He shrugs again, reaches for his pack of cigarettes, then aborts that gesture and lifts his coffee mug to his lips again. There, it's less hot by enough now, if still a lot hotter than people who aren't him would be comfortable with. "I think you have a wrong image of what prison is like. Or a wrong image of what the gang was like. Maybe both."

"I also had to deal with the Takasato-gumi, you know."

"Only barely. Not as much as Taku did." Or Towa himself, though that goes without saying. "He was working with Toono directly. That would be both better and worse than being a regular gang grunt, in a lot of different ways. And Taku can hold his own."

"I mean... I know he can, but... I still worry."

Another shrug. "Sounds like a great way to spend a lot of time feeling bad about something you can't change."

"Aren't you worried about him? That's cold."

"Like I said, nothing I can change. There's no point."

"Fujieda-san..."

"Was his defence attorney and got him the best deal he could possibly get."

"I guess that's true..."

"So no, I'm not worried," he says, leaning back on his chair again. "And you shouldn't be either."

Rei pouts but doesn't really have a reply to that. "...hey, you need to eat. You haven't touched your food at all."

Right. Food. That was the whole reason he came here, right?

He lowers his eye to the thick slice of toast covered in honey and butter, a brick of carbs and sugar and fat, and stabs his fork into a corner to split it off and put it in his mouth. It tastes like carbs and sugar and fat, and nothing he particularly likes, but he doesn't hate it either. It's okay. But he doesn't really understand why people use food to cope. What does it help with? If he'd been starving or really meaningfully impacted by the lack it'd be one thing, but he isn't, and it's not really helping one way or the other.

That said... he is feeling better than he was this morning. He's not entirely sure why, but the most likely explanation is that it's just been enough time since he woke up that the nightmare's gotten blurry. It's not affecting him anymore.

"Honestly, you're hopeless," he sighs. "I'd hoped maybe Fujieda-san would help but..."

"He can't cook."

"—what? Seriously?!"

"Yeah."

"Can't be worse than you, though."

"He burns ramen."

At that Rei is too shocked for words.

"And I cook better than you think. I think you rubbed off on me."

"I mean... maybe but... Fujieda-san can't...?"

"Yeah."

"Wow. I. He looks so, so..."

"Perfect."