[ too bad that over a century of conditioning himself to apologise and run (and rinse and repeat, patch and paint, grin and bear it) is a hard habit to break - if he knew how charles were feeling vash would make more of an effort with trying to dispel the other's misgivings - to sound more appreciative maybe, to make him feel like he's helped, but ... well, he's having a hard time with it right now, feeling like his stomach is still storm-tied into knots. ]

Ah, well ... [ there's the stooping of his spine again, vash ducking his head as though he could find a hole in the ground to open and swallow him up with enough effort. ] I'm still sorry you had to see that. It's not really, uh, a nice thing to see though? Even if you say that it's - fine. Just,

[ he's babbling, and vash has to cut it off and force the words down, crushing them into a garbled sort of laugh again with his eyes crinkling again once more with the effort of it.

thankfully, the small talk that charles is attempting seems to do the trick in distraction - or maybe it's ringing a faint memory of a past conversation with a certain other person. ]

Charles? Um, are you - I think Junpei mentioned you before! [ it is a common name, but he thinks he has more than a fair chance in guessing this might be the right 'charles'. ]

I'm Vash!