The rain lightened to a constant drizzle as Evelyn finished sweeping up the dried mud on her floors. She put the dust pan to a back corner of the shop to dump after the rain stopped. 

Her thoughts lingered on John. She’d been wrong to even suggest he might have magic. She knew how much Asalans despised people who wielded magic, and yet she’d opened her mouth asking that forbidden question without even thinking about the consequences. She owed John an apology. Her own excitement and love of magic in the stories she’d read in the old world had gripped her mind with fanciful fan girling excitement; she could not forget the reality of this world.

Should she go back and apologize now, or wait till he came back into the shop? He probably thought she was attacking him with her initial question instead of it just being curiosity and excitement. 

But he’d calmed down after her reassurances. Was it wrong to bring it back up?  

She grabbed a cleaning cloth, dampened it, and started scrubbing at the counter. She remembered the warmth of his hand touching hers and her face felt a touch warmer. 

She had to apologize. It was her duty as the person who said something awful in this culture to apologize for her lassitude. 

But should she wait, or go back into the greenhouse? If she went and apologized now, he might still be sorting through his own thoughts and feelings, but what if he was stewing on the words she said?

She looked down at the beautiful peonies on the floor next to the counter, and sat down next to them leaning her back against the counter. “John talks like you can understand what he says, and he can understand you. I wish I could hear your advice now. When I was reading stories and comics in my old world, I used to always have advice and suggestions for the main character that I would leave in the comments. Too bad I don’t have commenters that can give advice to me.”

She laughed at the absurdity of looking for advice from a plant. She took a deep breath of the peony’s oxygen and breathed out toward the plant. “My own advice for Evelyn is you can never let misunderstandings continue. You have to face them head on, and no matter how embarrassing and demeaning it is. You have to communicate as clearly as you can as soon as you can,” her own words said out loud helped her make up her mind.

She stood up. She used to tell people ‘don’t give advice you can’t follow, and now it was her turn.

She pulled open the door to the greenhouse to see a surprised John at the door. 

“Oh sorry, I was just coming to find you,” she stuttered out in surprise. 

He blinked, and then gave her a half smile. “Well, I’m here.”

She stepped back to let him into the shop. He made his way over to the peony, and leaned against the counter. 

“You were looking for me?” he reminded her.

“Yes,” she took a deep breath and looked at the ground, unable to bring herself to look at him. “I wanted to apologize for what I said earlier. I’m not from this kingdom, and it really doesn’t excuse it, but I just, I didn’t think before I spoke. I forget Asalan hatred for -” she didn’t finish the sentence since she was afraid to trigger him with the word. 

“I,” he took a deep breath, collecting his own thoughts.

Evelyn glanced up at him, and found herself staring up at him as he stared into the distance past her. 

“It’s a tough topic,” his voice took on a very monotone impersonal informative drone. “Onavat sorcerers wield crazy powers that turn the land against you. Even a joke that someone was related to the  Onavats or might have - have that - would turn a whole division against that person,” he shuddered at some unknown memory.

Evelyn felt really bad. She shouldn’t have mentioned it in the first place, and she shouldn’t have brought it back up now. 

She took his free hand, like he had done earlier when trying to reassure her that it wasn’t that she was bad with the plants. “I won’t turn against you, and I won’t say anything else on the topic unless you want to talk to me about it. You don’t need to say anything more or justify yourself to me either. I was wrong for my insensitive words, and I just wanted you to know that I am sorry. That I will do my best to control what I say in the future.”

His eyes were glassy as they slowly focused down on the hand she was holding. 

“In my old culture, hugs were common,” her cheeks turned red with the thought of what she was about to say, probably due to how she’d adapted to this more prudish culture. “We gave hugs for apology, for friendship, and randomly with strangers to simply share happiness. Would you be ok with me giving you a hug right now?”

His brown eyes raised up to meet hers, his cheeks turned rosy, and his head tilted to the side in a confused, questioning look, but he didn’t let go of her hand. “You do know what a hug means in our culture, right? It is reserved for family and those you are intimately close with.”

She nervously chuckled, “Everything is so reserved. Hugs spread friendship and happiness.”

He pulled her close with the hand she was holding, and then let go to wrap his arms around her. His head rested gently against hers.

“This feels intimate,” he whispered against her ear, but didn’t move.

She wrapped her own arms around him with her face tingling from the warmth of the fire of embarrassment under her skin. She agreed in her heart that this felt much more intimate than any of the hugs she and her friends used to share.