He'll... assume that means he's right.

"Why did you?"

"I was tasked to by his father."

Before his death, presumably.

Wait, if Kimahri took Zei from Bevelle to Besaid that means he's the one who's known Zei the longest out of everyone here. Even if only by a couple of months or whatever, he doesn't know how far Bevelle is from Besaid.

Huh.

Azym opens his mouth to ask something else but something tells him he should... actually back off, for now. He nods at Kimahri then picks up his pace a little bit after a minute (so it doesn't look like he's immediately fleeing) to join the main body of the group.

Zei's closer to the back of the group, not actively participating in the conversation between the blitzballers, and he smiles at Azym then.

"Getting to know Kimahri?"

"Something like that," nods Azym. "I don't trust my instincts about anything he does because he's not human and I don't wanna... I don't know, offend, by assuming."

"Pay attention to the tail," Zei suggests. "If you've ever met a cat, it's similar. And he'll take a while to warm up to you, and even when he does he won't really become any more talkative, but existing in his presence and not trying to push too much will make him more comfortable."

"...huh. Okay. Noted."

"Azym mentally adds 'befriend Kimahri' to his to-do list."

"That's not that impressive, you know, it was pretty obvious I wanted to."

...because he's used to having more friends than he currently does, i.e. arguably maybe two, and he misses it.

"Someone's prickly today."

...is he? Yeah, he kinda is.

"Sorry."

Zei dismisses it with a hand. "It's fine. You've been through stuff."

"What did you..." Wakka and Lulu can definitely overhear them, but he can't really think of a reason he wouldn't want them to. "What did you tell them?"

"That you remembered what your life was like before, and that when Sin attacked you and took you to Besaid he also hit your friends and family."

Another adept of the "not technically a lie" school of thought, Zei seems to be. But Azym nods. "How much should I..."

"We can talk about that later, if you want, but I don't think spending time focusing on it right now is what you want to be doing."

He's... not wrong. And also managed to answer Azym's real question without really giving it away.

"I don't," he agrees.

Zei smiles again. "Anyhow, you've earned some of the red spheres from the battle with the sinspawn yesterday. You got your pick between Power, Speed, and Mana."

...he still doesn't really understand how this all works. "Uh, how many?" he asks instead because that might... help?

"We got enough of them that you can get to your temp max, probably."

He gives Azym a look.

What does the look mean.

...oh. Yes, that is the obvious question, isn't it.

"Do you have suggestions?"

"Yeah! If I were you I'd grab three Power and two Speed, or four Power and one Speed, depending on where you want to take things. Based on your fighting style, that is."

Zei thinks he needs more Power than Speed? Oh, probably because he already is pretty quick, relatively speaking. Meanwhile his sword strikes were... well, even Gatta who is probably like 15 seemed more effective than he did, there.

"Four and one seems right," he nods.

"Kimahri," Zei calls over his shoulder. "Four Power and one Speed, please?"

The ronso wordlessly reaches into a small pouch attached to his waist and draws four spheres from it, piling them on an arm against his chest, then reaches into another small pouch for the final one. He offers them to Azym one by one.