Martin notes the attention Sihyun spares to the notebook he's been clutching, the slight care he takes to slip it into his coat. He hadn't really had anything on him when he'd arrived, all of it taken by his unexpected passage through the Buried; at least the notebook seems like an important possession to have clung onto.
He stutters slightly at the expression of gratitude, when he feels like he's only really doing the done thing, and has barely just begun, besides. "O-of course," he says before softening again. "In my experience, it takes a long time to really understand it. We all have to help each other. And... it just gets easier, after a while."
He knows all too well how hard that would've been for him to swallow on his first day. Before he'd known John was here. So much has changed for him now in ways he'd never really allowed himself to imagine, and it is very easy for him to talk about how this is all fine, really now that he's gotten everything he wanted — he and John together, and having discussed their private mutual hope that they're never sent back. It's a thought that still gives him no end of guilt, but to them, there is no bloody comparison between this occasionally troublesome cage and the world that had been trying so very hard to destroy them, itself, or both. It isn't really fair to offer that perspective to someone who is new and lost and, presumably, just wants to return to what is familiar. Who presumably has left something, someone, behind.
But he also understands better now why so many of the people he'd first met had been intent on reassurance. It's fine to commiserate on the unique difficulty of this situation, but there's a limit to how useful that is. Newcomers ought to be comforted and cared for, shown they aren't alone. He'd needed that more than he even knew, really.
"That may feel hard to believe right now," he adds with a faint, apologetic laugh, "but..." There's not really a good way to end that sentence that isn't just reiterating everything. He shrugs.
"I can take you to the train station. That's where they keep our, erm... welcome materials. Which is sort of its own whole drama, but..." He sighs and gestures vaguely. Seeing all that had actually been more horrifying to him than his arrival in some ways, but it really depends on the person. And it is a logical first step.
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He stutters slightly at the expression of gratitude, when he feels like he's only really doing the done thing, and has barely just begun, besides. "O-of course," he says before softening again. "In my experience, it takes a long time to really understand it. We all have to help each other. And... it just gets easier, after a while."
He knows all too well how hard that would've been for him to swallow on his first day. Before he'd known John was here. So much has changed for him now in ways he'd never really allowed himself to imagine, and it is very easy for him to talk about how this is all fine, really now that he's gotten everything he wanted — he and John together, and having discussed their private mutual hope that they're never sent back. It's a thought that still gives him no end of guilt, but to them, there is no bloody comparison between this occasionally troublesome cage and the world that had been trying so very hard to destroy them, itself, or both. It isn't really fair to offer that perspective to someone who is new and lost and, presumably, just wants to return to what is familiar. Who presumably has left something, someone, behind.
But he also understands better now why so many of the people he'd first met had been intent on reassurance. It's fine to commiserate on the unique difficulty of this situation, but there's a limit to how useful that is. Newcomers ought to be comforted and cared for, shown they aren't alone. He'd needed that more than he even knew, really.
"That may feel hard to believe right now," he adds with a faint, apologetic laugh, "but..." There's not really a good way to end that sentence that isn't just reiterating everything. He shrugs.
"I can take you to the train station. That's where they keep our, erm... welcome materials. Which is sort of its own whole drama, but..." He sighs and gestures vaguely. Seeing all that had actually been more horrifying to him than his arrival in some ways, but it really depends on the person. And it is a logical first step.