[This... This is good. Kouha hates the situation, but physical comfort from one of his favorite people in the world helps quite a bit. At least, he's not about to lose it and go smashing anything in the next little while out of frustration, and that's better than what he'd been thinking about five minutes ago.]

He's a good kid. Smarter than he looks, but he can be trusted.

[That's Kouha for you: even when giving compliments, sometimes he just comes off as rude. Aladdin can be a sneak, considering he slipped past Kouha's radar the first time, despite traveling together for a while, but that's to his advantage. Maybe he'll have something up his sleeve nobody else knew about. It's worth hoping for, so he nods as he continues.]

If there's a way out of this, those two have gotta find it. If not... maybe we can take something from here back with us, something to change things. There's plenty of strange things that might help here.