Maybe they should have. For the most part, they've done so much better on that front during this last year than they were managing back in Seoul at the end. This one particular subject, though, has remained almost completely off-limits, coming up only rarely and briefly. S thought that was better, too, that it would be easier not to dwell on what they'd both lost in different ways. Even now, it just makes sense when he thinks about it. J wasn't playing at all for more than half a year, and for a while, on the rare occasion he mentioned it at all, it sounded like he might never do so again. S can't see how it would have been anything less than horrible of him to play in front of J, undeterred.

This is horrible, though, too. J was scared and so thought he was, whereas S wasn't scared, and because he wasn't, it never occurred to him that J might interpret it that way. To him, it just seemed so simple, so self-explanatory. Now it's all a mess, and while there's relief in having been wrong, there's guilt, too, enough to make him want to apologize again, only J's having just told him not to preventing him from doing so. "Don't you be sorry, either," he mumbles instead. "I wasn't scared. I just didn't want to hurt you."

He did that anyway. Although it's not outright stated, his words still carry an apology for it. They know each other so well, have known each other so long, and yet they read this all wrong. He still isn't entirely sure what to make of it or what to do next. For all these months, he's had himself thoroughly convinced not only that he couldn't have any more than this, but also that he didn't want it, either. He can't tell now if that was true or if he just wanted it to be. There's no way he'll figure it out in the moment, though, shaken and crying on his boyfriend's shoulder. "I never realized you thought that."