The simple question seems to knock all the wind out of Eiji. This wasn't a question he was prepared to answer, much less when it was posed so bluntly from someone he suspected he wouldn't like. He wasn't prepared. He wasn't ready for this. He didn't... want....

For a moment, his mouth opens, mouthing wordless answers, his eyes a little wide, deer-in-the-headlights wide and staring into the middle distance. He doesn't seem to react beyond that, and certainly not in the slightly exaggerated, bumblingly helpful way he had been before. His voice comes back in hesitant pieces, incomplete. "I... I do. That's..."

His mouth twists once, visibly, before his face blanks, then resets to something... composed. "Ah... sorry. I don't think I have a good answer for that. Is it important?"