"You too, prez."

Woo-young hangs up and sighs. Looks like he might have a long day ahead of him. Well, nothing to it. His next dungeon assignment is in six hours, so he's got time.

He texts Park Eun-ji on the company chat app.

youngwoo: we got an assignment directly from prez
youngwoo: you up to date on the hot goss yet?

kitkatcat: aaaaaaaaaaaaaa
kitkatcat: unfortunately
kitkatcat: on one hand this is the most badass thing to ever happen in Korea
kitkatcat: on the other hand they're dumbasses and if we don't say they were being dumbasses other dumbasses will try copying them, and they really should have given us some notice!
kitkatcat: probably best spin is that they were testing kim hye-jin-nim's backlash for safety reasons now, before there are tough dungeons, and got competitive and took it too far?
kitkatcat: actually first can you confirm for me that everyone's alive, because if our fire princess killed herself for the hot boy, well, I get you sis, but also no
kitkatcat: I literally do not have any way to contact her, prez refused to give me anything. tell him he's the worst for me next time you talk to him, because he is. what did he even do and why can't I make sure she's even alive!!!!!
kitkatcat: but no seriously hypothermia is scary. Is she at least with hunny gunny??

Oh shit that didn't even occur to him. 

youngwoo: they at least teleported together so i assume they must be but I'll check

And he can't talk about the reasons why sunbae might not have have guided her. He hopes they weren't that stupid but knowing sunbae...

He texts Hye-jin's personal number. 

so just to make sure are you like alive

i need to know this for government reasons

Aw, only government reasons? My heart! It breaks!

Yeah totally fine, thanks for checking.

Tae-gun-sunbae held my hand and made sure I was good before he fled. We're both fine, if idiots.

he held your hand????

are you sure we're talking about the same sunbae?

the one i mean is tall and gorgeous and an idiot tsundere

actually quick Q do you want Quasar to deal with the media fallout because uh

actually i'm not sure how we could possibly manage sunbae's side of things without doing yours

but we don't want to fuck you over

might want you to come over though if you have input

and actually do you know why the fuck i can't get in touch with sunbae

pardon my french

He seemed to have broken his word filter and was saying lots of things, so he removed his ability to say more things via text.

But his backlash had improved a bunch and he is not in any danger.

I should probably interact with Quasar's media people, but I kinda don't wanna, I'm tired and achey.

Can you just say we got carried away and competitive or something? We'll both agree it was dumb, because it was.

Maybe reassure that I'm fine but say I'm recovering to buy time, because I am.

kitkatcat: you're getting distracted I can tell by your silence
kitkatcat: @youngwoo is she alive, y/n

Awww he's sad he missed that, it's always funny when sunbae's backlash is word hemorrhaging. He stars typing a response then sees Eun-ji's message and swaps to that.

youngwoo: y
youngwoo: she's alive but she's wary of guilds doing guild things without her permission after the bullshit with white star so i'm trying to figure out what we're allowed to do

And to Hye-jin:

i'm quasar's social media people for sunbae specifically

we kinda do need to figure something out fast though

i know we've only known each other a week but do you trust me to figure this out and advocate for you? 

i swear i'm not going to fuck you over on the honour of all of the cat pictures i've sent you

also sunbae might kill me if i did but that's less important

kitkatcat: k. understandable.
kitkatcat: do I have her permission to say she's fine and recovering at least?
kitkatcat: that's the most important thing.

Can you do the equivalent of radio silence aside from the fact that I'm recovering well and let me handle the rest?

Quasar's allowed to say that it thinks I was stupid, I think I was stupid too, just.

Don't want any words said for me if that makes sense, sorry.

Also don’t schedule me for anything or make any statements on my behalf, please

I’ll do an interview or something eventually, just. Later. On my time.

To Eun-ji:

youngwoo: yeah

As for Hye-jin, he can read between the lines and fair enough, really.

do you want to do interviews?

by default quasar tries to avoid it just because well

it fucking sucks and we're already risking our lives saving people and having to do interviews on top of that is ass

to me at least 

we're not gonna put any words in your mouth though for sure

sorry if i came off pressure-y

media is jumping on this like vultures and social media is even faster

He starts typing an explanation of what angles the media is going for an then stops and backspaces it.

i'll stop bugging you

we'll figure something out dw

...actually.

actually i realised i was assuming you don't want to know anything about this until later but lmk if that's not true

There, no making assumptions.

And back to Eun-ji:

youngwoo: she doesn't want us to say that she said any things she didn't say
youngwoo: and i'm gonna drop onto sunbae's head

Ah shit that definitely implies sunbae and Hye-jin aren't together. Well, whatever, war mode right now.

I’d rather do them than be entirely powerless in my own presentation, but.

They suck a bunch and it sucks more that people feel entitled to them

But yeah I kinda want to just sleep rn

Just say I’m tired and recovering please, I’ll sort it out later

I’ve been avoiding media and news anyway it’s nbd.

kitkatcat: k
kitkatcat: I’ll say they’re recovering well and request patience
kitkatcat: can never go wrong with asking for patience
kitkatcat: well you can but
kitkatcat: here it’s fine
kitkatcat: after that, second most important thing is that no one else tries to do something this stupid, it’ll get people killed.
kitkatcat: don’t want to throw anyone under any buses but we do gotta say we don’t recommend this

He wants to argue with the "entirely powerless" thing but it's a dumb thing to do and the wrong time to do it. 

alright! have a good rest

His partner sends him two texts:

hyung, have you still not gotten your froyo?

I'm walking on the walls here hyung

...ah fuck. He forgot his froyo and that Tae-hwan was waiting for him. 

sorry Tae-hwan something came up

I need to go bug Tae-gun-sunbae

give me ten minutes and I'll be with you

:(

This is too much stuff 

youngwoo: what do i do about sunbae's picture though
youngwoo: there's no way people will overlook his instagram account not mentioning it
youngwoo: noona i do not envy your job it's so much easier to deal with just sunbae and no one else

kitkatcat: idk he seems like a lot
kitkatcat: guild stuff is a lot of ‘don’t be idiots, and stop pestering the people saving the world’
kitkatcat: whereas personal media presentation is like
kitkatcat: personal and shit
kitkatcat: anyway I think nothing is the thing to do about the image tbh
kitkatcat: every celebrity gets shitty unflattering pictures taken of them
kitkatcat: people are gonna meme and fap to it but that’s it
kitkatcat: plus if anything it says they have a good partnership
kitkatcat: and then they’re all distracted making dumb jokes about sex
kitkatcat: like guild chat!

See that would be okay if sunbae weren't the sort of person who would absolutely hate to have a fappable image. Like he hasn't looked in the mirror or something.

youngwoo: you might be right tbh

He notices he's procrastinating on teleporting onto sunbae. He should get on that. 

vworp

!!!!!!

"Oh good you're wearing clothes."

kitkatcat: I definitely am :P
kitkatcat: now if you’ll excuse me I gotta make some recommended ground rules for other espers that want to RACE
kitkatcat: ugh ugh ugh what a shitty idea ugh
kitkatcat: but if I don’t tell them to do one dungeon at a time with backlash recovery in between,,,,,
kitkatcat: guess what,,,,,
kitkatcat: I’ll stop procrastinating good luck with your s rank headache

youngwoo: thank you and good luck with your thing too

Tae-gun is lying in bed, indeed wearing clothes, and was browsing the internet idly when Woo-young appeared in his room. Now he is lying in bed, wearing clothes, trying to still his panicking heart.