"Hope your room has good soundproofing. Unless you want us to hear everything, of course, I'm not against that."

"...am I still allowed to teleport him back wherever he came from?"

"Just say the word!"

... That wasn't even an innuendo! She was just thinking that a living room is really more built for a larger number of people than an office!!

"Yeah, how about we move out of the living room where someone can already eavesdrop and add commentary whenever he likes."

"Yes, let's." They're done with their bingsu so it is not very difficult for him to manoeuver Hye-jin into a bridal carry so he can bring her upstairs.

Eeeeeee~!

"Message us your ideas in the morning," he says as he starts making his way upstairs. He considers also telling them they can sleep over if they want to but Hye-jin would probably rather not have to deal with socialising in the morning so he refrains.

"Roger that!"

She does not want to deal with socializing in the morning, no.

(She's not even sure she wants to do dungeons tomorrow, and it's a confluence! As before, it's not the dungeons themselves that are the problem. It's just that closing them involves the media and the public perceiving her, and she super, super does not want that at all. No answering questions about how she feels after having been shot, thanks.)

...but anyway his room is soundproof and after he closes the door he can kiss her with a teensy little bit¹ more passion than he'd been doing up until now.

¹ This is a severe understatement.

!!! Hye-jin gives a small delighted laugh, and is perfectly amenable to this sequence of events.

Responsibilities of operational efficiency have been handed off, and she and Tae-gun kind of need to show each other that they care about one another right now, and, well. ... This is a very nice (and efficient! With his backlash!) thing to be doing.

(She does have the presence of mind to make sure the door's locked, though.)

He places her on the bed and gets on top of her to keep kissing her there. "I like you, Hye-jin-ah," he says breathlessly in between kisses. "I like you so much."

"I like you too," she murmurs into his skin. "I'm - sorry I've been bad at communication and - generally bitchy -"

"I'm sorry I've been bad at showing that I care about and trust you," he replies, stopping with the kisses to hide his face in her neck. "I'm—happy we can talk and—figure it out. I hope we always can."

"Me too. I think we've got a good shot if we - keep trying to? Does that make sense...?"

(Her hands are trailing under his shirt.)

(He pulls away just enough that they can get rid of his shirt.)

"Yeah." I love you. "It does." I love you. "I trust you." I love you. "So please trust me, too."

"I - I'll do my best," she agrees.

And then they can stop talking entirely.

Yeah. They can.

Stop.

Just please stop.

Please move on. Stop doing this to me, to yourself, to your partner.

If my partner dies, I will never be able to forgive you. Stop, while I still am.

Of all the things. Of all the possible things to get in his way, Jaeha would never in a million years have anticipated this.

Why? Why does Tae-gun think it was him?

Is it because of her? Is that witch filling his head with absurd ideas? Tae-gun, his Tae-gun, thinking, thinking—

It all comes down to her. He had been trying to play nice, he'd wanted to scare her away, he'd known Tae-gun would have been upset if he'd actually hurt her, but he's always been willing to do whatever it took. But after everything, all his plans, this happens?

It's like some kind of sick practical joke the universe is playing on him. If he'd been religious this is when he'd have decided to kill God.

So now Jaeha doesn't have much choice, does he? He's going to have to find the person who shot Kim Hye-jin and he's going to have to deliver them to Tae-gun's doorstep wrapped in gift paper with a bow attached to their head, even though he doesn't want to. He really, truly wishes she'd died, he wishes she were dead, but she's not, and now Tae-gun thinks Jaeha's behind it, and he will need to find the shooter. How he's going to find them is a bit more complex, but he has time, money, and connections both above and underground. He will find them.

He knows where to start.

The meeting keeps going for a long time. They have some more ideas, and refine and add elaborations to the ones they've already come up with, and triage the ones that don't need input from Tae-gun and Hye-jin, then they take another break, and then they go into the topic of making sure Woo-young won't be shot. The immediate and most actionable idea, which is what Woo-young had been thinking from the start, is just that he'll hire an esper bodyguard. If he can get a precog that can warn for danger or something like that, he can get himself to safety very quickly, so he doesn't even need anyone super fancy. Si-yeon tells him he'll look into it and get back to Woo-young the next day, and eventually they all go back to their houses or silos as the case may be.