( "don't get in trouble." it's shameful how fair it is for ritsu to say; how rei, the elder of the two, the one who'd always been charged with keeping darling, delicate ritsu safe . . . had failed so catastrophically.

it's fine. (it's not fine.) even if he doesn't have the right to worry after ritsu given the mess he dragged them into, given how he's somehow, perversely, made ritsu feel guilty instead when he isn't even slightly to blame— even if this might churn ritsu's feelings, mixed, into something more solidly resentful, there's no way he could ever keep from making sure ritsu's okay. )

Certainly. I didn't know you played games with Kaoru-kun— are they board games, perhaps? Or something of the more magical kind?

( normal, normal, normal talk and conversation, )