When partial understanding finally coheres, Paul has the wild and unreasonable impulse of shoving the eggplant into Midoriya's hands and burying himself so deeply into the blankets he's never seen again.

The tips of his ears turn pink instead as he nudges Midoriya back with his knee, a reflexive press of contact that grounds him as much as Kaworu's flung legs across Midoriya's lap grounds him in turn. He absolutely cannot look at either of them as he swallows, the many things that may ensue after kissing passing through his thoughts in rapid succession.

It's not that he's opposed to them, in theory. It's that it's all theory.

"This happened last night," Paul mutters, rotating the eggplant in his hand and painfully aware of - everything, more or less, his flush creeping down the sides of his neck, "And - I mean the rules of what's appropriate. Social parameters. Correct conduct. You know."

There's a plaintive note to his insistence, directed at the both of them.

"As in - you wouldn't show your eggplant to a stranger, would you? Things like that."

Maybe he can pretend to get sick. They wouldn't know any better.