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?"

"No."

Pout.

Woo-young will absolutely go get fed stuff though he is planning to drink enough to black out tonight he wants to forget literally everything that happened and to be told by everyone else about all the ways he embarrassed himself in tomorrow.

Say aaaaah.

That's his job, not hers. Hana will in fact patiently hand feed him his dinner. In front of everyone.

On the inside she's anxious about being judged or having this read into or or or - but her partner's health takes precedence over her anxieties, so.

Cute? Cute. Hana and Woo-young, that is, not Si-yeon being a bratty sub to her partner some more.

But she'll beam at Tae-gun and lean happily against him.

(eeeeeeeeeeee)

"Fugimura-san, I heard you do a lot of non-dungeon work?"

Oh, so they're going to hold a conversation while she's (carefully and diligently) hand feeding Woo-young?? That's what they're doing now??? Is this how normal people work, because she isn't one, so she doesn't know!!!

"Yes. Though, not lately." She shrugs awkwardly, carefully picking up another slice of grilled meat in her chopsticks to feed to her partner. "My work against Nightmare is -" oh no is she going to sound conceited?? "- particularly time sensitive, so. Everything else is on hold."

There. Nailed it. Did not come off as conceited and self obsessed.

Oh right she's working with Nightmare. He really doesn't want to talk about that, so he opens his mouth to switch back to the previous topic—

"Incoming."

A trio of women

arrive in a familiar flash

of blue light.

Yun Minseo is in the middle, hands held on both sides, and her gaze looks off into the distance in a way that many present might find familiar. She's not backlashing particularly badly, but her sight has yet to return.

(Confluences: extremely hard on sensor espers.)

"Hey," she says, to a spot on the wall.

"Aaaaaaaa~! You talked your partner into coming Woo-young, look at her she's so pretty and talented!" squees Ji-woo.

???????