[The answer he expected, then. Not the answer he'd hoped for, though. With his power and status and magic, what if he had grown up in a more stable situation, with a loving, intact, alive family? What if?]

Yeah. It was the same for me. Doffy ran off, and I... went the other way.

[Certainly a turbulent time. He stoops down to grab up a tangled ball of fishing line and adds it to his collection. The rest of those details are things he won't ask for. They can be volunteered, but he knows how much he went through just trying to get over that tragedy in his younger years so that he could become stable, capable, and strong. Glancing over at the guy beside him - he must not have ever joined the Marines. There's no way, right? But the military service had done him personally a world of good. Put him in control of his memories, rather than let himself be shackled by them.]

I haven't spoken to Sengoku in months. Sometimes I feel like I should call him up.