"Don't forget the mockery and humiliation!" he chirps, mussing up Tae-gun's hair.

... wow, uh, she was not expecting implications about not being Tae-gun's friend! She also wasn't expecting it to hurt this much! Ow.

...he notices.

For a wonder, so does he. "Um. Sorry, I didn't—I'm just really used to. Saying that. I think we're probably friends, I just never thought about it. Um."

"It's fine, we don't need to be friends. We're partners, professional relationship, it's different." Ow ow ow ow ow why does she now kind of want to cry.

"No," he says, with... quite a lot more force than he'd expected to.

"...I mean, I. You. You know the reasons why, now," he continues, more subdued, looking down at his lap. "Why I. The. Professionalism. Thing, it was—it doesn't matter. I didn't, I've. I don't want just—" Then he looks back up at her. "I mean if you want to just be strictly professional that's fine—!"

"Should I leave...?"

"Please don't I'm digging my own grave I need help."

Snort. Okay, that helps. And the firm 'No' sent butterflies to her stomach. "Don't worry, you haven't gotten far. We can officially be friends, yeah."

"Ohgood," he breathes, and he—should probably examine why exactly he reacted the way he just did. And for that matter why he dove into lava for her with no expectation of surviving doing that. And he might need Woo-young's help with that or he might need Woo-young to not be anywhere near him to be able to think about it he's not sure.

"Do you want us to get a movie going so you don't have to think about any things anymore, hyung?"

"Yesplease." Thank you Woo-young-ah you're the best Woo-young-ah no one could have a better friend Woo-young-ah.

He smiles to himself and resumes looking over movies. At least he doesn't have any strong associations with sci-fi, even though he'd probably still prefer it if Hye-jin supplied some opinions.

She can have opinions, yeah!

Tae-gun has a problem.

The problem that Tae-gun has is that he had a conversation he'd been about to have with Hye-jin that got interrupted by a suddenly-appearing Woo-young—not that he's holding it against Woo-young, obviously, he'd be a colossal asshole not to mention a piece of shit friend if he did—and it really seems like they need to figure out what their relationship is going to be like, going forward, because all of the terms they set out with at the very start have been broken and he's clearly in need of some self-reflection except that sounds terrifying and he hasn't done any in five years and it was going fine and also he can't do any of that because Woo-young is still at his place—again, not holding it against Woo-young, if Woo-young tried to leave Tae-gun would handcuff him to the center table—and also that means he hasn't had any more sex with Hye-jin which he's mostly thinking about from a practical perspective of she is still backlashing, even if somewhat less actively, but that's still not great—

He and Hye-jin both receive an emergency warning and a request for immediate support simultaneously, in the middle of the afternoon.

...his immediate thought is that he can't leave his best friend all alone now of all times, and the part of him that was panicking a little about not being a good friend feels no small measure of relief, and the rest of him thinks he kind of sucks as a person for having this entire makeup of feelings and thoughts all at the same time.

Tae-gun perhaps has as many as several simultaneous, compounding, and self-reinforcing problems.

He's working on them. Kind of.

Ack. Okay. Uh. How bad is the emergency warning, and how much do they need the two of them in particular? Because: backlashing. If it's another S-rank, then she has concerns, back to back S-ranks is how you kill espers, and she got close enough to that yesterday, thanks.

"... If we go I'm absolutely going to need to swing by the split silo and pick up some stuff first," she says, before anything else, because: backlashing. Hers kills.

Unknown rank, not a very large portal, but it's a dungeon break and it's spewing a concerning number of monsters into a populated area. They are not personally needed, but it's the kind of situation that could be dealt with by ten to fifteen B-ranks or the two of them.

...those B-ranks...

"Hyung, you're making that face you make when you're about to waste time fretting. I would suggest skipping straight to the inevitable part where you go be a big damn hero."

Ugh. Yeah, he knows. "I'll go put some clothes on," he tells Hye-jin, rather than, yeah, wasting time fretting and arguing.

Yeah. B ranks are often more valuable spread out or allowed to be specialized, instead of used as a blunt force object in great numbers, and a group of ten to fifteen will take longer to get organized than the two of them. They can just teleport down and squash the monsters flat. She nods.

"Okay. Then I'll meet you there," she says, then pauses to look at Woo-young. It would probably be patronizing to ask him if he'll be okay, or to tell him that they'll be back soon - he's Quasar's teleport esper, he probably knows usual mission times better than she does, so. She'll just give him a hug before she goes off to her silo. She needs hotpacks, practical shoes that are broken in, and maybe an extra fuzzy sweater.

Tae-gun stands up, looks conflicted for a second, but rushes away when he catches Woo-young's look.