[Were the situation different, he might have smiled. He has no idea how he looks at her, but if it was anything like how he felt when he looked at her, he can imagine what an expression like that might have conveyed to those who saw it. Dare he dream that it's what she saw, too? She deserved to know how he felt, even if he struggled with how to say it aloud. He hoped she knew, before she vanished.

He thinks back to what Pyra had told him back then, what she's reminded him of multiple times since they met. He should have said more. There were so many things he'd wanted to tell her, so many things she must have wanted to say to him. How much time had they wasted on- on nothing? On sleeping or eating or just sitting together in silence, something he was comfortable with and that she never complained about but- what if it wasn't what she wanted?

What a fool he's been.]

I just... wanted to make her happy. She deserved it. She- she deserved so much, she's been giving and giving and giving her whole life. Why couldn't she have this? Just for a little while... why send her back, but not me? I don't get it.

[His life might've been twisted upside down that last summer back home, but her entire life has been a struggle, surely. Losing her mother to death and her brother to Niflheim, throwing herself into the Oracle duties constantly since she took up the mantle, travelling and healing. He played video games, attended a normal school, indulged in fishing trips, all while she was out there exhausting herself for the people who suffered in their world.

Didn't she earn her rest more than anyone? It isn't fair.]