And to Yoo-min:

You'll be forgiven once I think up a suitable punishment.

oh shit you're like making jokes with me over text

omg omg omg

i feel so honured

...ok i may be a bit drunk too

Giggle.

"Okay, yes, but you're also... it's not just the physically attractive part, but the way you carry yourself is attractive? We're all pretty, but not everyone carries themselves like they could, well. Jump into magic lava and survive to help kill the S-rank dungeon responsible. I get it!"

...okay that's actually pretty flattering he's not sure how to respond um.

So instead of trying to figure it out he'll text Seungjoo.

Seungjoo-sunbae, are you on top of whatever is going on with Yoo-min-sunbae and Woo-young?

yeah

don't worry about it Tae-gun

I'll make sure they're fine

and you and I can brainstorm punishments for hyung together tomorrow ^-^

...Choi Seungjoo-sunbae can be really scary sometimes.

He sighs and waves his screen away. "I guess that was apropos. Given Woo-young's feelings yesterday he'd probably want to actually talk about it but..." Tae-gun himself has some very complicated feelings about it but they're not altogether... negative?

"Yeah. Um." Cough. "No thank you on directly joining in on, uh, whatever you decide to do there, I think I am not actually ready to jump the bones of literally all of my Korean friends, but." She shrugs. "Have fun if you decide to?"

So no tag-teaming Tae-gun? Bad Lee Tae-gun. Bad! Down boy!

"I'll... keep you in the loop, I guess." It occurs to him that Woo-young is also very slightly compatible with both Yoo-min-sunbae and Seungjoo-sunbae but Tae-gun himself is a lot less comfortable having sex with either of them. Or, uh, letting either of them see him when he's—you know. "I don't want him to try to, uh. Self-harm by throwing himself into things too quickly. He was drunk but he was probably also thinking about how to get back to work as soon as possible regardless of what the guild president said, so..."

"Yeah. Agreed. But I trust you to be careful with him."

Tae-gun shrugs uncomfortably. "He's my best friend," he says, lamely. "And... the closest thing I have to family. So. I gotta."

She smiles at him. "Yeah," she agrees, again.

That smile. That fucking smile. It's the smile Kang Jaeha used to point at him. Like, like she thinks he's... something. Something good. Like, like she thinks he's someone who should be smiled at like that.

He hates that smile.

...but he hates it a lot less, now, when it's her.

Her partner has left her.

It's not really a surprise. They weren't the most compatible pair possible, and their guild has been bleeding members left and right for months. The latest scandalizing news out of Korea (technically Mexico, but involving Korea's espers) is just the final nail in a coffin that has by now been meticulously built. The confluence means that lots of espers that hadn't been intermingling are working together, and her (former) partner found someone who fit him better. Both compatibility wise and guild wise. He liked White Star well enough, but it's pretty clearly a sinking ship. Anyone sensible would be looking for possible exits. Her (former) partner even offered to look into guilds they could migrate to together, before the confluence hit. It was very sweet of him, but she turned him down.

Probably she shouldn't have. She liked him. He was - kind. Understanding. He didn't have to be, and she appreciates that he was anyway. If she were less sentimental or more practical or more brave or better at socializing or if she had a less standoffish demeanor probably she would be fine, would have either gone with him or found someone else already, but she's none of those things. She's just her, and she can't even figure out how to pick a name for herself, let alone decide to leave the guild that was very kind to her when it didn't have to be.

The family name is straightforward enough. She has no real issue with her parents - if they weren't understanding about their son turning out to be a daughter at first, well, they appreciate that their daughter is a well paid trauma therapy esper, and her awakening made her look so feminine they looked awkward or stupid if they called her by the wrong pronoun. They're fine now. Not good, but fine. (Besides, whispers what she knows is her backlash talking, if you had been better they would have been, too, if you'd realized before you awakened they could have braced for it, you could have seen their real reactions without the money and the facelift messing with their perceptions.) So - she'll be keeping it, for lack of a better idea. It's the personal name that's the trouble. She's been trying to figure it out for months, but there are just so many possible names. She was fully healed from her surgery a month ago, and White Star lined up the paperwork for the legal transition all ready to go, and she still can't pick a name.

(Typical, says the voice in her brain that is not supposed to be her but still feels like it, wasting everyone's time and attention and money, can't do anything for yourself even if you need to -)

She could probably pick a name if she had a partner to help with her backlash, why did he have to leave now?? But no, that's a lie, she couldn't pick something even before the confluence, or before he left during it, and now that he has she's exactly as she started but with more anxiety, what is wrong with her. No, bad, that's not a productive line of thought, if she were better she could manage to think even while she's like this. Why isn't she better, why can't she just be better...

Not useful. Do better.

  "Fugimura-san?" someone asks.

She looks up. It's the woman who's been trying to set her up with a new partner. Miyata-san. She's also been trying to set Fugimura up for another guild so she won't be left in the lurch when White Star inevitably collapses. She's been incredibly nice.

"Yes?" she asks, kicking herself for not noticing her earlier. How dense can one woman be? Pay attention to the things happening around you!

  "A new potential partner opened up. His, um. Died."

"I am willing to meet with him to gauge compatibility," she says, immediately, because she can't stop doing her job now of all times, the longer patients go before she can get to them, the more entrenched their trauma will be. Emotional reactions lead to other emotional reactions lead to even more emotional mess to clean up, and it's better for everyone if she swoops in right after people are pulled out of a dungeon and she can just - make their terror go away. Then it barely affects their lives at all. (And dealing with backlash on her own is unpleasant.) She does not have the space to be picky, anymore.

  "I know, but he's, um. From Korea."

".... Quasar?" she guesses, from the awkward look, and, well. It's the one guild in Korea that is still talking to White Star. It was not a hard guess.

  "Uh, yeah."

"... It's fine. I can still meet with him." She's not actually sure if it's fine, it's hard to pick out what her actual emotions are underneath the din of backlash, but probably this person will not be compatible and she will be back at square one. So. Might as well.

  "Okay. Um. Do you have a full name I could send over...?"

Koreans tend to focus on personal names over the familial. They will probably want to use her personal name. Miyata-san (and the rest of White Star, really) are all very concerned about avoiding 'dead naming' her, but she's not really sure why. Katsuo is fine as a name, and she used it for most of her life. It just is somewhat awkward with her obviously being a woman now. She doesn't flinch if it's used, but it confuses people. (And she really should pick a name already.)

"... Fugimura Hana," she picks, at not-quite-random. It's one of the potential names she's been thinking about, but it felt too common and stereotypical and - whatever. It's fine. This is a good chance to test out to see if she finds it acceptable.

(Why couldn't she have picked a better name, and she definitely hasn't figured out the kanji for it, does that matter, are they going to send over the kanji, there are admittedly only two options but she's absolutely going to agonize over those two options for eternity, no they're Korean, it'll be in Korean, probably this is fine and she has time to try and figure out the kanji. If she likes the name. She's not sure yet. It's hard to tell.)

  Miyata-san beams and her and nods. "Pretty. I'll go make the offer for you."

Miyata-san probably doesn't mean that, but she's very nice and Fugimura (Hana) appreciates this immensely. She's not very good at smiling, but she gives a nod of gratitude and. .... Is going to go practice her Korean until the dungeon in Ota is fully cleared out. Then she'll have more work to do with everyone that's been rescued.

Okay so, to get this out of the way: sex with Tae-gun-hyung is fantastic. It's not guided sex, for sure, and Woo-young does... break down crying in the middle of it occasionally... but then hyung holds him and pets him and waits for him to be okay, or he doesn't, when Woo-young asks him not to, which is sometimes exactly what he needs, is being stuffed so full with dick he can't have any thoughts. It's a bit awkward but they work through it and in the end it is amazing, hyung has a ton of experience (despite the five year gap in his resume) and approximately infinite stamina and Woo-young has wanted to go on a ride since they first met and he had a puppy celebrity crush on hyung and now he gets to. And when Yoo-min-sunbae asks for details he is coy and cryptic even though he knows hyung would be fine with sharing it because teasing sunbae is a lot of fun and clearly drives him up the wall and Woo-young is not okay and nothing is okay but at least he can brag to a friend about fucking Lee Tae-gun and that's one thing that's okay, actually.

But the thing is this isn't guided sex, or it's not very guided sex in any case. It helps, it definitely helps with the backlash, as does sleeping together afterwards (and it is kinda hot that hyung fucks Hye-jin then fucks him and then they sleep together in the same bed with hyung in the middle, plus it doesn't take a genius to figure out that hyung has at least a little bit of a kink for "being used" for someone else's benefit), but it doesn't really help... enough.

He needs a partner.

Prez is still blocking any and all unwanted external pressure though and he can look over partners at his leisure, which... he does appreciate, actually. He's not sure how he's going to feel about having proper guided sex with someone who isn't either of his best friends in the whole world (because one of them is dead and he's not sufficiently compatible with the other) but the rescues he's been doing (despite prez's protests) are causing a net positive backlash accumulation rate and he does in fact need to figure something out. Maybe just snuggling the new partner and fucking hyung will be enough? Depending on how compatible they are? ...even snuggling makes his heart tight but less tight, he thinks.

He thinks he might be able to do it. Maybe.

He'll at least look over his options.

Here's one!

There are others, but this one stands out from the others by way of having an obviously Japanese name, and then continues to stand out from the rest once the details are read into.

She's from White Star, works in post-rescue trauma therapy, and is a mental esper. Any one of those might be notable, all of them together in one person? Well, it's very notable, is what it is.

...huh yeah that is notable. Is her backlash on record? His is, so presumably the recommendations he's seeing have had some kind of advance filtering, but he's curious what she could have that'd match him, being a psychic esper and all.

It's not.

But she's apparently willing to schedule a meeting to gauge compatibility, even with him all the way in another country, so someone's got to be pretty sure, probably.

Well, that or she's desperate. White Star is crumbling, sort of—they'll be able to turn it around, if their leadership makes some smart, hard decisions they don't seem willing to make—so being willing to go really far is not necessarily that surprising. Plus, Woo-young's power is great for teleporting other people to predefined locations like that so Quasar is kind of liberal about teleporting people over to meet; they have a ton of it stored, and Woo-young doesn't expect he's going to be out of commission for long enough to justify them changing their expenditure patterns.

"What do you think?" he asks Tae-gun and Hye-jin, leaning over to them and moving his screen so they can read it.

Of... a potential new partner. 

"Tired of my dick already?" he asks, dryly. By which he means, of course, "Are you sure you're ready to be looking for a new partner?"

"I never said we were going to stop our little tête-à-têtes here."