"I don't mind. I kind of want them to die screaming, too," she agrees, sounding very matter-of-fact.

"How dare they. How... how dare they." How dare he. Woo-young should have teleported him into a volcano five years ago.

"It is the coldest, cruelest and most unfair possible way to treat someone who has devoted her life to saving others. It is inexcusable and unconscionable and - yes. Die screaming. I suppose it's not 'kind of want,' now that I think about it."

"If I knew who it was I'd—I don't know. Out of all people my powers are amongst the most straightforward to use to—deal with someone—leaving little evidence behind..."

Nod.

"I would provide you with an alibi," she agrees, also very nonchalant about this.

"Well if anyone would collude with me it'd be my partner so I'm not sure that'd count for much but probably it'd count for any, yeah." Also, he's suddenly feeling so fond of her right now.

"The alibi would preferably not literally be me saying you didn't do it, it'd be something more clever like calling in favors to have someone agree that you were too far away to have possibly managed to reach anyone involved. .... Please give me at least a week's notice if you're going to commit murder."

"I'll try but if I find an opportunity I might take it anyway. ...not that I possibly could, I have no idea who did it." Even if he does have a very good idea who ordered it done. "But if I did."

Nod.

"I expect a lot of very powerful espers are all going to be very interested in investigating the situation. So." Pet pet pet.

"How's that even going to work? The dungeon's closed. Whoever did this has very heavy-duty illusion powers." Is he being very pessimistic right now? Yes. But he feels like he has a right to.

"Yes. But I also think that even if the person's not caught, there's going to be more protections in place around portals." Maybe the media would even stop getting to take pictures of espers the minute they walk out of a dungeon. "No one ever wants this to happen again."

"How many times must it have happened, already? How many people we lost to dungeons like that might have been killed by someone?" His brain goes immediately to Tae-hwan but that thought is obviously ludicrous. Tae-hwan had never made a single enemy in his entire life and they have a full account on what went wrong. His brain still goes there anyway.

"I don't know. And neither does anyone else. And that's why I think something will change."

"But that's horrible too, isn't it? We're constantly stretched thin, we have too few hands as-is, and we're going to have to spend even more resources now that we don't actually have, to deal with this. I hate them so, so much. I've never hated anyone as much as I hate them right now."

Nod.

"It's also horrible, yeah. But it could conceivably come from - non esper resources or persuade more espers to go into dungeons if they, for example, also don't have to deal with cameras coming out of them." Hug hug hug. "But I'm sorry. I don't have a solid reassurance." Except the alibi thing. That one's very real and very solid.

"I know. I'm not really looking for one. But offering to help me hide the body was a pretty good one."

"Don't be silly. You don't need help hiding a body, you're a teleporter. You're fine without my help. You need someone to confirm there was no possible way you could have managed it."

Her tone is playful.

"...I kind of want to kiss you."

"Oh, um." ........ "... you can," she decides, shyly.

In retrospect it's not surprising that having someone cheerfully and matter-of-factly support him in his murder plans is attractive to him but he's still a bit surprised.

Enough psychoanalysis, though, he has a gorgeous woman to kiss.

He does! And this is totally a way to help! Also: very nice!

User0001: Temperature check?

User0002: you realise that this is kind of inherently hard to estimate completion times for, right?
User0002: and you asking me this every other day isn't going to get you anything any faster

User0001: It's not every other day
User0001: You must've seen what happened?

User0002: doesn't matter
User0002: doesn't make it any more possible

User0001: ...are you saying it's impossible?

User0002: you know what i mean
User0002: it's complete bullshit
User0002: which is, you know, good news for your purposes!
User0002: we just need to figure out how to actually do it

User0001: I see.
User0001: And there are no progress updates you can give me.

User0002: ...i guess i can say that we found something that looks like a promising match?

User0001: Something.

User0002: yeah
User0002: something

User0001: I don't suppose I can throw money at it to help with your something?

User0002: lol no.
User0002: i wish

User0001: I see.

User0002: besides, you're paying me more than enough
User0002: just chill

User0001: I am nothing but chill.

User0002: lol sure

When Hye-jin wakes up, Tae-gun's no longer snuggling her. He's still holding her hand, but from a bit of a distance, and he's got his knees hugged in close while he awkwardly taps at his commscreen in front of them.

Hye-jin does not really feel all that much better when she wakes up. She feels wrung out, and snotty, and like she's the worst person in the whole entire world, and like no one gives a shit about her, and how the world is cruel and unfair and she didn't and doesn't deserve any of this, and she saw literally this exact problem coming and was stopped from trying to do everything in her power to prevent it by the people who knew the most about the situation, and that everyone that has ever claimed to have cared about her has failed her. She doesn't know which, if any of these, are reasonable to be feeling or thinking, and she can't really stop and doesn't know how to handle any of it.

Which is to say, she does not really want to be awake right now. And yet she is anyway. Cruel and unfair. She'll just... quietly remove her hand from Tae-gun's (her backlash is manageable now, she thinks) and turn over and curl in on herself away from him like some kind of prawn.

...well that's a promising start to his day.

"Good morning," he murmurs, pulling his hand away to hug his knees more properly.