"It wasn't wrong," Declan remarked after a moment of consideration, eyes following the movements of fingers in his palm.

"I don't mind that part of you at all, Aoba, and...I want to do the things that...intimate partners do. I just have my own reservations about things. More important than anything was making sure all of you wanted the same thing, not just part. It...felt to me like the most literal form of half-hearted, and I couldn't accept that," the Titan shook his head slowly with a soft sigh.

"So it wasn't wrong, it was just incomplete. A half-written sentence, a puzzle missing pieces. Dissonant. I wanted to say yes, very much, at least to some things...I tried to say yes, even if it didn't feel the most right. A partial affirmative to a partial question." He shrugged, turning his eyes up and looking at Aoba directly.

"I'm sorry if I hurt you because of it. It...it would have been nice not to have wasted so much of our limited time not holding each other at night."