Considering how much Mono looked up at Tommy? That wasn’t a hard thing for the kid to give, even if he didn’t always understand things like family as well as most kids did.

But he nodded on the subject of the others talking about Tommy, because of course they said things when he wasn’t around. Sometimes it was kind of awkward to come out and tell someone how much they helped by being there. Mono only did it as much as he did because he never really thought that was weird. Admitting he didn’t know things most kids did? Weird and hard. Telling someone they were pretty great? Not hard. “Yeah, they do! A lot of them say they’re really glad that you’re here, ya know? Like, they know they’d probably have to steal and stuff to get by but they don’t got to. And you always make sure we got what we need and stuff.”

So Tommy was definitely helping, and he certainly was making a lot of lives easier than they could have been. “Plus, you’re really cool for a boss, not that I got much to compare to.” He added with one of his clumsy, tilted grins that was getting a little more natural looking these days.