"It doesn't," he mumbles, leaning into the hug. This hug feels a lot nicer than the previous one, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that Tae-gun feels more comfortable hugging to comfort others than he does hugging to be comforted. "I—that's not what I was thinking. I thought about what I—"

"So I'm not saying no or stop but I am saying are you sure you guys want to get into it right now? Genuinely, it's fine if the answer is yes, and we can give you space if you need it."

"... I think yes, neither of us are proving to be super useful at tactics talk today, really."

He totally was! ...eventually! ..........maybe not while Hye-jin was being miserable next to him.

"Roger that. You two go to the living room, then. Tae-gun, since you made us this feast I assume there's dessert too?"

"Yeah."

"Excellent, I'll find it and I'll bring you two some in a sec."

Giggle. "Thank you."

Okay. Scootching to the living room.

Now, how is Tae-gun going to explain that her feelings suck and she should have submitted a formal notice of her emotional state a week in advance before displaying any...?

"...I'm sorry. I don't—mistrust your judgment, and I don't think you're—bloodthirsty or looking for excuses to, to..."

"Then why is it what you remember first about my reaction to - this? Because I thought about it and - I didn't, actually, jump to 'I kill monsters,' I jumped to," she motions back to the dining room with the others, "tactics talk about how to keep ourselves safe. And when you brought it up I told you I didn't want him dead, exactly, I wanted him to stop? And that was before I knew he was a victim of his own backlash! Knowing there's a decent guy underneath the enforced depression and sociopathy doesn't make me want him dead more, Tae-gun-ah!"

He's just going to keep hugging her because looking at her isn't going to work. "I don't trust my own judgment. I, please don't, I, this is hard for me to talk about. I, I know it sounds like excuses. But I didn't think about it in years, except when I did. I couldn't even think his name until—more recently. It's not, it's not like, it's not that I was," why is it so hard to say he had such eloquent things to say in his head when he was thinking about it in the kitchen but now they're coming out all wrong and jumbled. "It's not like I wanted it," he says, his voice getting thick. "I, I wasn't, it's, it's like you said. A blind spot." He swallows and shuts his eyes. "I, even, it's, even now I," and he runs out of words again and has to clear his throat and try to start over.

"It's like my mind just—slides off it. It's like, like staring into the sun, if I do it too much my eyes hurt and then I go blind, except, except I can choose to do that, and I can't, I couldn't, choose—" Breathe. Deep breaths, Lee Tae-gun. "I couldn't choose to look. It wasn't there. And, and so the only way I have of, of, of thinking about it is sideways. It's, it's, I can't rely on anything. I can't rely on my, on, on the way I think about other things. My habits of thought are all fucked and useless and I'm not, I'm not smart enough. If I want to look at the sun I need to do it out of the corner of my eyes and only a little—"

"I never thought you wanted - whatever he was doing, or anything," she sighs. She pulls him closer and pets him. "I'm sorry this sucks so much. I was trying really hard not to - rub any of it in your face. Just - fuck, Tae-gun-ah, it's - ... do you want a dungeon combat metaphor. I think I have one for - what I feel like just happened."

"...yeah, I think so," he loves her so much, "but—can I—try to get all the words out? I, I think I might lose them if—"

"Yeah, sorry, go ahead."

"It's okay. ...thank you, I—appreciate it. The, the—dungeon metaphor thing. I know I'm bad at understanding things. I hope I—

"I appreciate you. I like you. A lot. I'm also bad at saying that. But I do. I think you're grand."

... sniffle.

"Okay! Good! I like you too, a lot, it's - probably why I flinch so much at - this, because I like having your trust and support and. Don't like when it's not there. Which I suppose isn't very fair, sorry."

"I think it's fair. I want you to feel like I trust you and I want to support you and I—want you to expect it of me." I love you.

"I - okay. ... Though, you - seem to do this thing where you expect that background of respect and appreciation to be obvious even when it's unspoken? And I can't - please show it. Directly. With your words and actions, not just, just. 'Well I didn't criticize it, so clearly it's fantastic.' Been there, done that, Hideyoshi also basically only gave me criticism, by the end."

"...okay. I can try that." He shakes his head. "I will do that, I'll just... fail. A lot. On the way there. But I'll get there."

"Okay. Thank you. .... Would it help if I gave you a - an overview of my current emotional state and the history of said emotional state, as pertains to the topic of Kang Jaeha? I... guess I haven't been very good at displaying it."

"Yes. ...but let me finish saying the things I wanted because I feel like I'm going to want to argue—or, not argue—defend myself—and—um."

"Oh. Okay. Carry on."

"...what was I saying... right.

"Okay. So. Um. I, I was talking about... Okay. Um.

"One of the things is that—Woo-young was really angry. Really, really angry, with him, five years ago. And I wasn't, I was—hurt and. Um." weak sad pathetic contemptible "And—the thing he said earlier. I think he was right. I, I think I might need to yell at him about it. I couldn't think about—everything—and if I even tried it felt like—I was making excuses. For him. Or, or, or trying to, to make it not as bad. I don't know. Because I didn't know how bad it was and I, I still don't, I think. It's all a mess in my head. But he was so, so angry, and I'm not, and—and it was hard. And scary." Because he's weak and sad and pathetic and contemptible. "To try to think about it. And engage with it. And so now I'm having to learn it again. And so I—it's not that I don't trust your reasoning, Hye-jin-ah, it's that I can't reason about it and I, I need to, to do it from scratch. From the ground up. I need to do all of the reasoning by hand, step by step, and I need to—check your answers—fuck that just sounds like I don't trust you but—it terrifies me." Because he's weak and sad and pathetic and contemptible.

He giggle-hiccups and squeezes his eyes shut, traitorous tears sliding down his cheeks. "I hate the hell iPhone. I hate it so much." He hates how, how effective that stupid one-time joke Woo-young made once has managed to, to, to make him able to deal with it so much better. He can now go, oh, it's the autocomplete from hell, I'm just thinking the worst possible things about myself, and then he stops.

Tae-gun's not weak and sad and pathetic and contemptible. He's just human.