he let her talk. he let her talk for so long, in fact, that the part where she mentioned that she felt protective and the part where she told him who she was bled into one singular sentence that didn't quite make sense to him, but perhaps should have. this was yas, fran's yas. and yujin damn well knew they went way back, because he was coming to the odd realisation that he might've still been a teenager when fran and yas, as a couple, would've been a topic of conversation. he hadn't been privy to that information then, but it had come up since -- it seemed like this thing that always bled, when fransisco had told him what he'd been like back then, and the things he had lost out on as a result. and here she was, in the flesh, and yujin had to forego shaking her hand so he could hide the twitch of his mouth behind his cup of coffee.
"oh," he said, tone dull, voice muffled from how closely he held his cup to his face. "you're yasemin. yeah, i've heard of you." yujin left it at that. maybe this was a conversation he had nothing to add to, or rather one where he would avoid toeing any lines. if anything, he was making this mental note now to try and not be a dick to her. at least the amount of sugar in his coffee was slightly improving his mood. "only good things, don't worry."
at her mentioning that he didn't seem like a scared puppy, yujin chuckled, a half-strangled noise behind his coffee cup. he took another sip. "what about the leather-clad 6-foot-something man in front of you doesn't scream scared puppy to you? i'd like to know," he said, but the way he remarked on it was dry and the question was entirely rhetorical. if anything, this was him offering up a peace flag of sorts -- this was him at the most casual he could muster up, even if some numbness from the aftermath of the festival still sat squarely in his chest.
"no one said you can't grieve or that you should grieve any less for someone you wished you knew better," yujin said. finally, he put the cup down, the movement accompanied by this one slow shake of his head. "but the what ifs aren't grieving. they're just rummaging. don't take the blame for something you didn't do." he felt like a stranger once more when he said that, right after he'd just put two and two together and had realised this was yas and he did know her. he felt like he couldn't be the person to tell her that. he had good reason to believe himself the wrong person to tell her what grief and blame should look like.
"i only have one sister. i think i'd go insane if i had three siblings and a bus worth of cousins, to boot," yujin said. but then he supposed, with just how long he'd stuck at the santoros' side, he felt like a very distant cousin in some way. at least, it very much felt like that now he'd been running back and forth on their behalf, trying to put out fires before they even started. "rosa's fine," he said, nodded. "i actually need to go and walk her dogs after this, and they fucking hate me, so i think we need to worry about me more than her. i think they've got it covered, over at the hospital. i'm sure they know where to find you if they needed a hand." but yujin had always been a man of relative inaction, perfectly happy to wait until a command was presented to him, and he wasn't the best advisor in this scenario.
