#anyway no one cares but it's truly me and neilsea against the world rn

[stormyoceans]

it's the way neil has always relied on others: on matt to go up on stage, on reese to keep him together after matt's death, and now on xiao hai to make music again.......but it's only when reese puts neil's responsibility on xiao hai, only when neil is faced with his own weight heaving on xiao hai's shoulders, that neil realizes just how much he has been relying on xiao hai and his quiet strength

even when neil could tell that xiao hai was upset about orca's words and tried to be there for him, in the end xiao hai pulled himself together on his own (because that's what xiao hai has been doing since he was a kid and his mother [probably] left him and his father to build a new life for herself in a different country with a different family: he gets stronger and keeps going)

both neil and reese have taken xiao hai's strength for granted, and if it were someone else neil might have not minded, might have kept running away from any problem and just relied on xiao hai to make it work, but not this time, not with him, because xiao hai is different, because neil needs him, and yet not in the same way he needed matt or in the way he still needs reese

so it makes sense that even if the episode starts with neil saying he needs reese more, when it's reese himself the one to hurt xiao hai by putting too much pressure on him, neil realizes just how much he needs xiao hai to keep moving forward and how different xiao hai is from everyone else

because neil loves him, and if it's for xiao hai, neil is gonna stop running away and start taking responsibility for himself