The little friend might be a scientific partner, helping you with your experiments, head turned up in clean appreciation.
Little friends mass in thrift stores.
You adopt on hair color and compatibility. Kung Fu aesthetics are not the aesthetics of the little friend, but those of the dense competition among equals. A number of little friends might be arranged in a choir and big voices could lead, guide the chimes of little friends. He is their protector, and of course their leader.