"Yeah, I thought so. How are you still alive."

He shrugs. "I'm careful." If nothing else is true, that much is.

"In the most self destructive, you-are-your-least-valuable-resource kind of way, yes, that is true. It's like you don't even value yourself but for what you can do for the world." She pauses as she realizes just how... true... that might be.

"What else would I value myself for?" he half-snaps, with no heat.

He's not even denying it, that's. That's just a yes.

"Your intrinsic value as a thinking and feeling human being? Hobbies, friends, experiences of the world and the avalanche of little special things that come together to give lives meaning?"

"I don't have those." Not strictly true but it's what he felt like saying. "My whole life is this. It's what I'm good at. It's the only thing I'm good at." He's still not sounding angry or agitated, but he is talking somewhat fast, and in clipped sentences. "I don't have anything else."

She opens her mouth, then closes it, completely unsure how to... engage with that at all. It's just. It's just so itself. This man needs time off, therapy, and several hobbies. He's not going to give himself any of those things. He's the one who's hurting himself the most.

"Do you like puzzles?" she blurts, instead of directly engaging.

He blinks and does look at her, now, frowning slightly. "...like?"

"Like - okay so I actually tend to think of dungeons as puzzles instead of enemy strongholds to conquer? You have these specific resources available to you, these are the challenges in your way, some of the challenge is figuring out what the challenges are, now make it to the core and disable the dungeon and win. Puzzles are a really broad topic, but the way you think of - our job - makes me think there are some you'd be really really good at, and enjoy, and get good... mental practice from?"

The furrow on his brow remains there throughout this explanation but when she mentions it could be useful to him it deepens and his eyes narrow in wary interest. "That's kind of vague."

"Puzzle games are kind of broad? But I can recommend one that sort of plays like how I think of leveraging my power, if you're curious about the concept."

"...sure," he says, still looking suspicious.

She sends a link to the game over her phone.

And then she's... not sure what to do, now. He's. He's the most powerful esper in Korea, he's saved so many lives, and. He's treating himself like a robot that he can use until it breaks. She would like to hug him, but he wouldn't appreciate that, so. She'll. Just. Sit, she guesses.

He glances at the link but doesn't immediately open it. Instead he looks at her and squints. "You look like you're thinking something, and I think it's probably about me. I don't like that."

"Oh. Uh. Sorry." Deep breath. Back to professionalism, because despite her efforts to not think of it, she suspects that his backlash is something about magnifying emotions, and he'll regret being this candid to her. "Back to dungeon tactics? How cheap are your ice walls? I had practice thinking with walls of fire, but I can't really do that alone."

Most people don't have convenient units for power expenditure but guess what? Tae-gun does! Stuff isn't constant cost especially with the passive guiding but his calculation system was built with that in mind, and he has an app for that. He can compare it with other stuff he's done and also vaguely to amounts of backlash to give her an idea. 

Today the backlash on the menu seems to be: impulsively saying whatever comes to mind, reduced filter and inhibition, and slight hyperactivity. He's not babbling like the other day, and he's focusing less on thoughts and feelings and more on immediate practicalities, but it seems like a similar thing going on there. And on the bright side, aiming this in the direction of the postmortem does work very nicely.

Yep. She thought so.

On the new topic, though, she is outrageously jealous of his backlash calculator app. Can she get one??? She wants to do math about the most efficient way to use her power!! As it is, she just operates by feel!!!

...of course. He sits on the wretched way this makes him feel, reminds himself that her power is setting things on fire so he has nothing to fear from her being more efficient and actually a lot to gain, and sends her a link to the git repository with the code. "I'll show you how to customise it to match your powers and costs. There are some automated features to get you started but it only gets really good once you've gotten a good feel for how to update it."

Nod nod nod.

"Thank you!! Yeah, I expect I'll need to practice to get a good feel for it - and there will probably need to be different modes for if we're together or apart. So I'll need to experiment by myself and with you, I want the calculations for both."

"There's inputs in the calculator for passive guiding from being around compatible people as well as for accumulated levels of backlash and if you set the former to zero with the right parameters it should work fine. Testing using your powers without anyone else around will be the best way to properly measure things, though, you're not wrong."

"Right. Plus there really is a - okay so, realistically speaking, once we're out of the adjustment period of learning how to be each other's partners, the big dungeons that actually need both of us together are sometimes going to be sparse? Usually the problem is that there's a lot of little dungeons that are overwhelming the resources the system of espers has available, by sheer numbers. With our skill and powersets and how we're not really beholden to being a unit together, I think it makes sense if we are capable of splitting up to cover more ground. But my major concern there is your backlash and not wanting to make it, uh, worse."

"Yeah, that makes sense. Though some dungeons that don't need us together will definitely be more than twice as fast if we do work together, like our first one today, so for those we probably still want to team up? It'll be case-by-case, for sure. And my backlash is a lot better than it's been, you don't need to worry about it. ...you're going to worry about it anyway, though, aren't you. How do I get you to worry less about it?"

Aaaand now he's sliding into babbling again.

Oh no he's sliding to being CUTE again.

"I am absolutely going to worry about it anyway. Uh - I’ll worry less if both your backlash is declining at a steady rate, and if your backlash is under a level where if you have one bad day where you absolutely have to go all out without me anywhere nearby, it won't kill you. I'm not convinced you're meeting the second requirement yet, though the first is being met and is slowly calming me down. Just. It takes time to be sure it'll keep going that direction, on a data trend level. And, yeah, agreed, this is not a request to split up all the time or even often, I just kind of want it in our repertoire of potential options depending on the overall situation in Korea. For the sake of civilians."

"I can totally go all-out without it killing me! I've gone all-out several times recently! I have to go all-out at least once a month, I'm actually due right now I think. And I don't die at all. I just do or say or think things that I'll regret later. Like what I'm probably doing right now. Or was doing just before? I think I was being kind of snappish and said too much about things that make other people think badly of me. I bet it made you think badly of me. It shouldn't matter, but it does for some reason. Probably professional reasons? If you think badly of me you might leave and then it'll be so much harder to get guiding again. I do know, you know, that this is good for me, it's just also really hard.

"Oh, I'm doing it again, aren't I. I am absolutely going to need to figure something out for this because redirecting my backlash into this kind of thing when I'm around you is in the long run not sustainable, I cannot be like this on the reg, I'd much rather do the other thing, you know? Except you don't, because I haven't told you what the other thing is, and hahaha I am not going to. It's a secret. I need to shut the fuck up."

She wants to HUG HIM he's being SO CUTE, HELP.

"I truthfully find this very endearing, but yeah we might want to end our guiding session for the day for your sake. See you tomorrow, remember to turn your text app off too."