On the contrary, Shinji's positive that this is so, so much more than he deserves. He's going to hang on to it as long as possible, though, as long as Kai will have him.

For now, he takes the opportunity to just... bask in reassuring and pleasant this moment is. He keeps his arms wrapped tightly around the other, and after a handful of seconds settled quietly in like that, he takes a deep breath and loosens his hold, just a bit.

"Thank you," he starts, nice and soft and sincere, "I'm... I'm feeling better now. This helped, a lot."