"How'm I s'posed to eat if my mouth ain't full?" he asked petulantly, and then swallowed his mouthful of noodles. "You know in China, slurping your noodles is considered polite. It's like a compliment to the chef." He nodded judiciously then, but supposed Riku wasn't the sort of dog to give up his old tricks to learn new ones, in any case. Oh well, he'd done his best.

He looked pleased when Riku approved of the noodles then.

"Well, it's nowhere near as good as what you and Sheena make," he said, "but I get by."

They ate in comfortable quiet for a moment, and then Lea glanced at Riku again. He needed to tell him. He wasn't sure if Riku had heard anything that he'd said to him after he'd been shot, but... he deserved to know. It had been such a small thing, ultimately, a realization he should have come to a long time ago, really... but it had snuck up on him somehow, always darting away when he might have been about to grasp it.

He set his chopsticks down crossways atop his bowl and cast his eyes to the window.

"Y'ever fly a kite?" he asked, in his usual way of asking things out of the blue with no segue.