He doesn't want that calm. He doesn't want that silence. He doesn't want that look in Roland's eyes that won't turn away, that look like he knows, the look like Tidus is worth it. Worth sympathy, worth those hands being embraced onto his shoulders. Worth the condolences unspoken but granted.

"No!" He shoves them back, shoves Roland by the chest with the rising anger in him, bubbling, spitting and taking a hold of every part of his body. Pushing Roland back, but grabbing at him, trembling fingers gripping into the fabric of the clothes he wears and digging tight. "I'm a coward, asshole! I didn't tell anyone! I didn't give them a chance! I didn't think about them!"

It's screamed, a shrill sound out of his throat, his hands bashing at Roland's chest despite the previous hold on them. Something in him triggered, the man in front of him barely anyone but who he wants them to be; blurred by his vision becoming swept in the tears coating the the rim of his lower lids.

"'Oh, you're so great! Why don't you join the council! Why don't you help me, Tidus?' Zanarkand was real!" he spits out, the taunting tone lost with the disgust. "None of you know what I did! You don't know what I am!"

A coward. A coward with no right to sympathy when he wouldn't stop and think about everyone else than himself. How hard it would be to talk to everyone else, how he couldn't stand the thought of everyone looking at him, knowing he was going to go.

What if there was another way? What if they didn't have to disappear?

He didn't want them to know. He didn't dare to hope, to ask.