"It's just..." Claude lets out a breath of frustration. "Neither of us can control how we feel, I know that. But I've never had trouble keeping it together before, no matter how I felt. And it's stupid that I can't. Sylvain's - fine. He's going to be fine. I know that, so why am I still a mess?"

The difference between Felix and Claude is both that Claude tends to have much greater emotional self-control than Felix - meaning that his losing his cool is a much more disturbing and significant event - and also that Claude's usually able to put the logical and the pragmatic ahead of the emotional. In short, Felix's reactions have been expected and forgivable; Claude's, to him, haven't been either.

Felix's questions - accusations? - make Claude run his hands through his hair again; it's losing its smoothness, becoming more of a curly mess. "I don't...know what I think." If there's ever been a louder alarm bell than those words coming out of Claude von Riegan's mouth, its toll would signal the end of days. "Nothing's made sense since earlier, and it feels like everything I've done since has been wrong...and I was missing things even before that, wasn't I? I didn't know Sylvain was hurting...I never even got the chance to do anything about it. And then you were hurting and you kicked me out, and maybe I should've stayed if that was all it took to help - but I don't think I could've made myself, even if I'd known it could. What the hell's wrong with me?"