"...these were my master's beads. At the monastery. He... wanted me to be strong enough to help people."

"Oh, wow, he would be so proud of you," says Hob, in abject delight, and then realizes belatedly that this is, possibly, a rudely presumptuous thing to say about somebody's dead mentor who you've never met. "...I mean, I would be." 

Jojo attempts a shaky smile, at that, and winds up crying instead.

Oh no. That's so valid but oh no. 

... does he want a hug? 

Jojo would really like a hug.

They currently have zero (0) time sensitivity and Jojo may have as much hug as he needs. 

It's really nice, apparently, to have no urgency and someone to hug.

Eventually he pulls himself together. "Sorry. I've... been crying at you a lot."

"I think the average person would be considerably less together than you've been under the circumstances? Like, even in my culture and we are famously unchill about people having feelings in public." He's still a little annoyed about this even though it has been centuries, it was not true when he was born and adapting was a bitch and a half. "Anyway. We have theoretically infinite stopped time and obviously we cannot actually stay forever, we'd go mad, can you imagine, but it's at least time to practice until we think we can win that fight instead of being about two seconds from losing it." 

Drilling and sparring is never a complete substitute for real live-fire practice, of course, but they do have a very live (as it were) scenario to drill for and also being from two completely different fighting traditions probably means there's room to learn something from each other. 

Jojo is happy to spar and drill; it's soothingly familiar, and he does enjoy the exercise.

"Should you like a more... realistic challenge," the Reaper mentions, "I should mention that in this place you cannot die, and may practice with naked blades without fear."

Jojo's ears perk up, at this. "Oh! Like with an attending cleric! Usually only the stronger paladins got to do that..."

! 
!! 

Hob has always been able to do that but you can't generally do it with your friends who are mortal and will die if you stab them. And your enemies who are mortal and will die if you stab them are not generally very enthusiastic about telling you what incredibly stupid thing you just did with your elbow that made that stab land weird. 

This is going to be even more useful practice than he was expecting.