"No, when I think about that, I do get it," Steven says. "Let's not lie. I'm a walking brick. It's a Durante thing--I've got the build from my father's side, even if I've got the pretty face from my mother's." Seriously, the Espinozas are all fairly attractive people. Steven's mother is handsome at sixty and change; when he was little she'd been downright gorgeous. "I'm a little disappointed, but I'll live. I'll still take a sword-ghost pokemon, though."

He'll always take ghost pokemon.

He doesn't stop Connie from going on and on about Akane. Instead, he'll just listen to Connie go on and on about her new... crush? Friend? Both? It's-- hard to tell just yet. He thinks he'd have to see them together to be sure.

God, he's so relieved that Connie's doing better now.

"She sounds like she's a pretty cool person," Steven says, once Connie winds down a little. "I think I've heard her commenting on the 'gear a little? That thing Emporio did, asking about naming schemes. She named her starter T-chan, right?"

There was something about the name and naming scheme that was very familiar, actually. Like somethng he ought to recognize.