To mend it.

[He frowns slightly, not at Polnareff but down at the back of his hand on the table. Then his lips twitch into an uncertain smile.]

Most people where I come from aren't interested in mending. Just bending or breaking, you know? So I'm not sure . . .

[To mend this between us. That means that he is a priority, in Polnareff's eyes. He is the end goal. He has to sit with that for a moment before he can respond.]

It's difficult for me to not . . . to understand. The way you do, the way Jotaro does, the way Kakyoin does. To see . . . what it's like to look at a child and see something to be eliminated. There's too much—

[He breathes in sharply, out slowly.]

Bruno would be upset with me if I thought like that. If I treated a child like a monster. And after he died, I swore to myself to uphold his values unless it was absolutely necessary that I not do so, for the sake of his memory and his spirit. So the closer I brush up against it, that mentality, the more it feels like stepping on nails.

That's not an answer to your question. But I think I . . . have to start from there, to move forward.