"But it's yours, you should--" He stops himself. He thinks Paul could, with the timepiece of his mind, simply recall what he studied. He doesn't need the drawings like Midoriya needs his notes; he could still see them with perfect memory. Midoriya still debates removing the drawing of himself and leaving it here. There's a joy and potent sentimentality in being able to touch something, and Kaworu can look at it too. Midoriya is just thankful for this moment that they gave him, fleetingly intangible, permanently rooted.

Paul's words do still make him blush, his fuchsia cheeks already blooming at capacity, but he is distracted by something else too. He's turning the pages of plants Paul found and thought captivating enough to study by hand. (Midoriya, too, was something Paul and Kaworu found in the woods, but they were unable to capture him then.)

Sensing an unrealized shift in the person whose legs are jumbled with his, he answers Kaworu's unspoken question,

"I guess it's what makes you hold your head up high? Dignity you give yourself and others? It can mean different things to different people. What Paul-kun means is that he thinks we are good-looking enough to have people fight about us." If he ever entertained a hope that his flush would subside, it is lost now, but it won't stop him from giving back even just a tenth of what was given to him:

"He is too, both as a boy and a girl." Important information.