It doesn't matter to S if he's the only one — or it does, but in a different way than the words themselves might suggest. Ever since they were children, first befriending each other, he hasn't been able to understand why other people couldn't see in J what he has from the very start. His own opinion won't be swayed by what anyone else thinks, but he does think it's painfully unfair that J spent so long cast aside for the flimsiest of reasons. If he's the only one who sees how beautiful he is, then it's because no one else ever bothered to really look, and they'd be wrong anyway.

At any other time, S would say something to that extent. Instead, now, jaw trembling slightly with the effort it takes not to fall apart completely again, he can only try his best to answer J's question, wanting if nothing else to assure him that the last part isn't true. "No," he allows, sounding just deeply fucking sad. He knows that, for J, it hasn't been about his attractiveness, or lack thereof. He knows, too, that J wouldn't say such things to him if he didn't mean them. The problem lies with him, and with what he hasn't let J see again. Of course he doesn't think J thought anything different, but that doesn't mean J wouldn't.

"It's me," he says, fumbling to try to explain it even as he doesn't want to talk about it at all. He hardly understands how they even got to this subject. They're here now, though, and considering that it was his holding something back that ruined the mood in the first place, the least he can do is try to be honest now. "You might not think anything different, but I do." At least hunched over his legs like this, he feels somewhat shielded, a little less laid bare by all these truths and in no position to take the step that they've just talked about taking. "It's not like I can blame you. For reacting like you did. It looks horrible. I don't know why you'd want to — to look at me like that."