He had broken the man.
At first, Kyran thought his silent shaking might be anger, and his mind raced with a fresh wave of panic. Oh, he had done it now, hadn't he? Food in a forbidden place, weeds for flowers, no utensils! The man must think him some sort of idiotic barbarian! Go him, shaming humans and demons in one fell swoop! He stared at Padca in horror, watching his attempt at impressing and wooing the man go from bad to scorched earth. And the worst part of it all? It didn't seem like it would be improving anytime soon.
Kyran opened his mouth, searching desperately for a solution, or an apology, or something—
And then Padca broke the silence--with a fit of giggling.
Giggling?!
The man actually giggled!
"I...wha...huh...??" It was Kyran's turn to be utterly baffled as the man curled over and laughed helplessly. He watched Padca, blinking rapidly as he tried to make sense of what was happening, mind and body braced for an anger response that never came. The genuine laughter was such a stark, unexpected contrast from the stiff and frowny countenance he'd come to expect, shaving years off his features and turning him into a brand new person--a person with HUMOR buried beneath the furrowed brows. And between the breathless wheezes and giggles came some clarity:
Kyran had managed to fail so spectacularly it was...kind of almost a win? In a way? Maybe??
Confusion bled into giddiness, and Kyran's lips twitched. Absurd creature? HE WASN'T A PLANT? Oh dear gods, is that...is that how he sounded...? He clapped a hand over his mouth as a startled laugh escaped him in a sharp burst, and though he tried hard to fight it, especially since his own stupidity was the punchline, it was hard. Padca''s laughter was contagious (was he CRYING?) and not even he could deny how ridiculous it all sounded when Padca said it like that! Caught somewhere between flustered as all hell, relieved, and greatly amused, he burst into laughter muffled by his hand--though his carried a slightly panicked edge to it because oh dear gods, he didn't embarrass easily, but this was so embarrassing!
He was breathless by the time Padca regained control and asked for a do-over, flushed pink clear to the tips of his pointed ears. Nodding helplessly, he sucked in a shivery breath as he tried to control himself but kept his hand pressed to his mouth as though he didn't trust himself not to lose it again.
"Yes, please, can we just...scratch this whole thing from the record?" he said with a sheepish grin, and quickly pushed away some papers to clear space for his own bowl. He paused for a moment, groping for words, mentally scrambling backwards to the beginning to retrace his steps to where it had gone all wrong. In detail, he said...?
He cleared his throat and took another deep breath, rubbing his hand over his too-warm face. "Okay! So! You've been super nice and didn't turn me in and you're helping me for free basically so I wanted to do something nice! Like, you know when you go to someone's house and you bring over food to share because it's nice and they're feeding you, too? Yeah, that! Except for the flowers, the flowers were supposed to be flirty because you're cute except they're apparently weeds but they're still pretty and this place needs some freshening and—" He was running out of air. He paused to fill his lungs again.
"Yeah. So I wanted to bring you gifts! As thanks! So I got the flowers and figured you'd need something to put them in because I didn't see anything here, so I got a vase, but I didn't wanna carry it with water because it'd spill. Then I got the noodles and I remembered the bowls but for some godsforsaken reason I forgot utensils!" With a pained grimace, he scratched the back of his neck. "I, uh, guess I was excited...?"
Sighing in exasperation, because this was hardly the first time he had utterly botched something, he flopped down into the armchair and slouched in defeat. "So anyway, I kind of ruined everything, buuut..."
He looked up at Padca and offered up a small smile. "...Maybe it was kind of worth it? You've got a nice laugh, you know. It's cute."