[It was too much to ask that it would be easy, just like that. That Steak would hear what he said and accept it, and maybe reciprocate, because for how everything that has been happening between them has felt partly driven by the influences of Nippon he has always known in the back of his mind that there were real feelings along with it.

At least, he had real feelings. They were just... always too much to put into words. Even 'love' doesn't do it justice, but it's the only word he knows for it.

It's entirely different to how he felt when he said those words to Dohalim. His heart had been racing then too but not with such heavy ferocity that it made him feel nauseous. He hadn't dreaded being rebuffed then, while the thought of it now makes his stomach lurch.

He doesn't look up, only shaking his head at the other Food Soul's confusion.]

You're a blundering idiot, you hardly ever know the right thing to say and when to say it, you don't know how to leave well enough alone and wouldn't know how to read a room if you had an interpreter. You're rash, noisy, impetuous, and you have no understanding of romance and I... love you. In spite of all those things. Because of those things.

[It's a lot, all at once, blurting out of him like a dam has been broken. His shoulders are trembling.]

And I've spent too long waiting for you to notice. So now you know.