"I'm afraid we'll do something, and I'll find out later you didn't want to," Koumyou says so quietly that Devero having moved closer might be the only reason he can pick out the words at all.

"I'm afraid... you've been through so much, I can't even imagine. And yet you're the only person I've ever wanted to do things with... what if someone who's been hurt is what I'm into? How would I even know? What if every bit of darkness Ukoku's told me he sees in me is really there? And that's why I suddenly have a libido at forty-seven?"

He doesn't trust himself, and he absolutely doesn't like himself. Not one bit.

"When I thought I... coerced you, I... I couldn't bear to exist anymore. Because it wasn't... it wasn't outside the realm of possibility that I had done it, was it? How would I even know?"