[He grits his teeth. Sasuke doesn't get it. He doesn't get it, and the only thing that keeps him from walking out on him right now is the knowledge that he'll be followed. He misses being able to turn into a bird and fly away, honestly. He misses Ozpin. Remnant.]

It's not baseless. I have to think about these things, all the time, because--

[He stops, suddenly. It doesn't matter anymore, so he doesn't have to say it. It doesn't matter. Except it does, because he still sees it everywhere, still wonders, because even though he can't feel his Aura anymore, it's still his soul. He wondered when he happened to walk by just as Daenerys fell through a rope bridge into a river. He wondered when Jonas collapsed in the forest and no one else was there to help him. He wondered when that woman in the bar cut her hand on that glass right next to him and got slammed into a wall for her trouble.

He has had to think about what ifs every day of his life, pay attention to every thing that could possibly go wrong, and try to plan around them when he could, or just distance himself when he couldn't. It matters because he's still scared of what he is, still scared of being a burden upon others, especially now that the danger is becoming so much more immediate than luck. But he can't say it. There's another shaky breath, and he finally drinks again.]

...Why the hell are you so hung up on this anyway? You barely even know me.

[This is peak hypocrisy and he knows it, fully expects to be called on it, but he needed a redirect. Even a patently transparent one like that.]