Murdoc watches Karkat as he approaches, regarding him with an eternally bored expression. He pretends as if he hadn’t thrown the biggest tantrum of the century and as if Strider’s words hadn’t hit closer to home than he would have liked.

His eyes drop back down to the paper as Karkat speaks again and he glares bitterly at the words, clenching and unclenching the fingers curled around his pen. Unlike Karkat, he’s finding his temper a lot harder to keep even. He places the pen down and links his fingers together, propping his elbows on the desk as he gives the boy his full attention.

“Perhaps next time you will learn not to speak about matters that do not involve you.”