Around Shirayuki, the walls just drop, discarded as if they weren't ever necessary. It's impossible to really pick them back up, not since: Wary of you? After you saved me? ...Thank you. Those words had rested so snugly in his heart that he isn't ever sure that they could be dragged out of him; they were the words that no one had ever said for him before. Forgiveness turned to gratitude, and Obi still wasn't sure what to make of it, but it was so Shirayuki, so her, that he didn't know what else to think.

The authenticity of those words, the genuineness of her voice as she framed them, and in her eyes as she met his. That alone was like a salve applied to a burn, a burn that he'd gotten so used to all of his life, that he never thought it could be treated or healed. It's not instantaneous, as salves soothe immediately, and then slowly patch up the burnt skin left behind, until hopefully, there isn't even a scar.

Obi had thought he was scarred so bad, that it would last the rest of his life and remain just as steadfast and sharp as the days that these scars were first formed, from each sharp, inflicting wound. And slowly, slowly, she opened him up and started to help him heal, started to show him what always seemed impossible and just not for him.

Shirayuki gave him forgiveness, and from someone that he had threatened the life of just a short while before, and would have probably killed had she continued to defy his warnings and had Zen not shown up then. It means more, because he would have not stopped. Obi knows that she knows it too. Shirayuki has never been dumb, even when she's brave, it isn't stupidity that drives it or a lack of bone numbing fear. It's the willingness to fight for what's right and the willingness to fight for those she loves.

So, Obi knows that when she forgives him, that catching her shouldn't be enough to refute the threat to her life from just a short while before. It's been days, not years, and even years, Obi doubts would take those memories far away and make it easier to breathe, despite them. Still she isn't dumb or clueless or left out of all of this, but she's willing to extend her forgiveness and over time her trust.

If that wasn't a sure fire way to melt a heart, to let the salve of forgiveness take affect, than what else could be? And not only did she forgive him, when Obi still feels like he never deserved it then, though he'd work hard to be worthy of that forgiveness, that forgiveness that she gave that he hadn't even had the opportunity to repay on the day that she gave it to him, ever since that day.

Not only did her forgiveness reach in as medicine to a very wounded soul, but she had topped it off with words just as genuine that he felt like he hadn't earned either. Thank you. It's as if just catching her, probably saving her from a broken toe, was enough to warrant such a genuine response, such a heartfelt response of pure gratitude. It had settled so very easily in his heart, that Obi still isn't sure how she managed to get those words in without shouting or punctuating with some kind of touch. Yet the words, themselves, felt as warm as touch, as gentle as a hand on his shoulder or as secure as a tight hug.

It's odd, because before her, he'd never noticed words that could feel almost physical, like touch. He'd known words to have bite, to be brutal, to be quick as if life were a contest, and he needed to get the words out to win, to get the upperhand, to be safe, to avoid death happening at a rather untimely pace for him, not that Obi had built up dreams or plans for his future. He hadn't.

And slowly, her persistence, her opening up to him, letting him look after her, looking after him in the ways that are less physical, more emotional and spiritual, that somehow returns every time that he does his job for her several hundred fold. She always reminds him that there's reason for his heart to be beating, and she doesn't need the words for that.

It's as if those lines spoken so genuinely have now had time to germinate into actions that further express the same kind of willingness to forgive him, the same kind of gratitude. And every day, it feels like a whole new discovery, and he's left healing instead of developing new scars. Of course, there are ideas that hurt him here, but he could never return what she gave him that day with any choice or decision he's made and yet he also could not willingly take away any of her joy, since she already gave him a salve for his wounded soul, a chance to grow and to be healed.

And it isn't always easy, isn't always perfect, but Obi wouldn't trade this for the world. He'd lived by the desire before to fight, to do anything, for a good steady meal, had learned that alcohol could distract and sometimes numb the pain a little and yet alcohol had never fixed the pain within him. Neither had lust for that matter or just doing the same kind of jobs over and over again and hoping that his heart would just turn to stone and stop feeling altogether. Nothing like that had helped, and he'd grown up to this kind of life, figured that there was no such healing for someone like him.

Then she spoke words that he never expected from anyone, least of all from her, and suddenly, Shirayuki was dusting off a forgotten part of his heart and helping the bruised flesh to heal, until finally, it hopefully can beat with no worry. When he thinks he's too far gone, he thinks of that day, working to obtain an honorable job, prove a man that can't stay put as trustworthy, to maybe have a little stability for however little long he'd keep it. The darkness of a deep rooted pain that he'd only ever deepened in his heart and soul, and then the way that forgiveness and gratitude opened up under the gentle scalpel of her willingness to try to see past the murkiness.

He certainly hadn't deserved it, and yet she'd begun to help him heal and also had given him a chance to show her just how much her words meant to him, as they meant life when he'd been living so long as someone already dead. And, some days, it might be hard to make the right kind of decisions to grow and become better, and yet every struggle in it's own way is a glimpse and a chance to feel like more of himself than he'd known before.

Shirayuki had opened his heart, lead him towards it, and allowed Obi to rediscover what it means to be alive and how to let himself grow into the kind of person that he values, longs to be, the kind that can be happy, that's alive and maybe not always well, but at least, feeling something other than the muck that he'd found clouded his life for so many years, and it isn't perfectly gone, but he's working at it every day.