[ It's a product of being blindsided, mostly, though he thinks knowing likely wouldn't have made him any more comfortable with the prospect. He sits heavily in one of the kitchen chairs, leaning back in it. Those two were battered and beaten on, but they were still able to keep going. He has no sympathy, not when he's overwhelmed as it is. ]

If you'd said you were interested in the afterlife, I could have told you the easy way- die and get it over with. [ Yet that might not even work that way here, not necessarily. If 'shinki' could have a flawed rebirth after death, left with parts of themselves in a baffling patchwork then he isn't sure how a god's death would be handled.

He rummages about in the folds of the robes hanging around his waist, producing his increasingly close to empty pack of cigarettes. ]

You didn't say anything. [ Not a thing besides the bullshit about 'partnership' last night. He knew better than to trust something like that. ] Are you going to start now?