It's kind of... [In his head, he's saying chotto, which in Japanese is somehow considered a complete sentence all on its own, expecting the listener to infer the unspoken meaning. But Kazuki knows he has to do better than that.] There are rules, you know? It's considered rude to bring attention to someone, or to be someone that stands out, even in a good way. When someone does compliment you, you have to say something like, that's not true, or, I'm really not... Or something like that. If you just agree with someone, it means you're full of yourself. Even if someone is giving you a gift, it's polite to decline a couple of times first.

I don't really like that things are that way. There are plenty of times where I don't do all that correctly, and I know people think I'm dumb because of it. But... I think that's just who I am. So I'm okay with being thought of like that.

[It was hard being a sincerely warm, loving person in a culture that was built upon mountains of subtleties. He often wanted desperately to be nothing but honest with all of his big emotions (it felt like all of them were big sometimes!) but had beaten it into himself that that honesty could be burdensome. It wasn't about him. It was about the wellbeing of the group.]

So... I guess people just don't compliment each other much? Not to their faces, anyways. You can say nice stuff about someone to someone else, but they'll probably never hear it.