Ren stands there, staring like an idiot as Akechi's words wash over him. It's not that he doesn't take them in; he does, he understands them, he can't think of anything to say to argue against them. It's just.

Torture. The word has such a presence, grim and spiked, larger than the sum of its syllables. Ren associates it with beatings and druggings, not with standing in comfort behind the counter in Leblanc while his friends crowd around a booth, ignoring him.

He searches for a reply. All he finds, dredged up from the back of his mind, is, "...Oh."