[ And he draws a long breath, head tipped up to face the dim ceiling covered with moss and cobwebs. In a way, he doesn't like talking about himself just as much as Claude. Not about the things that 'matter', or the things that aren't about the here and now. ]

Mm, well.

[ Maybe it's just the air in this place. It makes him melancholy, as if all his secrets will die here if he doesn't say them out loud. ]

The first time I remember meeting Claude was in a place like this. A basement. [ The cellar of some safehouse, he remembers— his barely teenage half-sibling in a pressed vest and slacks, standing by himself by a row of old wine bottles and empty crates. As if he'd been collecting dust there for decades, too.

Gus was only four, but he remembers. ] My family's really... uptight? Well, my father is, at least. I guess he never liked that Claude was the one thing that didn't go 'right' for him, you know?

I guess this place made me think about it. What it would be like, if someone really had to live in a place like this for their entire lives.

[ His argument is a bit disjointed, as if he can't really figure out what it is he wants to say: whether he wants to talk about how unhappy he is about some facets of his life, or if he's expressing some sort of remorse for not having found this place sooner. ]