X'kijin didn't expect much. If anything, it'd be more accurate to say that he got little and expected even less. It was often that he ignored the urge to read more into a person actions unless he knew their intentions outright. Hells, he wasn't quite smart enough nor observant enough to make those kind of assumptions to start with.
But D'tykha had very pointedly said something that suggested... something. To stand there and watch D'tykha's cheeks burn red only served to further Kijin's flustered awkwardness.
"No, not... silly," he said as he tried to find the words to express the way his heart stirred in his chest. X'kijin had said it before with such confidence. Nobody was interested in him. Nobody ought to be interested in him. He was awkward at best. His reactions were muted and lacked excitement or enthusiasm outside of the scarce few things that had carved out a home in his heart.
Worst of all, women made his pulse jump and what he sputtered after usually left men and women alike less inclined to be around him. And he couldn't blame them. Though he wasn't a smart man, he knew the way he spoke when women came too close or moved too quick or spoke with too much heat in their voice. X'kijin knew the way it sounded to an outsider looking in when his heartbeat slowed and he had time to think about it.
He wasn't oblivious. Not entirely.
So that D'tykha had said he liked it when people thought they were together...
D'tykha stumbled through something that resembled an explanation, language simple and easy enough for X'kijin to understand.
The way D'tykha sighed and suggested they at least walk, X'kijin was quick to agree. "Yeah, sure," he said, relieved in a way to not have his vision set on D'tykha for the duration of this amazing, horrible conversation. Well, at least until D'tykha said something else that called a rosy hue to his cheeks.
Distractingly beautiful, pretty, sharp, and attractive. X'kijin wasn't under an illusion that he wasn't attractive. He looked fine. He had a nice enough face and strong legs, which some people liked. A few people had commented, but not on his eyes and certainly not after they'd known him for an extended period of time. Most people found the whole thing with his terror around women to be decidedly unattractive.
The sound near fell out of X'kijin. What does he say to that?
Gods damn it all, he wished he was more accustomed to... this.
Just don't blow it like you did last time, he thought to himself. The memory of the kiss that D'tykha had stole in Rhalgr's Reach was still fresh in his mind and kept him up some nights besides with the way he cringed when he remembered his lack of a reaction.
X'kijin came near enough to a dead stop that it might as well have been. D'tykha bumped into a tree.
And then D'tykha continued, which would be great if not for the fact that X'kijin still needed to process everything else he had said. Did he have to bring up being bonded?
Oh. Oh. That lit something in X'kijin, something warm and unfamiliar that he'd dealt with since the day he'd met D'tykha, but had grown day by day in a way he'd tried to ignore. And he'd failed, but only to a degree that he'd known it was a failure, all while he'd made a fool of himself to anyone that bothered to peer his way.
Unfortunately, the only one that peered at him being an idiot—or at all for that matter—was D'tykha.
"I... Yeah, lunch would be nice..."
His voice was soft, quiet as he tried to gather his scattered thoughts. The part of him that was too awkward wanted to let the moment continue, to have lunch and live with the conversation in the back of his mind for a moment so long he'd be unable to find a way to bring it up again.
But that would be stupid, and he couldn't keep doing that.
He struggled to find the words and reached up to run his fingers through his hair as if he'd find the answers that way. Unfortunately, he didn't.
"That sounds pretty nice... Not the lunch. I mean, that sounds nice too, but mostly just... the rest of it."
Green eyes met blue, but only for a brief moment before he glanced away again.
"You think a little too highly of me, Tykha."
It would be nice to be half as interesting as Tykha said, but X'kijin couldn't see the appeal like he could with Tykha himself.