At last, Kazuma speaks, as if he's been woken out of slumber. Yujin whirls around to face him, eyes wide and distraught; this time, watching Kazuma hang his head like this, he can't see Genshin Asogi at all. All he sees is the teenage boy he'd watched grow into a man-- the boy who, more than a decade ago, Yujin had tried to shield with a well-intentioned lie.

(Is this really their first time addressing all of this, after nearly a year? How must he have felt, holding all of it in, all this time?)

"Kazuma-kun," he says gently. Step by step, he draws closer; Yujin rests a hand, still smarting from where it'd struck the desk, on Kazuma's shoulder. "You were led to this choice by lies." He pauses. His voice falters, but only just.

"...Including my own."

The admission hurts. It's an acknowledgment of failure-- of all his failures: to protect Kazuma, to be anything like the father he had deserved, to judge the character of the man who had fooled them all. Sadness sinks itself, deep in his chest. "How," he continues, hoarse, "could I blame you, when I was taken in, myself?"