At the time, when he suggested it, he meant for it to be temporary, too, or he's pretty sure he did. Everything about that first day was so much, all emotions heightened in every possible direction, such that it's hard to be sure now about much of it. What S does know is that, with J having said that he couldn't handle it then, he first figured that J would bring it up again when he did feel ready, and the more time passed, the more it came to feel like that point would never come. To him, the prospect has seemed reasonable enough. If anything, it didn't take very long for him to start to feel like it would be better just not to go there. He doesn't know how to say that in a way that wouldn't just make all of this worse, when he knows how much J hates when he just decides things like that — it is, in fact, the very thing that started them off in this direction now — but he's still not sure he was wrong about it. Keeping his chest covered in front of J is a minor inconvenience at worst. He can't think of any good reason to do otherwise.
Even hearing J say that he wants to see him doesn't make him feel relieved, just kind of sad, and the guilt he feels for the fact of that doesn't help. Frowning, he shakes his head a little, though it takes him a moment to find any words. This, too, he doesn't know how to say: that he doesn't see how there could be anything good in it with the reaction that the sight provoked in J once before. At first, he didn't mind the scars. He had no reason to, living on his own and having no particular investment in his own appearance. It isn't as if he looked good in other ways, anyway. Back then, when the wounds first healed, he was much too skinny, too, pale and dark-eyed from lack of sleep, utterly miserable in a way that made it difficult to do anything. With J, though, and given what happened before, he's convinced now that they're horrible, hideous. J might think he wants to see, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't still end badly.
"I don't know why you would want to," he mumbles, a truth that feels unavoidable. "It still looks like it did that day. They aren't any, I don't know, better."
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Even hearing J say that he wants to see him doesn't make him feel relieved, just kind of sad, and the guilt he feels for the fact of that doesn't help. Frowning, he shakes his head a little, though it takes him a moment to find any words. This, too, he doesn't know how to say: that he doesn't see how there could be anything good in it with the reaction that the sight provoked in J once before. At first, he didn't mind the scars. He had no reason to, living on his own and having no particular investment in his own appearance. It isn't as if he looked good in other ways, anyway. Back then, when the wounds first healed, he was much too skinny, too, pale and dark-eyed from lack of sleep, utterly miserable in a way that made it difficult to do anything. With J, though, and given what happened before, he's convinced now that they're horrible, hideous. J might think he wants to see, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't still end badly.
"I don't know why you would want to," he mumbles, a truth that feels unavoidable. "It still looks like it did that day. They aren't any, I don't know, better."