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Cal doesn’t speak of this.
Every time he thinks back on the conversation he had with Bode in the room of his daughter’s, he can only shut his mind and slam himself into the force, using it as a cushion of some sort.
It still haunts him. Force lay through his mind like a river; Bode runs through it in the form of longing and hate. A Jedi should not think this way, Cal has to remind himself constantly. Bode is like a black hole, or he could even say that Bode sparks out the black hole in him. The gravitational pull was… nothing he had experienced before. It was disastrous, irresistible. The young scrapper from Bracca never stood a chance. It was beautiful. Until it had stretched him into unspeakable shapes, compression almost tore him into shreds.
The darkness in Akuna, Cal senses it still, of the fear and love.
He lingers for far too long on the words “best friend.” He lingers for far too long on the sharpness he felt when hearing Bode say fighting the Empire was the best thing he was good at. He mulls over the feeling despite his better judgment. It seeds in his throat like a bitter taste, because- isn’t it true? The only thing he does best is fighting the Empire. All his life, he’s done nothing but that. Then what was Cal expecting? …He decided the answer is a burden that he is not ready to bear yet. It all happened way too fast, even for a Jedi. The sizzling red heat from the bleeding Kyber crystal still feels warm, just like the image of a close friend still hasn’t entirely left.
The hardest part for Cal to accept was after what happened, he thinks about how he wasn’t able to sense Bode. He blames himself regardless of what Greez and Merrin say, regardless of what he says to them in return as comfort. The guilt feels damp, it reaches down his stomach with a familiarity that reminds him of Bogano. But when he calmed down, and the darkness stopped rattling with rage beneath the surface, he knew it was more than just how Bode exceeded in disguise. There was always truth in the lie. There was always the friend that he knew. The force was strong with him; the echo subtly rings to Cal now. He was a good man.
So he talks with people, about the one that betrayed. But he doesn’t talk about the friend he has lost.