Shinobu returns the smile easily enough, although his is still a bit shaky. "It's no trouble," he says.

He falls quiet yet again, absorbing Dimitri's words, then nods. "If it keeps happening, then you start to expect it. And the longer it doesn't, sometimes, the worse you suspect it will be when it does, because you can't conceive of it not happening at some point. That's how it gets for me, anyway."