Animated Animals & Talk over Tea Time PV Cl

"I'm not being optimistic," Jack insisted. "I'm trying to play the devil's advocate, here. The only reason it might sound optimistic is because I'm trying to balance out how pessimistic your bias is." He rubbed at his temples upon recognizing the hints of jealousy seeping into their argument, but dared not comment on it just then.

"I'm not deciding or claiming to see anything," he tried to reiterate. "I'm just reminding you there are other possibilities as to why he does the things he does. I'm not saying I'm sure or even that I think they're true. Just that they could be." A pause. "Well...aside from my aformentioned theory. That I do think."

He regarded Ruka with another sigh. "You say 'only time will tell', which I'm guessing means you're either not wanting to provide proof to support your claims or you don't think you can. In which case, what if I could prove to you that you're wrong? Would that help alleviate your worries at all?"

The question about what Tengu were was, of course, something Jack entirely expected and had thrown in to lighten up the conversation a bit. Waving a hand as if it was no big thing, he said dismissively, "Japanese youkai-spirit-goblin-demon people. Shapeshifting tricksters who commonly take on the appearance of bird-men. And monks with long noses, but mostly to make fun of them since monks are their archnemeses. I can give you a book or read you a story about them this summer if you like." He was sure Ruka would enjoy them and their way of thinking.

As Ruka coninued on, claiming that he hadn't even said anything painful, however, Jack's hopes of distracting the other boy from his obvious discomfort and other negative feelings slowly sank. Maybe he had been a little quick to jump the gun.

"'Didn't even say anything painful'?" he echoed in disbelief. "Maybe not from your standpoint, Tân. But since when do you get to decide what's painful for others?" He took another sip of warm water from his cup. "You have to realize that anything said can be considered painful if said by the right person under the right circumstances in the right context. Sometimes it's not veven what you say, but what you don't say."

The Slytherin frowned. "For example, you say you said mroe things about yourself than about him. But did you ever consider the possibility that maybe talking badly about yourself can hurt him? I know it would me." He took a spoon and absently dipped it into the water, stirring it with restless fingers. "If someone cares about you enough, even just the act of you putting yourself down can hurt because your pain might be their pain. Perhaps they might feel helpless as someone who wants to be there for you. Like they didn't do a good enough job making sure you know you're worth something. That they aren't able to show you how you look through their eyes; why they might admire you even if you think so little of yourself." Hazel eyes searched for forest green.

"I feel like you're being purposely obtuse about this," Jack finally admitted. "Like you're trying your hardest to find reasons not to like him. I thought it was strange; that I was just imagining things. But when you said those things to him - telling him that he's 'taking me from you' and that I'm 'all you have' - where the heck did all that come from?" He peered at Ruka powerlessly. "Do you really believe either of those? That I'm all you have or that he's taking me from you? What made you think that?" He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I had hoped you guys could become friends so you could see I'm not all you have. That others care about you and can be there for you in better ways than I ever could. The only problem here is you won't let them and I really can't understand why."

Standing, Jack decided to arrange the teaware on the table so that there were two teacups to a teapot. He couldn't stand just sitting and staring while he talked anymore. "I know you don't like me taking his side in this, but someone has to, because neither you nor he seem to be willing to defend him. Think about it. You may think I'm the only one you have, but what about him? Who does he have? If you're not willing to be there for him, like I had hoped you might, that's one thing. But telling him to stay away from me, too? What right do you have to ask that?"

He absently poured water from the teapots into the teacups and back again. The Welsh boy wanted to re-paint the scenario of what had happened, but with Ruka in Flash's position. However, it was a little difficult when Jack sought somebody Ruka wanted to befriend because the only person he could think of was...well, himself.

Oh well... he thought. I suppose this will have to do.

"Okay. Suppose you were Flash. If...if you were talking with someone you wanted to be friends with...like, say, me," he muttered, not looking up from his water-pouring, "And you got too close...so I..." He froze momentarily, irises darting from one cup to the next, as if the answer he sought was to be found in one of them. "Say I hugged you out of impulse or whatever it was." He could have said 'kissed' for his hypothetical situation, sure. But with how disgusted it seemed to make Ruka at the mere memory of it, he thought a hug might have been a better, more mild substitute.

"If I had told you to be yourself and to open up to me...and how I approved of your growth and that you should take care of yourself...which eventually led to you getting close to me and then me hugging you..." He set down one of the teapots, looking up.

"What if later, after all that, you found out that I had only hugged you out of impulse and disgust? That I never actually meant to and would have gone back in time to make sure it had never happened if I could have? How would that make you feel?"

He watched as the tension returned to Ruka's face at the memory of unwanted closeness. It still surprised him how even just the thought caused him to actively shudder and recoil away from the other boy even though he'd never seemed to have a problem with being physically close to him before. Not like Selim had. Was this something similar to what had Selim had gone through, then, that made Ruka so adverse to touch?

Returning all the water to each of the teapots and making sure each pot had an equal amount, he took up one of the table napkins and began to fold it. "Just because cares about appearances and tries to fix 'shallow stuff' doesn't mean that's all he cares about," the first year retorted calmly.

"It's like if someone said they didn't like how you fixate on counting. It's probably just something he uses to pacify and calm himself. Fixing up his appearances was probably something ingrained into him as a child since his upbringing was probably way different from either of ours. It's also one of the few things he can control, unlike people like you, so naturally it'd be cathartic for him to want to fix things like ties and hair. It's not like he's tried to control or 'fix' you as a person after you ripped him a new one, has he?" He rose a brow at Ruka. "Besides...what's the difference between his 'shallow care' and mine? Didn't I buy you clothes? I even spoon-fed you."

Taking up another biscuit, Jack set it on his plate and began to break it up into little pieces as he listened to Ruka point out that Jack could have said something because he, Ruka, had.

"...Saying you want to leave is not the same as saying you don't want to be stopped. Nor that my behavior was hurting you." the taller boy said matter-of-factly. Still, the Gryffindor insisted that he had wanted to leave until Jack finally set down his spoon to lock eyes with Ruka once more from across the table.

"Tell me, then. Tell me that you one hundred percent would have preferred that I hadn't stopped you and just let you carry on as if your leaving didn't matter to me or Flash. Go on, say it." His brows narrowed, though his tone remained even. "I dare you."

When Ruka flung back at him that he had told him he wouldn't try to decide what was best for him anymore if he could take care of himself throughout April, Jack stood, gritting his teeth and breathing in deeply through his nose as he ran both hands through his disheaveled hair.

"What if I wasn't doing what I thought was best for you at that time?" he threw back. "What if it was what I thought was best for me? Or Flash? I have a right to do that, don't I? Or what if instead of doing what I thought was best for you, I was doing what I thought you wanted?" He threw down his hands. "Like I said, you could have truly left if you wanted to and in the end, you did. I'm not forcing him into you life. You just can't seem to accept the possibility that maybe someone else might care about or want to be close to you."

Closing his eyes, Jack shook his head more vehemently. "I was right there! How did you feel abandoned? What did you want me to do? He wasn't attacking you! In fact, if anything, it seemed to be the opposite! Tân, if you couldn't breathe, next time let me know that! How could I have known that? You never mentioned it being that severe!"

Putting his head in his hands and resting his elbows on the table again, the Slytherin groaned. "If you want to be listened to, speak. Preferrably words that make sense. That's how people communicate. It's as simple as that. Because otherwise I figured you wouldn't have shown up if your aversion to him was really that severe that you had trouble breathing around him. And due to your keeping your mouth shut, I had no way of knowing you had only shown up with the intent to protect me. You had so many ways and chances to communicate, but I can't understand what you don't tell me. I can't read minds." His voice and expression softened. "But I'm always ready to listen if you're willing to talk."

His eye twitched at a particular remark made on his behavior at the relay race. "...Play God? What? How?!"

Well, at least they agreed to put away their 'rubbish thoughts', though Jack wondered how long it would be able to last. The idea of what fell under that category was subjective, after all. But there was still one thing Jack couldn't put out of his mind.

"Tân...I said I'd leave you alone if you were able to handle taking care of yourself for a month, but...is saying that I'm all you have really a sign that you're able to take care of yourself?" He gestured at the other boy. "Or this new inability to get close to people because you've developed an aversion to touch? If anything, it almost seems like you need help more than ever..."

Getting up, he walked over to the other boy, but made no move to touch him, remaining standing a foot away. "You know I worry constantly, Tân. And I know you worry about me, too. But we can't be there for each other all the time or for everything. You need others besides just me because I'm not good enough. I'm only human; just one person who makes a lot of mistakes and isn't used to being relied on by others. If I end up hurting you like I seemed to have done at the race, intentionally or not, who else will you have to turn to? I mean I hope you'll have my - our - parents...but I really think it would help you to at least have someone peer-wise, too."

He moved to lean against the table, reaching over to pop a piece of the biscuit he had broken up into his mouth. "You were dangling by a thread even when I met you. I wanted to help, sure, but I'm not confident enough to be your one and only lifeline. I'm...I don't think I'm strong enough." Jack glanced down at his shoes with what might have been shame. "What happens if...one day...I break? I don't want to take you down with me..."

With a quiet sniff and a laugh at Ruka's comments on clubs, he dragged the back of his hand across his face and swallowed, going to sit back down in his seat. "Well...I thought we might try making the opposite," he confessed. "A small gathering of intelligence." The copper-haired boys questions about them being a 'Collection of the Emotionally Scarred and getting badges and bumper stickers earned a few more chuckles from his underclassman. "Actually...yeah..." he muttered, his voice fading as his thoughts drifted to his research. "...something like that."

Jack forced a painful smile on his face and nodded in gratitude when the older boy told him he would try to stop getting insecure...and that he would learn how to share.

"What?" he demanded when Ruka repeated his term of 'leaf juice'. "Isn't that what it is?" Even then, he could no longer withdraw his grin if he tried.

With a sound of agreement and acknowledgement at putting the tea bag animals into the pots instead of the cups, he was glad he had asked for four of them. The idea of trying to drink from the teacups with animals moving in them made him nearly snort up another piece of biscuit and caused him to have to turn his head away with the shower of crumbs that erupted from his mouth.

"Heyyy...I thought you just said that one was supposed to be mine," Jack whined a bit, watching Ruka submerge the cinnamon-and-spice fox tea bag. "Wasn't the green tea fox supposed to be yours?" Even so, he wasn't willing to wait any longer. Watching the little creature paddling around in the water made him want to dunk in the rest immediately.

Upon Ruka's suggestion, he put in the other fox and beamed when it, too, began to play in the warm liquid like a living animal, changind the color of the water as it went. Ruka's clapping only broadened Jack's smile and he quickly put in the octopus in another pot. He was glad he had chosen that one, too; despite the difficulty it had been to cut out each individual tentacle, they were mesmerizing to watch move all at once.

"They're really cute," Jack commented, encouraging Ruka to dunk the last bag by handing over the squid when he said he wanted to try it. It had been meant for him after all, anyway. It was so nice to see the Gryffindor enjoying himself like a child his age should have. He and Flash both seemed to do that way too rarely. Just like Selim and Erin.

"About the octopi," he said slowly, eventually pouring a little of the red tea in his cup to try, "That errand was to help collect ingredients so the older students and adults could help make cures for the COVID-19 pandemic that's spreading in the muggle world." Breathing in the scent of the tea, he made sure to appreciate its fragrance before drinking some.

"Is it really so bad...to be used once in a while?" Jack asked Ruka, blinking at the taste and trying some more. "I know you don't like being taken advantage of, whether by the teachers or the school or Flash or anyone else...but what's wrong with a little 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' philosophy? I mean, if you're tricked into it, that's one thing...but if you know exactly what you're giving and getting in return...why does that bother you so much?"

Reaching in with a spoon, he tried to play with one of the foxes in a pot. "You call me naive...but I don't think it's necessarily naive to let oneself be used," Jack stated. "I actually told Flash to use me as he would. He hasn't, mind you. I think he's maybe nervous or scared about relying on me. But you know...in spite of all the things we know he's done, including the ones we disapprove of, there was one thing that impressed me about the first time we met."

Jack smiled as the tea bag fox pawed at his spoon, allowing him to fish it out of the tea before dropping it back in again. "I made sure to give him an especially hard time. You know how I like to test people. But just as he was getting fed up with me, I told him what he wanted to know." The Welsh boy snickered at the memory. "He was startled, but I was sure he'd just be glad to have finally gotten what he'd come for and leave; maybe take advantage of the situation or decide that the fun I'd had with him was my payment. Instead, though, he asked what I wanted. Not even angrily; just like he thought I'd forgotten to let him know." The first year shrugged and drank the rest of his cup of red tea.

"Naturally, there are problems I have with the way he does things. Taking advantage of other's mistakes or faults, for example. But from what I've observed - without him knowing, that is - he never seems to do so with malice. Yes, he might manipulate people...but he seems to do so in a way he thinks is for their own good." Jack glanced at Ruka. "Not that it makes it any better to you, I'm sure. And it's still a very condescending viewpoint. But at least he seems to interact with others because he genuinely cares about them. He even seems to be able to find things to like about even the most abhorrent people."

The boy poured himself a bit of the green fox tea next. "Tân...if you dislike people as much as you do, eager to push them away at a moment's notice...what made me any different from anyone else?" he wondered aloud. "...From Flash?"

@Ruka Tân

@Jack Burnett

Listening to Jack's words while biting his lip, Ruka could feel himself getting more and more frustrated with the topic at hand. Why were they even arguing about this? How in the hell was Flash capable of creating such tension in Ruka's life without even being there?

"What worries?" he questioned with a long sigh, putting a hand to his forehead for a moment as if to try and cool it down a little. "The worry that he doesn't care about me? That's not a worry I have, that'd imply that I want him to care about me, which I don't. He can do what he wants, which is exactly why I don't need to prove anything to you, because at the end of the day it doesn't really matter, does it?" At the end of the day it just seemed that he and Flash weren't particularly compatible, regardless of whether they cared for each other or not.

The break in the conversation was welcome at least, a short change of topic to relieve some tension, bring a slight dip into the high of emotions surrounding the encounter. Smart, like, of Jack to throw in some random bit of trivia to keep things from getting too intense, but it wasn't like that came as a surprise to Ruka.

Japanese youkai-spirit-goblin-demon people. So that did absolutely nothing to clear things up. The image of some creature taking on the form of monks with long noses did make him laugh a little, a spark of interest lighting up his eyes. "Yeah, I'd like that," he agreed easily to Jack's offer of giving him a book on them or reading him a story during the summer. Tengu sounded intriguing enough that he was sure to want to find out more about them. "But why are monks of all things..." He interrupted himself with a smile and a wave of his hand to dismiss the thought. "You know what, I'll find out through books and stories. No point in getting all the answers beforehand already."

Anyway, their discussion was apparently not over yet, no matter how tired Ruka was slowly growing of talking about Flash at all. Why was this so important, anyway?

"Fine," he relented to Jack's argument, rolling his eyes a little as he leaned back in his chair, watching the other boy twirl his finger through the water in his tea cup. It couldn't have been all that hot anymore if Jack was able to keep his finger inside it without any sign of discomfort. Or maybe he'd just gotten so used to the heat of flames during their Fire Dance practices that he didn't mind it all that much anymore. "So it can be painful to people to hear someone they care about talk badly about themselves. I'm just saying I'm pretty sure that wasn't what made him shut off like that."

Sighing heavily, Ruka tilted his head to the side as Jack declared that it sounded like he was just trying to find reasons not to like Flash. "Or maybe I just haven't found any reasons to like him yet. Look, I don't know what your experiences with him are, but Flash and I have never had a pleasant interaction before. Even when I did try to get along with him, and believe me I tried, it all went downhill faster than you'd think possible. At some point, isn't it safe to assume that he and I just don't get along?" It was so obvious to him that he didn't understand how Jack couldn't see it; He and Flash had no clue how to talk to each other, were seemingly wired so fundamentally differently that their height difference wasn't the only thing giving them a hard time seeing eye to eye with each other.

Ruka bit his lip again, embarrassment flushing his cheeks when Jack decided to bring up his words about how he thought Flash was taking away the only thing he had. How was he supposed to explain words like that, said in desperation and fear? He was going to answer when Jack continued by saying he had wanted him to be friends with Flash to realise that there were other people who cared about him, causing Ruka to tilt his head back as he let out an incredulous laugh. "Have you considered that, maybe, you're pushing the wrong person at me? Regardless of the fact that I don't get what makes you so sure that he and I are in any way compatible to be friends of all things, I thought it's been made really obvious, over and over again, that Flash and I were nothing but toxic to each other. Each time we got together we parted again feeling infinitely worse than we did before. So pray tell, why would you think it's a good idea for him and I to be friends?" He spat the last two words mockingly, pulling a face that clearly showed his doubt at ever being able to call Flash much more than a distrusted acquaintance. Maybe that was all they were ever destined to be.

Feeling antsy at the sight of Jack standing up, Ruka let his fingers tap a frantic One, two, three against his thigh, stopped by the Slytherin's next words.

"I didn't ask that!" He defended himself with a slightly more high-pitched voice, a look of horror on his face. "I never told him to stay away from you, I was letting him know that it was hurting me if he was trying to get close to you just to get back at me!" His shoulders tensed as he spoke, features twisting into a grimace. "It's not like I have any power to make him stay away from you or the other way around anyway." Not that he wouldn't if he could, he found himself thinking, but he chased that thought away immediately after a second of feeling shocked at his own possessiveness. That needed to stop. "And he said that wasn't what he was doing, so that's alright. You guys knock yourselves out." A tired sigh accompanied his words as he rubbed at his temples to alleviate the building headache the conversation was giving him.

When Jack started to describe an all too familiar scenario, Ruka slumped in his seat, watching the other boy pour water into the cups and back again like he needed to do something to distract himself from getting too intense. It eerily reminded him of himself taking Origami instructions to his talk with Flash for the sake of balancing out the intensity of their get together.

The fact that Jack replaced the kiss in the scenario with a hug didn't go unnoticed by Ruka, made his cheeks heat up in a blush he couldn't quite explain. Most likely it was just the fact that it was so obvious how uncomfortable he was by the thought of the kiss that Jack felt like he needed to replace it with something less severe.

"I'd feel horrible," he admitted, head hung as if in shame but mostly just trying to hide the flush of his cheeks. "I know. That's why I apologised, isn't it? I told him I had no right to play with his feelings like that, that I'm sorry. Are you just trying to make me feel even worse about it?" No, he didn't really believe that that was Jack's intention, but Ruka couldn't figure out what other purpose the scenario was supposed to serve.

Once confident that his face had returned to a normal colour, Ruka looked back up, taking a deep breath as Jack tried to reason about Flash' constant need to fix appearances, comparing it to the Gryffindor's own insistent need to count to three whenever he felt nervous or out of control, which surprised him for a moment. He hadn't realised Jack had actually picked up on it, though he probably should have figured. "I'm trying to get it under control. I'm doing better," he mumbled, averting his eyes as a rush of shame flooded through him. It felt like having a severe weakness uncovered that he would have really liked to get under control before someone could point it out like that.

Either way, that wasn't the focus of the conversation. The focus was still Flash, which was infuriating in a way, but mostly just exhausting at this point. "Control me," he repeated thoughtfully, slowly, as he rubbed the side of his neck. "You mean dangling your name in front of me like it's some sort of bait to get me to join the race wasn't trying to control me? Lying about that being his intention, too? 'You should come to the race, Ruka, Burnett will be there, so I know you'll come anyway, won't you?" He let out a humourless laugh after finishing his impression of Flash back when he had asked him to come to the race. "Surprising as it may sound, I don't appreciate being manipulated like that. I didn't appreciate it the first time he tried, I didn't appreciate it the last time either."

The question about what the difference between Flash's care and Jack's care was made him snort, eyes glistening with faint amusement. "I thought your mom bought me clothes," he pointed out, wagging a finger in Jack's direction. "That had nothing to do with you, did it?" A little smirk played on his lips for a second before it faded again, leaving him looking tired and exhausted. "It wasn't your first instinct, was it? To get me new clothes or anything like that. It was his. Before he bothered to look at me as anything but a tool to get back at you he was already fixing up my tie. And anyway." He waved his hand through the air dismissively. "I'm not sticking around for your care. I'd be here regardless of whether you'd gotten me new clothes or offered me a place to stay for the summer. I'm sticking around because I enjoy being around you, believe it or not, I don't need you to do anything for me to continue wanting your company. As I said before, I'd never parted ways with Flash without feeling somehow worse than before."

Watching as Jack started picking apart the biscuit he had taken, it made him want to reach out to stop him almost as much as when Flash had started tearing up paper during their last talk, but he didn't. Instead he averted his gaze for a moment, busying himself with staring at his stubby nails instead. "Right, so from now on I need to specify that I don't want anybody to stop me when I want to leave because I'm feeling hurt and can't handle it anymore?" he asked, sounding more questioning than bitter or passive aggressive. Had that really been his fault in communication? Had he been supposed to be more clear about how badly he wanted to get away?

"Frankly," he said, leaning towards Jack a little, tilting his head up so he could feel a little more at eye level with the other boy. He'd always liked a dare. "Yes, I would have preferred if you had let me leave. I would have preferred getting to clear my head and feeling like you understood that that's what I needed to do over you physically stopping me. What even was that, since when do you just pounce at people like that?" From what he knew Jack wasn't really the type to use physical attacks to get what he wanted, but maybe Ruka didn't actually know him as well as he thought. He still had a lot to learn about his soon-to-be brother, it seemed.

“Well then,” he said quietly, voice cracking slightly at the edges. “If you did it because you thought it was best for you I don’t get why you withdrew your involvement like that. I don’t get what exactly it was you would have gotten out of it either, how could Flash and I fixing our problems possibly benefit you? And if you did it for Fash’s sake then I was right from the start and you care about his needs over my comfort. If that’s the case then just say so. If you’re gonna use me to try and make him feel good about himself at least give me the benefit of being aware of it.” His expression had turned gloomy, fingers twitching with the need to tap a toneless melody against the tabletop, but he managed to suppress it. “And don’t even try to act like you thought it was in anyway something I would have wanted. Even if you didn’t realise I’d only come for your sake, the fact that I was very clearly uncomfortable around him should have really clued you in about the fact that I what I really wanted was to get away from him.” Taking a deep breath, he shook his head again. “And I’m not rejecting the idea that anybody else could possibly care for me, I’m rejecting the idea that he genuinely does. At least as of now. Beyond his desperate need to be liked by everyone, that is.”

Maybe it was childish of him to not want to be put into the same category as everyone else but he couldn’t help it. If Flash’s care extended to everyone at the same level it may as well not have been extended to anybody at all.

"I was talking plenty," he pointed out with a little groan of frustration. "In fact I felt like I was the only one talking at all! I told you I didn't ask to fix anything, I told you that you were the only reason I keep having to deal with him, that I had just wanted to stay away from him, but I could have just as well been talking to myself for all the responses you gave me. I asked both of you to stay away from me, and you responded to that by doing the exact opposite." He shook his head, feeling defeated. "Did you really think that after that I still felt much like elaborating on anything?" Pulling his bottom lip between his teeth again, he placed his palms across his face for a moment, pushing back the tears threatening to escape him as Jack told him he was willing to listen as long as Ruka was willing to talk.

"I want to talk," he said softly from behind his hands. "It's why I'm here. I know I messed up, otherwise I wouldn't have reached out to either of you. I just..." He sighed heavily, dropping his hands again. "It just didn't feel like great circumstances to talk in." He shrugged, vacant expression settling on his face as he let the happening of the race pass him by. What a mess.

"Play God," he repeated with a little nod. "Like you were putting us in a pit to fight things out without being particularly concerned with the outcome. Like you didn’t care about what either of us felt about it because you decided that it was what we had to do. You may have been there but you could have just as well been watching from a different dimension or something. Or, well, not watching, I suppose." Resting both of his elbows on the table for a moment, Ruka straightened his back, growing tired of his own slumped, defeated position.

“How does saying you’re all I have mean I can’t take care of myself?” he wondered quietly like he was uncomfortable admitting that he had actually said those words back at the race. “So what? Why is that so bad? Before you I had nothing. Maybe I wasn’t taking care of myself as well back then, but I didn’t know any better. I do now. I’d know how to take care of myself even if I ended up having nothing again.” He didn’t really understand the effects his claim that Jack was all he had had on his ability to take care of himself. Just because he was capable of living without Jack didn’t mean he would ever want to.

“And I’ve never... liked being touched,” he pointed out, feeling his skin crawl at the thought. He’d never found hugs particularly comforting until Jack, had liked keeping his distance, it wasn’t all that new albeit different from before. Rather than not really liking it much he almost dreaded touch these days. All he could think of was the way his chest had stung, the seeming lack of oxygen crushing his lungs, the desperate whirlwind if thoughts and emotions messing up his mind as Flash had hugged him at the race when all he had wanted was to not be touched. It made his breath speed up once again as he watched Jack move a little closer just to stop at a bit of distance. For a second Ruka wanted to get up and reach out for him, but he couldn’t get his body to move. “So that got worse. I’ll get over it. Just some... aftershocks or something.” Involuntarily he found himself scratching at his arm as if to scratch away the tiny bugs under his skin there and he immediately stopped himself, averting his gaze, embarrassed.

“Don’t say that,” be begged, shaking his head at Jack with a frown. “That you’re not good enough. You know how you said it can hurt people when someone they care about talks badly of themselves? Well, it hurts me when you say stuff like that about yourself.” He took a breath to collect himself. Jack’s corrected article of their parents rather than just his own made Ruka shuffle around in his chair awkwardly. Something about that just sounded wrong somehow. Parents. A family. Someone else’s family. How was he ever supposed to fit into something like that? “Anyway, I went to that make up errand thing with Jake. I’m not helpless, you know? I’m fully capable of reaching out to people when I want to.” Maybe that was the problem, maybe Jack wasn’t aware that Ruka did talk to other people even if he didn’t make that much of a habit of it? “I don’t need you to pick my friends for me, I can make them myself if and when I want to.”

Jack’s next words filled Ruka with a sense of guilt at how much pressure it had to be for the other boy to feel like he was the Gryffindor’s only lifeline, like his whole life depended on the Slytherin’s strength. “I thought we agreed we’d keep each other from breaking?” he pointed out with a little smile, an apologetic expression crossing his face. “I’m not letting you break on my watch. I just... I don’t trust other people not to break you and I just... Want to be there for you. I know I can’t all the time but... if I could...”

That’s what I’d do. All the time.

He didn’t say it, thought it was clearly written in his face anyway, that gravitational pull. Centre of his universe.

He dismissed the thought with a vague wave of his hand, a fond expression crossing his face as he watched Jack lean against the table and pop a piece of biscuit in his mouth. Relieving the tension with tea and biscuits. How very British of them.

Once Jack sat down in his chair again there was an instant decrease of Ruka’s own restlessness, a bit of calm washing over him once more. The thought of a small gathering of intelligence seemed slightly exhausting but better than a mass gathering of stupidity at least, so Ruka kept his interest up. “Something like that?” He asked curiously. “Sounds like you put some thought into it already. Care to elaborate?” The way Jack’s voice had grown distant made it feel like he was getting lost in thought, which meant there was something in his mind already, and that was what Ruka was most interested in. The things he hadn’t been saying yet. Ruka also thought he had an inkling about who this small gathering of intelligence may involve but wasn‘t going to go into that part of it just yet. First he was interested in hearing about Jack‘s ideas in general.

A grin to match the other redhead‘s spread across Ruka‘s face as Jack defended his „leaf juice“ description, accompanied with an amused spark darkening the green of Ruka‘s eyes. „That doesn‘t make it sound any less adorable,“ he pointed out teasingly, wiggling his fingers in Jack‘s direction with an exaggerated swoon. „Out of all the smart things you‘ve ever said, this one might be my favourite.“ He chuckled with childlike glee that only amplified when Jack seemed to exhale pieces of his biscuit, politely turning his head away from where he could spray Ruka with chewed up food.

The whine with which Jack complained about Ruka having put in the teabag he‘d made for the Slytherin specifically didn‘t do anything to lessen the way his heart seemed to swell with adoration, a whole new sense of suffocation flooding him as he thought all the oxygen inside him was being replaced with fierce affection. The thought that anybody or anything could ever break the boy in front of him made him want to never leave his side again just to make sure it would never happen. „Give over, will you,“ he scolded the other boy teasingly, poking his tongue out at him. „I made it, so I get to decide who puts it in!“

He hummed in delight as he watched the little tea bag fox paddle through the water, going in circles, and swapping between going on his front and on his back. His delight only grew as the green tea fox and the octopus were swiftly added to their own pots, coming to life just like the first fox had. While the little green tea fox went for a short dive, the octopus moved its tentacles in a fascinatingly complex way to move forward. For a few seconds Ruka just stared in awe. "They're brilliant," he agreed with Jack's words, eyes sparkling excitedly. "I love them." Eagerly reaching for the squid when it was handed to him, Ruka placed it in the last remaining tea pot, watching it lazily spreading out in its new habitat, stretching its tentacles.

With a happy hum, Ruka poured himself some of the tea from the Squid Pot, lifting his cup up to his nose to take a whiff before having a sip. The bitterness of the black tea leafs made his tongue tingle pleasantly and he grinned at that, gratefully lifting his cup in Jack's direction as if to toast to him.

As he took a couple more sips, Ruka listened to Jack's explanation about the octopi and why they had to chase after them. Even if he had no real connection to the outside world, he had heard people talking about the pandemic in the Muggle World. That was a good enough reason to be collecting octopi, he supposed, but was it really a good enough reason to make children jump into a freezing pool when a teacher probably could have very easily summoned them with a flick of their wand?

"Could've caught a pretty big cold if the water was that cold," he pointed out with a hint of disapproval in his expression. Putting kids' health at risk for the sake of something the teachers could have easily done themselves just seemed careless to him. "And what do you mean by pool? Who put them in a pool? Does that mean they were already captive anyway? If so, then why did you have to go in there to catch them?"

The way Jack questioned why it was so bad to let oneself be used, why Ruka had such an aversion to let anybody use him for anything made the Gryffindor screw up his face in a grimace, but as he thought about the question more objectively he let out a thoughtful hum as if he had never really considered the way Jack was looking at it.

"A favour for a favour," he said quietly. Not really a concept he lived by, but one he had become all to familiar with ever since he'd met Jack, one that Flash seemed to stick with just the same. "I suppose I don't trust people's intention," he said, shaking his head to himself. "I don't know if what they ask of me is as straightforward as it seems or if there are any ulterior motives. Do you really ever know exactly what you are giving and getting in return? As someone who knows how to twist words and meanings as well as you do, shouldn't you be the first to consider that there might be more to the favour you're asked to do someone than meets the eye? And if you don't know exactly what you're getting yourself into, how do you know what would be an adequate repayment?" Putting the tip of his pointer finger against his slightly sore bottom lip, Ruka poured himself some more of the black tea.

"And people rarely stop at one favour either. Offer them your little finger, they'll grab your whole arm. You can't measure the value of a favour, one person will always be doing more than the other, strain themselves more than the other, it's inevitable. How are most errands an equal exchange for example? They're getting students to do something they could easily be doing themselves within much less time, putting at risk children's health and well-being, often with minimal supervision, in return for, what? A couple of coins and some sweets? Experience?" He wrinkled his nose in disapproval and sighed heavily as he listened to Jack's continuing words about how he had told Flash to use him as he would, causing Ruka to tense a little.

So the conversation was back to Flash again. Fantastic. Seemed like Ruka couldn't get a break from him, even when things were relatively lighthearted and fun, like a constant cloud obscuring sunshine from truly touching his skin. "He asked me what I wanted from him in return for my silence about the kiss," he recalled the first time he had ever been on the receiving end of Flash's own A favour for a favour mentality. While Jack seemed to have been impressed by the other Slytherin#s business like mind, Ruka had only been frustrated. "I just think it's easier for him to treat everything like a business transaction than to deal with his feelings. Maybe that's what you guys all do; You, Flash, Selim. Maybe if it's all just sell and buy then nothing really means anything. Your own personal form of detachment, so you can fool yourselves into thinking you're not doing anything because you care, but only because you're getting something in return." He took a big gulp of his tea, emptying the cup a little quicker than he probably should have.

With his left hand he reached out to pour himself some of the oolong tea, smiling a bit at the way the octopus seemed to struggle to remain in its spot as the pot was tilted.

"Seems like a really dangerous kind of illusion to me. The longer you fool yourself, the deeper you might slip without even realising it. Once you're in too deep you start doing stupid things, like how Flash went back for Willow at the ball just because she was crying for him. How you went back for him even though plenty of teachers could have helped much more efficiently than you could have." Ruka pursed his lips slightly. "How you let Selim carve you up like a cutting board in the name of trust and a contract." Even if Ruka had put that behind them for the time being didn't mean he had forgotten about that specific act of stupidity on Jack's behalf. He didn't think he'd ever be able to forget, it was the main reason he didn't trust other people to not break his soon-to-be brother.

Taking a deep breath, Ruka relented to talking about Flash again, tilting his head to the side as he listened to Jack talking about how the other boy seemed to be doing things for other people's own good. "What about when he tried to use me to get back at you for, what did he call it, making a fool of him? How was that for anybody's own good aside himself?" Yes, things may have changed since then, but wasn't that indicative of the kind of person Flash was and why he did things? "You told... You told Willow about Ross in... Potions, was it?" He wasn't sure he remembered the specifics of that story, so was more comfortable voicing it as a question to show that he was only going off of vague memory. "How you thought Flash was making it a condition for him to get his grade up to an O to get his journal back or something?"

He had already had his doubts about that story back when he had heard about it, but it really hadn't been the right time to argue on it, so he had remained silent. "How that was ultimately only positive for Ross? But have you ever considered that it might have been really damaging instead? What if he'd started working so hard on potions that he'd have neglected other subjects his grades may have been really good in instead? What if he just had no talent for potions anyway? Os aren't all that easy to achieve even if you're really good at something, can you imagine how frustrating it could be for him to try his hardest and still not manage to live up to the goal Flash set for him? It sounded like Ross had no say in that condition, no matter the intention, that's blackmail. Ultimately, Flash probably got his peace, and Ross had to spend the rest of his term in constant anxiety about doing well enough in potions class to get back something that rightfully belonged to him."

Taking a sip of the oolong tea as if to try and oil his vocal cord with it, Ruka cleared his throat before continuing. "So can you say with absolute certainty that Flash did what he did with Ross' best interests at heart, or did he just want him to be distracted enough by his own fear of failure to not bother him anymore? I mean, it's not like he offered him some potions tutoring, is it?"

Maybe it was just Ruka seeing the worst in people again, but wasn't his argument justified?

"Flash told me himself that he doesn't think he likes people very much, but what kind of person does that make him?" He hummed, shaking his head. "If you care for everyone you may as well care for no-one, and if you care for people you aren't even particularly fond of, doesn't that mean you're not placing any value in your own care?" Reaching for a biscuit, Ruka finally took an actual bite, swallowing it down as if he needed some time to think about what he was saying. "Doesn't that mean he's giving his care away like extra change without the least bit of genuine emotional attachment? Isn't that deceiving the people who use his care? Doesn't it give them the impression that he is genuinely fond of them when in reality they could be anybody and he'd offer his care to them just as much?" He tapped a finger against his jawline thoughtfully. "It just makes it seem like he values everybody else's life over his own while still feeling entitled to try and play chess with everyone for the sake of getting something he wants in the end. Isn't that kind of cruel in its own way to everyone involved? Wouldn't it be better to offer his care to a select few people he really likes rather than giving everyone the feeling of being loved and cared for no matter if it's genuine or not?"

Genuine interest was obvious in his face as he looked at Jack to wait for his take on the matter. Maybe Ruka was just being too negative about this, maybe Flash's behaviour wasn't as bad as it seemed in his head, but that was what he had observed, what he had deducted from the things Flash had said of himself up until then, however little it usually was.

Watching as Jack poured himself some green tea, Ruka swallowed his own gulp of the hot beverage, a little frown creasing his forehead at the question he was asked next. The difference, Ruka thought it was so clear to see, figured it was so obvious that it didn't really need to be talked about, but the more he thought about it the more he realised just how difficult it was to explain it, so maybe it was something that only made sense in his own head. Emotions were irrational after all, some people just liked each other more than others, that was the way of the world, like they were all just lids and pots, and while there was not seemingly much difference between all the pots, some lids just fit onto them better than others.

It was alright, though, Ruka would do his best to try and explain anyway.

"You were smart," he said with a little shrug, averting his eyes again. "Smarter than anybody I'd met until then. Funny too, I like that. I like when people laugh and can make me laugh. Not something that happens a lot either." He lifted a hand to sheepishly run it through his hair. "I told you about my dad the first time we met," he continued, a seeming out of the blue change of thoughts. "Didn't outright say he died but I knew you'd understood. You didn't even flinch. Just kept up the conversation, no pity, no empty sentiments, no awkward shuffling. That's when I knew I wanted to keep you around. I've never felt more like a person than in that moment." He let a small smile tug at the corners of his lips as his gaze found Jack's eyes again. "First few times I met Flash? I've never felt less like a person, didn't even need to say anything about my circumstances for him to treat me the way people used to treat me out on the streets. As for most other people..." He shrugged his shoulders lightly as he reached for his tea cup, taking a small sip of the hot beverage. "Do you know what it's like to be scared of talking about... About your past and your family and your circumstances because then all of a sudden that's all you become? And maybe I could just not talk about it, but sooner or later it comes up. The later it comes up the more disappointed I get when people start changing the way they look at me and talk to me. You never changed the way you talk to me. You don't treat me with kid gloves, you challenge me, I like that too. Not a lot of people out there who are challenging like that, at least not that I've met. I don't think Flash is particularly challenging either, if you don't count the challenge of actually making him talk in the first place."

Setting his tea cup back down again, Ruka slowly traced the rim of it with the pad of his thumb. "Or maybe I got it all wrong. Maybe you just keep me around out of pity and I just haven't realised. Maybe I'm less of a person and more of an experiment to you after all." He raised his eyebrows as he looked at Jack, shoulders pulled up in a prolonged shrug, lips stretched in an empty smile. "Doesn't feel like it though, at least, so I'll take it."

"What worries?" the Gryffindor wanted to know. "The worry that he doesn't care about me? That's not a worry I have, that'd imply that I want him to care about me, which I don't. He can do what he wants, which is exactly why I don't need to prove anything to you, because at the end of the day it doesn't really matter, does it?"

"No," Jack answered patiently. "The worries that he isn't trustworthy. Which is why I was the one offering to prove my viewpoint to you." He unfolded his napkin from the flower shape he'd made it into so that he could use it to wipe up some tea that had spilled.

"Then again, I guess maybe it wouldn't matter to you what proof I might try to provide. If you don't understand why I asked Selim to do what he did and why his doing that was proof to me that he was trustworthy, maybe we just have different ideas of what is proof of one's trustworthiness." He sighed. "It's not like I'm asking you to trust Selim or Flash, anyway, especially since I'm not sure if you even trust me." The Slytherin shrugged feebly, not looking up. "So I guess you're right. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter."

He got a lot quieter after that, concentrating on the flavors of the four different teas to try and watching the various different animals playing in the water in their own, individual pots.

No, he didn't agree that 'at some point, it was safe to assume that he and Ruka just didn't get along', because people were always changing and growing, especially at their age. It would have been foolish to declare someone as impossible to get along with, only to never again try to do so. Still, he wasn't about to spout any more of his ideals or opinions at Ruka, especially because the fire-dancer didn't seem receptive to them.

No, Jack wasn't trying to push anyone at Ruka. No, Jack had said nothing to indicate he was sure that Ruka and Flash were compatible as friends. But when the second year asked what seemed for the millionth time why Jack thought it would have been a good idea for Flash and him to be friends, the Welsh boy knew better than to try answer that time; particularly with the way the Irish boy spat the last two words at him.

No, Ruka hadn't asked Flash to stay away from Jack; not directly. That was true. But Jack wasn't so sure Ruka's actual message had been all that clear. Yes, it seemed he had wanted to let Flash know it was hurting Ruka to watch Flash try to get close to Jack...but not so much the bit about if it was 'just to get back at him'. From what Jack could tell, it had simply seemed like Ruka was telling Flash that his being closer to Jack and 'taking him away from him' was hurting him, period.

'Knock ourselves out'? Jack repeated in his head, his brow furrowed slightly as he sipped some bitter black tea. So you think he's untrustworthy, but simply because he said that wasn't what he was doing, you think it's alright for us to 'knock ourselves out'? Does that mean you trust him at his word after all? Or it just doesn't matter because you know you have no control over us anyway?

"I'd feel horrible," Ruka confessed after Jack had given him the hypothetical scenario. "That's why I apologised, isn't it? I told him I had no right to play with his feelings like that, that I'm sorry. Are you just trying to make me feel even worse about it?"

The younger boy set down his teacup with a small clink. With as emotional as Ruka was getting, asking accusatory questions of Jack that the Slytherin was pretty sure he knew weren't true, he didn't feel much like trying to reason with him anymore. Still, there were one or two things he thought he could say without riling up the Gryffindor even more than he already was.

"I was thinking about it," he told Ruka, gesturing at the other boy's counting fingers, "And I don't think it's such a bad thing after all. I wouldn't say it's something you 'need to get under control'. It's just a coping mechanism. I count while I'm breathing. It doesn't really seem much different and it's not like it's harming anything or anyone. Right?"

There didn't seem to be any reason for Ruka to feel ashamed of a behavior like counting that helped him cope with stress and anxiety; at least not that Jack could see. Yes, it worried him when he noticed it after talking with Ruka in March, but as much as it indicated the other boy's discomfort, it also indicated he was developing techniques to calm himself and get his emotions under control. Things like nail-biting, lip-biting, and scab-picking were more harmful and thus less acceptable, but the Welsh boy figured his mother would deal with those herself when she learned of them first-hand.

When the conversation returned to Flash, Jack saw little reason to clarify that Flash hadn't been trying to use Jack to bait Ruka to join the race. It was very likely that Flash had already tried to communicate that and Ruka hadn't wanted to hear any of it. The fact that Ruka not only thought that Flash had lied and tried to manipulate him but that Jack must have been in on it too was painful, sure. But again, it seemed pointless to deny said things if Ruka wasn't willing to stop and think about if Jack would have let that happen or not.

Yes, my mom bought you clothes, he thought idly. But who do you think suggested to her that you might have needed new clothes in the first place? But again, that hardly seemed to matter. It was so far from the point Jack had been trying to make by bringing it up that he didn't bother commenting on it again.

It wasn't until Ruka insisted that he would have preferred to have been allowed to leave in peace the first time that Jack's passive countenance gave way to mild shock, as if he'd been slapped. He withdrew somewhat then, sinking lower in his chair with each new rebuttal. Had he been wrong, then? Had Ruka not cared whether or not Jack wanted him around? Wanted him to feel better; wanted to help him fix his problems? Was he still determined to just fix all his own feelings by himself? Was that the only way he could do things regardless of who else was hurt by it?

"What even was that, since when do you just pounce at people like that?"

"I..." Jack's voice was steady but small as he stared at the dregs of his black tea. "...I thought...that might have been a thing that brothers did." He recalled how he had tackled Flash during a fight once. How, another time, he had body-slammed Hanako with a pillow to wake him up one early morning for fun in their dormitory; the trigger for a dorm-wide pillow-fight.

Wasn't that what brothers did? Rough-house; wrestle? Or was it just some silly, stupid cliche that people only did in stories and movies and TV shows? True, he didn't usually condone physical attacks in fights...but he had meant to tackle and weigh on the other boy playfully; not to keep Ruka there by force.

How...can you not understand...how you and Flash fixing your problems could benefit me? Jack wondered, staring at the shorter young man with pursed lips. If I care about you both and you're causing each other stress...don't you think it causes me stress, too?

"What's wrong with caring about anyone's needs over anyone else's comfort?" Jack asked, his voice sharp but quiet. He could feel his temper rising and poured himself a new cup of tea to try to alleviate it. Oolong this time. "Don't needs come before comfort? Wouldn't you, of all people, know that best?"

His narrowed brows relaxed somewhat as he sipped the warm beverage. "There are no needs anyone has that I would 'use you' for without your knowledge. I make sure people know when I mean to use them. Just like I expect them to do the same for me." He took another swallow; deeper this time.

"As far as what you wanted...I thought maybe you might have wanted to know that you were still wanted around. That one or more of us might have actually cared if you just walked away from us and left." His shoulders rose and fell in another pathetic excuse for a shrug. "But it seems I was mistaken."

Though Ruka said he wanted to talk and that was why he was at the tea party, he still had yet to explain why he had avoided Jack for so long prior. It had also seemed to Jack that Ruka had invited him to tea because he'd wanted him - Jack - to talk; not because he'd wanted to explain himself. Still, he wasn't about to point that out if the stubborn Gryffindor was going to insist on his own viewpoint regardless.

"It's not my fault if you didn't feel like I was concerned with the outcome. Obviously I was or I wouldn't have bothered to get you guys to talk at all. Or even bothered being there," he muttered, unable to help remarking on that, at least. Jack still failed to see what that had to do with 'playing God'. It wasn't as though he had facilitated their discussion or forced them at wand-point to speak to each other. Ruka probably had no idea how difficult it had been for him to keep himself from interfering as it was.

"...Even if you know how to take care of yourself now, that doesn't mean you would," the younger boy shot back. "I suspect you did after Valentine's Day as well. You simply chose not to - which, in my opinion, is worse."

He didn't...he'd never liked being touched?

What had Jack been doing all this time, then? Had he just been making things worse every time he'd tried to hug Ruka or something? Was he wrong and it hadn't started with Flash; it'd started with him? Had Ruka just never wanted to mention it to him, then? How was he only finding out about this now?!

Jack downed the rest of his oolong tea and poured himself a cup of green tea, finishing that too. Other than managing to scald his tongue a bit and feel a little queasy, however, it didn't seem to do much; especially not in the way of calming his nerves.

"...Fine," he found himself speaking absently, looking from one teapot to the other. "I hope you're great friends with Morris. Hope you guys are getting along just swell, because clearly I don't know what I've been doing all this time." I never tried to pick your friends for you, you prideful lion. Why can't you bloody see that?

"I thought we agreed we’d keep each other from breaking?"

Jack's head whipped up so fast, a new wave of dizziness overcame him. Maybe it was the heat from all the steam he'd been breathing in.

"I’m not letting you break on my watch. I just... I don’t trust other people not to break you and I just... Want to be there for you. I know I can’t all the time but... if I could..."

"...You mean you don't trust me to know who to trust," he answered coolly. "You don't trust me to know my own limits. But tell me this: which of us has come close to breaking more times over the past year since we met?"

After that, Jack had a hard time concentrating any more on their conversation. When Ruka asked if he cared to elaborate on his idea of a club of sorts, he shook his head slightly and waved the thought away, staring at a spot on the tabletop. Perhaps it had been a foolish idea after all. He'd overestimated the amount of trust between them all; especially between him and Ruka.

The tea bag animals ceased to enchant him as much as they had and he could no longer pay attention to the gleeful reactions of the Gryffindor. His mind was too clouded with doubt and dismay. How could he have been so blind?

"They had a bonfire for us to sit around after we were done," he commented nonchalantly when Ruka mentioned catching a cold from the freezing water of the lake. "And when I said 'hell pool', I was just referring to the Black Lake."

The tension in his body eased a bit when Ruka seemed to consider his thoughts on letting oneself be used. He sighed when the older boy explained why he had trouble seeing things the same way Jack did. Jack supposed he couldn't blame him in that regard. The Gryffindor must have become a lot more jaded and cynical than most kids their age since he had been raised on the streets.

However, he wasn't on the streets anymore. Was there really a need to be so cautious; to keep people at such a distance? Jack knew the dangers of keeping people close as friends, but in his opinion, trusting them was an entirely different matter. You didn't have to be friends with someone to trust them, after all.

"No," Jack agreed. "You may not ever know exactly what you are giving and getting in return. Not beyond what's agreed upon at face-value. But other than that, what else matters? Who cares if someone has ulterior motives? As long as it doesn't affect you, what's the harm?" the Slytherin wanted to know. "When I do or ask for favors, I just try to determine if what's being asked of me is equal to what I'm asking for by my standards; no questions asked about how or why said favors are being asked or accomplished. That's how business transactions are. There's no need to involve oneself or know more than absolutely necessary. That's where trust comes in."

Pouring himself yet another cup of the red tea mixed with cinnamon and other spices, Jack stared at the little fox in the teapot. Though he enjoyed the spices Ruka had added, he also wondered how different just regular red tea tasted from it.

"The point in agreeing on favors isn't to make sure the value of said favors are statistically equal," he answered seriously. "One thing could mean very little to one person while it could be priceless to another. All that matters is that both parties are satisfied with the exchange. Is there something wrong with that?"

He took another deep drink of the red tea. "Students risk their own health and well-being often enough of their own free will without doing errands. I'd say that with a teacher or prefect held responsible, even with minimum supervision, it's a lot safer than what some kids do on their own. Like my diving for octopi as opposed to your midnight fishing for sea creatures when you didn't even know how to swim." Setting down his cup and saucer, he crossed his arms over his chest. "I do a lot of errands for the experience of learning new things, yes; including about other people. Besides, it isn't as though the errands are mandatory."

He unfolded his arms gradually as Ruka commented on how Flash had asked him about what he wanted in return for his silence about the kiss. Jack listened but refrained from replying while the other boy went on. It wasn't until Ruka cast him an empty smile, telling him he didn't feel like he was an experiment so he would 'take it', that the Welsh boy finally decided to answer with his own opinion.

"...In case you haven't noticed," he began slowly, "none of us need any excuses to do stupid things. We've been doing them all year; you even before that. Some stupid things are just more worth doing in our eyes than others are - which is why we do them." His gaze hardened.

"Flash had already called for a teacher prior. It was why I didn't help him and the others immediately. Only when Professor Lian seemed to fail to notice them did I ask her to come to their aid and only then did she do so. So that, in my opinion, was necessary. Especially because if she had heard Flash the first time, he wouldn't have gotten stung."

His expression remained stony and impassive as he continued. "I thought I explained to you already why I believe it was necessary to allow Selim to do what he did. I didn't anticipate the repercussions and the toll it would take on his psyche, but ultimately, I think he became stronger because of it, as did our trust. If you don't, can't, or won't understand that, it's not my responsibility to make you."

When the topic of their talk reverted back to Flash, Jack simply shook his head again. He could have argued with Ruka to the moon and back again, but what would have been the point? He had had enough of trying to convince Ruka to abandon his bias when he showed no signs of wanting to do so anytime soon. They had wasted enough time discussing it already because Jack had wondered if, perhaps, Ruka might have been willing to be as reasonable as he knew the Gryffindor could usually be.

Yes, he could have explained his own experiences and reasons as to why he himself trusted Flash. But even if, by some miracle, the emotionally-impaired jealous Gryffindor accepted Jack's reasoning, it wouldn't have been the same. Regardless of whether Ruka believed Jack or not, the Slytherin was convinced that if Ruka was to ever actually truly trust Flash, it would need to be through his own experiences by coming to his own conclusion; not through someone else's second-hand re-telling of said experiences.

"I agree with your notion that it would be better to offer his care to a select few people he really likes rather than giving everyone his attention," Jack conceded. "But that isn't an ideal that can be forced upon him. If he's ever going to come to that conclusion, he needs to get to it on his own." He finished his red tea.

"I know it's difficult for you, Tân. And it's not like I can make you. But you've got to try to trust people every now and then." He looked up to meet vivid green eyes. "Because people will never surprise you if you never give them the chance to."

Wondering idly if the tea bags could be reused, Jack decided to leave them in Ruka's care. He didn't really find all that much joy in watching them anymore. Originally, he had wanted to try combining the teas and the animals in some of the pots, wondering if they would get along and how the resulting teas would taste. Now, however, he was more concerned about the possibility that said animals might have ended up simply attacking and potentially destroying one another.

"...Some would say that my behavior upon hearing about your dad would have only indicated that I was heartless," he mentioned with a dry, slight smile. "Maybe I didn't say anything because I didn't know what to say. Or maybe I just didn't care. And yet that made you feel more like a person than if someone might have tried to show you sympathy?"

He let out a hollow laugh before finally looking back to Ruka without a trace of amusement or humor.

"Tân," he said, "People warned you numerous times shortly after you started sticking around me that I was untrustworthy. That I would turn against you sooner or later. There were a few situations where one could say I even did, like after the Valentine's Day tea party. But still, your trust didn't waver. Not like Opeila Seilun's. You stuck by me through thick and thin, regardless of how many of the awful things I did came to light. You had faith in me and my actions, defending me even when I myself felt like I deserved my punishments. Why?"

He inclined his head. "And, more importantly...what makes Flash any less deserving of that kind of faith than I? It's not like I've exactly proven I'm all that great a person myself. You've just turned the other cheek and refused to see me as anything but, even when I've done wrong things on purpose or behaved in cruel ways...just like you seem to refuse to see Flash as anything but what you want to see."

Jack reached down to gather up his bag and make sure all his things were safely in it. "I never kept you around out of pity. I kept you around because I was curious about you, which is why I called you my experiment. But if you're saying you don't mind being used by me and you would mind being used by Flash just because with me, it doesn't 'feel like it'..." He heaved another deep sigh as he rose from his chair and slung the strap of his bag over his shoulder. "You seem to be ruled more by your emotions than your sense of reason and logic than I thought."

He turned to go, looking back to say one more thing. "After April, I told you I wouldn't avoid you anymore. But if you still seem to need to avoid me from time to time, that's a little hurtful." The first year made another vague gesture.

"Since I was mistaken in thinking you wanted it, I'm not going to try to chase you down anymore; you can be alone any time you wish. I'm just sorry I could never be someone you trusted enough to tell things like you couldn't swim or that you never liked being touched until you couldn't stand it anymore. I'm also sorry it took me so long to realize I wasn't someone you trusted.

"I'll make sure to let our parents know so they don't get too physically close to you once summer comes around. They're very touchy-feely people in general; at least in my experience."

@Ruka Tân

@Jack Burnett

It took next to no time for Jack to correct Ruka's misunderstanding about the worries he was addressing. While he sounded patient, he didn't really give the Gryffindor the time to respond to what he was saying before deciding to take Ruka's original answer either way, agreeing that it didn't matter in the end, near chastising him for the fact that he didn't understand the horrible act he had asked of Selim to re-establish the trust between them, using it as an example of how they had different opinions on what was proof of trustworthiness.

"I never said I don't understand it," he pointed out truthfully. He was aware of what made Selim trustworthy in Jack's eyes for having done what he did, but that didn't mean Ruka approved of it in any way. He hummed lowly, eyebrows furrowed thoughtfully. "I wouldn't have done it," he pointed out calmly, folding his hands in his lap. "Gun to my head, I wouldn't have done it. Could have killed me before I put a scratch on you. Does that make me untrustworthy in your eyes then?" He had hoped that there was at least some form of trust between Jack and himself, but if that was what the Slytherin saw as true proof of trust then maybe they could have just as well been strangers to each other.

Not meeting his eyes, Jack expressed the same concern, pointing out how he didn't even know if Ruka trusted him, much less Flash or Selim. But I do, he wanted to say, but he didn't feel confident in being able to argue his feelings on the matter. Trust was such an iffy subject, so difficult a concept to really wrap his head around. He wanted to say he trusted Jack, fully, unconditionally, but how was he supposed to if he barely even trusted himself most of the time?

Instead he said nothing for the time being, simply hanging his head in shame.

Following that seemed to be a lot of things Jack decided not to comment on, letting them sit between them to simply evaporate, get carried away by the gentle breeze surrounding them. The first thing the Slytherin decided to comment on again was Ruka's habit of counting, pointing out how maybe it wasn't such a bad thing, how it didn't need to be brought under control, necessarily, but Ruka shook his head at the notion. "I feel like..." He let out a strangled breath before vaguely gesturing around his head with both hands. "I feel like if I don't keep it under control I'll never stop." That was that. That was how out of control over everything in his life he had been feeling lately; Like to regain even just a semblance of control he would need to start tapping and counting and never ever stop again.

He didn't let himself get taken away by that thought however, looking back up at the other boy with vague concern in his expression. "Why do you count while you breathe?" he asked curiously, tilting his head to the side in interest. It wasn't an important part of the conversation, maybe, but Jack had volunteered the information, and Ruka didn't feel like simply disregarding it.

Once again, it felt like more things were said, argued, that Jack had apparently simply given up on discussing any further with him. It made a sense of dread settle in Ruka's stomach, a nausea he couldn't shake anymore. Things were bad if Jack seemingly couldn't even be bothered to have a discussion with him anymore; It was his fault. He clearly wasn't keeping up with the conversation to the standard Jack had asked him to do.

When Ruka told him that he would have preferred getting to leave without being tackled at the race, what he didn't expect was Jack's reaction, like he was genuinely surprised to hear that, like he hadn't actually thought Ruka to say anything of the sorts. The words that came out of the other boy's mouth, sounding smaller than the Gryffindor ever wanted to hear them, held a sort of innocence that made Ruka want to cry.

Something that brothers did. Was it? Ruka had absolutely no idea, had never experienced a sibling kind of relationship first hand. "Oh," he just said softly, averting his eyes in shame. There had been no bad intention in what Jack had done, no intention of forcing Ruka into a situation he didn't want to be in, just a brotherly tackle, an attempt at making him see that he wasn't supposed to leave, that he was... wanted? "I didn't... I didn't know..." His voice was quiet, breaking at the last syllable as he tried to let the events run through his head one more time. Leaving had seemed like the best thing to do, leave the two of them to themselves, to the harmony they'd found between them, that new bond they had seemingly formed while Ruka hadn't been looking.

"I thought..." he started, shaking his head to himself as he tried to make sense of his own mind. He was so tired of the mess inside it. "I don't know what I thought." The admission was followed by an empty chuckle, eyes focused on his left hand resting on the tabletop. "I suppose I thought the two of you were just trying to show me how little I was needed. Stupid." He knew it, knew his thoughts had been stupid, had made little sense, but he hadn't been able from keeping them out of his head anyway. "And when... when you tackled me I figured it was to show me that... That you didn't care what I wanted. I suppose I felt... Mocked? Ridiculed?" Maybe if he had any idea about how people normally interacted with each other he wouldn't be finding himself in this conversation, but there he was, still struggling for words that made enough sense to not be disregarded as oversensitive stupidity.

Jack's next question made him frown a little, leaning back in his chair as he thought about what the other boy was saying. "I've had to prioritise needs over comfort my whole life," he pointed out, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth to lightly gnaw on it. Long, hard days were on his mind, cold nights and tears, the lack of a hug to get him through because practicing new routines had been more important, had been vital to gaining enough coin to have something to eat the day after. Keep going, keep dancing, keep smiling. "Don't you think every once in a while I would have liked some comfort? It's not like I've ever had much of it." He sighed heavily, lifting his hands up to rub at his tired eyes. "I know his needs shouldn't suffer for the sake of my comfort, I just... It just made me feel unimportant." Not needed, not wanted, replaceable, disposable... He had just wanted to stop feeling like that, had tried to grasp at threads that weren't there, had possibly missed the ones he should have tried to hold onto instead.

Too late, now. Too late, period, probably. He'd messed up and maybe this time it was unforgivable.

It hurt him, the little shrug with which Jack resigned to his apparent mistake, made Ruka want to press the heels of his hands against his eyes until he was sure he had pressed the well of tears threatening to escape him down far enough to make sure they weren't going to come out the second he took a breath. "No," he said quickly, breath coming out as a sob, the only sign that he was finding himself close to tears. He wasn't going to let himself break down like that again, however. Enough was enough. "I just... Didn't want it like that. I just didn't want... I just felt..." He didn't know was the thing, the frustrating fact stretching itself through the depths of his mind, clouding all of his thoughts. He didn't know.

"I wanted to feel like you wanted me around but I just... Just not like that."

How helpful. Unfortunately it was the only thing he could come up with, no matter how useless an information it was going to be to Jack, no matter how little it would most likely do to explain himself. It was all he had to offer.

Jack's comment on how he had obviously been concerned with the outcome as he wouldn't have otherwise bothered being there at all was met with a tired sigh and a shake of the head. He was tired of coming up with arguments, tired of trying to get his feelings across, was clearly doing a rubbish job of it. "Alright," he said, sounding breathless with exhaustion. "I'm sorry then. I should have realised you wouldn't have tried to get us to talk if you didn't care and I didn't. Maybe I was just..." Overreacting? Panicking? He didn't even know himself, why did it keep going back to that? When had he stopped being able to figure himself out? "Too far in my head," was what he concluded eventually. Maybe he should have taken a deep breath and reassessed the situation he had been in, but he hadn't, had talked himself further and further into the bottomless well of his own insecurities until they had been everything he'd been able to feel crawling across his skin.

Jack's mention of his behaviour after Valentine's Day made Ruka flinch like he'd been struck, eyes focusing on a spot to the left of Jack's head to avoid having to look at him directly. "That was months ago," he pointed out, shaking his head. Yes, the period after Valentine's Day had been a bad one, but he knew better than to repeat it again now. He wasn't going to let himself sink that low anymore. "I wouldn't do that again." His voice was confident, expression full of conviction. He had learned from his mistakes, had developed a routine, had figured out how to take care of himself even if it was just him.

Wanting to prove his conviction some more, Ruka thought that mentioning how he had reached out to Jake to participate in the errand with him was sure to be something to show Jack how capable he was of living even without him, but instead he got an unimpressed response, words that made Ruka's mouth hang open for a moment as he just stared at the other boy.

"I didn't... What do you mean?" Of course, maybe there had been some things at the race that Jack had done that had struck a wrong chord with Ruka, but that didn't mean Jack had been doing everything wrong the way he made it sound with his words, saying he had clearly had no idea what he was doing.

Anyway, it seemed like he'd done it, the way he was usually only capable of doing with Flash; He'd brought the atmosphere to its lowest point, had managed to cover the area in which they had been meaning to have a fun little tea party in nothing but tension.

Jack's voice, when he spoke again, was cold, the words thrown at Ruka feeling like daggers to his heart. Why did the word trust keep coming back to haunt him?

"No," he argued, shaking his head as he let Jack's words sink into him, let himself bleed inside until he felt like he was drowning in it. "I do, I... I want to trust you, I... If there is anybody I trust it's you." That much was true, even if he didn't trust the people Jack was keeping around to be careful with the Slytherin, Ruka thought he had placed plenty of trust in the other boy in various other situations. It was just people; Ruka didn't know how to trust people. He was trying but it was just not that simple.

Sniffling quietly, Ruka wiped at his reddened eyes with the back of his hand angrily. Why couldn't he just keep himself under control, why couldn't he just talk like normal people without his mind breaking down at the seams?

Suddenly feeling a lot less like having tea at all, Ruka pushed his half empty cup of black tea to the side. The scent alone was making him feel nauseous.

"Well, if they had a bonfire," he responded tonelessly. What did it matter anyway? Clearly he and Jack had very different view points when it came to trust and favours. What was the point in taking those view points apart?

"How can you ever be sure it won't affect you?" he asked anyway, tired but curiously, like he had no more energy left inside him but couldn't help staying awake for an interesting story anyway. "If you don't question what you're doing too much, if you just do it because it seems like a satisfactory exchange? What if it ends up having disastrous results on your life, or on someone you care about without you ever having realised that it would?" That was maybe taking things to the extreme, but Ruka's distrust towards people in general was big enough for him to expect those possibilities. It seemed like a dangerous game to him, taking people's word at face value without questioning what hidden motives they may have.

Apparently that was where trust came into play. Again. It was slowly becoming Ruka's most hated word.

"I just think that..." He hummed thoughtfully as he tried to articulate his thoughts properly. "When I went to find creatures in the lake, knowing full well what the consequences could be, I did it because I wanted to, not because I was expecting something in return. Isn't that more genuine?"

Once Jack started explaining the various reasons for the actions Ruka had called stupid before, the Gryffindor felt a sense of frustration rising in him again, but he didn't comment on anything. He had already let out his frustration about Jack's actions at the ball afterwards, and he had expressed how he did understand Jack's request of Selim but didn't approve of it anyway, so what was there to argue, really? He simply shrugged lightly as if to relent to the fact that he just wasn't supposed to meddle in Jack's business anymore. Clearly the other boy didn't exactly care much for Ruka's protectiveness.

At least the Slytherin agreed with Ruka's opinion on how it seemed like it would be better for Flash to extend his care to only a few select people rather than everyone he met, but that topic seemed concluded with the fact that that was something the other Slytherin had to work on himself if he even wanted to. So much for that then.

Again, Jack's words came back to trust, urging Ruka to try and place some of it in people to allow them to surprise him every once in a while. "I just don't know how to," he admitted quietly, hanging his head to stare at the table. He had moved the cups and pots as far away from him as possible, not interested in the tea aspect of their get together at all anymore. What was the point if neither of them was able to enjoy it anymore? "I've never really trusted anybody, I don't know how it works." His voice was small and broken, face expressionless as he kept staring at the table top as if to avoid having to look at anybody as he made his admissions.

Only when Jack spoke of how his reaction to the news that Ruka's father had passed away could have potentially stemmed from him not caring at all did the Gryffindor's head snap back up again, a hurt expression crossing his face. "I suppose," he said slowly, blinking away the tears yet again pricking at his eyelids. "I suppose I was so surprised by getting a different reaction, I didn't consider it being anything but positive." Maybe that had been optimistic, but it wasn't like Jack had truly not cared, was it? He had shown as much by sticking around, helping him out, holding him through the breakdown he had had over the thought of losing his dad's picture. So Ruka's intuition had been right, hadn't it?

"Maybe I just don't like being told what to think of people," he said, trying for a light hearted voice but only sounding tired. He was so tired of everything being this difficult. Was he just the one being difficult? "I figure it's just... Different starting points," he tried to explain, hoping to show that his opinions weren't solely emotional. He was capable of rational, logical thinking, even if Jack accused him of the opposite. "I got the impression you were... honest when we first met. I just... had an easy time understanding you..." He shrugged lightly. "But when I first met Flash, he wasn't... He came across as a liar, that just... stuck to me." He took a deep breath. "I suppose first impressions can be misleading. Maybe I was wrong but that's why I reached out to him." There was a twinge of desperation in his voice as he said it, lifting a hand to rub at his aching temples. He wasn't sure why Jack had decided to just ignore that he was trying to give Flash a chance by having reached out to him and having spent an at least mostly pleasant morning folding paper animals together, but it was definitely making him feel like the Slytherin didn't think his attempt was good enough.

"So maybe I let my emotions get the best of me. I am trying to make it right again." But maybe Trying wasn't good enough for Jack. Maybe he expected him to snap his fingers and have his mind changed. Well, that was something Ruka wasn't able to offer.

Watching as Jack got up and adjusted his bag strap to ready himself to leave, the Gryffindor pulled his bottom lip between his teeth to bite down on it as he listened to the other boy talking, every word making him feel worse and worse.

"Jack," he said feebly, lifting his feet off the ground to be able to hug his knees against his chest in an attempt at comforting himself. "Please don't go." But maybe this was just where Jack thought their discussion was supposed to end. Maybe this was as far as he was willing to take the conversation. Maybe there was nothing left to talk about. Still. "Please don't go, you said you would listen if I was willing to talk, so please stay." A couple of tears made their way down his cheeks as he buried his face in his knees for a moment before looking back up again.

"I didn't... I was avoiding you so I could clear my head. Because I was scared of what you'd think of me after how I behaved at the race. I just wanted to... I wanted to pull myself together before we talked again." He shook his head lightly at himself, shrugging his shoulders while still hugging his legs close.

"I do trust you," he insisted, slowly letting himself slide off the chair to sit on the ground instead, immediately feeling a little safer. He'd always felt the calmest when in touch with nothing but the ground. "Maybe not in all the ways you want me to, but I'm still learning! Can't you understand how difficult that is? You said yourself, people have been telling me not to trust you over and over again, you have done things that should have made me abandon all trust in you, but I'm still here, I'm still trying to learn to trust you. Doesn't that count for anything? Is the fact that I get insecure and jealous because I've never been this close to anybody before really enough to make you think I don't trust you at all?"

Slowly he crawled his way under the table to resume his position with his knees hugged tightly against his chest in what felt like some sort of shelter. Here it didn't feel so bad to let some more tears escape him were they couldn't be seen so easily. Jack's words about letting his parents know not to get too physically close to him made him let out a pained wail, a strangled sound stuffed with tears yet to be cried. The thought of being surrounded by touchy-feely people made his skin crawl with aversion and longing at the same time.

"Your parents," he pointed out desperately, running a hand through his hair as he focused his eyes on Jack's feet to be able to see if he was leaving or staying to hear him out. "Yours." He shook his head as he tried to figure out what exactly he wanted to say with that. "That's what I feel like. I'm spending my summer in your house, with your family, in your room. I've been wearing the clothes you and your family got me, my dad's picture is in the locket you had made for me. As grateful as I am, I feel like there's nothing left anymore that's mine. That's what I meant when I said you are all I have." Somehow it felt easier to talk while sheltered by the table and without any need to actually make eye contact. "My brother, I suppose. I know I can't keep you all to myself all the time, but is it really so hard to understand that I might get protective of you? That I don't trust people to be good for you when I can't even trust myself on that? That I get scared of losing you and feel threatened when someone else gets close to you?" He took a deep strangled breath, shaking his head vehemently to himself.

"I trust you, as much as I'm able to so far, probably more than I trust myself. I didn't tell you about not being able to swim not because I don't trust you but because I was embarrassed. Everyone was having a good time, you seemed to be enjoying yourself, I didn't want you to have to deal with me not being able to do something everyone else seemed to be able to do." It wasn't really relevant anymore anyway, he figured. Jack had found out about him not being able to swim, so why was this even part of the conversation?

The other part of it, however... "And I've never told you about not liking to be touched because it was never relevant, because..." He took a deep breath, feeling embarrassed again, cheeks flushing red as he tightened his hold around his knees. "Because it never felt uncomfortable being close to you or hugging you or anything like that. For the first time since my dad, who never hugged me much anyway, I'd felt comfortable with having someone physically close to me again, why would I dampen my own happiness over that by talking about how uncomfortable touch usually makes me?" Biting down on his lip shortly, Ruka sighed heavily.

"Just give me a chance to learn, please," he begged desperately, pressing his face against his knees again to let some more tears escape him. "Because I want to learn. I want to be more trusting, I am trying. Just please don't go away now. Please stay."

When Jack heard Ruka pleading with him to stay, getting so overcome with emotion that seemed to feel the need to crawl under the table to curl up and cry, the Slytherin stopped and turned around. With a heavy sigh, he gradually made his way back to their abandoned teaware. Ruka may have been emotinally impaired at the moment, but even if Jack couldn't properly reason with him, that didn't mean he had to abandon him. By Jack's thinking, as crying was one of the deepest expressions of despair that a human could demonstrate, it wasn't something even he could easily ignore.

With the Gryffindor huddled under the table, Jack settled on seating himself on the tabletop, allowing his legs to dangle off the edge as he picked at a few more pieces of the biscuit he had broken earlier. Pouring himself another cup of the red tea, he breathed in its aroma deeply and took a sip before attempting to speak again.

"In all honesty, Tân," he began, "Normally I trust your judgement, but as of late, I've begun to think you've become emotionally impaired. Not that I can't see why you would be. I know I've fallen victim to the same condition much more often than I'd like to admit, especially after that night I found you and Fangs trying to make it to the Hospital Wing on your own." Idly swinging his legs a bit off the table edge, something tapped lightly against the side of one of his ankle bones, but it was difficult to see under his pant leg. "That just means I know better than most, though, that emotional impairment can make it really difficult to reason things out properly. However...if you insist on wanting to learn and understand like you say you do, I'll try to explain once more."

He took another sip of his tea, deciding Ruka had been right in his choice of ingredients. Jack thought he liked the special blend that the second year had made for him the best of all the teas at the table. "You may not have ever said that you didn't understand what happened between Fangs and I," he remarked, "But the fact that you think being unwilling to do it would make you untrustworthy in my eyes just proves that you don't. It wouldn't have made you untrustworthy to me - it would have suggested that I was untrustworthy to you."

Jack set down his teacup, causing a small series of clinks to be heard above Ruka on the tabletop. "I asked Fangs to do what he did and he did it because he trusted I could handle it; not to mention trusted that I could keep from holding it against him or regretting what I'd asked him to do. What I didn't realize - and maybe he didn't either - was that he couldn't handle it, which was where I made my mistake." Gently, the Slytherin picked up the red tea fox from its teapot with a spoon and had it join the octopus in the oolong teapot. The fox looked a bit confused at first, but soon it seemed to enjoy splashing up a storm with its new companion of eight appendages.

"Think of it this way. What if I was suffering or in some other state that made me prefer death? Would you prefer to be selfish and let me suffer rather than offing me - than trusting I knew what was best for me - potentially just because it was difficult for you?"

He popped a few more pieces of biscuit into his mouth while considering what else they had talked about. Oh, yes; the habits to calm oneself down. Ruka's counting as he tapped his fingers and Jack's counting as he breathed. The older boy had asked the younger why he counted, describing how he felt a strong need to keep his own counting habits under control.

"If you feel that way about your counting, then I suppose it's probably better to try to get it under control than letting it consume you as a compulsion," Jack acknowledged. "As for why I count when I breathe...it's a common practice to stabilize oneself; like for meditation or anger management." He sipped some more of his beverage before experimentally plopping the green tea fox bag in with the black tea squid, keeping an eye on them to make sure nothing went too awry.

"The rate at which people breathe has been shown to be directly correlated to their state of mind. That's why people with adenaline rushes who are performing straining activities like running have to breathe faster in order to get more oxygen into their blood and delivered to the parts of their body that are working hardest. If someone gets too panicked or excited, they tend to hyperventilate and sometimes need to be forced to breathe slower in order to return to normal."

The Slytherin finished the last of his red tea in order to pour himself some of the new red-oolong tea mixture. "By counting my breaths or even just counting down gradually, it forces me to concentrate on regulating, slowing, and calming my heart rate, my breathing, and my state of mind all at once. It helps to clear my mind, reduce my stress, and allows me to see things more clearly from a more objective standpoint than from where my emotions can contaminate my logic and sense of reason."

That said, he wondered if the other boy would try to implement it into in his own habits or else perhaps try to transform his own counting into something more beneficial along the same lines. Still, it wasn't for Jack to decide. Only time would tell. There were other things to be addressed; like how it seemed to dawn on Ruka how he had been thinking something entirely different of Jack's actions than Jack himself had. How he claimed that he didn't know and that he thought something else; that he wasn't quite sure what he thought, but that maybe it had something to do with the reverse of what Jack had meant by it. How ironic. And yet, it was even more substantial proof of the damage that emotional impairment could cause one's sense of reason if it could twist one's perspective to such a degree that it caused a person to believe someone meant the exact opposite of their true intentions.

Jack sighed softly for what felt like the billionth time. What a mess. Well, at least things were becoming a little more clear on both sides now, he supposed; or hoped.

"It makes sense that you didn't know, I guess," Jack conceeded. "Neither of us have had siblings and I'd really only seen that kind of thing in shows and movies, but I forgot that you likely didn't have access to those. I didn't think about where the idea came from for me or that you might not have thought of it in the same manner or have been influenced by the concept in the same way. That was my mistake; I'm sorry." He picked up the last few bits of biscuit from the saucer and swept up a few crumbs with his fingertip before licking them from his finger.

"The fact that I was trying to show you that you were wanted by trying to keep you around and you taking it as a sign I didn't care about what you wanted..." He paused, considering. "...It seems like a similar disconnect regarding why you wouldn't deliberately hurt me and why you don't seem to understand why anyone else who cared about me would. I tackled you because I thought it was something that I would have wanted in your shoes, just like you probably wouldn't have hurt me as Selim did because you can't imagine why anyone would ask or want to be hurt by someone else. We both made the mistake of thinking to treat each other how we wanted to be treated. But that way of thinking has its own flaws."

Jack shook his head. "To treat others the way you want to be treated implies that they want to be treated the same way you do. It's an assumption no one has any right to make. As similar as we are - you and I - we still have a lot to learn about each other and the way we work. We're getting there, and I noticed from the start that you have the uncanny ability to read people and adapt to that knowledge. However, the limitations of your experiences regarding what aspects of people you've been allowed to view and read while living the lifestyle you've lived might be more of a hinderence to you than either of us thought."

He scratched the back of his neck, realizing how convoluted his words must have sounded. "That is to say...you may know how people work to a certain degree, and you may know that aspect really well, but only as far as you needed to in order to earn money from them as a fire dancer or to survive as a street urchin. Not enough to be able to make friends or convey that you care about someone properly or to understand when someone is trying to let you know they care about you." He sipped some of the red-oolong tea mixture. Not bad, but he still preferred the red alone. "At least not in the conventional manner that others might recognize or hope you would recognize of them in turn."

Finishing off that tea, Jack poured himself a new cup of the green-black tea mixture, somewhat pleased to see that, though apparently panicked at first, the green tea bag fox had eventually settled into snuggling in with the...apparently very cuddly squid. The pair seemed to be winding down after a bit of relaxing swimming together. A partial smile raised a corner of the Slytherin's mouth before he set the teacup to his lips again.

"I know you've had to prioritize needs over comfort your whole life. That's why I've done my best to try to give it to you in the best ways I know how. Touch through hugs is one of the main things that helped me whenever I was feeling down around my parents. But if that's not something that helps you...I don't know what I've been doing to you all this time. How you must have taken it." He shrugged, though of course Ruka couldn't see. It was more of a reflexive gesture than anything. "You said you felt unimportant even though both Flash and I were probably doing our best to try to show you you were anything but. Again, however, aside from the disconnect of what our actions meant to us as opposed to you...I can't help but think some emotional impairment on your side was at least partially responsible for the misunderstanding."

The first year downed the rest of the tea in one gulp and set the cup back on the table harder than was probably necessary, like a man who had just forced himself to chug an uncomfortable amount of alcohol. "You're right. I shouldn't have simply assumed you were level-headed enough to have that talk right then and there. I just can't help thinking that when everyone is willing to reason things out and has the intelligence to, it's best to get everything out in the open and communicate. That's why I wanted to get you two to talk while I was around so I could make sure I could try to translate if there was some other misinterpertation between what you guys were saying and meaning toward one another." He hopped off the table after a moment and began to gather up the used teaware, making sure to leave the teapots that still held tea for last. "I just...it didn't occur to me that you might not have wanted to reason things out at the time because you weren't in the right emotional state to do so."

Speaking loud enough to be heard over the clinking of the cups and saucers as he gathered them, he continued. "You tell me that your neglecting yourself was months ago; that you wouldn't do that again. But how was I - am I to know that? Did you swear an oath in front of me?" As confident as Ruka's voice had been in claiming he wouldn't do that again, Jack knew all too well the terrifying power of feelings. Depression could easily cause one to lose their appetite and general care for their own well-being; not to mention other emotions and various other detriments caused by their influences.

"Regarding Jake Morris," he went on, stacking the saucers on top of one another and the cups atop those, "You asked what I meant. I meant that I thought you were the sort of person who valued depth and profound connection in a friendship. While Morris is a good kid - inquisitive, considerate, and caring - I would have thought he'd be considered a little too naive and indiscriminate by our standards to make a decent friend. He considers so many to be his friends, after all, and it seems to fit the saying that 'a friend to all is a friend to none'. Similar to what I thought you disliked about Flash." Noticing the instability of the teacup tower, Jack quickly took them down and placed them beside each other instead. "Once again, though, I could have assumed that you were too much like me based on our first meeting. Our values and ideals must be much farther apart than I originally thought."

He stopped to ponder for a moment what Ruka had previously said about wanting to trust Jack. That if there was anybody he trusted, it was him. But Jack smirked bitterly at the leftover tea, thinking it over. Eventually, he poured the remaining beverages all into the same teapot, allowing all the sleepy-seeming tea bag animals to pile atop one another as they rested from their prior activites.

"Wanting to trust me and being the person you most trust isn't the same as fully trusting me," the Slytherin told the Gryffindor. "Not that I should have expected you to from the start. I guess I just didn't imagine you had anything to hide from me. Or, I suppose...feel too ashamed or embarrassed about to tell me, since I didn't think you cared what anyone thought similar to what you told me when we first met. After all, there was anything like that I kept from you. But that was my mistake for assuming as much; I realize that. I have no one else to blame for my disappointment other than myself. And it's not like you can't eventually come to trust me if we both keep trying at it."

His lips returned to a grim line as he recalled the upperclassman's question about being sure a person's ulterior motives didn't affect you. "If a deal with someone affected me later, I'd focus on handling it then; just like how I'm handling what my request did to Selim now. No point in worrying about it beforehand if it might never happen. More Tengu-do; 'all things are changable'."

Jack snorted, followed by a short laugh when he thought of how Ruka had compared his own adventure to the errands that students were asked to run. "By the way...you said you went to find creatures in the lake knowing what the consequences could be and because you wanted to, not because you were expecting something in return. You asked if it was more genuine, but I don't think so. After all, I did plenty of errands just for the sake of the experience even long after I was no longer qualified to recieve rewards for them. It was never about the rewards for me. And if you thought otherwise, I'm surprised."

He stopped to think about that. "Then again...I suppose us Slytherin do like compensation for our time. Knowledge gained from new experiences is compensation enough for me, but the rewards don't hurt. Still, I don't think that makes my motivations any less genuine. If anything, your actions are still the ones that perplex me since they almost ended up getting you killed for practically no reason at all. Because you told yourself you 'wanted to'? Why?" He poured himself a cup of the final mixture of the four teas. "Because your 'friend' wanted you to with him? Did he know you couldn't swim?"

Whoops. There he went again, talking like he was some expert on friendship. Gulping down some tea to shut himself up, he made a slight face at the strangeness of the mixed flavors. Still, they all had that vaguely bitter aftertaste. Maybe with more sugar, all of them would have become more palatable to him. The bitterness of coffee more often seemed to be tamed with sugar, caramel, whipped cream, and the like; at least when he mom had let him try some every now and then.

Ah, well. Tea was supposed to be calming while coffee was supposedly supposed to make you more jittery, wasn't it? However, didn't both possess an amount of caffine? How strange.

"The way that you didn't consider my reaction to your father's passing being anything but positive is the same way I didn't consider your reaction to my tackling you being anything but positive. I thought you enjoyed physical contact like I did." He peered into the dark liquid that remained at the bottom of his teacup. "Again, it was a mistake to assume and I'm sorry. I guess...I'm just a little hurt you didn't seem to think to tell me prior, since I thought that assumption was safe due to precedence."

Teacup still in hand, he crouched down to seek out his upperclassman under the table. "Tân. I was never trying to tell you what to think of people. I don't think that's something that anyone has a right to do to anyone else. I was just...trying to ask you not to think certain things of him. Or at least be open to the possibility they might not be true regardless of how it all seemed." The Welsh boy shrugged again, this time in plain view of the Irish one. "Perhaps it still sounded too much like trying to influence you or convince you of thinking something you didn't already think for you to be receptive to it. In that case, I apologize."

The first year held out the teacup on the saucer to Ruka, offering it to him if he cared to try it. "I understand how you can get frustrated with people who don't seem to be honest, especially when few are. That's why I deal with it by testing them and taunting them about their own dishonesty. It's just that in Flash's case, he surprised me; so I thought you should know, which is why I told you."

Jack dipped his head slowly, still lost in thought. "I'm glad you reached out to him. Not sure if it changed or influenced at all what you already thought of him, especially given what sounds like a track record of misunderstandings between you two and the fact that you still haven't mentioned anything about how it went...but regardless, I hope it went better than the others." He hoped the way he worded his statement made it clear to the fire dancer that Jack didn't mind if he chose not to elaborate on how the interaction had gone.

If Ruka declined the offered tea and teacup, Jack would have placed it back on top of the table to be rid of it. Regardless of whether it was taken from him or not, once his hands were free again, he scooted over to sit near Ruka on the ground, though not close enough to touch. Indeed, he had said he would listen if Ruka had been willing to talk, so stay and listen he would. He was, after all, a person of his word, so he remained close, silent, and hung on every sound offered to him as house elves came and went around them to clear the dishes off the table.

Eventually, Ruka seemed to have had his say. Some of the things he's talked about shed new light from different perspectives that Jack hadn't considered before. It took a while as he allowed everything to sink in, digesting it, but he gradually decided to share something with the other boy that he hadn't brought up in years; not even with his parents. He would have to build up to it, though; to gather the courage to recount the tale while leading to the point he intended to make with it.

"You said you were scared of what you'd think of me after how you behaved at the race. But did you ever consider that maybe I might be worried about what you'd think of me? That maybe you decided to deliberately avoid me because of what I'd done, even if I wasn't sure what part or why? We both knew I was just trying to help, but as the saying goes, 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'." He closed his eyes and leaned his head back to rest against the center support of the table.

"This is why I think communication is so crucial for trust and understanding. Even if you just want to clear your head next time, I'd appreciate you letting me know so I'm not stuck wondering what happened and making all kinds of stupid assumptions about what went wrong in my worry. Like I said, I have emotions too; ones that can take me over and mess with my senses of reason, judgement, and logic, too."

Opening his eyes, he sneered, staring off into the distance ahead of him like he could view some past memory if he looked far enough. "Heh...when we first met in the rehersal room," he murmured, "we were practically the opposite of how we are right now. Remember? I was the emotional, paranoid mess, too afraid to trust anyone or anything I thought I knew, and you were the calm, serious boy who knew just how to keep a cool-enough head to talk me out of my panic. Not that I can match up to how you were then, but...I'm trying," he added with a bitter smirk.

"I still remember how I saw you then. You scared me, and not just because you were being nice or trying to get through to me. Most of all, it was the way you were doing those things - getting me to talk about myself, seeming interested in me whether you were or not, paying attention to my every word and gesture, offering to teach me your tricks, doing what you could to accomodate me, using my first name to get my attention; all first-rate manipulation tactics I didn't know anyone else our age was aware of, let alone knew how to use." He stared down at the palms of his hands.

"Your...'trick' of seeing through me so throughly that I thought you were a Legilimens was especially frightening. It was even more horrifying, in a way, to learn that you weren't a Legilimens. That fact, along with your question about if I might have been more transparent than I thought I was, sowed in me the fear that maybe I had been fooling myself all this time about people not knowing who I truly was; that I had been giving myself a false sense of security all this time when the 'Chinese Wall' I built up around myself may have actually been no more than an illusion. Do you have any idea how terrifying that concept is, especially when you spent so much of your life honing your skills and carefully crafting the perfect facade to hide behind in the face of the world?"

He glanced in Ruka's direction at the corner of his peripheral vision. "You laid me bare and I was terrified, getting so desperate that I ended up deliberately burning myself just to have an excuse to get away from you. If I hadn't decided to give you a chance and take a leap of faith despite what my survival instincts were screaming at me, where would be today?" Jack turned his gaze ahead of him again, staring out from under the table at what he could see of the castle stone.

"That's why it's so strange to me that you seem to be trying to use your distrust of Flash as an excuse to keep your emotional distance from him. Sure, he may be unnervingly observant and even manipulative at times, but that isn't always necessarily a bad thing; especially if we can recognize it for what it is. You and I are the same, too, even if we utilize those skills toward different ends.

Jack took an especially deep inhale before exhaling slowly again through his nose. He doubted what he planned to say next was anything Ruka would enjoy hearing and maybe wouldn't even want to consider, but he had to say it anyway or he wouldn't have been being honest. As future brothers, that was not something that could stand.

"You mentioned before that maybe you let your emotions get the best of you at the race," the first year reminded the second year. "If I'm being completely honest, I'd say you're still letting them get the best of you even now and have been for some time. Specifically," he added, trying to keep his expression and voice as neutral as possible, "I believe you're being impaired by the feeling of jealousy." This time, he turned his whole body to face Ruka entirely.

"You might not believe me and I'm not asking you to take my word for it; just to maybe think on it a bit. I'm not saying it's not warrented," he was quick to add. "If I were in your shoes, I'd be jealous of him, too. Why should he deserve a relationship with a depth and strength like ours when he settles for so many more trite, weak, superficial, pitiful ones?" Jack paused, his tone growing softer and more gentle. "But please consider this, too; how will he ever learn the difference between what we have and what he has with others if he never gets a chance to directly experience the former himself?"

"The fundemental difference between us and him, in my opinion, is that we have each other as examples of what profound understanding, mutual consideration, and true acceptance feels like. Flash, however, doesn't have any better relationships than the tenuous, questionable, lop-sided, and often shallow ones he's currently a part of, so of course he isn't going to think to abandon them for better ones he isn't even sure could exist for him.

"All he knows are the relationships where he's doing all the work, so of course he's going to try to go about making relationships even with people like you and I in the same way he does with others. I'm not saying to act like you're the same as them, but if you bite his head off about doing the only things he only knows how to do in the only ways he knows how, what will that leave him? He can't learn to adapt if he'd told that the very foundations on which he's stood all the time are wrong."

A fond smile upturned his lips. "That's what you did for me," Jack commented. "You didn't tell me I was wrong in my way of thinking or behaving, no matter how absurd I was being. You used the context of my own lifestyle and adapted to it, going with the flow. You offered to hang around with me while assuring me we didn't have to be friends. That my blatant refusal to have friends wasn't wrong." He inclined his head toward Ruka. "So...is it so different not to judge Flash for whatever shallow relationships he feels like he has to cling to for now until he can learn and decide for himself what might potentially make a better one? After all, I'm sure he doesn't enjoy being told what to think either, even if he's quick to think himself wrong."

The Welsh boy took a final, deep breath, this time through his mouth, and settled back against the table support as he drew in resolve with oxygen. This was the part he least wanted to talk about. But if he wanted open communication between them, he had to set an example. He figured he might as well have gotten it all out then before he lost his nerve. If anyone deserved to know, anyway, especially by then, it was Ruka.

"Hey, Tân..." Jack began again, staring at his hands as he fiddled with his fingers with a tight, uneasy smile. His manner was more timid than it had been in a long time. "...Remember the first time we met, I told you my first accidental use of magic was to make my arguing friends shut up?" It was one of the few instances he had ever claimed to have friends. But as Ruka had just been getting to know the Slytherin then, he couldn't have realized just how vehemently opposed Jack was to the term otherwise. "Well...there was more to that story." He suddenly found he couldn't raise his head to meet Ruka's eye, so he hurried on as quickly as he could before his cowardice rendered him mute as well.

"At my old muggle school, I knew these two kids - Ren and Jade. I considered myself friends with both of them, but they didn't get along so well with each other. They tried to play nice when they were around me, but when it was just me and one of them, they would complain about the other. I'd nod and agree with each of them, too scared to say anything against either one or express any opinion other than their own for fear of losing their friendship." He ran a hand through his hair, feeling ridiculous even as he explained the inner workings oof his foolish past self.

"One day, I found them caught up in an especially stupid argument about whether or not sign language was a real language. They each tried to get me on their side, so I tried to show them the points each was trying to make, because I understood both. Instead of being willing to be more open-minded about the other's side, though, they got frustrated with what they saw as my lack of loyalty to either one of them and stormed off."

Jack frowned, brows narrowing. "It just got worse after that. They wouldn't talk to each other. They hardly talked to me until I finally started agreeing with them on their own points. Elementary school kids are naturally stubborn and set in their ways and I was still desperately afraid of losing either of them as friends. I didn't want to take sides, but I felt like I had no choice, so I just took the side of whomever was around while they were around since they wouldn't even tolerate spending time in each other's presence anymore." His palm slid down his face.

"Of course, though, it ended up coming back to bite me in the butt. They started arguing again one day in the cafeteria and it almost got physical, but then I managed to shut them up with accidental magic. That wasn't the worst part, though." He looked away. "It was what happened after."

"Their mutual plight of being rendered mute caused them to gain some common ground and they gradually made up. What they discovered, though, was that they had more common ground in deciding that I had betrayed them by talking about each of them with the other behind their backs, agreeing with whatever they said. I'd just been trying to keep they as my friends, but they thought of it as me playing both sides. Ironically, my worst fears came true; a self-fulfilling prophecy." A mirthless, self-depreciating laugh left him.

"I guess it served me right. But I figured I'd learned my lesson; that I didn't need friends. I didn't need to care about anyone's opinion but my own. It was my fault I lost them, but you can't lose friends you don't have. So, desperate not to let that ever happen again, I swore off making friends." Finally, he willed his hazel eyes to rise in order to find forest green ones.

"But, friends or not...I can't help feeling like history is repeating itself. That, in my efforts to help you and Flash see each others' points of view, I'll only end up seeming like I'm not siding with either of you when, in reality, I'm siding with you both because I can see both sides." His voice grew more strained than he'd ever let anyone other than his parents hear.

The younger boy uttered a sad little chuckle, his eyes shining with unspilled tears. "Tân...please be honest with me. It's said that those who stand for nothing will fall for anything. So if I can see things from any side I choose to take the perspective of...is that...wrong of me? Disloyal? Is it grounds to label me as untrustworthy?"

Sniffling, he brushed the back of his hand across his face. "Heh...wonderful. Maybe this is why I've never been able to puzzle out the answer logical to that question; because I get too emotional just considering it." He swallowed, trying fight back the knotted feelings choking him. "The fact remains that you can't lose friends if you don't have them in the first place. But a brother? A brother is for life."

Jack urged his pained cheeks to smile more broadly, but it only served to tighten his features and cause his attempted grin to turn out more like a grimace."I just...I need to know if you think you can maybe learn to trust me enough to call me a brother eventually even knowing what I just told you. Because once we're brothers, there's no going back. We'll be family for the rest of each other's lives. And what kind of family would we be if we couldn't trust each other?"

The Slytherin sniffed loudly again, as if not only his throat but all his breathing passages were closing up. "I just don't think I can...I don't want to be made to take sides again; to be split up between people I care about. You know?" He cast his gaze down. "But I trust you. If you really don't think either of us should try to get any closer to Flash than we already are...then I won't." He attempted to take Ruka's blistered, worn hand. "I promise."

@Ruka Tân

@Jack Burnett

Watching Jack's feet move back toward their table caused Ruka to let out a rattling breath of relief, and he momentarily pressed his face against his knees for a moment as he simply listened to the sound of the table shaking and squeaking very lightly under the Slytherin's weight when he sat himself atop. Despite the words that questioned Ruka's ability of being reasonable while suffering from emotional impairment as Jack called it, the Gryffindor found himself eternally grateful that the other boy was willing to stay and further discuss and explain things to him anyway. Maybe now, sheltered by the table and curled up in the smallest form he could possibly be, he'd be able to take a few deep breaths and take Jack's words in without the urge to fight them.

Still, even with his best intentions, he couldn't resist the sigh of frustration that escaped him as Jack pointed out that Ruka being unable to harm him upon request would mean that the Gryffindor didn’t trust Jack rather than the other way around. He’d been aware of that, hadn’t exactly meant for his words to only question his own trustworthiness but the mess inside his head was making it difficult to really communicate everything he was thinking. There were so many nuances to even just this one topic it was difficult to stay coherent.

“Jack,” he said heavily when the other boy had finished, shaking his head as he let his fingers run through his hair, messing it up worse than it had been in a while. “See, this is where I can’t follow your logic. How would you know if you were able to handle it? How would Selim know that he can trust you when you say that you can when there is no way for you to be completely sure? Have you ever been tortured before? Has anybody ever caused you that much physical pain? How could you possibly be certain enough about where your limits are to be able to avoid any serious mistakes? One wrong cut here or there, even on accident, and things could have ended up much worse than they did. I don't understand why you would risk that consequence. Do you care that little about your physical well-being?” He sighed heavily, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. “If you expect me to trust your every word to a point where I would hurt you without first trying to look for any other possible alternative, then I don’t know if I could ever give that to you.”

Chuckling through some of his tears, Ruka hummed softly, tilting his head to the side thoughtfully. “I’ve never claimed not to be selfish,” he pointed out, much calmer than he had expected to be while hugging his knees close to his chest and hiding under a table. “And if you were suffering to a point where death seems preferable, rest assured it would hurt me more than I can probably even imagine right now, but would I trust you to know what was best if you asked me to kill you?” A humourless laugh escaped him at the thought. “No, because maybe there’s a solution you hadn’t thought of. Maybe there was a way to stop the suffering that wouldn’t kill you. Am I selfish enough to prolong your suffering if there’s even the tiniest chance that I could stop it and keep you alive if I just had some more time? Yes, I suppose so.” He hummed tonelessly, lifting his head from where it had been resting against his knees to stare blankly at Jack's dangling legs. “Though I wouldn’t say I’d let you suffer just because killing you would be too difficult for me. In fact, I think it might even be easier to just end it; I think I would suffer with every second that you did as well, but I... You deserve a life, a pain-free, comfortable life, and I would hate myself forever if I didn’t do absolutely everything in my power to try and give that to you.”

Maybe, he thought, what he really didn’t trust was Jack’s idea of what he did and didn’t deserve. Pain and death were two things Ruka would want to keep out of Jack’s life no matter the cost. "I just think you deserve people who will do what they can to make things better for you rather than people who just accept the fact that you don't seem to mind them getting worse." With a little sniffle escaping him he shook his head though with nobody there to see it he realised how useless a gesture it really was. "I won't... I'll try to stop questioning the fact that you asked him to do what he did and..." A small hitch in his breath betrayed the spill of a few tears he had been holding back thus far. "And I'll trust that it was the best possible solution in your eyes but... In the future, do you think you could think of ways to strengthen the trust between you and others that don't involve you getting carved like a pumpkin?" Involuntarily his hands balled into fists against his shins as he released that thought with a shaky breath. "It hurts me when you get hurt. Emotionally and physically." His expression contorted, agony crossing his face and he was glad Jack wouldn't be able to see it.

He realised he was being selfish by asking Jack to consider the emotional pain he was putting him through by allowing other people to physically harm him, but he couldn't help it. Sometimes he thought he could feel each scar on Jack's body itching at his own skin, burrowing themselves into his bones and soul, suffocating him with their intensity. He didn't think he'd be able to take it if Jack were to ever allow someone to hurt him like that again.

With the topic moving on to the habit of counting, Ruka felt a little bit of tension slipping away from him, gaze resting on his fingers digging into the material of his trousers. He had never really thought of counting the way Jack was talking about it, as a way to focus, calm down, steady his mind, regulate his breathing. Maybe the fact that he had been fighting the habit so much was exactly why it felt like such a chore to try and keep it at bay.

The way Jack used it seemed a lot more intentional than the experience Ruka had been making with his own habit of counting, but what if he tried to take charge of it rather than letting it take charge of him instead?

"One, two, three," he whispered under his breath, hoping it wasn't loud enough for Jack to hear, as he let his fingers tap the rhythm against his legs. The effects were not exactly immediate, but as he focused on the tapping and the repetition of the numbers, he could feel his tears slowly stilling, the buzzing of his mind quieting down at least enough for him to be able to concentrate on other things. When his fingers attempted to keep up the tapping even after Ruka felt a bit calmer again, he immediately curled them inwards for a moment to make them stop.

Maybe he just needed to learn how to take control of his bad habits and turn them into something positive instead. He felt inspired to try at least.

With his focus at least somewhat stable again, Ruka leaned back a bit, eyes fixed again on Jack's legs. For a second he wanted to reach out, hold onto the other boy's ankle as a way of steadying himself, but he resisted the urge to just listen for the moment.

Jack's words made sense, as they usually did, even in occasions where they really shouldn't, and Ruka found himself nodding along as he took them in, silently moving his lips as if mouthing along to the other boy's voice even though he had no idea what it was going to say next. It was true, treating someone the way you wanted to be treated yourself was only good advice up to a certain level because every person was different, had varying limits and a vast range of experiences that might set them apart from others.

If Jack had gotten his idea of brotherly actions from books and movies then it was obvious why it was different from Ruka's who had never experienced the luxury of watching a movie, and had only ever read through the same old book over and over again when growing up. The fact that their view of those actions were different lead directly to the disconnect between what Jack had intended to do and what Ruka had thought his intentions had been.

For a moment the Gryffindor's eyebrows knitted together as the other boy's words were starting to get too much for him to really comprehend, and he cleared his throat a little to make Jack aware of that fact, but without even having needed to give a sign, the Slytherin had already started to sum up what he had been saying in an easier to understand way.

It was true, Ruka's ability of reading people extended merely to being able to give them what they wanted to woo them into sparing a bit more money, to recognising when someone was dodgy and had potentially bad intentions that could get him killed if he didn't stay away. His experiences with people as a whole had been bad and his experiences with children his age were next to none, so he had taken that foundational knowledge of them and tried to apply it to all the people he had met around the castle thus far only to be left confused and suspicious when they hadn't been acting in a way he was familiar with.

He wanted to speak up, tell Jack that he was right, that he still needed to learn so much more about people to be able to handle these sorts of things properly, but he had the suspicion that the Slytherin didn't actually need his confirmation, so instead he simply nodded to himself with a hum of understanding and agreement that he hoped was loud enough for Jack to hear.

As the topic moved on to Ruka's need for comfort, the Gryffindor could feel his face screwing up with internal conflict, his breath faltering as a sense of guilt washed over him. He didn't know how to explain to Jack that he had done nothing wrong by giving him the comfort of physical touch without sounding contradicting but the least he could do was try.

“I like when you hug me,” he whispered almost soundlessly, rubbing his own legs with the palms of his hands as if to try and warm himself up despite the fact that it wasn’t even cold. “I like... I like being close to you. I just don’t like... feeing like I have no control over it.” He could feel his breathing speed up lightly as he thought about how to express his issues. It was the same thing he had wanted to communicate to Flash as well, though he wasn’t exactly sure how well he had managed to explain it back then. “When... At the race, I was so... there was such a mess inside my head, so much panic, I felt like I had no control over anything except for... except for my own body, I suppose.” It felt stupid to say it out loud, but maybe it would help Jack understand why he was having such a troubled time accepting touch these days. “I didn’t... I didn’t expect you to tackle me, and I... I didn’t expect Flash to hug me and when he did it felt like... like he was taking away the last thing I was able to control; Who gets to touch me and when. It made me... feel terrified.”

Breathless and scared, ripped from any remaining sense of comfort. His skin was still crawling with it at the thought.

“I’ve never liked touch because I’ve never been comfortable enough with anybody to give up that control over myself. But I’ve felt comfortable enough for that with you. It was just... It felt good to have someone I actually wanted to be close to, you know? It was actually making me feel like... Like I'd be okay trying to give and get that same kind of comfort with others." He shrugged lightly as if it was a thought to be easily dismissed and took a deep breath. "I was just at the race... It just felt like having that last bit of control taken away from me and I just... Didn't know what to do. I shouldn't have just left, I should have... Tried to explain. I'm sorry, I really am." He was was the thing. The way things had gone were some of his deepest regrets, one of the first things he had apologised to Flash for when meeting him. A lot of what had gone wrong had been the consequence of his own actions and he could have fixed things if he had just pulled himself together a little bit at least.

Nodding slightly as Jack continued talking about the disconnect of their actions and their perceived intentions, Ruka bit his lip gently when thinking of his own part in the whole mess. “I know that,” he said softly, waving a hand through the air in front of him almost dismissively. There was nothing to dismiss about the statement, but the gesture made him feel lighter anyway. “I know that. I’ve been... spiteful and scared and jealous, and I didn’t stop to think about what was going on. I let my mind run with all the worst scenarios it could come up with and wasn’t able to come back from that pit anymore.”

It could have been different, could have gone much better under different circumstances, and it was largely his own fault, but there was nothing he could do about that anymore now, so what else was he supposed to say?

“I guess I just don’t understand... If you know that he and I constantly part with misunderstandings between us, why would you let him ask me to the race rather than asking me yourself? You could have told me that you wanted him and I to talk, you could have let me know that you wanted to try and be a mediator between us. When he asked me to join... He made it sound like it was something you and he were trying to set up to make me talk to him. It made me feel... cornered. Lured into a situation where I had to talk to him. If you had just... If you had asked me to come and try to sort things out... I would have. And not just because it’s you. I realise he seems to think I do things just because you want me to do them, but that wouldn’t have been it. I would have come because I would have felt like the intentions were clear. I didn’t have any clue why he asked me to come. I asked him why he would want me there rather than any of his friends but... He didn’t really give me an answer. I didn’t know what to do with that. I told him I had a hard time trusting him if he wasn’t even willing to explain his intentions for asking me to the race, but he seemed to think it was my way of telling him I hated him. It just all went downhill from there. I just don’t understand why... why you’d risk those kinds of misunderstandings instead of just asking me and explaining the reasons for it yourself.”

Back when Flash had approached him about it, Ruka had even shortly considered the possibility that Jack didn’t actually know about their encounter but had abandoned the thought relatively quickly again. The whole get together had left him nothing but confused; it was something he thought could have easily been avoided by Jack approaching him about it himself. Had the Slytherin not been able to predict that, after everything he knew about Flash and Ruka’s relationship?

Sighing to himself he listened to the clinking of tea ware from above him, making him assume that Jack was possibly gathering up the cups and pots. Momentarily he felt some regret over not having tasted more than the black tea when they had had such a nice set up.

"You're right," he said in surrender, lowering his gaze to stare at the ground next to him. "You couldn't know that. I probably couldn't know for sure myself. I can only promise that... At least from here on out I'll try more than I did back then." Hopefully he wouldn't actually find himself in that kind of situation anytime soon again, but the least he was sure of was that should he end up there again he would do his best to stick to his new routine and keep in mind the improvements he had made by practicing more self care. Hopefully his feelings weren't going to drag him down quite as much anymore next time.

Jack’s insinuation that Ruka considered Jake a friend of all things made the Gryffindor snort and roll his eyes. “I never said I was friends with him,” he pointed out, shaking his head lightly. “I said I did an errand with him. Are you friends with all the people you join errands with?” There was a little tease in his words as he knew exactly that Jack would be unwilling to give that title to anybody, whether he asked them to errands or not. “I just...” His cheeks flushed in embarrassment as he turned his head to the side. “I wanted to feel... needed, I guess. It was selfish. Trying to boost my own ego or something.” He let his head hang in shame as he shrugged his shoulders in defeat. “I rarely get to feel like anybody needs me. I guess I’m just... I know you don’t need me, you know? It’s not like I think you should, I feel... proud of how independent you are. Sometimes I just wish I could be... more useful to your life, I suppose. Spending time with Jake at least gives me the illusion of being kind of useful. I guess sometimes I just need that..."

A sad smile stretched itself across his face.

“I want to do well at being your brother, you know?" he said, seemingly out of the blue. "Flash said he doesn’t think I’ll have a problem with it unless I suddenly decide not to like you and that’s not gonna happen anytime soon but... I feel like... I should be able to be someone. Someone you’d be... proud to have as your brother, I guess. I knew for sure that’s not the kind of person I was at the race so it felt... good to practice being... put-together and someone... someone to look up to. The way I look up to you, I guess.” A small spark of adoration lit up his eyes as he let the sadness wash out of his smile for a moment. He felt bad for having used Jake like that, silly for his reasonings, but he also hoped that Jack could see that he himself was the reason Ruka was trying to reach out to learn from people at all even if he was making mistakes in doing so.

To be the kind of person worthy of being his brother.

As the conversation returned to the topic of trust, Ruka found himself nibbling lightly on his bottom lip, eyes moving frantically from side to side as he tried to come up with something to say but at the end of it, Jack was right in pointing out that Ruka had long gone claimed not to care what people thought of him, was right in saying that there was no complete trust between them, so how could he possibly defend himself from a fact? "I have to... I have to learn how to deal with the fact that I care about what you think of me while still trusting you," he said quietly, lifting a hand to rub at his tired eyes. "And I will, I swear. I'll work on it till I get there."

Promising that was the only thing he could do and hopefully, for now, that would be enough.

With how the topics of their conversation kept going back and forth, Ruka felt himself tiring quicker than he thought he usually would, but he let himself tap out a quick one, two, three, focusing on his fingers for a moment to regain some focus, making it a little easier for him to concentrate again.

"How about all things are avoidable?" he asked with a little snort , shaking his head at his own rotten sense of humour. This was probably not the time to counter Jack's words with stupid jokes but he couldn't help himself anyway. "Wouldn't it be better if you just didn't have to deal with those kind of consequences at all? Easier?" Maybe, however, easy wasn't necessarily always the best way to go, and he let himself lean back a little as he thought about that. Still, he couldn't help feeling wary about the matter of exchanging favours anyway.

"What about all the things you've done for me?" he asked after thinking things over for a second. "What do I owe you? How many favours? You never said." After all, Jack had given him more than Ruka would ever know how to repay, so what were the chances that he didn't expect at least something in return. The Gryffindor's voice was calm as he spoke, a tinge of curiosity lacing his words. He didn't believe Jack to have simply collected favours from him without letting him know on purpose, but maybe he had thought it went without saying? Maybe Ruka had been missing something extremely vital.

Sighing softly to himself he let his head fall back so he was looking at the bottom of the table he was hiding underneath, staring at some black stains as if they held some answers to all the questions in his head. Instead he got nothing but the sound of Jack's voice again, making him hum along in contemplation.

“It’s not about whether you do it for the rewards or not.", he pointed out thoughtfully. "I never thought that that’s why you personally join errands but even if you did I wouldn’t think ill of it. I dislike that... I dislike the assumption that material rewards are needed to get students to participate. I don’t like feeling like someone is luring me into doing something, it makes me lose a lot of willingness to actually do it. It’s why I didn’t like the way Flash asked me to the race by using your name." Even if that may not have been Flash's intention, it had definitely been what it had sounded like and had been a large reason for why he had made things so difficult for the other boy.

For a moment Ruka went silent, taking his time to think about what he wanted to say and how to say it in a way that might make sense to Jack. "What you call rewards," he said slowly, biting his lip for a second. "I call payment. Being told I'm going to get some money or House Points in return for... cleaning an office or repotting some plants? It makes me feel like I'm selling something." Maybe one could have argued that that was the basic concept of eventually having a job, but in that case, why not call it work experience rather than present it as a fun after-school activity? "Everything I've been doing before Hogwarts... It's been with the intention of getting people to pay me money. I've been selling my time, my efforts, my hobbies to them. Even when I enjoyed doing something it's always been tainted by the thought that I wouldn't be able to stop doing it even if I wanted to because that would mean people weren't going to pay me for it anymore." Blinking away a few tears, Ruka ran a hand through his hair. "When I say I feel like what I did is more genuine I mean that... I still did it for the experience. I did it because I was curious to find creatures I spent all year reading about and, no, while he didn’t know that I couldn’t swim, I did know that so I was aware that any accidents could potentially be life threatening. The reason I didn’t mind risking those consequences was because... Because...” His voice broke off, a quiet sniffle escaping him. “I’ve never had much reason to want to live a long life. I’ve never seen it go anywhere. That’s what you learn on the streets; to be grateful to see another day, never take it for granted. At the time I went out on the lake... it was around the time my dad had started sending me letters about his health decreasing. I think back then I was more prepared for myself to die than for him to die. So no, I didn’t do it because someone else wanted me to, and I didn’t expect much more out of it than an experience, a night to take my mind off things I couldn’t change, and the possible satisfaction of seeing some creatures I was interested in. To do things just because you feel like doing them, is that so wrong?”

As Jack commented on how it had hurt that Ruka had not thought of telling him about his difficult relationship with the concept of touch, the Gryffindor felt his heart sting with guilt. "I'm sorry," he said softly, burying his face in his knees for a second before looking back up and at the underside of the table. "I never thought it was important. I'm sorry." There was nothing else he could say to that, it had been his mistake for not mentioning things that might potentially make him uncomfortable before the actual situation arose. Even if he had never thought it relevant because he'd never felt uncomfortable with Jack's hugs before didn't mean it was always going to be that way. Maybe if Jack had known how Ruka felt about touch and needing to be in control of it, especially when he was as emotional as he had been at the race... Maybe the Slytherin would have also known not to overwhelm him with his tackle, not to let Flash crowd him with his hug. How could Ruka have expected anybody to know what was making him feel uncomfortable if he had never communicated it to either of them before? "I expected you to know something I've never mentioned before, that wasn't fair of me. I'll... I'll do better."

With his eyes still fixed on the underside of the table it took a moment for Ruka to realise that Jack's legs were not dangling off the side of the table anymore but that the other boy had instead crouched down to seek him out underneath it. The sight of Jack's face made him smile involuntarily.

Swallowing heavily, Ruka nodded at Jack’s apology and he immediately felt some of the tension in him melting away at the acknowledgment that their conversation had made him feel like he was being told what to think of Flash. “I’m sorry too,” he admitted, reaching out to take the tea cup off Jack’s hands but not taking a sip. The smell still made his stomach churn a little uncomfortably. “I know I’m stubborn. I have a hard time turning it off.”

It wasn’t like he wasn’t aware of most of the flaws in his mind and personality, but actually stopping to admit to them was where he often had troubles; It almost felt like admitting defeat, though he was quick to mentally scold himself for the thought. For there to be defeat there had to be a battle, and deep within himself he knew and trusted that Jack wasn’t trying to start a war between them. No matter his personal insecurities, they were on the same side and admitting to his own weaknesses shouldn’t feel so terrifying between them.

“I just still don't really understand how he surprised you... Just because he hasnt... used you yet when you told him to?” he wondered carefully, looking up for a moment to lock curious green eyes with Jack’s hazel ones. “I don’t know anything about your experiences with him. Maybe that’s part of what’s so threatening to me. I hadn’t realised... Up until Flash asked me to the race I hadn’t even realised you and he were on good terms. Last I knew he was trying to get back at you for ‘making a fool out of him’.” A small laugh escaped him as he nibbled lightly on the inside of his cheek. “Come to think of it, that’s probably why I got so concerned with how he had worded things when asking me to the race... I just remembered him wanting to get back at you and I thought... I saw him watching when Rafa pushed you up against the wall at the Talent Show.” He blushed lightly at the memory of watching from around a corner and silently cursing Flash for just letting Rafa ambush Jack like that. “When Rafa tried to drown me... It seemed like he was extremely mad at me for kissing Flash so I assumed the two of them were... well, involved somehow. I know Rafa constantly has it out for you.” He lifted a hand to rub at his cheek like he could still feel the other Gryffindor’s fist connecting with his jaw. “So I guess I thought... I thought they both did. Together. I know that sometimes... Sometimes you can be too close to a person to realise that they might have bad intentions but I didn’t... I didn’t consider that maybe I was too close to you to realise that not every person has bad intentions with you. I must have connected all the wrong dots.” Shrugging his shoulders sadly, Ruka took a deep breath followed by a small sip of tea. It tasted strange somehow, made him wonder which one exactly he was drinking, but his curiosity wasn’t quite strong enough for him to interrupt the conversation to ask.

Instead he smiled lightly when Jack pointed out that he was glad Ruka had reached out to Flash even if he hadn’t yet mentioned how that had worked out.

“It went well,” he said slowly, closing his eyes for a moment as he shook his head to himself. “I think, at least. Not sure he had the same impression but... I got to learn some things about him, he got to learn some things about me. That’s progress, right? I’d thought that... Maybe we’d have an easier time understanding one another if we both knew more about each other’s life and upbringing. Though he doesn’t really like to talk about his life and family, does he?” He chuckled lightly, a little smile tugging at the corners of his mouth though his gaze stayed fixed on his knees for the moment. “I have a hard time talking to him without making him feel like I’m criticising or scolding him.” Even in what Ruka had wanted to be a relaxed setting that had been a problem. “I don’t know how to say things in a way that make him understand why I’m saying or asking them. I’m trying, though. Because you’re right, all our past encounters have been largely formed on misunderstandings, I know that. It just doesn’t make it any easier. I’m not very patient.”

That was an issue he had brought up with Flash as well, his own lack of patience, the fact that he got frustrated far too easily to stick around long enough to really understand people.

“And I think he needs a lot of patience. You’re better at that than I am.” A light laugh and a shrug accompanied his words as he set the tea cup down on the ground by his side. “Still, I told him I’d try to learn how to be better at communicating with him and I will.”

That was that, there was nothing else he could possibly offer to the situation. He had made all the steps he knew how to make and now he just needed to see where the road was going to lead them.

As Jack moved himself closer, sitting down within reach but still at a far enough distance to not risk touch, Ruka found himself smiling bitterly while listening to the other boy's words. "You mean like how you did to me after Valentine's?" he questioned and though his words may have suggested resentment, his voice was free from it, only sounding slightly tired. "Two weeks of wondering what I'd done wrong for you to suddenly avoid me, of defending you to everyone who told me it'd only been a matter of time until you hurt me?" The memory made him want to pull at his hair, bite at his lip, scratch at his arm, but instead he just tapped a steady one, two, three against his leg. It calmed him down enough to be able to offer Jack a small smile. "I didn't mean to do the same thing to you, really. I should have known what that feels like and it's not something I would ever want you to feel... I got too caught up in what I thought was the best way to handle things and didn't consider..." He huffed a little laugh. "Well, anything else, really." Averting his gaze for a moment, Ruka shook his head. "That was wrong of me and I'm sorry. I promise next time I'll let you know if I need my distance to clear my head. No more keeping you guessing."

From there on Ruka fell silent for what felt like ages, letting Jack's words seep into him like acid burning through his insides. The notion that he was impaired by jealousy stung him like few other things had before in his life and mostly it was because he knew it to be true. He was jealous of Flash, had been since the Ball, since Jack had decided to abandon Ruka's pleas for him to return to the castle of him for the sake of aiding the other Slytherin. He'd let himself believe there was nothing to be jealous of until the race when he had watched Jack laugh at Flash's antics, had felt like he was being replaced, cast aside like a used toy that was no longer interesting enough to keep around.

What he hadn't considered, not even for a moment, was what Jack was saying about Flash, about how he would never learn how to value a meaningful connection if he never got to experience it, how Ruka's ruthless attack on the foundations of his believes would do nothing but leave him on shaky ground. He hadn't once spared a thought on how exactly it might help Flash to be shown a deeper bond than the ones he was holding on thus far, rather than constantly brutally telling him about how shallow his current relationships were.

He had been so obsessed with the thought of losing Jack to someone else that he had never even stopped to think about what was happening around him.

For a moment his face contorted at the thought of what might have been if Jack had been stubborn enough to refuse to give him a chance the way Ruka was set on keeping his distance from Flash.

"You're right," he whispered, pressing his face against his knees almost painfully for a moment as he considered everything he'd been told. "You're right, I'm jealous and I don't... I don't know how to turn it off, I just... I keep thinking how the two of you are... In the same House, same dorm, same classes and what if..." He chuckled tonelessly, gaze fixing on a blister on the back of his hand. "What if you suddenly decide he's more interesting than me, you know? More fun, smarter. I'm jealous he gets to have you around much more than I do." Blinking away some more tears, he let his gaze rest on Jack's face. "I never thought about... About what might be good for Flash. I've just been thinking about what I wanted." Selfish, he knew that. "I'm not sure I can just turn that off but... I'll do my best, okay?" He couldn't honestly offer more than that and he wasn't going to promise Jack something he didn't know he'd consistently be able to accomplish, but he was willing to try, had already made his first steps towards trying when he had reached out to Flash a week ago. Maybe, with all the thoughts Jack had put in his mind, he'd be able to catch himself whenever his decisions and views got blurred with jealousy and other various insecurities that were constantly messing with his head.

Nodding as a way of showing that he was going to keep considering everything the other boy had said, Ruka furrowed his brows lightly when Jack's voice continued talking, this time with considerably more strain, betraying the fact that whatever he was going to bring up now was something he had a difficult time sharing. Instead of offering any encouraging words or gestures to make the Slytherin keep talking, Ruka remained silent, gaze focused on the other boy as he gave him whatever time he needed to feel comfortable enough to keep talking.

The story that eventually followed left Ruka with tension in his shoulders and a pained expression on his face. Almost worse than the words the Slytherin was saying was his body language; the way he avoided eye contact, fidgeted nervously, ran his hand through his hair. Everything about him spoke of how little he actually wanted to bring this story out in the open and Ruka felt suddenly overwhelmed with emotions he couldn't quite define but one of them was severe guilt for having out Jack in the same position he had found himself with his two elementary school friends who had been the ones to make him swear off friends in the first place.

This wasn't the moment, however, to drown in his own self-deprecation. Feeling sorry for himself and letting thoughts of how he was just causing Jack misery take over his mind wasn't going to do any good at all, so instead he kept quiet for a little longer, just staring at Jack with a blank expression on his face, utterly speechless.

So that was why then. Why Jack kept people at a distance, why he refused to give anybody the title of friend in fear of losing them the same way he had lost two friends in one go back then. Ruka had thought that knowing that would somehow make him feel lighter, see things more clearly, but instead he felt even more helpless than he had before.

The strain in Jack's voice as he questioned whether the fact that he was able to see things from other people's perspective was wrong somehow made Ruka want to reach out, pull the other boy close and protect him from everything that was able to make him sound like that, but instead he found himself frozen in place, arms still wrapped around his knees, fingers digging into the fabric of his trousers.

He couldn't answer, couldn't say anything, thought he was going to burst into tears the second he opened his mouth, so he let Jack continue his musings. It was when the other boy promised not to get closer to Flash if Ruka thought that it wasn't a good thing to do so that the Gryffindor let out a gurgled sound like his tears had filled up his throat and kept him from getting out intelligible words.

Watching as Jack reached for his hand was surreal somehow and he barely felt the touch as he moved his own hand to meet the other boy in the middle, giving his fingers a gentle squeeze as if to communicate all the things he didn't seem to be able to say with words that way.

However, it wasn't enough. It was nowhere near enough, and in that moment all thoughts of the bugs crawling under his skin at the thought of touch were banished, locked away in the back of hid mind. This was so much more important.

Moving himself up onto his knees, Ruka let go of Jack's hand to close the distance between them instead. His own hand moved up to brush some of the other boy's hair from his face before grazing his thumb underneath hazel eyes in case some of the tears Ruka could see lingering in his gaze had actually spilled. Once he was satisfied with his actions he moved further, wrapping his arms around Jack and pulling him close into a tight hug, burying his own face into the crook of the other boy's neck.

"No," he murmured against warm skin, shaking his head to the best of his abilities without moving it from where he was resting it. "No." He was going to have to elaborate, he knew that, but for a moment he just let himself wrap Jack up in a hug and feel like he was able to chase away any dark thoughts and experiences that way.

After a moment he pulled away again, though he let his hands rest on the other boy's shoulders. To keep up the illusion that they were at least somewhat of the same height, Ruka stayed on his knees as he swallowed heavily. "I wouldn't ask you to stay away from someone you care about, no matter how insecure it makes me feel." He could feel a few stray tears rolling down his cheeks as he locked his eyes with Jacks as if his gaze could communicate more than his words. "I'm with you, every step of the way. If you think this is the way to go, then this is the way we're going." He let a small smile tug at his lips as he nodded along with his own words as if to emphasise them a bit more. An ugly part of him was pressing against the back of his mind, yelled at him to tell Jack to stay away from Flash. Just you and I, that's all we need. What kind of person would that make of him, though? If he refused to let Jack get close to anybody unless there was no chance of him making a deeper connection with them? How was he ever supposed to fully trust Jack if he couldn't even trust him to spend time with other people without forgetting all about Ruka, and how genuine would the connection between the two of them really be if Ruka didn't even allow for anything else? "You want me to trust you, so I'm going to start here, alright? I won't make you pick sides, I won't put you through that."

Maybe it would take him a while to really overcome his jealousy, maybe he would never fully understand how to communicate with Flash, but the least he could do was try and he was more willing to do so now than he had already been before.

An incredulous expression slowly spread across his face as he recalled Jack's question about whether his ability to see things from other people's perspectives made his untrustworthy somehow. What a thing to even consider; Wasn't it one of the things that Ruka had always thought made Jack a much better person than he was himself? "I think it's admirable that you can see things from other people's perspectives," he told the other boy honestly, letting his left hand rub gently across Jack's arm as if to warm him up somehow, a clear sign that he didn't really know how to offer comfort through touch. "It's... it's one of the things I admire most about you. Something I wish I could do even half as much as you. It doesn't make you disloyal or untrustworthy, if anything it makes you even more trustworthy. It means you won't say things just out of loyalty but because you have considered every possible view point." A small chuckle escaped him. "As little as I want to hear some of the things you've said to me... At least I know they're honest to a fault. I never have to question if you say things just because you think I want to hear them, I know you consider every involved perspective before you say them." A small shrug was all he could really offer as he wasn't sure what else to say to make Jack understand exactly how great an ability it was that he possessed, how much Ruka wished he could at least try to replicate it.

"Sometimes it's just... Difficult. When you... When you see things from Flash's perspective, for example... It's easy for me to feel like you're not seeing my side of things, but that's not your fault. It's my own for being too stubborn to consider that his perspective might be just as valid." Slowly he let his hands slide off Jack's shoulders and arms to instead rest on his own thighs again, suddenly feeling slightly insecure about how much he had just crowded the other boy, a flush of embarrassment tinting his cheeks. "You don't... You make me want to try and see other people's perspectives too. Try to be more openminded, to understand. I think... I think it's one of your best qualities, really." A fond spark lit up his eyes as he reached out one more time as if to put a hand against Jack's cheek but instead he dropped it again between them, resting it back on his thigh. He could have continued on about how great exactly he thought Jack's ability to put himself into other people's shoes was for hours, but it probably wasn't going to do much good so he decided to leave it at that for now and instead focus on Jack's words about how being brothers was forever.

It took him a moment to wrap his head around that concept. It was so different from what Flash had led him to believe, that family was just a title to give to people and take away again as you pleased, something that was unstable, was won over time, defined by familiarity, different to everyone who used the term. For Jack it was forever, a commitment that had to make both of them equally nervous considering how neither of them was very comfortable with getting too close to people, but as Ruka looked at Jack with an abundance of admiration in his eyes he found that he was not scared of it. No matter the work it was going to take, no matter how many ups and downs they had to face, if there was one thing he did trust then it was that it would be worth it.

"Why would any of what you just told me make me want to be your brother and learn to trust you any less?" he questioned softly as he reached out to take Jack's hand into his own and give it a gentle squeeze. "I'm not... You're not getting rid of me, no chance. If that means I have to work on those trust issues then that's what I'll do. I have no doubt that I can learn to trust you completely. You've got me, no matter what."