[ rin's startled by the vehemence of heine's response - heine is so rarely effusive about anything - but he tries to tamp down any telling externalization.

it was a stupid suggestion, all things considered. even if heine wasn't who he is.

one thing rin can be certain of: whatever heine seems to believe about his relation to the deceased, they'd been friends. or something like, anyway; their deaths have left an imprint on heine of such clarity that even rin's untrained eyes can pick it out. ]

Sounds like you're still carrying them around.

[ rin's murmured response, though he doesn't expect a response.

it's what he feels about the spirit of his father, now dead longer than rin had known him. it's hard to let go of death when you can see your own hand in it.

not that rin had any hand in his father's death. but he'd certainly been the reason his father had been forced into the life that he'd lived. a fisherman, lost at sea. when he should have been an olympian on the international stage.

rin doesn't know anything about bullets and carnage, but he has an inkling about loss. ]

Grow a pot of bright red roses for yourself, then. Enough exposure to color and you might grow out of the albino look.

[ maybe it's too light-hearted for the subject at hand, but the last thing rin wants is for heine to disappear into the sinkhole that he can sense nearby. ]