Maybe the craziest thing about all this was the fact that Aoba sort of felt more comfortable right here in this giant’s shadow than he had at any point during that month in Steelport. Oh, soon enough he’d have to deal the fact he was in a new world he knew nothing about with no means of support while he searched for the next portal (barring getting shanghaied into another gang or something), but right now, this was almost kind of familiar.

Well. Up to the hair compliment. The amused look Aoba had been tossing backwards at those scraping sounds turned into a doubletake at what he at least heard as an unexpected compliment. He looked back towards Declan in surprise at the shift in conversation, his thoughts visibly getting stuck in the change of mental gears for a few moments. It wasn’t like it felt awkward, though…at least he didn’t think Declan was hitting on him all of a sudden. Right?

It seemed to follow naturally enough to Aoba: if everyone in here thought Declan was just going to punch them, he probably wasn’t used to carrying a conversation.

It helped that Declan didn’t do like those girl-friends of Koujaku’s and try to touch him, too.

“Thanks,” he managed instead, wrangling his expression around to a smile as he took a gamble (half forgetting he wasn’t home, admittedly) and pointed towards the geometric robot floating nearby. “I like your Allmate.”