[You couldn't have been he almost says, and then it doesn't matter. There was a time even after his arrival on the Ximilia when he would have allowed the phrases to slip carelessly from his lips. Nie Huaisang couldn't have done much to sway the events, not back then. And it's true that it doesn't matter to him in so much as he holds no grudge over it and finds his friend faultless in this. He wants to tell him it's nothing to worry about, that it's not even something worth mentioning.
But he's been friends with Uchiha Itachi for too long now for the dismissive words that had once come so easily to spill out of him without thought.
There is power in accountability no matter whether he feels his friend owes it, and there is insult in denying it. Itachi, he thinks, would hate both of those responses. No, that isn't right, not hate. He'd see through them. It's a pain, really. It used to be so easy to minimize his own struggles but now even when the words sit ready at his tongue, he bites them back and thinks about their true meaning.
Now he knows that it isn't affection to wave away Huaisang's apology, but the need to deflect even this small kindness at his expense, to resist even the acknowledgement that one of his loved ones might have done just a little better by him. It makes his insides squirm.
It's a tedious self-awareness and he doesn't like it.
Still, he bites the words back, pulling away and allowing one hand to linger on Huaisang's shoulder.]
I forgive you. [The words are heavy and he hates them, but he says it.]
Whatever happened there, you are and will remain my true friend, Nie Huaisang.
no subject
But he's been friends with Uchiha Itachi for too long now for the dismissive words that had once come so easily to spill out of him without thought.
There is power in accountability no matter whether he feels his friend owes it, and there is insult in denying it. Itachi, he thinks, would hate both of those responses. No, that isn't right, not hate. He'd see through them. It's a pain, really. It used to be so easy to minimize his own struggles but now even when the words sit ready at his tongue, he bites them back and thinks about their true meaning.
Now he knows that it isn't affection to wave away Huaisang's apology, but the need to deflect even this small kindness at his expense, to resist even the acknowledgement that one of his loved ones might have done just a little better by him. It makes his insides squirm.
It's a tedious self-awareness and he doesn't like it.
Still, he bites the words back, pulling away and allowing one hand to linger on Huaisang's shoulder.]
I forgive you. [The words are heavy and he hates them, but he says it.]
Whatever happened there, you are and will remain my true friend, Nie Huaisang.