[ kaiser has known that ness tends to be emotional since the day they met, since meeting a person when he's on the ground and the verge of tears, all his dreams about to visibly shatter in his expression certainly leaves an impression, even if you're not much of an empathizer. he also could've guessed at that point that ness has a slight tendency to not pick the fights he could win when the stakes are high, but it wasn't until later that he realized ness also has a tendency to pick low-stakes fights that he really shouldn't. all of these tendencies somehow convalesced in the last, what, three minutes?

his reaction to being pushed down comes a few moments afterwards: he bites down on ness's lower lip, hard but only for a split second before he puts his palm to ness's upper chest and pushes him away slightly. yet his fingers curl into ness's shirt as well, not letting him get too far away — a controlled distance, precisely locked down with a sense of poise to it. ]

... Do you know what you're doing? [ well, probably not — to either of them, really. ] Better fucking commit if you're going for it. God gives second chances, but I don't.

[ sniffling and laughing as i type these words— ]