[For a long moment, he’s quiet, thinking. He remembers... talking to Merriment. He wants to forget the truths of that conversation, but he can’t. Friends... It’s a difficult relationship to parse when people are so different.

Reaching up, he catches Senri’s forearm and holds the arm still between them. His eye looks down then slowly back up.] Friends... [He thinks about Naruto and Sakura. Senri gets a strange swelter of emotion breaking through the gloom—it’s so odd. Guilt, but... peace and understanding. Being loved. The warm and steady roll of friends whose love you can feel, sturdy. A longing for them when they’re missing. A wound, not exactly healed, a fester of scar tissue being soothed.]

...true friends, don’t give up on you. No matter... how far into the darkness you walk. You won’t stop them from taking care of you.