Dasai stopped them from walking. He coaxed Kuro to look at him, “do I seem like I can be pressured or bullied into doing anything I don’t want to do?”

He shook his head.

“You’re going to keep worrying about this, aren’t you?”

With a remorse-filled grimace, he nodded.

Dasai let out a sigh, “you weren’t the only one doing research.”

Kuro stared blankly up at him.

“I told you about my first time. I didn’t want that to be your experience, so I looked into things.”

“For me?” he was breathless!

“Then you spouted your crap about us getting better, which really took the pressure off. And here we are today, so…whatever.”