[Jing Yuan speaks again... and Dan Feng's hand stalls -- briefly, but still enough that it's so easily noticeable. He would never forget that what he'd done had led to such far-reaching consequences... and that one of those was that his old friend had been left alone, with a heavy weight over his shoulders.

Just how was he supposed to respond to that? He missed his old friend, because of course he had... because even those visits hadn't been what either of them really wanted them to be. Dan Feng hadn't wanted to risk dragging his old friend down with him, but it had still hurt to give silence to someone he'd spent so much time laughing with.]

... I am sorry... for having left you alone.

[His voice is quiet when he does speak, the path of his fingers slowed in scratching around the base of one soft ear.]

While it may have never seemed that way, I have always missed the time we'd spent together before.