"It's the best reason to do anything," Wilhelm agrees. He loves when Jesper plays with his hair, and he encourages him with a brush of his pinky across the inner hinge of Jesper's knee. "I didn't always have the option, though."

In his old life, the one that, more than a year deep in this world, has begun to feel very far away. Its grip on him is loosening.

"That's what makes you so cool, Jes." He taps playfully on his thigh, but his tone is undeniably sincere. "You just...do what you want, and you don't care what anybody thinks."

Wilhelm has always admired in others what he finds sorely lacking in himself. Although he's had more practice in doing what he wants, he still struggles to figure out what exactly that encompasses. Because it's more than just freedom from the responsibilities and restrictions that used to suffocate him; it's the freedom to build his life from scratch.