...

[He hums quietly without lifting his head from the table. It's just so hard to reconcile what Gundam's saying with how adamant Natsumi had been that she didn't deserve to be beside her brother.

He doesn't know if he can put into words how desperate she was to seize talent by any means necessary, to claw her way into the Main Course, to be acknowledged as someone with talent...]

I tried to tell her that. That's... the last time I saw her, before she was killed. She wanted to be seen as someone who could stand beside her brother. Someone worthy enough to be at his side instead of just... trailing after him.

[He drags a hand through his hair as if that might somehow physically pull those thoughts away. A few grains of left-over rice hit the table.]

...Sorry. I don't... mean to interrogate you about your classmates, or sound cold. I'm just...

[God, please, can he take a nap before trying to have this conversation? He feels like he's bouncing from point to point, unable to connect anything logically.]

It's hard to get used to.