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, none of them particularly impressive in their own rights, each lasting a handful of months and ending in the normal way these things do, with them finding partners they're more compatible with. 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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this_peculiar_power

"Some. Positive emotions are the first to go, remember? It's... easy... to get lost in worry and paranoia."

neither_rest_nor_peace

"Oh. You shouldn't. I'm really strong and hard to hurt."

this_peculiar_power

"Tae-gun-ah, you're the most precious thing in my life. How could I not?"

neither_rest_nor_peace

"...w-well, we still have a job to do. I, I don't want to insist if it wouldn't work, but... I like it when we get to work together."

this_peculiar_power

"I can't say no to you, Tae-gun-ah. I'll see what we can do, when Nightmare shows up."

neither_rest_nor_peace

neither_rest_nor_peace

"Let's break up."

this_peculiar_power

"...what?"

neither_rest_nor_peace

"I said let's break up, didn't you hear me the first time?"

this_peculiar_power

"I—I heard you, but—why? Tae-gun-ah, did I do something—"

neither_rest_nor_peace

"It's just that I don't really need you? I can deal with my backlash just fine with my hyungs, and you know you and I are asymmetrically compatible anyway. And the way you're kind of clingy... I mean, it's romantic, but I need my own space, you know?"

"Kang Jaeha-nim, that's—that's not real—" Says the tracker/mover esper accompanying him. He's a little bit panicked because, what the hell, how is Kang Jaeha being affected by Nightmare.

this_peculiar_power

God, is he really that easy? That didn't even sound like Tae-gun, how was he fooled for even five seconds. He takes hold of the mind of the other esper, erases that conversation from their memory, and erases Jaeha's nightmare from their awareness. Not that he expects they'll last very long, Nightmare is almost certainly not going to keep trying this now that Jaeha is onto it.

Jaeha is good enough at this that the esper barely notices anything wrong, and just keeps leading the way to their victim.

this_peculiar_power

This fucking sucks. He didn't want to keep track of more potential attack vectors from Nightmare targetting him in particular to keep them from everyone's awarenesses. He didn't use to have this problem, though it's immediately obvious that this is the first time he's gone into Nightmare and cared about anything. Of course Nightmare would exploit this newfound weakness.

The environment shifts into a forest at night. The shadows are too long and dark and thick, too difficult to see through. The sounds start getting muffled, replaced by an eerie quiet only disturbed by the wind.

neither_rest_nor_peace

"...this is harder to navigate. Hop onto a hoverboard, I'll just move all of us together."

this_peculiar_power

"Understood—" Wait no. Tae-gun didn't come into the dungeon with him. Again. Ugh. He wipes the other esper's memory and keeps following them.

neither_rest_nor_peace

"...Kang Jaeha-shi?"

this_peculiar_power

Ignore him ignore him ignore him.

neither_rest_nor_peace

"Hyung?" he repeats, more urgently.