As Souji speaks, Yamato lifts their clasped hands to his face, to his dry, pale lips--but then he's turning his head, brushing his cheek against the tangle of their fingers. His skin is smooth, softer than it probably should be after months of dark, lonely stillness. The hospital lights, he remembers Kashuu complaining, are anything but flattering, and he knows what he must look like. Some half-dead wisp of a spirit, haunting hospital rooms and aching for companionship; is this to be a cliche fairy tale, or a horrific tragedy, only to be whispered in the dark?

Either one, Yamato thinks, would be preferable to being forgotten. To being alone.

He hums in content affirmation--"anything that's mine", what a perfect way of putting it. Because they are his, aren't they? His precious people, they belong to him. Is it his fault, then, that he's lost them? Should he have taken better care of them? What if, what if, and oh, he'd thought he'd run the gamut of guilty sorrows already. What a nice surprise.

"I always thought new friends would be nice," he comments, almost dreamily. "I thought maybe we could join together, and take care of each other, and get stronger together... but that didn't happen." For a lot of reasons, but he doesn't want to seem like he's complaining. Far from it. "That was okay, though. I didn't mind being different, as long as others were with me. They only ever wanted to take care of me, isn't that funny?"

Yamato certainly seems to think it is. His eyes are closed, but he's smiling, like he's watching a scene play out behind his eyelids. "Ne, Okita-kun, will you let me take care of you?"