[Now that he is here, he doesn’t move any closer. Not just yet. There is too much uncertainty left in the image of the woman before him, touched by horrors she refuses to admit to. He does not wish to be one more person forcing himself past her boundaries when she has already known more of such things than anyone should.]

Because it seems clear that you must have suffered something terrible.

[At Sebastian’s hands, perhaps? Were those images just memories, or were they something more?]

Hayame, you didn’t call me anything that wasn’t well deserved. I was cruel to you because hurting you was easier than admitting that I… also felt betrayed.

[Because she had looked at him like a monster; because he had never wanted Hayame of all people to look at him that way. Even now, as he admits his own weakness to her, the words in his throat try to choke him, piling up and emerging begrudgingly from lips that want to crumple into a desolate frown.]

Because you have every right to look down on me, and yet I still resented it. And I flung what I was in your face rather than come crawling to you on my knees to confess.

[Around them, the sombre temple of his mind grows dark and close, the candles guttering, stone walls closing in like the heavy stone of a crypt. His body is rigid with unhappiness, but he refuses to cry again. Not this time. He won’t. He won’t.]

But you are still… the first friend I’ve known, in this place…