[ She's already pretty flushed, but she manages to find a little more red for her cheeks. She hasn't admitted her crush on Rei to anyone or her much more recent thoughts over the past couple of weeks of maybe wanting to do something about that crush, and she probably wouldn't have admitted any of it now if she'd been really thinking. But, embarrassed or not, she's not going to back down from this. She's going to look him straight in the eye and reply firmly: ]

Yes?! [ ...That wasn't firm. ] I mean, maybe? [ That wasn't firm at all.

She balls her hands up into fists and props them on her hips. She'll use belligerence to power through this. ]

I mean, yes, I'm interested. Of course I'm interested! I like her a lot, and she's beautiful, and she's a great person, and everything. But when I say maybe, I mean -- we're friends right now, and maybe that's enough? I mean, we've gone on dates before, anyway, since we met through that speed dating thing, without being anything other than friends, but I've started thinking that maybe -- maybe I want --

[ Okay, the downside to using belligerence to power through things is that she doesn't think about how much she's planning to share beforehand. She could have just said yes and let it go at that. Whoops. She forces herself to maintain eye contact, despite feeling like she's acting like a middle schooler talking about their first crush (not that she knows what a middle school is) rather than the woman of the world she likes to think she is. ]

Look, was this the kind of story you were looking for, or what?