"M'rng," she agrees, helping with the scooting. "...whn's r frst dngn tday?"

"Eleven-thirty."

"Mmk."

Oh no what if she forgot - wait. Wait, no. She knows this answer. It's at 1 PM. Because they have a weirdly light schedule on account of the confluence. And, demonstrably, there were no emergencies while they were, um. Busy.

Anyway yes back to hiding. Ahem.

Meanwhile, Tae-gun is trying to rapid fire run his brain throught he embarrassment procedures so that he can actually think about what happened yesterday so, without further ado:

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There. Done. OK. So.

Juheon was his first partner, when he was a baby esper, right after manifesting, and he does not want to think about the time he manifested thanks muchly. He had been a virgin prior to that and after that he was very much not in far more ways than he knew were possible at the time and he did not have enough maturity to deal with that in any way. Juheon was kind and nice and patient and they were exclusive because Tae-gun did not want anyone else to ever see him the way he got when under backlash.

His second partner Goh Ipsae, who decided to stop being a dungeon esper and became a civil contractor, was okay with non-exclusivity, but Juheon had partnered Hyun-jae and they were exclusive at the time.

His third partner was Si-yeon and same, Tae-gun was still very much not looking to let more people know.

His fourth partner...

And then his fifth partner Kim Jae-pil lasted exactly two weeks and Tae-gun could not bring himself to fuck him because Tae-gun was broken.

Is he still broken...?

Yeah, he is, but in new and more interesting ways he's sort of on the mend? And... he hates it, hates that it's true, but Hye-jin is the reason why. His partner broke him, and his partner is fixing him. He doesn't have any—agency in all of this. It just kind of happened. If it weren't for Hye-jin he'd still be wallowing in his pit of misery, if he hadn't been killed by something this confluence already.

And then Woo-young... He'd be lying if he said he hadn't noticed the latent sexual tension between them. Woo-young was the only person he'd ever allowed in, ever shown his vulnerable sides, other than his partners. And Woo-young was the person he'd been most vulnerable to, who'd seen him in every possible awful and awkward and embarrassing situation. If Woo-young had expressed any interest while Tae-gun was backlashed, Tae-gun would... probably have accepted his advances. He's kind of not sure why Woo-young never did but in retrospect... he's thankful. He's also not sure why he's thankful, but Woo-young probably knows, and that was probably why he didn't do it. Woo-young knows Tae-gun much, much better than Tae-gun knows himself.

Then he met his hyungs again and—

They don't hate him. They, they don't want him to leave forever, they, they don't think he's awful. That he sucks. They still, they like him. They missed him.

He missed them so, so, so much, he never realised how much, he wasn't letting himself realise how much because he didn't need more sources of misery in his life. They just, just—they care about him. And so do Hye-jin and Woo-young, and even Park Yoo-min and Choi Seungjoo, but, but Woo-young was right, he does love his friends. He does care very deeply about them. They make his life easier, they make it more worth living. And they just, they're just, they're taking him back. They're accepting him, broken as he is.

And when he thinks about it that way, does—all that embarrassing stuff—does it even matter? He's making himself more vulnerable—but that's not bad. It's not bad. When, when people are, when they care about you. It's not bad to be vulnerable with them. They won't take advantage of you. Other people aren't—that guy—they aren't—

They aren't Kang Jaeha.

...he's making himself more vulnerable around Chun-hee and Hyun-jae. They didn't know about his backlash before, he's pretty sure, and—they might guess it now.

That's... probably not bad. Who cares about the NDA? Would he have sued Juheon or Si-yeon if they'd shared his backlash? Obviously not. He'd have been heartbroken and devastated but he wouldn't have done that. It's just a formality. And—same for their partners. Same for all of his friends, really.

Could he tell Yoo-min and Seungjoo? He probably could. He thinks he trusts them. No, he just does trust them.

He doesn't know what to do with that.

There's a loud knock on the door.

"Tae-gun, I need to take a piss, are you gonna take long?"

...okay what he's going to do with that is punch Ha Si-yeon's teeth in.

"Did you see how many other bathrooms there are in this house?"

"They're so faaaaaaaaaar."

"I'm done anyway," he sighs, turning the water off and stepping out of the shower to start drying himself off.

The doorknob rattles. "Why'd you lock it?"

"So that a certain dick-sized midget doesn't barge in and decide to take a piss while I'm still in the shower. Chill." But yes he can dry himself quickly and then let Ha Si-yeon in while he steps out.