Father remained beside the window while I chose the chair Yuna had used earlier. Sitting where the person without a guaranteed place had spent lunch made his collection accusation harder to dismiss through anger.
"When this started, I did imagine confidence as becoming a man multiple women wanted. That fantasy centered my success more than anybody else's full life," I said.
Father's expression changed slightly because admission removed the argument he had prepared against denial. He asked whether improved vocabulary had merely taught me to decorate the same appetite through consent language.
"Sometimes I worry about that myself. The difference has to appear through conduct that costs me something, not through calling desire ethical," I replied.
