"Yeah. Yeah." Sigh. "And I'll need to figure out how to break this to sunbae."

"Yeah. Sorry. Uh - I can tell him, if you'd rather, but." He would probably not prefer that, and she said so, earlier. "Let me know if I can help?"

"Yeah, I don't think so, but thank you. ...he is going to feel very guilty about getting you involved at all, though, so, uh. Be prepared to fend off a self-flagellating sunbae for a while, he'll beat himself up a lot."

Snort. "Of course he is. I'll offer to throw him at my crazy ex if it'll make him feel better, how about."

"You know, somehow I don't think it will."

"Damn, he'd make a good pincushion for icicles." She offers a smile. "Thanks for the heads up. I'll reassure him, and it's - I could always run, you know? I'm choosing not to. Because fuck that guy, I'll fight an S-rank mind esper for his life. It's my job." To kill monsters. But she should get out of the habit of repeating that part, because it's implicating. She would like to get away with it if she commits murder.

"—also. I—I just feel like it's relevant, I very very much did break a confidentiality agreement I signed there and if Kang Jaeha sues me over it the provisions on the contract would be enough to bankrupt all of Quasar and get everyone unemployed. I don't regret it, to be clear, just—that's the level of secret you should try to keep, if possible, until we can—deal with him. One way or another. The full extent of his powers is really, really secret."

"Ah. Right. Uh. Yes. I heard nothing and know nothing." Nod, nod. ... Then another smile. "Thank you, though, for. Trusting me."

"Yeah. You're—you're good, Hye-jin. I'm glad we've got you."

"Thank you! I'm glad I can help."

Tae-gun was reviewing data on today's dungeons when he got a concerningly vague text from Woo-young telling him to cancel his first dungeon no questions asked and saying that Hye-jin was going to do the same and he has been pacing in a panic for an hour now and Woo-young has not replied to any of his texts since so that's how his morning's been going, how about yours?

sunbae

can i come over?

Oh now he deigns to reply.

I don't know, Woo-young.

Can you?

Are you sure you don't want to spend another hour frolicking in the woods or something?

...shit, i didn't realise you'd get actually mad

though obvious in retrospect

sorry

Whatever.

I'm not doing anything right now.

So he teleports into Tae-gun's foyer and walks into his kitchen, which is the most likely place for Tae-gun to be right now.

Well, they're not best friends for nothing; Tae-gun is indeed there.

"So good of you to join me," he says coolly.

"...man this is not starting on the right foot. I know you were super worried, and I'm sorry for making you worried, and I—think you should be, actually."

"Woo-young could you maybe have picked a more concerning set of sentences to say!! I don't think you tried very hard!!!!"

"Sit down, sunbae, this is gonna be bad and I don't want to lie to you." He sits down, himself, and steels himself for what's going to be another really hard conversation.

At least this one he can't actually fuck up irrecoverably. There's just nothing that could realistically happen that he and Tae-gun-sunbae wouldn't be able to work through.

It's still really going to suck, though.

He stares at Woo-young for a few seconds, opening and closing his hands, then decides to summon a floating ice bench to sit on.

"Fuck I have no idea how to say this, even ripping the bandaid is hard."

"Woo-young for the love of god just say whatever it is you're giving me anxiety."

He thinks this is going to require more cigarettes, actually. Out comes his pack and he's looking down at it and lighting a cig when he says, "Hye-jin ran into Kang Jaeha."

His hovering ice bench stops floating under him and he crashes onto the floor.