It's fine if you don't know. [ Akira flashes him a smile, small and warm and reassuring, and squeezes his hand. ] It's still hard for me to separate what I actually like from the things I like because other people do, or it makes them happy.

[ Akira is never fake -- he doesn't pretend to like things for the sake of being cool or whatever -- but it's easy for him to get into the things people around him like. To watch Featherman and play video games and start gardening and brewing coffee.

It's weird to think about the fact that Akira started brewing coffee just to make Sojiro like him, and now it feels so integral to his personality. Does everyone struggle with this kind of thing? He has no idea. ]

But I like you. And I like cute animals. So that's enough to start out, right? Maybe after the zoo we can figure out what animal we liked best.

[ A pause, and then, lighter: ] We'll have to take the guinea pigs out of the running or they're an automatic win.