Dryness seeps into his mouth as his breathing slips faster, glitter starting to prick like sandpaper at his skin where it has stuck from the ridiculous package hidden in a second hand store. His thoughts conflict as reason barely tempers a compelling urge to flee. He doesn’t want to look at Walter, fearful of the ways the new label from his Number may have altered the way Walter perceives him in a visible expression. What he thinks, what Sadie will think, what Russell will think, what any of the other Numbered may think…it only adds to the constricting pain at his ribs. Fault or not, it adds another link to the concept of a monster he may yet become.

The sound of Walter trying to coach him does reach him with some repetition, and he shudders at a spike of nausea rather than answering with words. Minute after minute passes slowly, agonizingly with an ebb and flow in his breathing as he gains control only for it to slip from his grasp far more easily. An occasional pause for a dry heave becomes more frequent until it leaves Benjiro coughing and shaking quite hard. He groans once that jarring feeling in his gut relents, and he finds a paltry word to offer as he starts to calm, “Sorry…”