She nodded, shallowly. "Thanks. I..." She leaned back, and fell silent. "Seeing that I'm not going to end up with someone just like Oubai? That makes it a lot easier to see how bad that was for me. And how dumb I was for not getting out of it when I first realized it." She looked back at Keiichi; what she'd said hadn't really addressed his admission.
And leaving it hanging would only make it awkward, or make him feel bad; you had to address these things. Kozue had at least a keen sense of social timing and expiration dates, if nothing else about her was keen. "Thank you. And, I care about you, too, you know?" A pause. She felt, with an awkward fumble somewhere in her mind, that that statement ought to be clarified. "I mean, you saved my life. Among other things. And you bring me really good cookies all the time."
She tried for a light-hearted smile and got about three-quarters of the way there.