Sure, whatever he says.

"Anyway, I just meant that maybe I could help in my downtime. Flying around is less backlash intensive than most things I could be doing, and if I'm with you I'd get passive guiding that might help and even be backlash-negative."

"...hmm. Maybe." It's not an obviously awful idea.

"You don't look happy about it."

"Well... are you happy that I have to go into Nightmare?"

"...well, no."

"But I'm specced for it. You're not. Even if I can protect you... It still scares me."

"...hyung..."

"I don't know. Maybe. It would be reassuring to have you right next to me rather than off doing something insane on your own where I can't see and having to wait for you to come back home afterwards, not knowing if you'll die in a dungeon."

"Do you... worry about that a lot?"

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

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

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

"...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."

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

"Let's break up."

"...what?"

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

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

"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.

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 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.