[bookshop: ren & elijah]
Hello wasn't a whole lot to go on, which in a previous month might have made Ren inclined to smile and actually ask the question, but right now he didn't, only met the man's gaze rather steadily with brown eyes, the thought flickering through his mind and in a previous month he might have discarded it, but instead he reached out - careful and tentative.
It had been a long time since he'd consciously used the ability. It didn't mean that it wasn't there at times, a sort of sixth sense that could be relied on to help him read a room - like one might see someone smiling and take from that the clue that they were happy or pleased or amused - Ren had always had the ability to pick up on the underlying emotions. Mostly, like with most of his magic, he didn't do anything with it. Mostly, he just let it lay dormant, an extra contextual clue that he could pull from if he wanted, but today he shifted that into a conscious use of the ability.
Not that it seemed likely he was going to get much more from the man without significantly investing more effort. Private, careful, there were other thoughts there, but Ren would have to dig deeper to get to them, and it was difficult to do that without really using magic in an obvious way, and while he could have - easily - he didn't want to draw attention to himself in this particular way. It gave him enough, he supposed to put some sort of strategy together for dealing with the stranger.
"I'm Ren," he offered, and this did come more easily and more typically, although also perhaps more abruptly and without the charisma he'd generally apply to it. "The used paperbacks are all 50% off cover price, minimum of $2. Let me know if I can help."