[ for a brief moment, he thinks that he really should have just kept quiet — that as he'd said, he's only managed to upset junpei. it's not like talking about this will really change anything... except junpei's understanding, the fact that there will be one person in all the worlds who now knows about it, and that means something.

means a lot, in fact.

and as difficult as it is, to speak of the things he's held back literally all his life and death... for this, it's worth it. for him, it's worth it.

so, with a sigh, he nods. ] Yeah, I get it. Didn't stop me from wanting to protect her.

[ for a moment, he's quiet; trying to muster up the resolve to say this thing, too, until finally, ] Just... I never told you I check in on them, did I? I can make the mirror show them. So I check, every week. The last time I did that, Mum had a cold. Dad made her chicken soup.

[ and this, more than anything else, is what makes his voice go so terribly empty, like he's felt all the things in the world about this in particular and no longer has the capacity for any of it. ] They're fine. He's... good. She's good.

[ and he should be happy about this — and a part of him certainly is! has not stopped being so ever since he realised the state of things! and yet. and yet, there is also a part of him that wants to punch the mirror every single time and ask why it is that he found it in himself to be good only after it all? to see that the capacity was always there, had always been there... but that whatever charles had been, then, it had never once been enough for his dad to reach for that capacity.

he'd only done so after he was already dead. ]