"What?"

"—oh that's, uh, slang for... how do I explain based. Google to the rescue." He Googles it. "Okay these explanations are bad. It's like, the opposite of cringe? It's cool and sexy and high status and interesting. And 'tbh' is 'to be honest'. ...it's also at least a little bit ironic? Or, not ironic, exactly, but I don't mean that it's literally cool and sexy to murder people for power, it is not, but in context it's—this is making me sound like a psychopath. Don't take me seriously." Nom gimbap.

"...Okay.  Y—okay."

"What did you stop yourself from saying?"

"I don't quite know.  Something like, 'you know I regret killing my parents, right?' but.  You'd already disclaimed that there were going to be some connotations that I wouldn't get.  Or then and maybe something about not taking you seriously.  But I didn't want to sound like I meant that in general."

"Yeah, I know. The connotations can be, you know—it doesn't actually matter. Yes I know you regret that.

"If you weren't all twitchy about it I'd want to hug you about now. ...do want to hug you right now, but only if you would want it, without taking the thing where you think you don't deserve any nice things ever again into account."

"... Do I want a hug, but only if I really do, but also ignoring my actual preferences?"

Sigh. "For someone who isn't a Christian you sure still think a lot about what it is you deserve or don't, don't you."

"How is that related."

"Well, if there isn't a God to tell you what you deserve, then the only person telling you that is you, and you're choosing to say you don't deserve something nice because you did something bad even when the person you did the bad thing to disagrees with you, so that looks like just—choosing on your own to create a judge in your head that is condemning you, when there isn't any judge like that here actually doing that. ...I don't know how to say what I mean. It's whatever, it's clearly not helping, forget I said anything." Ugh he wishes he could redo this interaction from the start.

"Huh.

"Me not wanting it for reasons you think are bad doesn't actually make me want it, you know.  Like I don't think I would enjoy it, and that's because I feel guilty, but—I don't know.  I'm your pet ghost and you can do what you want with me."

"I—that's not what I meant. If you don't want it you don't want it. Just, sometimes I want things but I think I don't deserve them and then I do them anyway because the voice in my head that says I don't deserve things is always wrong a hundred percent of the time, and if you do want something and it would be nice but there's a voice in your head telling you you don't deserve it then—that voice isn't mine, and it isn't God's, and I think that as the primary victim of your thing I'm—I mean I'm not entitled to tell you how to feel. But. I don't think you don't deserve nice things because of what you did to me. Especially when I'm the one who wants to give you nice things. Giving people nice things makes me happy, didn't you see how I literally bought you a phone the day after I met you, I like it when I give people nice things.

"But if it in fact wouldn't be nice then I don't want to give you it."

"I think I don't want hugs that are for comforting me about horrible things I've done.  Because they won't... work.  But I will sometimes want hugs that are for something else."

"Okay. Fair. Understood."

Nod. 

"...You're planning to sleep here?"

"Yeah."

"Do you want me to do anything during that time?"

"...I guess you're gonna be awake. Uh. I don't know, what do you want to do?"

"I mean, I don't normally really do anything special, so it doesn't matter.  ...The book says ghosts can influence dreams, which I've never tried."

"Influence dreams? Like, how exactly?"

"I haven't had the chance to try it," he repeats.  "Um, but I get the sense it's more, nudges and directions than—it's probably not as much as when you're awa—well, hm.  Since I have a lot of illusory power over you while you're awake maybe that will also apply when you're asleep.  But I don't believe that to be, uh, standard."

"Huh. ...could you, like, enter my dreams, because that'd be sick if you could. ........'sick' is a good thing, to be clear."

"'Sick' as a good thing has been around since I was a kid."

"And I will try that if you want me to."