[Damn right he called Aoi a love interest.

...Though he's realizing exactly why this is a painfully familiar situation.]

So presumably as oblivious as my niece was to my idiot apprentice's affections then.

[And wasn't that simultaneously cause to repress the urge to laugh and to bang his head against the desk he had back then. (He kind of misses that desk. It was a very nice desk. Sturdy; good wood.) He reigns his thoughts in before they can spiral too far off on a tangent and away from the conversation.]