"Hmm," he replies, without looking up from his phone, but he noticeably droops when his attention is brought back to it.

"Do you want to tell me about it?"

Towa looks away. "You won't want to know."

"If I didn't want to know I wouldn't have asked," he replies, reasonably, and to prove the point he puts his own phone away, face down on his bedside table, then pulls away a bit from Towa to be able to properly look him in the face.

That brings a small smile to Towa's lips. So very himself.

And then he thinks back on the nightmare and the smile evaporates. He puts his phone, his glass of whiskey (his third this morning), and his cigarette (his second this morning) down and hugs himself. "It was... Mei."

...Fujieda drags himself closer to Towa again to wrap an arm around him. Nightmares involving Mei are always the worst for Towa, especially because he feels extra guilty about telling Fujieda them. Fujieda himself has made his peace with them—mostly. He knows they are going to happen regardless, is what that boils down to, even if he would be lying if he said he isn't affected. Nevertheless, he promised to be there for Towa no matter what, and he intends to keep that promise.

Towa sighs and leans into him.

After a couple more minutes he prods again: "Anything new?"

"There's never anything new," he replies immediately. "...just variations. I never—" But he suddenly gets a lump in his throat that blocks his words, and when he looks down at his hands he notices he's balled them into fists and they're trembling. When did that happen? he wonders, idly. He forces them open, stretches his fingers, and reaches over for his cigarette again, but by now it's really more of a nervous tic than in expectation that it'll help. The nicotine has been in his system long enough that he's not getting any more benefit from yet another drag.

He drags anyway.

This time Fujieda doesn't prod him again. He just waits for Towa to find his words.

"...I never hurt her," he manages, eventually. "Or anyone else. Did you know?"

He shakes his head slowly. He... hadn't known, really. He sort of assumed that Towa would've, but if he never did, does that mean that his role was always of the passive victim?

"Maya never made me. I don't know if her clients also never asked, though I can't imagine that would be the case. Rather, I... think she just wanted me to learn from others, before I ever tried it myself. So that I wouldn't get locked into any bad habits early on, before I knew what I was doing."

"I... see. That makes sense." From what they know of Maya, at least.

"I'm just guessing. I don't know. She never told me. But I never... hurt anyone else."

"...and Mei did?" Fujieda guesses.

Towa nods wordlessly. "I think my mother made everyone do that. Or almost everyone. I was the only exception. Or so I assume."

"But Mei hurt you."

He nods. "She always apologised. Afterwards, not during, Maya's clients wouldn't want that. But when they couldn't see, she looked like she... hated it. Of course she hated it. We all hated it."

Fujieda feels like he should be angry, like that description should be filling him with rage, but those fires have long since been extinguished. He just feels numb, and tired. Maya's dead, and so is Mei, and so is Sakaki, and that place is no more, and it'll never come back, so he just doesn't really have it in him anymore, to hate it. He just nods, and starts running his fingers through Towa's hair again.

"I dreamt that I was hurting her. I never did... but in the dream I did. And in the dream I was saying—" There's a lump in his throat again, and Towa notices that he's crying once more. He's kind of used to it, to being not okay like this, but today's proving to be particularly bad. He can feel a migraine forming, and he grabs his whiskey to finish downing it in one go then takes another puff of his cig.

He continues to not say anything, and to just hold Towa. He had a feeling that that was what the dream had been about, from how Towa started recounting it. From the way Towa is tensing up, he imagines that Towa's almost expecting him to get angry at him or something. But of course he won't.

He tries to get his breathing and his tears under control, but instead what seems to be happening is that he's starting to cry harder. Really inconvenient.

"I-I'm sorry," he says, and at that he breaks down into sobs again. "I s-said. I'm s-sorry." He traces a line in the middle of his chest, along the biggest scar he has there. "Ik-kuina's scar. I w-was m-meant to replic-cate it. Give Mei a scar j-just like th-this one."

...oh. That... sounds incredibly upsetting. He rearranges himself to pull himself closer to Towa and hug him more tightly, and he kisses the top of Towa's head.