J hushes him, stroking S's hair. "Don't be sorry," he says. He knows S wants to say it, that he must know J won't begrudge him the need to cry, and J won't tell him he can't. He just also isn't going to pretend he thinks it's necessary. As much as he dislikes the fact of S having kept things from him, it's not like he doesn't understand now why he did, and it's hardly as if J has been anything approaching perfect on that front himself. However hard they both try to do better, there are going to be times they both fail. It could have been much worse. What matters more is how S has felt all this time, whether or not he wasn't wholly conscious of it.
"You can't help what you felt," he says, "whether you realized it or not." And at least he managed to get a tiny laugh out of S, a small victory in the face of all this heartache. "And I... I wish you'd said something, I do. But I get it." It's hard. With all they have to deal with, they've had to fight to be honest and open. It's not an easy thing, talking about all the elements of this, even assuming they're aware of them ahead of time; they know every time they do, it's going to hurt. Of course they try to flinch away. Pushing through that has been difficult, and he's pretty sure they should get some kind of award for how often they manage to do it anyway. That S talked himself into thinking it wasn't necessary in this one way, that it would do more harm than good, isn't entirely surprising, and as much as J wants to know these things, he can't blame S for thinking he wouldn't want the reminder or for being afraid of what a reminder might do to J.
"You want to protect me," he murmurs. "I know. And I want to say you don't have to protect me from myself and what I did, but I'm the biggest threat to me, aren't I? Tell me anyway. Please. Don't be alone with these things. Not the parts you didn't know, you can't help that, but anything. I want everything, Hyunie, all of you. And that includes this. I don't want you to be unhappy, but you don't have to apologize for this."
He's all too aware that it's something S very likely would say to him — that he has, in fact, said variations on this before — and he's probably being a bit of a hypocrite. He doesn't care. It's easier to say it to S, meaning it wholly, than to take it to heart for himself. All the same, he's painfully familiar with how easy it is to feel things without quite untangling what they are and how intensely he's feeling them. He can't possibly fault S for going through that, too.
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"You can't help what you felt," he says, "whether you realized it or not." And at least he managed to get a tiny laugh out of S, a small victory in the face of all this heartache. "And I... I wish you'd said something, I do. But I get it." It's hard. With all they have to deal with, they've had to fight to be honest and open. It's not an easy thing, talking about all the elements of this, even assuming they're aware of them ahead of time; they know every time they do, it's going to hurt. Of course they try to flinch away. Pushing through that has been difficult, and he's pretty sure they should get some kind of award for how often they manage to do it anyway. That S talked himself into thinking it wasn't necessary in this one way, that it would do more harm than good, isn't entirely surprising, and as much as J wants to know these things, he can't blame S for thinking he wouldn't want the reminder or for being afraid of what a reminder might do to J.
"You want to protect me," he murmurs. "I know. And I want to say you don't have to protect me from myself and what I did, but I'm the biggest threat to me, aren't I? Tell me anyway. Please. Don't be alone with these things. Not the parts you didn't know, you can't help that, but anything. I want everything, Hyunie, all of you. And that includes this. I don't want you to be unhappy, but you don't have to apologize for this."
He's all too aware that it's something S very likely would say to him — that he has, in fact, said variations on this before — and he's probably being a bit of a hypocrite. He doesn't care. It's easier to say it to S, meaning it wholly, than to take it to heart for himself. All the same, he's painfully familiar with how easy it is to feel things without quite untangling what they are and how intensely he's feeling them. He can't possibly fault S for going through that, too.