Aldor sat on his bed, but Rose stayed standing. She didn't want to be rude and impose on his space. Back at her home, her and her family had some kind of possessive ownership of their own beds. Bed rights were always respected, and if you were on someone's bed and wouldn't get off, it was a very high offense and you would probably get tackled off. Maybe it was just something that they each had all to themselves. Being a large family with not a large amount of money, they had been forced to share a lot of other things over their lives- food, drink, toys, friends, books, even chairs, you name it, they probably had to share it at some point. But their beds were all their own. Where they slept. Where they read. Where they were socially protected from each other. It was their own, and so it was respected. She didn't feel like sitting on Aldor's bed with him without his permission.

The boy started to list things they could do. He didn't list a whole lot, but it gave them a couple of options. But mostly, he just wanted her to pick, because he was being kind. He then confessed that he hadn't really known how all of this worked, that it was new to him.

Now Rose wanted to sit on his bed with him. He was blushing, as if he was embarrassed about how he wasn't very well-versed in the friends-coming-over department. "Is it okay if I sit here?" she asked, gesturing to the spot next to him on his bed. If he told her that it was okay, and only if he told her that it was okay, she would sit next to him, with only a couple of inches between them.

"This is just like any other time that we get together," she started gently. "Just because we're at your house eating cookies made by your awesome aunt doesn't make it any different. Right?"

"I like the idea of playing a board game," Rose shared. "Let's do that."

Aldor accepted Rose onto his bed, and she murmured her thanks instinctually. It just came naturally to her, without a second thought about thanking him, she did.

He pulled some games out from under his bed, offering some suggestions about what they could play. She nodded at his suggestions. Usually she wasn't the one making all of the decisions when she got together with friends. But she guessed that it shouldn't be too hard to just make a decision. Rose didn't know if he had meant to say "Magnopoly" or if that was just an unknowing mistake on his part. Decisions, decisions...

Rose thought it was cute when you gave people unique nicknames. Like when Eyre called her Rosie or when her siblings called her Ro-Ro just to annoy her and remind her about when they were all little and they couldn't quite say her name. Like when her mother started calling her "my flower" again recently. She didn't know why it made her so happy, but it did. Maybe it was something about how they had a special nickname just for her, and it made her feel special. Or it made them feel close. Maybe she would start calling Aldor his nickname that his aunt called him, Aly.

Anyway, Rose finally came to a decision when Aldor broke the silence, asking her about Elzabeth Gillan. She squinted a little. "The name sounds a little bit familiar. Is she a second year? Because I might have some classes with her." She shook her head. "But no, I don't know her, and I haven't talked to her," Rose explained. She squinted a little at Aldor, seeing his face blush, and a smile spread on her face. "Why do you ask?" Did Aldor have a crush?

"Let's play Jenga," she answered his question from before. "Have you played before?" Rose liked to think herself pretty much a master at Jenga- the ones with the blocks. Staying home a lot, her and her siblings had to find things to do when they got bored of reading. They would have Jenga tournaments, and Rose had learned how to take just the right pieces out to put herself in a good position while also putting her opponent in a hard spot. It was a strategy game, a puzzle game, and Rose was really good at those. She enjoyed them a lot. But she hadn't played Jenga in a while, so she might be rusty.

"You sort of really like her?" Rose smirked a little, in only the way that a friend can to their friend when they're talking about their crush. He confessed that he was pretty sure that she liked somebody else and so he wasn't going to invite her to the ball any more. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. It was, indeed, a predicament. She paused a moment. "But you've only heard rumors? Not like... anything that's for sure?" Rumors weren't always true, and if he only heard things about her liking someone else, it could definitely be something her friends started or something. It didn't have to be true at all. "Why don't you ask her about it? If she likes anybody. The rumors could be wrong, and you might be able to go to the Ball with her after all. And if she says that she does like somebody else, no harm done."

Or not. Or she could lie to him. There were so many things that could go wrong with Rose's suggestion, but she had wanted to give him hope. He deserved to go with someone to the ball.

"But I guess you could be right about being 'better safe than sorry,'" she said. She didn't want to mess everything up for him, after all.

She gave him a little glance. "What about her do you like?" she asked.

He agreed to play Jenga with Rose, and then said he didn't really know how to play. She smiled at him and offered her explanation of the game, while sitting on his floor and stacking up the Jenga blocks criss-crossed, the way you do. "...and whoever's turn it is when it falls down looses," she finished. "I know you'll do great," the redhead encouraged him.

"I'll go first." Rose shifted onto her knees and inspected the tower for a second. She reached forward and pushed on a block. It seemed loose enough, so she pulled it out smoothly and set it on top. She looked up at Aldor. "Your turn."

Although she did feel a little bad about making Aldor feel embarrassed, he didn't look too miserable, so she thought that it would end up okay, right? He answered her question, and she learned a few things from his response. One- the actual answer to her question. Awwwww. Two- that he liked the way she talked and walked and her face. She blushed a little when he said that, but he said it so casually, she couldn't thank him for it in the way that it was timed. She appreciated that he said it, though. Three- that he considered her and Henry as siblings. She kind of sort of already knew that, but she had never heard him say it. It was cool to hear that she was there for him in that way. It must have been hard living like he was an only child, when he actually wasn't. It must have been hard to know that he did have a family, and he did have siblings, but they just didn't want him. That had to be crushing. But to have someone that wasn't your family but wanted you anyway? That had to be really cool to Aldor.

Rose was just guessing all of this, of course. She didn't actually know what Aldor's thought process was.

"Hey," she said to Aldor, trying to catch his eye so that she could have eye contact with him. "It's alright. We all have those feelings that we can't explain or can't quite sort out. It's alright if you can't yet- you'll learn to. And you still have plenty of time."

Rose took her own turn on Jenga, analyzing the blocks and sliding one out. She looked up at Aldor, in her own way of telling him that it was his turn. "You're catching on super fast," she said with a smile.

The redhead nodded at his next comment. "I'm actually not sure if I'm going to the Blossom Ball with Eyre this year," she said. "It's nothing serious or anything, he just hasn't really been around as much since he's going through family stuff and all. Anyway, so if I bump into you, you wouldn't be bothering me at all. Do you have a costume planned already?"

Rose smiled back at him. "Oh, you should see my mom play Jenga. She doesn't do it often, but when she does, she dominates. My sister is pretty sure that she's secretly using nonverbal magic to keep it up during her turn. Of course, she's not. But they just can't stand loosing," she said, giggling a little. The last time that their mom had played any kind of game with them had been several years ago, of course, but that didn't mean Rose couldn't reminisce about it and how good her mom had been. Rose wished they still did play games, but she doubted that would really be happening.

But she didn't say any of that out loud- she didn't want to bring down the mood.

Rose examined the tower, tapping at a couple of blocks. It looked like it could take a few more rounds. She considered taking the tower down on purpose, just so that she could let Aldor be a little more confident, but she wouldn't do that. It felt like lying to Aldor, even if it was meant well. She found a loose one and carefully started sliding it out. She looked at the tower, pausing as it wiggled. Then she would pull it out a little bit more, letting it slide loose. She let out a breath she didn't know she had been holding, placing the block on top of the tower and then scooting back a little to give him room to make his next move.

She smiled at his words. Yes, of course, he would go in something super cool. She remembered back to his dragon costume for Halloween, when she had offered to take him trick-or-treating. It had been fun, and she had enjoyed that he had been there with him.

But what she didn't know is that he made his own costumes. "Wait- Aldor, this is awesome. I didn't know that you made your own costumes. They just look so good," she said. She would take his costume plans into her hands and look over them a little bit. He was so creative. Glancing up at him with a look of awe, she set the paper back down. "This is awesome, Aldor. How did I not know this before?" she asked.

She loved it when people talked about what they loved. She loved listening to Henry talk about dragons, even if he thought he was rambling, she still loved the look in his eyes, and she could listen to him talk forever. Even if it was like, stuff about mold or something, she loved it when people talked about the stuff they loved. That's why she loved some of her classes so much- because of the passion that they held when they talked about their subject.

Aldor was no different. She watched the excited look on his face, and couldn't help but smile.

"That's wonderful, Aldor," she said. "If I end up going to the ball, I will definitely look for you." Rose didn't know this yet, but this ball was going to be just as complicated as the other one. She was going to end up going to the ball, but for no more than a couple minutes.

"Anyway, it's your turn," she said, gesturing to the Jenga tower.