"...that was a joke."

"I, look, Woo-young, you know you're important, too, right? You keep running around all over the place taking care of other people. Take care of yourself, too. And let the people who love you take care of you."

"Yeah."

"Right. I'll stop intruding on your time. I'm here for you if you ever need anything. Please rest, and don't... don't worry about the, about everything on our side, here. We'll deal with it. Take as much time as you need, and don't feel—don't make yourself hurt out of a feeling of obligation. You're a person, you matter just as much as anyone, you're not just what you can do for others."

"...prez, it's a confluence."

"Fuck the confluence!" he explodes, then takes a deep breath. "Sorry. Just, if you want me to come up with pragmatic reasons I will but you know what I mean. I know what you're like, and I don't, I don't want you to, to do the hunny gunny thing of putting yourself through a wringer because of your duty or, or for the good of others. It's okay to put yourself first, sometimes. It's okay to need time to heal, it's okay to take time to heal. You're allowed to be selfish. Okay?"

...goddamnit. He's choking up again.

"Okay," he says in a small voice.

"Alright. Okay. Uh, yeah. ...tell hunny gunny I said hi."

He nods, which is the stupidest response because prez can't see, but actually he doesn't think he can say words right now.

"Right. I'll, uh, see you later."

He hangs up.

Tae-gun squeezes Woo-young's shoulder.

That.

... Was not what she was expecting from him, to be honest.

"Well. Good. You should have some time off," she says, to fill the silence. Because all of her other thoughts make this about her and her damage, and now is not the time for that.

He swallows and licks his lips and tries to find his voice again.

"I'm, I'm one of, I—"

"Woo-young-ah."

He stops.

"...I'm not you and I don't know how to come up with the stuff you'd be telling me, if our places were swapped. Not as well as you would. But there's one thing I know, and it's that—there's damage you can't undo. So..." How does he phrase this. He really, really doesn't know how Woo-young comes up with the things he says. "I just mean that it's, if you treat yourself like a tool to be used then, and you, I mean." God the hypocrisy is not helping him figure out the right words. "Tools need maintenance too, sometimes, or they'll break? ...not, not that you're broken, that's not—" Amazing job, there, Lee Tae-gun, you're so good at this whole communicating thing.

"... You did a rescue dungeon with another guild, Woo-young." She's still in the guild chat, and yep, she reads it. "Yes, the confluence and all, and this is when we all tighten our belts and eat a lot of backlash and whatnot, but - efficiency wise. That's not a good leverage of your power right now, when logistics are at a premium, and you know it. Sunbae's right, that's not taking care of yourself at all, and I think treating yourself like a machine to be efficiently leveraged is going to make your decision-making even worse."

"I don't need to make decisions. Just, boop, teleport rescue, done."

"...oh, so that's what that sounds like from the outside."

"...what?"

"When you're making a shit argument you know is shit to self-flagellate because you can't ever consider yourself a real human being."

He sporfles and starts coughing and giggling at the same time.

"This is honestly probably so good for his self awareness," she reaffirms, amused. "But don't be like him, he's a mess."

"Such a mess." He sniffles. "Such a dumbass."

"You know, it's no wonder I don't have any other friends, I get everything I need from just one: the verbal abuse, the insults, the contempt..."