Even as he's kicking at her lightly in retaliation, flicking his ear violently out of her reach, there's some of that same delight and fondness on his face. Criminal mastermind, pfffft. They were cunning, and criminals too, particularly as time went on, and that's Not Good, and he knows it, but. It's them. It's real, it happened, and they sure made the best of it, like any other garbage.

"Like literal fucking garbage, Lup, like trash, do you remember...? The, the--" What had he called them, his garbage displays? There'd been a word for it, and he's choosing to blame the weed for the way it won't come to mind. "Every fucking-- like all the hair thingies, marbles, broken glass, anything colorful off the ground. Right in a jar. I figured-- I just felt like, if there was enough of it, that kind of outweighed the fact that it was absolutely worthless bullshit-- It's the. It was just. It made sense at the time."

He sniffs with nostalgic disdain and fidgets an earring back into place, where it won't dig in despite the ridiculous way he's laying. Sure, it's just Lup, but scrounging around his childhood like this makes him feel vulnerable, like either his memory or his self risks being snatched up if he lingers. "It all got thrown away anyway. Someone said I was gonna catch lice. As if." He scoffs, but it'd been a risk he took dead seriously at the time; better to lose a hoard of colorful trash than invite any threat to his hair. "It was in a jar! It was fine!"