Richard very cautiously follows Jim's example. At first, he's not really sure what's supposed to happen, so he just sits there, side-eyeing Jim suspiciously.

Eventually, he realises he should probably focus on something beyond his lingering distrust of Jim and this thing they're doing, because Richard has apparently lost his goddamn mind. What surfaces is the recent memory of being seriously schooled by Matilda. There's a bit of embarrassment present, perhaps unsurprisingly, but foremost is the mental equivalent of trying to breathe through wet cotton at just trying to remember the sort of maths they were doing, let alone the exact numbers and steps taken. And just under that is a very deep frustration at not getting it, no matter how hard he tried, which only seems to build on the horrible wet cotton feeling. It's more or less mental suffocation.