[Oh, Junpei thinks, he's like, crying crying, and maybe that shakes something loose in the back of his mind; he remembers not being able to shed a tear the last time Charles had gotten... misty, and how odd that felt. It feels odder still now, to have Charles openly crying on his shoulder and to still feel more for that, for him, than for himself.

How many things were on his list, ten? Fifteen? All of them hang heavy around his neck, and thinking about being back there fills him with a sick dread, all of it objectively terrible, but... Put away in the box, still. Tucked away so deeply, so thoroughly that he's suddenly not sure his, uh... brain works? It's the same as the feeling he had the first time, and mm, he ignored it then, too.

Well. Right now, Charles is the focal point, his emotional jumper cables, and it rips his heart out to see him like this. He cups Charles' face in one hand when he pulls back, presses a thumb against his cheek and smears a tear away. If he was annoyed by the questioning earlier, it's gone now, slate wiped clean by the actually important thing: making sure Charles is okay.

Or, wait, and,] I— yeah. I know. I guess I... [He shrugs one shoulder, searching for the right thing to say,] It got... weird in there, you know? Nobody seemed to care that much about the dying thing, and then it was straight here as soon as we got out, so...

[So maybe they'd have acted normal about it if they'd come along, or if he hadn't come here, and he's putting Akane specifically in the box of things he doesn't think about, because it wasn't the first time. He tugs Charles back in close, pressing a kiss to his forehead.]

But I am sorry for saying, uh, fuckall. Not getting the whole story's a real pain in the ass, I get that. I guess I was still thinking like six-months-ago me, when you were just the cute guy from the network. Sorry.

[Now that they've both collapsed, as predicted, gently,] You want to come back up on the bed with me now?