[You've done a lot of good.

It never gets easier, hearing that. One would think that after over a millennia of living, one would build a little more confidence in one's self.

He used to deny it. He used to deflect, send people down another path. He used to try to remind them not to look at the sum of his good deeds, but at all of the terrible and ugly things that had come before them, between them.

"You need to let people who care about you care, you know."

(Forgiveness is a virtue, right, Aria Skye?)

Back in the Great Hall, Hikaru's reaching out and closing his laptop.]

I stand corrected. [A pause, as he's looking up and really looking at Josh for the first time since their conversation began, as he's grasping for the right words to say. (Read: the ones that won't give away too much, even if it's a bit too late to be careful.)] It will be fine. I just lost it a little earlier.

[And it wasn't going to happen again, if he could help it.]

You do what you've got to do... that's how things work here. If you don't get used to it, then it just makes things more difficult in the long run.