He had to learn how to be decent. It’s not something he wants to bring up now - Raju would take it the wrong way, assume that he needs to be taught how to be decent, when that wouldn’t be his point at all. The point would be - it’s not innate for him. It was work. Something he had to figure out, and he failed, time and time again.
Raju’s met him at a very strange time in his life, when all of that pride and envy had been sapped out of him entirely. What would he have thought if he’d met him when he was younger? How would it have been only a few years ago?
He frowns a little. He couldn’t remember his tone, but he doesn’t doubt he’d sounded harsh. It had riled him unlike anything else thus far, which is…strange. Very strange.
“I understand now,” he says quietly. “You held that act of kindness in such high regard, my decency. And considering me that decent soul, to hear me openly berate…you, without knowing, it must have felt like a betrayal of the worst kind.”
He exhales softly, a little huff of annoyance at himself for being so blind to it. He gives Raju’s cheek one more gentle swipe with the cloth and sits back. He holds out his palm in a somewhat frustrated shrug.
“That isn’t…my views on the subject aren’t so typically black and white. And I dug in my heels, even when I saw you were distressed. We’ve disagreed before, haven’t we? It’s never gotten this bad.”
no subject
He had to learn how to be decent. It’s not something he wants to bring up now - Raju would take it the wrong way, assume that he needs to be taught how to be decent, when that wouldn’t be his point at all. The point would be - it’s not innate for him. It was work. Something he had to figure out, and he failed, time and time again.
Raju’s met him at a very strange time in his life, when all of that pride and envy had been sapped out of him entirely. What would he have thought if he’d met him when he was younger? How would it have been only a few years ago?
He frowns a little. He couldn’t remember his tone, but he doesn’t doubt he’d sounded harsh. It had riled him unlike anything else thus far, which is…strange. Very strange.
“I understand now,” he says quietly. “You held that act of kindness in such high regard, my decency. And considering me that decent soul, to hear me openly berate…you, without knowing, it must have felt like a betrayal of the worst kind.”
He exhales softly, a little huff of annoyance at himself for being so blind to it. He gives Raju’s cheek one more gentle swipe with the cloth and sits back. He holds out his palm in a somewhat frustrated shrug.
“That isn’t…my views on the subject aren’t so typically black and white. And I dug in my heels, even when I saw you were distressed. We’ve disagreed before, haven’t we? It’s never gotten this bad.”