...That first night, he told you I saved his life, remember? So I'm not really telling you anything you haven't heard before. He came after me, I kicked the shit out of him, I took him back to show Jiji and tell him I'd been attacked. That's when we found the thing that was controlling him.

[...]

They said they couldn't do anything. He was just...lying there and they were all just standing around saying "well, that's it, it's going to kill him, he's going to die." It...wasn't right. It pissed me off.

[Funny how "it pissed me off" is so frequently verbal shorthand for "it made me feel something intensely", but so it goes, and he's tossing his pudding cup from hand to hand now, trying to keep himself grounded with the motion.]

I didn't even know if I could do it, but I knew I couldn't just sit there and do nothing. So Star took it out. I remember it went up my arm toward my brain, too, but...anyway, he took it out.

[Around his pudding, face still partially covered in chocolate goo, Star offers a quiet ora.]

But the first words out of his mouth, once he was awake, were, "why did you do that." He was on his knees, he had bandages around his head, and he was looking up at me like he was going to get up and fight me, even then. Like if I dared to look down on him, he'd get up and knock my teeth in.

And I thought, someone like that...the last thing he'd want is to think that I'd pitied him. Or that I was full of myself with righteousness, like I thought I was better for sparing my enemy and wanted him to make sure he knew it. So I just...didn't. Didn't really answer. I thought that was at least a little kinder than rubbing it in, or whatever.

...I didn't know anything about him then. I didn't know it'd end up being as important as it was.