"You were busy." Paul doesn't fidget. Whatever he's doing with his fingernails along the seam of his pants at the knee is, therefore, something else. Midoriya's thanks have Paul's attention slanting down to a crack in the flooring, one not yet refilled with mending bone.

"I should thank you again," he says, quietly, "For everything. You had to - I think it's harder, being the one left."

It's an admission he already half-regrets. He thinks about what Midoriya knows about him, about what Midoriya knows about people, about the scattering of slips that Paul has made around him. It's not that difficult to put together when a person is speaking from a certain kind of experience.

But then again - maybe there's a sort of comfort in that. Paul knows what it's like to be the one gone as well as the one left. He didn't suffer while he was dead. He was spared the aftermath, the cleaning up, the first shock of grief. He made his way back into the world when it had open arms for him to fall into. He got off lightly. He always seems to.

"I'm sorry you saw me like that." Paul says, to the cracked floor and the sunbeam on it.