It's both, Zelos, the answer is both. Pepper is stubborn as all get out and she also has information that prompted this conversation. The truth is rarely easy to hear, but Pepper has learned how important it is.

She gives him a small, slightly bemused smile. "Was I speaking in tongues? Yes, I'll still care, no matter how annoying you get. Dork." Unless he starts attacking her or people she cares about, that'll hold, and even then she'd probably still try not to hurt him too much to figure out why Zelos had gone bonkers. But that would be an extreme situation.

Pepper sighs quietly and looks away. This is not exactly the way she wants to start out a friendship, but it's going to be now or it's going to be later. Zelos probably won't tell her. Perhaps she should try a roundabout way.

"But if you try to get yourself killed again, I'm going to smack you into next week," she informs him, in an entirely un-roundabout way. Pepper, no.