interlude: our carefree lives | Glowfic Constellation

this_peculiar_power

Lee Tae-gun. Korea's first and, currently, only S-rank. There are A-rankers who could get the promotion to S-rank, if they wanted to, if they revealed enough of their powers—or, at least, there is one, in Kang Jaeha himself—but this flash in the pan boy was the first one to decide to just go for it and now he's probably learning about how much it sucks to be the center of attention.

Not that you'd know from just looking at him. He's always gorgeous, stepping out of dungeons, and that's genuinely impressive in itself, but it's even more impressive if Quasar is right that they might be compatible. This implies things about the shape of Lee Tae-gun's backlash, things that suggest he's quite good at self-control, and that he must be holding quite a lot in, to be able to look like that. So that piques Jaeha's curiosity, and he looks into the boy.

Lee Tae-gun is 21; manifested really late, about a year and a half ago; has had three partners so far, two A-ranks and one B-rank, each lasting a handful of months and ending in the normal way these things do, with two of them finding partners they're more compatible with and one stepping away from dungeoneering. As far as Jaeha can tell, there's nothing particularly out of the ordinary in the boy's history. He's really just very straightforwardly boring.

And, well, Jaeha is also between partners right now. The story with him is also usually the same: he's never found anyone he had great compatibility with, and they'd all eventually leave, even if they never found someone else. Better alone than with Kang Jaeha. But he doesn't take it personally. He knows they probably want more out of a partnership than he can give. This boy will be no different, they'll spend a while together and help each other survive and eventually the boy will move on and Jaeha won't take it personally either.

So Kang Jaeha is in a meeting room, reading some files and waiting for Lee Tae-gun to arrive so they can figure out whether they'll do business together or not.

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neither_rest_nor_peace

He saw the logic even before she said it, saw the inescapable truth. This is a named S-rank, the smartest, most dangerous kind, the kind that has been escaping them for decades—they need to kill it. They cannot give it the opportunity to leave.

Fuck.

Yeah. She knows.

She made the decision, so she'll be the one to go through with it. She gets Woo-young to teleport all espers out, waits until every other person has left, then finally destroys the core and leaves.

neither_rest_nor_peace

How is he meant to face the public. How is he meant to act when they just, just—

With his head held high and the confidence that he did the right thing because now that threat is gone. It is gone for good. Their names are going down in history; even if they retired tomorrow, they'd have saved more lives than most espers do in their entire careers.

Ha Si-yeon

freefall

Sure doesn't fucking feel like it, though.

Fuck.

Min Woo-young

there_to_stay

The team leader gently encourages everyone else to go into isolation, but she needs to be there to answer questions and have her decision reviewed and all of that.

neither_rest_nor_peace

Yeah.

this_peculiar_power

Jaeha has to hold his annoyance and jealousy back when Tae-gun tells him about what happened. He went after Ha Si-yeon, at great personal risk, despite having no idea what had gone wrong—what would Jaeha have done if Tae-gun'd died?? It was a named S-rank. And he just, just—

this_peculiar_power

No. No. What did he expect? Did he really expect his Tae-gun to just leave one of his best friends behind? Obviously not. That's ludicrous. His Tae-gun wouldn't be who he is if he did that. Jaeha will be supportive, instead of petty and jealous.

"I'm proud of you, Tae-gun-ah."

neither_rest_nor_peace

"...I didn't do anything."

this_peculiar_power

"It certainly wasn't anyone else who managed to locate Ha Si-yeon-shi and Kim Chun-hee-shi and then figure out what to do to finish the fight."

neither_rest_nor_peace

He... guesses. It feels like it could have been anyone else. And...

"...and all of those people we didn't rescue, they..."

this_peculiar_power

"Oh, Tae-gun-ah..." He knows what it is that Tae-gun needs, here. He know that Tae-gun knows it was the smart decision, the correct decision, the decision that gets the most people safe in the long run, but... Tae-gun'll be beating himself up about it regardless. Or just plain old sad. And for that, he can hold Tae-gun close and pet him soothingly and just be there for him, the way Tae-gun's there for Jaeha.

neither_rest_nor_peace

...yeah. Yeah, that is what he wants. And, and he wants to be a little bit ridiculous and cry, also.

this_peculiar_power

Tae-gun. Tae-gun, no. Tae-gun it's not ridiculous to want to cry because your actions however indirectly or reasonably caused the deaths of others. That is approximately the least ridiculous reason for crying there could be. Come on, let it out.

Jaeha will be here for him, for as long as he needs Jaeha to be.

neither_rest_nor_peace

He has a good hyung. He's... really, really happy to have his hyung.

this_peculiar_power

This dungeon appeared on their day off (because confluence or no confluence they need breaks to survive) so Jaeha isn't too badly backlashed today, only the last bits of it that they didn't manage to clear over the past few days, so he can take care of Tae-gun, make him something nice to eat, give him a massage, just spend some time together doing dungeon aftercare. Some of it is sex, too, of course, but Tae-gun takes a bit to be sufficiently in the mood, after everything.

neither_rest_nor_peace

Yeah. Turns out that being responsible for the deaths of who knows how many people kinda kills the mood. Even when they do have sex it's slower and sweeter than they usually do it, a continuation of Jaeha emotionally supporting Tae-gun and being there for him. Because they love each other.

this_peculiar_power

Yeah. They do.

freefall

🪁freefall: Tae-gun
🪁freefall: im feeling like shit
🪁freefall: come get drunk with me

neither_rest_nor_peace

...whuh??

this_peculiar_power

What—oh.

this_peculiar_power

No.

No. Ha Si-yeon has kept Tae-gun for long enough, has made Tae-gun risk his life like that, and then go through all of this when he had to clean Ha Si-yeon's mess.

neither_rest_nor_peace