[Despite everything, he smiles a little, partly warmed at the words and partly in relief; it's a motion that Tama would probably feel rather than see.] Nobody asked me to go out the window or play with wooden swords at the top of the stairs... If that's "fate", it's fate made of choices we'd have made anyway, isn't it? Even when it's little things like that.

I said I wouldn't ask you about-- [He's about to say "the shopkeeper," but he's still haunted by the glimpse of that man's face in one of the monsters, when he'd been forced to draw steel on it. Even if it was only a nightmare -- if it had spoken in the same voice Minakami heard down the telephone, he thinks he'd have done worse than freeze.] --about the future, when it hurt you to think of it. But... if you believe me... when you're ready, I'm here to listen.

[He's still skittish about talking about the past, to be honest -- it feels like it's gone wrong more than right, the closer they've gotten to the present day. Some equation that's gone unbalanced somehow. It'd be too cut and dried to say that was why he'd given up on the idea -- but it'd be lying if he said that didn't factor. Still. He's glad he didn't, in the end.]

...me too. [He tilts his head sideways, gently butting Tama's head with his.] ...come on. Let's go home before the sun rises.