Togusa freezes in place, shoulders hunch, eyebrows lift, and the look on his face turns into the sheer guilty look of a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar. Maybe he could have justified what he is doing to anyone else, but Mariko is a different story.

He turns around slowly, and he flinches from the look he sees waiting for him. "I." Oh what the hell do you think you're going to say that'll make this better, Togusa? His lips press together tightly to show that he has no idea what to say.

The awkwardness rises until he blurts out the first thing he can think of. "If I don't go in there, how can I help?"