[ again, charles remains quiet, to let junpei figure out the words — figure out if he wants to answer at all, really, though when he starts it's with the tone of someone committed to the explanation. his expression tightens, the longer junpei speaks; it's not that he hadn't, you know, pieced together some kind of a picture from the tidbits of information he's collected over the past few months, but somehow, hearing it just laid out like this... well. ]

... Jesus.

[ somehow, he thinks that's almost worse than whatever the gnosia was: at least there, it was very clearly an outside influence, something you couldn't really even fight against. this, though? god. he doesn't even want to contemplate it, or how to go about somehow saving everyone.

he almost says sorry, but when has saying that ever made anything better? nothing he can say would erase what's already happened, or make it suck any less. instead, then, he just glances at junpei, reaches out with his hand to slide their palms together. they've already held hands plenty today, what's a little more, right? to offer quiet reassurance, that if nothing else, for whatever little it's worth, he's here for him. ]

Hell Asshole Two, was it? [ it's a rhetorical question — it could hardly have been number one, if junpei woke up here right after the whole thing went down. instead, charles tilts his head, looks at junpei with a mix of consideration and concern. ] You know, you've never really explained what that means, either. The timeline thing. What you can do.