"But still, you're—valuable. I mean, your work as an esper." Losing Kang Jaeha would have material consequences to actual people out there, people would die more.

He can't say that he cares about that that much compared to how much he cares about Tae-gun, but—any. He does have any sense of empathy and duty, and it's not even all of it due to Tae-gun.

"Yeah."

"Are you under zero backlash right now?"

He opens his mouth to say 'yes' but then stops and turns his feelings over in his mind. "I think so. I'm not in any pain, I'm reasonably well-rested, and the mental part is... harder to gauge, but... I think so."

"Would you be able to tell that you got to this level of guided?"

"Not automatically. If I stopped to think about it, yes."

"But even with no backlash you still..."

"I still have the habits, yes. And... the impulses."

"But you haven't slipped?"

"Only this morning when I had just woken up."

"That seems manageable, then, right? If you come home right after your dungeons, we guide each other..."

Tae-gun! Just! Called! His! House! "Home"!!!!!! He might actually pass away.

"You're not going to find me complaining about you guiding me more."

"Speaking of which..." He reaches for Tae-gun and slides his fingernails lightly against the skin of Tae-gun's forearm. "You did go on dungeons yesterday, didn't you? And didn't get guided at all?"

"I think I should fix that."

He doesn't need to be feeling Tae-gun's emotions directly. Tae-gun is so, so very expressive, and he knows exactly what he needs to do to make that beautiful, amazing man beg.

It always boggles the mind, how good sex with Tae-gun is. You'd think he'd get bored of it, and honestly if you'd asked him at the start of this all what he thought would happen if he got rid of all of his backlash, he would have expected his interest to wane a lot. It hasn't, though, but to be fair it is for a reason he hadn't considered at all plausible at the time. Having sex with someone you love just feels different. And while he's sure the novelty will wear off eventually and the honeymoon phase is going to end eventually he's still not even close to that.

"What do you want to do with the rest of your day off?"

He scratches the back of his neck without looking up from his phone. "Um..."

"Is the answer that you kind of wanted to see if maybe you could do one of the dungeons you rescheduled this evening since our chat ended up being quicker than you thought it'd be?"

"You don't need to feel embarrassed. I was thinking the same. I'm... not sure they won't feel jerked around by us, but maybe we could see if we can do it at the same time? I can't pick up a dungeon to solo like you can but..."

Wait, really?

"I do feel kind of guilty taking two days off in a row like that, with no prior warning, especially with how, like you said, the work I do is valuable. Whatever affordance we may have due to how diligently we've otherwise worked over the years, the need is still there.

"Besides, this means that when we next have some scheduled time off we'll be able to rest more easily and maybe go on a date together. We haven't in a hot minute."

Well now he kind of wants to kiss Jaeha.

Unfortunately Jaeha has turned his powers off so he doesn't know that!