"...what?"

And the nice lady is all sad now.

Sei's hands flutter up to her mouth, a nervous and awkward gesture. "Is there something wrong? Did..." She tries to think of some little scrap of proverb, something about the cruelty of children maybe, but nothing comes and she just sort of makes a few little face-noises. And then she hides her face in her sleeves.

"You don't have to," the sleeves say, miserably. "I'll just go."