wahhh anon this angst is hurting my heart 😭😭 it's hurting so good tho. and i know that pain, of wanting to get to know someone better because you're genuinely developing a soft spot for them but they're too closed off to give you much of a glimpse of what's going on in their mind. and lyney only expands that issue in his mind: surely it's because he's fatui, or because they clashed in the past, that wrio doesn't trust him. surely his other friends DO know what kind of stuff he carries around, he just doesn't want to share with lyney. maybe he's closed off because LYNEY has been closed off, and he thought lyney wasn't worth the effort of opening up to bc lyney wouldn't respond positively anyway. he must think lyney is too immature, that he's becoming clingy, like a child hanging onto someone's leg. trying to get closer to wrio amplifies every insecurity that lyney's ever harboured: that he's not worth it, that there's nothing valuable about him to be loved, that he's lied and schemed so much there's nothing genuine left behind. it makes him want to pull back, perform one of his vanishing tricks and pretend they'd never met, but not getting to see wrio again would hurt just as much as knowing that wrio would never love him the way he was beginning to love wrio.

i hope people don't mind me tacking my own thoughts onto theirs but i just can't help it, you guys' ideas spark my brain in just the right way, haha. thank you for sharing them with me!!! 💖💖