It should be easy to sympathize, to feel for him. Francis is a kind man, a peaceful man, and he’s seen more suffering than anyone like him should have to live with. But Raju knows what Francis thinks of him now, of men like him, and needs to hear it out loud, and need pushes him away from the table to follow Francis, fists clenched tight, demanding.

“And if they aren’t as vulnerable or innocent the way you want? Keeping your humanity is so important, so you have to pretend they all still have theirs because they’re young? Not everyone gets to keep those ideals you all cling onto. They become what they need to be. What happens when you see what that really means? When an ‘innocent’ shoots the man next to you between the eyes, when he wants to do it again, is he still human like you? What is he, once he’s not pure and perfect anymore like you wanted him to be?”

The tight near-pain in Raju’s chest is a part of him and so is the heat inside his fists, over the inside of his fingers and over his palms, the hot feeling gathering over his chest somewhere, under his shirt. His breathing is fast. He stares at Francis, leaning toward him, gaze as demanding as the rest of him. He needs to hear it, out loud from his friend’s mouth, in the same voice that’d told him the things he’d done weren’t Francis’ to judge, that had sounded like it meant it.