Stop and Smell the Roses PV Lamik Fillestar

Continued from Hogwarts Hosts and Wondrous Tea

@Lamik Fillestar

Holding someone’s hand shouldn’t have felt this awkward. She held people’s hands before. She held both her mother and father’s hand when she was younger and prone to running off. She didn’t do that as much these days, but now that she was away from her parents, she probably shouldn’t have expected to do it again. She held Jake’s hand before when he was too scared to walk by himself to the library. In hindsight, she hadn’t held hands with too many people before. It just wasn’t necessary, and she didn’t expect people to need their hands held for whatever reason they had. Jake was an exception for obvious reasons. But she didn’t have any real reason this time.

It might have seemed obvious why she was doing it. She was offering a service. The club’s purpose was to make their clients enjoy themselves, whether it was for a nice cup of tea, or to have someone utter sweet nothings to their clients in the hopes that it’ll flatter them in some way. At least that was what she had witnessed with some of the club members who had interacted with the students stumbling upon the club. Shen was especially jarring to watch, with his fluency in flowery speech, and even some of the other people she knew were surprisingly good at it too.

She tried to offer Lamik an option. He didn’t have to go along with the romance idea. He could have had a normal conversation with her over tea if that was what he wanted. He could have left if he really wanted to. She hadn’t even suggested it herself that this should be an actual date, or whatever it was. She mentioned it by passing, but she didn’t think he’d actually take it. But he did it anyway.

It felt weird holding his hand. How would anyone else have felt if she held their hand? They probably would have swatted it off and told her to bugger off. Personal boundaries were a thing, after all. She half-expected Lamik to do the same too, but he didn’t, which meant that her hand was going to be wrapped around his for longer.

The awkward part was that she actually liked it. She didn’t think it’d feel this nice to hold someone’s hand, much less his, but she liked feeling his warmth. It was comforting, like resting near a fireplace. That in itself was surreal. If it weren’t for the current circumstances, she wouldn’t have thought about doing it in the first place. She probably would have never done it. That wasn’t what friends did, right?

She wondered what he thought. How did he feel? Did he like having his hand held? Most importantly, why did he agree to this entire arrangement in the first place? She knew he didn’t come here knowingly. He was lost, and even confused about the entire thing. But after her brief explanation, he seemed to want to go all in. What did he want from this? Why romance of all things? It wasn’t like they were a thing, so why bother going through something that was ultimately artificial? She supposed she would have to ask him later.

"There’s some tea and food on the tables if you’d like.” She gestured with her free hand. “Or if you don’t feel like it, we can just find somewhere to sit and talk. It's your choice." She squeezed his hand, smiling brightly as she turned to face him.