Aw. That's actually very sweet.

He's way worse off than her, though.

"I'm okay. But yeah, I'm going to need to get my own silo with specialized equipment, probably." Is she going to hold it against this guild that no one thought to ask 'Hey, what's your backlash and how can we make things easier for you in your high risk, personally demanding job'? Yes. Yes she is. Again: what the fuck, Quasar. Yeah she's been avoiding the HQ itself, but you have her phone number and email.

"...if... that's how you prefer it. I figured you might want to get some guiding, even if just a little, but if it's not enough then I won't bring you here with me."

He would honestly prefer that, he'd much rather be alone in his silo than around someone whom he's having thoughts he really shouldn't be having about, but it's... part of the point, isn't it? And he can't say that being around her isn't helping substantially more than these meds.

...that only makes it worse, though. He swallows dryly and tries to push his thoughts away, both the ones caused by the backlash and... the other ones. Their mixture makes his stomach churn, and he's ready to bolt, but he's staying because he promised he'd try.

"It's - you're fine. This is fine. This place just. Makes me really nervous. I don't... like... impersonal silos controlled by other people."

He blinks at her a few times, and then remembers that people who have stable partners usually have a shared silo and do not end up in one of HQ's.

Tae-gun does not want her in his silo.

...he probably wants to be in her silo even less. It's probably not rated to hold his backlash-addled self. It's almost certainly not rated to protect Kim Hye-jin from his backlash-addled self. Right now he's fine, but on a busier day with more dungeons he will absolutely not be fine at all.

.......and he doesn't want to be in an environment controlled by someone else like that, either.

"I feel the same."

"Yeah. I'll. Get something sorted out in the next week. I've been apartment hunting, but honestly, it might be better if I just went and got a house." Considering how much she's being paid.

Oh. She doesn't have a silo yet?

He opens his mouth, intending to offer her help with that, then clamps it shut. He himself said they're not friends, they don't get closer.

This is why he hates his backlash!!! It keeps trying to insidiously (and sometimes not-so-insidiously) mind control him into doing things he doesn't want to do. Like spend more time with his partners. Like doing—things—that he didn't want to do—

But it's his turn in this conversation and he thinks it's been too long for him to say something but he should say something but he doesn't know what ahhhhhhhhhh.

She's actually fine with the silence. Instead she's broodily staring into her coffee. Does this place even have blankets? How hard is it to have blankets just in case!!! How is this so difficult, she has the easiest and most obvious backlash in the world, how the fuck can they screw this up??

"... You have a silo of your own, right, you're not just, stuck with this, you're only here so we can guide each other for a bit?" she confirms, sounding... like she wants to pick a fight. With a guild. Because she does.

"...yeah?" he replies, bemusedly. Of course he has a silo?? What kind of question is that.

"... Okay. Just checking." She goes back to brooding over her coffee, feeling like a paranoid lunatic. But, well, all of her weird quirks sure did come in handy for protecting herself, didn't they, and fucking Hideyoshi always belittled her concerns and quirks. So. If she's overcorrecting and acting paranoid and crazy, fine.

"Okay." A topic a topic—she looks cold—oh. "Do you want, um, a blanket?"

"Oh. Um. Yes. If you know where one is."

"Yeah. There, uh, should be one... somewhere. Here." He gets up and starts opening cupboards around the room until, there it is, fluffy and warm. He walks back and offers it to her, staying at arm's distance. "I don't use these rooms much..."

She carefully takes it from him, even though he’s the obvious and blatant source of available heat that’s sitting there like a toasty furnace, mocking her.

“Thanks,” she says, wrapping it around herself. The near touch probably did more, but, well. No touching.

No touching. Especially given the way the near touch made him flinch with the conflicting thoughts and memories.

He sits down abruptly so that it doesn't look like he's adjusting himself.

Well, she’ll just be over here. Wrapped in a blanket drinking hot coffee slowly. She guesses they did have a blanket in here. She… partially rescinds her earlier contempt for this guild’s incompetence. A little.

Yeah. Okay. Sure. They can do this. He can do this.

...the Guild president asked him to actually give this a try...

.......it's hard enough as it is, alright? He's trying. Just... give him some time. It'll be fine. He can do this. And it's not fair to Kim Hye-jin.

He'll... rethink the "no touching" condition once he's had enough passive guiding that it feels less like a risk, to both of them. That's what he'll do.

Honestly, that’s pretty legit. She doesn’t seem bothered, even, and she’s instead looking at houses on her phone. Or, well. The lead up to houses. Figuring out preferred housing locations.

“Recommend any particular neighborhoods in or around Seoul?” she asks, as she scrolls through charts about neighborhood demographics.

"...uh." He doesn't really... go places. And his own house is not in Seoul, either, so... "I don't know." Man he really is useless. "What are you looking for?" He can maybe try to be less.

"I'm... not entirely sure, I suppose? Nothing too large. A practical and reasonably safe location. Scenic and with easy access to parks." The problem with buying a house is that she'd then own a house, and that would make leaving the country harder. Hm. "... maybe renting a house if something like that's available? I'm used to everything being apartment based, I think I'm just a little awestruck by the prospect of maybe having a whole entire house that's mine."

Okay Tae-gun, time to try to be useful. What places of Seoul would have that. How would you even tell, she has the internet, too—oh.

Wait.

What he can do instead is think back on dungeons he's cleared and try to remember what their surroundings would've been like and, yeah, actually, he does have suggestions. They're... not incredibly in-depth, but hopefully they're good enough pointers?

Yeah! That's something to go off of! Kind of more than what she had before, really! (She hasn't asked her family these questions because, you see, the answers would be 'next door' or 'together in a cousin's apartment,' and Hye-jin does not want those answers.)

He was useful!

...he should not be this happy about being useful. No growing close, he said. His fucking backlash.

They have a second dungeon scheduled that same day, with only about enough time for them to recover from their respective backlashes, but it's only slightly more difficult than the first one, and could also have been solo'd by either of them easily.

And as Tae-gun suspected, it was his backlash trying to make him cosy up to Kim Hye-jin; by the time they're at the new dungeon he is no longer feeling the urge to spend more time with her.

He knows this will change by the time they're done, but still, the distance is as much for his safety as hers.

Okay, so while it doesn't get into the realm of an actually challenging dungeon, it does just barely limp into the level of difficulty that she's enjoying herself. Or possibly it's that she's better at working with him; instead of leaving deliberate and methodical holes for him to cover for, she's leaving things better suited to his skillset for him. It no longer feels like it is the Hye-jin show as she drags along and babies the S-rank to give him practice at actually having a partner! Instead they're... fumbling a bit more actively together to figure out what is best done by which person! Progress!

And also: she's definitely having fun. She's practically skipping by the time they're done, lingering chill in her fingers or no.