Hye-jin would kind of rather read about it than listen to this person tell her mostly stuff she already knows, but. She'll be good. No commscreen just yet, look at how professional and reassuring she is.

Anyway, this is all stuff she knows already. By her estimation she's more likely to be on call than her last confluence. She was fairly new at it, then, and working under with a partner that was ultimately dragging her down. Now she's been at this for years, and displaying competence left and right, and is partnered with Lee Tae-gun. As two highly powered combat specialists that are partnered to each other, they're going to be very busy, and probably together on most of their assignments.

Not as busy as the poor sensors (and her heart aches a little for Yun Minseo in particular, sense deprivation!) will be, but. They'll also be the ones directly risking their lives more. Sensors are generally worked very hard, but also guarded like the irreplaceable treasures they are.

Combat espers? Eh. Good luck, we'll give you the best we can, try not to die.

Tae-gun's presence really is very much for show, there, anyway, but it's also meant to rally people together and help them feel a bit less scared and uncertain, especially when they might not run into each other for a while due to the hecticness. In any event, he will be Confident and Reassuring while in public.

It's not that long an all-hands, just half an hour all told, and then people are dispatched to their missions with updated schedules.

Tae-gun gets a text personally from the guild president, though:

I'm going to do my best to get Lucid out of your hair like usual but...

this is exactly the kind of chaotic situation that can give someone openings they wouldn't otherwise have

Be careful, Tae-gun

Aaaaand there goes his mood.

...?

She notices his mood drop, and gives him an inquisitive look.

Rather than say anything he just turns his commscreen so she can read it. It's not that he didn't think about this exactly, but...

If anything in that vein happens I will teleport you out ASAP

Argh.

That's... probably for the best.

Tae-gun's last confluence was with him. They didn't work the same dungeons, but...

...and it happened before everything went bad, too, which makes those memories very bittersweet. And now Tae-gun's spent years hoping to never run into him again, but this confluence is definitely one of the most likely situations for them to run into each other and, and, and...

Fuck. Tae-gun really, really wishes his feelings were simpler. He really, really wishes he could uncomplicatedly claim that he doesn't want to run into him. But instead that claim is very complicated, and has thorns, and sticky edges, and...

"It seems like only one S-rank's popped up so far, in Indonesia, and there's already a team onsite," he says aloud, closing the chat app and opening the world map to share it with Hye-jin. "We've got standing guidelines that we should not engage any A-ranks that mess with comms because we might need to be pulled from them to get any surprise S-ranks that pop up." He opens their proposed schedules for the next twenty-four hours side-by-side. One schedule has them covering a couple of big dungeons together, another has them soloing a series of smaller opportunistic dungeons and meeting up for guiding. Last confluence he went for something like the latter because he and Ka- because he and his partner didn't really do dungeons together, but it's different now.

Talking about work always makes him feel better. Fortunately, talking about work makes her feel better, too! What good partners they make. She is so supportive of switching to tactics talk.

"I lean staying together, we magnify each other enough that it's worth the breadth cost for the extra power. We are up against the big ones. But I don't need to be glued to your side if it'd be inefficient, just. We fill the same esper niche."

It's kind of funny, actually, that these schedules are both still lighter than they would be on the regular, just to leave as many openings as they can for the inevitable S-ranks that are going to appear at unpredictable intervals.

"That sounds good to me, too," he says, pressing "Accept" on the proposed schedule with Hye-jin. "Let's go over the next dungeon and then... Hm. There are a few named S-ranks that are likely to appear and, if they do, are likely to need us. We should probably go over those, too, before that happens." They have an hour and a half before their only assignment for the evening, and then a break for sleeping.

I should mention I am also comfortable combining backlash and sleep times.

If you are, anyway

My backlash basically just knocks me out anyway, so.

Another option if you want it.

He reads the messages and then... tilts his head at her. But replies in messages, too.

Yes, that seems plausibly called-for, here.

Both things, that is.

look it felt weird to ask you 'hey do you want to sleep together' so I needed text for it.

Why... would it be...

...wait.

Did you mean something other than going to sleep in our split silo holding hands?

Because he might spontaneously combust if she says yes.

(And also have a lot of trouble refusing it.)

That option is also fine!

But, um.

Do you think we could reliably keep our hands touching in the split silo while sleeping?

Without literally tying our hands together or something

Which I don't see how we'd manage, considering.

Ah.

Yyyyyep, spontaneously combusting.

Yep. Yep yep yep.

"Anyway we don't have to go there I'm just stating my comfort levels in advance because pre-negotiated consent!" she blurts in a rush, out loud. Fortunately they're not in public anymore, or, well, in front of Quasar anymore; she'd be making a fool out of both of them.

Why is she so embarrassed about literally just sleeping together? Well that's easy, because she has by now figured out a lot about his backlash, and has notions. Clearly there is NO REASON AT ALL, so she should STOP BEING EMBARRASSED.

"I... think I would prefer not, then," he manages to say with his actual mouth, past both the hurdle of "he is getting horny thinking about it" and the hurdle of "whenever he thinks about being in bed with someone it's Kan- him and if Tae-gun looks too closely at that he's going to have a panic attack".

Nodnodnodnodnod!

"Totally fine! Sounds good! Sorry to bother you with it!"

"It's fine." Here's the tac map for the dungeon, how about.

Sounds good to her! Tactical map! Talking about likely S-rank dungeons they might be called in for! Ahahahahahahaha she didn't do anything embarrassing at all, hush, it's fine.

The next few days are an extremely unpleasant and stressful combination of dungeons and down time. The breaks between dungeons are too long, and the dungeons themselves are sufficiently challenging that they're both straining with backlash after every one of them. And it really doesn't help that Tae-gun... can't do better than handholding. He's sorry, but he just... can't. They can figure out a sleeping handholding solution but he can't do better than that. 

And then, four days after the confluence starts, Tae-gun and Hye-jin get summoned for an emergency S-rank dungeon in Mexico. One of the named ones, which Tae-gun told Hye-jin about. 

It's called Volcanic Range.