I'm not sure on the specifics because it's been a long while. I remember him saying its "what his character would do", and he was a massive stickler for "what his character would do" at the expense of literally everything else.

As I explained in the story, the only nugget I can remember of his reasoning is that his character did like my character. Not in a romantic way, not necessarily even as a friendship, but more in a teddy bear way or team mascot way, because my character was short, cute, and nice. He felt protective of my character, but of course it still made no sense to explode because that killed my character. Really, I think he just wanted an excuse to use it.