work, seemed unfair. "About not dating, but being friends, instead."