There's a part of Paul that always looks to the limits of the world around him with an eye to test them. Flirtation is a form of exploration, the responses it garners the raw data for Paul's cartography of himself and others.

Midoriya flushes vividly at the intimacy of his personal name, but doesn't reject it outright. Like with the eggplant, he thinks of others alongside himself, if not indeed first: he seeks to protect Paul from misunderstood implications.

Kaworu's happiness is as vivid as Midoriya's embarrassment, and as authentic. It's rooted in the same positive regard, which Paul notes with increasing absentmindedness as the other boy ends up in his lap - and thing about maps is that they're not the territory. Paul can play with words for hours, but he's finding the reality (for now, he thinks, with unearned confidence) disarming, to say the least.

"So there are rules you know," he says, a declaration he meant to make triumphantly, softened as he brushes by Midoriya at the end of Kaworu's tugging hand, "Appreciated, Midoriya-kun."

He readily follows behind Kaworu, shadowing him to the sink where they may clean out their dirty mouths: "That sounds like exactly the kind of thing he's worried will ruin our reputations."