Well now she's crying again. The good kind, though. Sniffle, sniffle.

"... Yeah," she agrees. "I - I think so? All of my doubts are like - I'm scared of losing what we have now, I'm scared of making the same mistake again, I'm scared of doing what's comfortable instead of what I want, but. I. Think I want you? Um. As I get to know the - the you that has a life and friends and, and taking me to the other side of the world for a date and. It's sweet. I like you, and I like this, and. ... Probably we've been basically dating for a while now, this is just a word, and I've been very silly?"

"I, I mean, we've been going at it in, in a weird order, right, I mean, we basically started living together out of necessity and we, um, we've been, you know, intimate and stuff, but this is our first real date, and, and we were first coworkers, and, um, what I mean is that I don't know what we've been doing but it's probably pretty close to dating but it had a lot of work in it and a lot of being cooped up in my silo and I want to do the other dating things with you, too, so. I guess it's. Not that different. But it's a bit different."

Giggle-sniffle.

"A bit. Um. Promise that things won't - I don't know, change from here, and you'll keep...?" she doesn't know how to finish this sentence, and isn't sure how to describe what she'd like him to keep doing. The words 'putting effort into her' seem so... pathetic.

"...I, if anything changes I, I hope it'll be for the better? Um, I mean. I don't know what—I'm not going to ask you to be my housewife if that's—"

Snort!

"I wasn't afraid of that, just, just - I - I don't know, there was a point where, in my last relationship, I - stopped being worth the effort. And asking for - anything like this - was basically weaponized against me, picked up by the media and turned into -" She shrugs, helplessly. 'Fire princess.' It doesn't sting as much anymore, especially with her having apparently ascended to the fire throne to become queen, which she finds pretty funny, but. ... It still stings a little. "- well. What happened. So. Um. Changes for the better are good, probably, just. I do still kind of want to keep things like - this? I like this."

He takes both her hands into his and lifts them to his lips to kiss her knuckles. "I like this, too. And I like you. I'm not going to—give up on you. On us. And if I do then—kick my ass to the curb because I suck. You deserve everything."

Giggle.

"Okay. Thank you." Sniffle. "You do too. If that wasn't clear. I'm sorry I'm a bit fucked up."

"...Hye-jin-ah I think I definitely win any kind of fucked upness competition, here."

.....

This earns more giggling.

"Okay, yes, and you also win the shittiest ex award, between the two of us, just. I guess what I mean is thank you."

"It feels weird to say 'you're welcome' for something like—this—but—you're welcome.

"And I think you said you'd eat cake with me."

"I did! I did say I'd eat cake with you! Is here your fantastic vista for it, because if so, full marks."

"Yeah." He can spawn a (thick) picnic blanket for them to sit on from the remote storage and he can get another blanket for her if she's cold (though she can just, you know, keep warming them up, he supposes), and then he can spawn the cake he got from a bakery that sells the best cake he's ever had so that they can share.

Sounds fantastic! And she'll be happy to keep them both warm, since her partner is right there and it gives her every reason to keep close to him.

The cake is, in fact, delicious.