[ ughhh shut up it's just the tentacles!! that's all!!! his eyes dart a glance at her after she speaks, trying to read her expression. As expected, she's not kidding. She never is. That's just the way she is - straightforward, earnest, good-hearted... A nice person. Unsurprisingly, he didn't deal with many of them in his (former) line of work. Maybe that's a good thing, seeing how hard he finds it to tell her no. ]

... Maybe you've been spending too much time sitting at your desk and snacking, then? [ fortunately, his tried-and-true tactic of deflecting things with a smile is still pretty dependable. ] The students did tell me you were pretty pathetic in gym class.

[ looks like he's going to bear with it for a little while longer, yes. They spent long enough being separated by a slab of plexiglass; if she wants to hold his arm, so be it. He doesn't want to turn her away. ]