"I forgive you," he repeats. "You did some absolutely horrible shit, you went through a nightmare the magnitude of which I can't even begin to imagine, you caused so much suffering—and you're not going to do it again. Not just because of the bracelet and house arrest, and not just because of Haru. Even without the bracelet, you wouldn't have wanted to touch your powers ever again, would you?"

"No. Never. I—but I'm still the same—"

"And so am I, and I wouldn't do that. Like you said, a Canadian was enough. Circumstances and experiences affect us, sometimes permanently, and not only in negative ways. 

"You don't need to atone. You're not religious, the concept doesn't make sense anyway. And you don't deserve to suffer—no one does. Suffering is never a good thing, no matter who's doing the suffering. And you also don't need to be on your guard for when the next time you'll be a monster will happen. It won't happen. You're a person, and you deserve compassion, too."

"You're such a condescending jerk."

"I'm being genuine, Jaeha."

"That doesn't change anything."

"I forgive you, so you can forgive yourself, too."

That's extremely easy for him to say—

"That's extremely easy for me to say, I wasn't there. I wasn't the one who abused and traumatised the man I loved out of petty jealousy and insecurity, who gaslit him and isolated him and made him paranoid about ever trusting anyone but me. I wasn't the one who listened, who believed it when Nightmare lied to me again and again and again, the one who never told him I'm not immune to Nightmare after all even after I realised it was wronging him to omit it. I'm not the one who got home after a dungeon, backlashed, saw a message from Tae-gun telling me to never contact him again as well as official notice that I was fired from Quasar, and immediately thought that confirmed my fears, rather than being my fault. I wasn't the one who stopped every single possible other partner of his from ever meeting him through extensive use of my carefully-crafted information network. I wasn't the one who abused some completely unrelated kid, an innocent boy who loved me and whom I didn't need to involve except for convenience, who played him and his anxieties to make sure he'd never ever leave until I grew tired of him. I wasn't the one who obsessed. I wasn't the one who saw someone who could finally heal the man I loved and hated her. I wasn't the one who tormented her. I wasn't the one who tried to get her killed. It wasn't me. None of that was me. That was you.

"I wasn't there, I can't understand the, the size of it. The magnitude of how horrible it all was. It's just a story, to me. It happened to someone else, but I can't really understand. I can definitely never, ever understand what it felt like after you woke up. What it felt like with the backlash gone, the sudden weight of it all hitting me all at once. The horror and disgust, the revulsion at remembering the anger I felt when I saw she had saved his life, or the glee I felt when I thought she was dead. At remembering how much I had hated this woman who was nothing but good to him. At remembering how much I had hated Min Woo-young, who was better for him than I could ever be. I'll never be able to understand that. I'm not a monster; you are. I got myself fixed; you didn't. You're still the same small, pathetic little thing that did all of that, the same scared, selfish, self-centered, cowardly little worm that did all of that. I did all of that therapy? Well fucking good for me, isn't it, now I get to be with my boy, I get to live an unbroken life, I get a fucking autumn wedding in fucking Canada and I get to be happy, forever, because I never got that broken.

"And now that you're that broken, there is no coming back. It doesn't matter if I forgive you, I wasn't there, I didn't live it, any of it, what right do I even have to forgive you? What power? And why would you deserve it anyway? You're still broken. You've always been broken, and you're never not going to be broken. You're useless, and the best anyone could ever do with you is make you useful, make something out of you that'll be good for the world, because you can't trust yourself, ever. You can't trust yourself to ever make a good decision again. You're tainted. You're wrong. Forever and ever."

He takes a deep breath.

"Is that about the size of it?"

nod

"I forgive you anyway."

Twitch.

"...but also that? All of that? Is ridiculous."

He flinches and looks up, eyes widening at the unexpected tone shift.

"You know what's pathetic? What's really, really pathetic? That you somehow manage to produce all of that, all of that pile of complete, utter bullshit, and you eat it all up like it's fucking ice cream. I can't understand it? None of it? Kang Jaeha, stop feeling sorry for yourself. Yeah, you're a fucking coward, and you play that whole thing in your head and pretend it's courage but it's just hiding again."

"—hey, fuck you—"

"No, shut the fuck up. You? Are an idiot. You're the biggest idiot I have ever met in my fucking life, and I'd know, because I'm you. I mean, oh my God? Can you even listen to yourself? Were you trying to garner sympathy? Get points with the audience? Maybe if you're sad and pathetic enough you get to exist a little? Grow the fuck up, man."

"I—"

"Which part of shut up did you not get? I said shut up. I'm the one talking now. Yes, yes, I was the one talking then, too, but we both know we were just listening to you talk. Now it's my turn. You're a drama queen. You're not pathetic; you're cringe."

Ow.

"You wanna get roasted? Really get roasted? Not just in the safe little self-effacing mouselike way you're always doing, in the way that hurts? This is it, then. You're cringe. You're incapable of controlling how people see you and it makes you look bad. You're desperately looking for validation from one guy and you keep self-sabotaging because you're terrified of—what? Absolutely fucking nothing is what, because you've got nothing. You've got nothing! And you've got nothing to lose! Haru could send you to prison with a phone call? Well boo fucking hoo, your life is so great now, wouldn't want to ruin it, right, except oh wait, you can't even appreciate the beautiful cottage you got given because you're too busy feeling sorry for yourself and trying to make him agree with you that you're an irredeemable piece of trash in turns. You're tying yourself up in knots because that's easier than figuring out how to communicate effectively, and you invent bogeymen in your head to stand in for Haru because it's easier to picture him as some masked evil stranger than someone who could genuinely look at you and actually judge you. It's better, safer if you just pretend you already know his judgment, and that his judgment is exactly the judgment you want it to be, than to actually find out what it is, except, wait, here's another knot, you're also desperate to know it anyway."

ow ow ow ow ow ow

"So, yeah, Kang Jaeha, I've looked at you, and I've judged you, and I don't judge you an irredeemable monster, I judge you funny. I judge you laughable. I judge you undignified. You're ridiculous, and you're over-the-top, and there is no world where you come out looking good. You've already lost every single shred of respect I could hold for you. Funny little man."

why is that the shit that makes him feel like crying

"Now I'm going to tell you a couple of secrets.

"Number one: using your powers is a crutch and it doesn't make you good at social skills, it just makes you mask it and then never get good at social skills. That's also kinda cringe, thinking about it, right?"