"Woo-young was the one who got me out," says Tae-gun, arriving back at the table and placing the bibimbap and the sliced meat and the kimchi onto it with Juheon before starting to distribute bowls to everyone. "He's the one who figured out that something was wrong, and he helped me get away from—him." Tae-gun still can't say Jaeha's name aloud, can he, not when he's referring to his Jaeha as opposed to the monster out there. "So Kang Jaeha definitely knows about him."

"...oh."

Juheon and Si-yeon both apologised to Tae-gun for having let him pull away and not trying harder to keep him around but it's... even starker, as a failure, juxtaposed with how Woo-young, who wasn't as close to Tae-gun as they were, didn't fail that way.

“Right. Uh. … I suppose you’re also much harder to assassinate, since you don’t do crazy things like ‘go into a dungeon by yourself,’ but. Please be careful??”

"I'm also a lot less famous so it's harder to find me, hopefully, but I think I'm going to lay low and spend at least tomorrow feeding the guild battery rather than going into dungeons. We'll need to figure out something more permanent, though.

"All that said, Kang Jaeha has a lot less reason to get rid of me. I was around for five years and didn't manage to get Tae-gun back on his feet, whereas you're a more direct threat to his goals. ...presumed goals."

"Ice cold."

"...I don't know how to be reassuring about that, it really is that bad."

"We'll think of something."

“I suppose he’s had plenty of time to try and get rid of you, and hasn’t. It seems more like he’s possessive of partnering with Tae-gun over, hm, tactical reasoning? But still. Please be careful, and maybe hire a bodyguard or something when you’re out in the field?”

"Bodyguard isn't a bad idea. I have to imagine that he must've pulled out all the stops for that, if it were straightforward for him to do and if he's willing to go that far then there's no reason for him to not have done it earlier."

"Assuming it was him."

"Assuming it was him." Woo-young starts serving himself some food and gets some wine, too, while he's at it. He doesn't want to get drunk but he likes the taste. "But if it wasn't him then I'm probably safe, it's unlikely that if there's some other person who wants Hye-jin dead they'd also want me dead."

“Right. In this case being overly cautious about it being Kang Jaeha is just - being safe, not potentially ruining someone’s life. But also, I don’t know who else would want me dead. My breakup wasn’t that bitter, and he definitely doesn’t have the connections - or money - for this kind of stunt.”

"Someone holding a grudge over Volcanic Range for some reason. Sapient monsters—those wouldn't have money, I guess, but just throwing ideas out there. Could be just the first hit of some larger more organised group that's targetting espers for some reason. Could be not the first hit, like that, and you just escaped because of unknown powers. Someone who holds you responsible for failing to save someone they feel you ought to have saved, a civilian."

"...those aren't all very plausible but you're actually convincing me that there's merit to other possibilities."

"Not all of those are personal, and if literally anyone else, outside this group here, is hit, then—that'll almost certainly mean it's not Kang Jaeha, right?"

"Unless he does that to cover his tracks, which would be like him."

"Why did you like that guy?"

"Do you want me to list to you all the ways in which I'd be horrible if I had all of my empathy and positive emotions purged?"

“Yeah. The person we’re dealing with isn’t the same one Tae-gun-ah was with. He just shares a lot of characteristics. Let’s not - pick fights over people turning into something else over time?”

She nibbles her food thoughtfully, then says,

“… I do hope he was responsible, though. Because - well, for one, no secret worldwide conspiracy to assassinate espers, just a bad backlash and breakup. Objectively, the former is worse for the world than the latter, even if the latter sucks for us in particular. But, two, if - the assassin is caught and can be traced back to him tidily, then. We don’t have to make it about his powers at all. Less fallout for innocent psychic espers.”

...ah, here are the feelings he'd been suppressing, aren't they. He's hoping for the opposite. On an intellectual level, Hye-jin is right. On an emotional level... Tae-gun wants it to not have been Jaeha. He wants Jaeha to not be that far gone, he wants Jaeha to be—redeemable.

He wants Jaeha to be happy.

Ah, this hurts a lot, actually.

"So, two things we want to protect ourselves, Kim Hye-jin and hyung and me, from: having our heads messed with, and being literally murdered. Hye-jin hanging out with Tae-gun makes them immune to the latter, basically, while I'm—a bad target for the former. There's no amount of illusion he can put me under that would make my power fail to teleport me where I want to go."

"The danger is in what he could make you do before teleporting away."

"And Hye-jin is definitely the one that could cause the most damage that way."

“Yep. Please don’t rub it in, I am aware. This is why the second time he messed with me I peacefully smiled and hummed the most ridiculous song I know.”

"...I wasn't trying to rub it in, sorry."