It was always hard with him. You couldn’t get anything of substance by asking for it directly. Taichi had remembered how irritating that could be, but now he felt along with the annoyance a rush of irrational fondness. It was what Taichi used to like about him. What you got out of him, you felt like you earned. Not because you worked for it, but like he’d seen something in you that was hidden from yourself and decided he could humour you for a while. It was probably too much to hope for that he still would.