[ He listens and feels the claws of those words more keenly than the nails digging into his hand. Unable to imagine the suffering Wen Kexing endured, raised by a lunatic who in turn demanded the same behaviour from a boy, then a young man, Xichen grieves for the pain his friend caused but not the man it was inflicted upon. He takes Wen Kexing's chin between a stern finger and thumb to turn it so he meets his eyes. Patient and thoughtful, not absolving but neither condemning; neither the sun or the moon, just a cloud with shades of all kinds of greys inside it. ]

I was fooled for a decade once before, there is no chance of my having made the same mistake. I am trusting but not a fool, Wen Kexing. If you were evil, I would know it.

[ His hand falls to Wen Kexing's front, curling in his robes. ]

You are not him.