It's a change--a welcoming, an open door--that Robby's experienced before. Willingly, and while some part of Robby remembers the way it occurred the time before, he couldn't compare his bond with Mob to this moment, even if he wanted to. The way that Mister LaRusso comes in, how he feels him present, in a way that can't be described as being in the same room with another person.

It's not the physical, after all, but the emotional. And feeling that inside him; it makes Robby's smile tight, giddy and shy all at once, as well as his heart. The joyous, excited feeling coming through from Mister LaRusso, and that he doesn't feel like anything other than how he presents himself.

This is Mister LaRusso. This is him.

Robby's looking at his wrist, the marking left by his dad, the way the paste there all fades to leave only the bond. But then he looks up at the older man, still with that happy little smile on his face, a million other emotions stirring in his heart (this is a new chapter for them, isn't it? a new beginning, a new everything), and it breaks with his smile turning into a grin showing teeth, all before Robby lifts on his news and hugs his father around the shoulders, going for something better than all the one-shouldered, one-armed hugs.

"Thank you," he says warmly, with nothing better to say, either. But this appreciation, this feeling--it's all and everything he has right now.

And it's better than he dared to imagine it being, thinking about it in his room. Thinking about it at all.