[There is a kneejerk reaction here that Shinjiro will be embarrassed by in a moment, but the moment the implication arises from that question, it escapes from his throat before he even really has a moment to think about it:]
I didn't kill her!
[His face grows a little hot thereafter, not solely because of the tea. He didn't help her either, his mind helpfully supplies. He didn't interfere. He stood there and watched her die as she asked and then went and put her corpse to rest in the gardens because it felt like the least cowardly way to react to knowing what she was going to do.
A sudden flash of her crushed-in skull overlays the apartment, there and then gone. He doesn't quite descend back into the panic, but there's a singular moment, a violent twitch of his fingers against the cup as his eyes go elsewhere, and then he's back.]
...It was just, if you're gonna pull a stupid stunt like that, might as well -- at least have people who can back up that it happened, or there's--no proof. Whole thing's pointless.
[Another twitch. A bit of the liquid sloshes out, this time, and Shinjiro sets the cup down at last, almost reluctantly.]
Besides, she couldn't just... leave her body layin' out there.
[One doesn't really need to be a detective to catch onto exactly what Shinjiro's implying about his particular role in the whole affair, but he can't quite bring himself to verbalize it, either. Especially since his focus seems to have diverted toward regulating his breathing, which has gone just a touch shallow again.]
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2023-08-10 09:32 am (UTC)I didn't kill her!
[His face grows a little hot thereafter, not solely because of the tea. He didn't help her either, his mind helpfully supplies. He didn't interfere. He stood there and watched her die as she asked and then went and put her corpse to rest in the gardens because it felt like the least cowardly way to react to knowing what she was going to do.
A sudden flash of her crushed-in skull overlays the apartment, there and then gone. He doesn't quite descend back into the panic, but there's a singular moment, a violent twitch of his fingers against the cup as his eyes go elsewhere, and then he's back.]
...It was just, if you're gonna pull a stupid stunt like that, might as well -- at least have people who can back up that it happened, or there's--no proof. Whole thing's pointless.
[Another twitch. A bit of the liquid sloshes out, this time, and Shinjiro sets the cup down at last, almost reluctantly.]
Besides, she couldn't just... leave her body layin' out there.
[One doesn't really need to be a detective to catch onto exactly what Shinjiro's implying about his particular role in the whole affair, but he can't quite bring himself to verbalize it, either. Especially since his focus seems to have diverted toward regulating his breathing, which has gone just a touch shallow again.]