The outrage in his eyes shifts to something younger and more vulnerable. Their story really is one that tells itself over and over, isn't it? Young, and used, and refusing to look any of it in the face—and so, so stupid, thinking he knew it all. Bitterness lodges in his throat.

"You'd have to fight every devil in Hell just to find him. Astride his frozen throne, right at the bottom." Unwilling to look too nakedly vulnerable—not least because the idea of killing his father outright sits uncomfortably in his chest, lodged in a weakness that refuses to be rooted out—he turns away to look up at the shop.

"You were heading into this place, weren't you? I didn't mean to keep you." Not that he's brushing Akira off, exactly, but it seems they could use a change of subject.