Oh, that would be so great, the mess of keeping track of relationships in Korean is so much.

"I-I wouldn't want to impose?" offers Hana hesitantly. In, admittedly, Japanese.

"I speak Japanese fluently."

"O-oh."

Hye-jin should probably translate that to normal people speak. "She absolutely wants to speak in Japanese, but is very concerned about being rude to the others present who might not have fluency," says Hye-jin, to Tae-gun, in Korean, so that everyone present can understand. She's pretty sure she knows what the answer is going to be from the assorted crowd.

ACK IS SHE SO TRANSPARENT.

To this one person who has experience with both Japanese people (having grown up in Japan) and emotionally constipated people (having partnered with Tae-gun). Sorry, not sorry.

...oh he didn't even think of that.

"Oh my gosh, Woo-young, is your partner another Tae-gun?"

"My partner is her own person! ...but in the way you mean it, yes."

Hee hee.

"They should've paid more attention in class at school anyway," says Si-yeon, also in Japanese, flomping onto a seat at the table next to theirs. "Their loss if they didn't."

"There's enough of us to hold multiple conversations in parallel," adds Yoo-min.

She does not actually blush, but. ... But. She'll give a shy nod.

"It would be kind of nice to get to speak in Japanese with more than just Tae-gun-ah and my mother," muses Hye-jin, in Japanese.

"I can speak some of it, too!"

...it feels oddly dissonant to be called "Tae-gun-ah" in the middle of a sentence in Japanese. Sort of how it sounded dissonant for Hye-jin to call Hana "Fugimura-san" while speaking Korean earlier. It's crossing some wires in his brain.

Hye-jin notices his expression, but doesn't know why he's making it.

"Hm? You're making a face," she says, to Tae-gun.

"—ah. Um. It's n—" No, Lee Tae-gun, you guys have talked about this. "Just felt a bit dissonant for you to call me 'Tae-gun-ah' in the middle of a sentence in Japanese."

... This earns a sporfle!

"We haven't had the honorifics talk in Japanese! I wasn't just going to assume! So I stuck with what we talked about! I - I can just go with Tae-gun or Tae-gun-chan or something if you'd like, just, we haven't had a conversation about it so - look I promise I have done worse things to both languages in my family. That doesn't make you feel any better at all, does it."

He did not think this through. "J-just Tae-gun would be fine, I think."

"Oh? Are you sure? Arguably Tae-gun-chan would be a closer translation to what we're going with in Korean..."

It is deeply weird and yet also kind of fascinating how a massive S-rank esper like Tae-gun is being reduced to a blushing mess.

Anyway, speaking of partners -

"Woo-young," says Hana, still in Japanese, "please come eat something before the meat I grilled gets cold?"

Hana is aware he is going to get incredibly drunk tonight. She is fine with this, but considers it her personal responsibility to make sure he doesn't get drunk on an empty stomach, and that his hangover isn't going to be too bad.

aaaaahh "chan is fine"

"Can I call you Tae-gun-chan?"