It does, indeed, have a real fucking good guess.

"So! Did Tae-gun-ah call you up immediately for that date you had planned? Did he apologize for daring to think that his Jaeha would ever have someone assassinated?"

"Shut up."

"But I want to know how your brilliant plan's going! It's got to be working, right? Did you have a long night of passionate make up sex for all the years apart? Tell me all of the details!"

"Fuck you. That's not why I did what I did."

"Oh, covering your tracks, then? That'll go well. She definitely can't tell anyone that you were the one to hire her if you were also the one to turn her in, right, totally throws off all suspicion about how you mysteriously had a lot of ways to track her down."

"She obviously doesn't know it was me. And there were lots of people all over the world looking for her."

"Right, right, and there's nothing she could possibly know that would ever lead back to you, now that all of those people are looking for who hired her."

"That she knows? Obviously not. She got a hit contract, that's all. She's taken several of those before." He doesn't have a guarantee but she claimed that she had another esper erase most of the memories of individual hits after each of them so that she'd be able to truthfully claim to not know to have been responsible for a given hit. Obviously that's not sufficient if she ever actually got caught because postcogs exist, but still.

"Exactly! And I bet you've set things up to pin this whole mess on one of her previous employers. Get exonerated as you send someone else to - hm, it'd be prosecuted in Korea, right? Think they'd break out the death penalty for that? Tae-gun-ah will love that."

"Do you think he's not filled with murderous rage over this? I've met him. He is."

"Oh, no, I meant the part where you got another person killed. By pinning it on them."

"Whoever it was also deserved it."

"'Whoever it was'? You don't even know? How can you say they deserved it, then? How will you explain yourself to Tae-gun-ah?"

"They hired a hit on someone. Of course they deserved it."

"I'm sure your love will agree with you. Just as soon as you explain everything to him. Or were you planning to lie to him for the rest of your life?"

"I'm obviously not planning to lie to him for the rest of my life, are you stupid?"

"No, I just have to act like it in order to walk you through the knots you've tied in your head. What's going to happen, dearest Jaeha-oppa, if all of the backlash falls away and you tell your beloved everything?"

"I'm going to die. Obviously."

"Really? That's your brilliant, master plan?"

"It's not a plan, it's a prediction."

"Oh, come on, it can't end like that! That's - that's - that's so stupid."

"Do you have a fucking alternative? Yeah it's fucking stupid, I, I, I made a mistake somewhere and I don't. I just. I don't have a plan anymore."

"Fine! Then let's - let's workshop alternatives, okay, I'll help you, I bet there's a way I can pull someone's strings to fix this -"

"What the fuck?"

"You can't just fucking die! Especially not like that! We've - look I know we haven't always gotten along but we've been together for years - !"

"Dropping kayfabe? That's a first."

What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck???

"You're - you're the closest fucking thing I have to a friend, you prick! You're the only human that's anything like me and if you go off to die in a corner like a pathetic little worm where I can't even see -!"

The false Hye-jin in front of him fades away, and the environment starts... shifting. Alarmingly.

Like it wants to trap Jaeha (and also the humans that are with him, but mostly Jaeha) inside.

...Nightmare just called him a friend.

Nightmare. The dungeon. Just called him a friend???????

He drops the control over the others' senses so they'll perceive this, too.

"We need to move. Something's happening. We need to get out."

The esper with the tracking power freezes. "What—"

    The esper with the movement power doesn't. "Get ready to go in three seconds."

"NO," growls a disembodied voice, and the dark alley environment that had been simulated from the victim they were tracking falls away to total darkness, "stop him, he's going to - !"

The three of them are surrounded by a glowing transparent dome which shoots back towards the portal at a very alarming speed.

It would have options if everyone on the team weren't shielded, but Jaeha had the foresight to get himself shielded, so - there's -

- not really much this dungeon can do to stop them.

They break through a few disembodied walls on their way out, but that's about it.

They're spat out, and as soon as the shield pops out of existence Jaeha falls to his knees, hit by a belated panic attack.

What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck.

What has he done? What has he become? Nightmare? Thinks he's a friend?

Jaeha's entire life as an esper, the one thing that has always been his antithesis was Nightmare. He's its ultimate foil, no other esper can negate its powers as thoroughly as he can.

And it considers him a friend.

No. He cannot, he cannot let it win. He cannot let it have anything it wants. He cannot let it have him. He cannot.

And the best way to do that is—

And it's what he wanted, isn't it? He has lost. Everything he worked for, worked towards, for the past six years. Everything, all of it, just gone. Because of that woman. He fought her and she won. She won, and he lost.

He doesn't have a plan. He doesn't have a next step. There's nothing more he can do. There's no more future ahead, for him, now even more than back then. Tae-gun is gone. Tae-gun is gone forever. He will never have Tae-gun back. Even if he removed her somehow, even if she was removed by completely external circumstances, Tae-gun will never take him back.

Jaeha has lost.

There is no Jaeha without Tae-gun. There has never been Jaeha without Tae-gun, and if he can't have Tae-gun, then...

There's a procedure, for when someone comes out of Nightmare actively suicidal.

Hana notices the emotional cocktail responsible, and - is briefly unable to follow the procedure for the backlash-fueled panic that rises in her throat. It's a litany of worst case scenarios and what-ifs, thinking about implications instead of trying to focus on how to deal with the emergency at hand. How the fuck did it get Kang Jaeha, and How long was Nightmare doing something like this, and, selfishly, shit it's going after psychic espers I'm next, all of which are not helpful to saving anyone's life. She does not often use her own powers on herself - the backlash is always, always worse than whatever unwanted emotion she had squashed - but there are a few times when she allows herself to be weak and indulge. This is an emergency, and it's not about her; she needs to be able to follow procedure, and her head is filled with too much screaming to manage it as it is. So she pushes at her own emotions, to a flat and unnatural driven and focused not-exactly-calm that lets her hands stop shaking to input the appropriate alert into the comm system.

The person being marked as such being Kang Fucking Jaeha means that the ensuing alert goes out to, approximately, everyone involved with Nightmare, instead of 'a small team that will handle it delicately.' Which is what usually happens, for rescued victims.

Jaeha is oblivious. Has been oblivious for the handful of seconds it took for his brain to go through that line of reasoning, and continues to be oblivious as he opens his commscreen and requests a teleport home.

...which doesn't go.

What... the...?

Oh.

It's that woman.

He should've gotten rid of her the way he threatened to do, when he was trying to scare Kim Hye-jin away. Having a fucking empath around all the damn time is a fucking liability and now they're going to try to stop him.

He stands up, calmly, and gets everyone onsite to forget that they got the warning. His teleportation rights are still revoked, of course, since he'll only be allowed to use it once he's been cleared of risk of harm to self or others but if no one else knows that he's a risk at all they won't know to lift the lock, but that's fine. He doesn't need to go home to do what he must do.

What the - why is -? Everyone's acting like everything's fine, but Hana is for some reason terrified and concerned and - and she notes that her emotional state is the firm and unnaturally solid feeling of what it's like to have used her powers on herself.

Like she just suddenly had a time sensitive emergency dropped on her lap and the only way she could possibly handle it according to procedure was to do the one thing that always makes everything worse, even when it seems like it'll make everything better.

"Wait," she says, standing and - stumbling - out of the tent, "wait, don't -"

The perimeter around Nightmare is very, very large, partly because the portal is very, very large, so he's not out yet by the time she walks out of the tent.

He is, however, surprised by her appearance. Did she manage to remember, somehow? But obviously that makes no sense, no esper can actually perceive or resist his power, so she's probably—making some inferences about her own emotional states, goddamnit.

Fine. Shoo those memories, again, and make her think she's still in the tent for the moment, and erase himself from her perception for good measure.

That - doesn't - help - !

Fugimura Hana doesn't understand what's going on, and her emotional state doesn't make any sense, and she's - under some kind of hostile mental attack -

- so she does the only reasonable thing one can do in this situation, which is slam her own powers into projecting her confusion and terror, at, at - the thing she was afraid to face in front of her, which she remembers just being a tent but that doesn't make any sense and if there's anything that Hana knows, it's when and how her backlashed anxiety acts, and it doesn't look like this.

Wh.

Jaeha hasn't felt anything this strongly in years. Anything, anything at all. Not even his love of Tae-gun—or the fear of losing him—is this strong.

He doesn't know what to do with feeling something this strongly, it's distracting him from everything else, he doesn't remember what he was doing—no, he does, but it's not important right now—where is he—no, he knows that, but it feels like he doesn't—he needs to go, needs to run away, he's not sure where to and his brain is too full, he doesn't know what to do—

And everything that was an illusion falls away in front of Hana. The tent is gone, and she's instead on her knees - on the ground -? and pushing her emotions at the person in front of her, which is horrifying (and he can feel the flavor of horror and self hatred and disgust at this, since she's just projecting her own emotional state at him) but - also. It makes everything make sense.

She was resisting another esper's mental tampering. And - and - she won.

".... help," she says in a small voice, to, to - anyone that is nearby, there are probably some people nearby. She's afraid to let up on her power and afraid to keep going, and feeling awful and hating herself and continuing to push it at Kang Jaeha just so she can - keep - some kind of hold on this situation, let the other normal people without mind powers figure out what the fuck is going on and maybe tell her what the fuck to do.

There are, indeed, procedures for this kind of thing. Nightmare is a psychic dungeon, psychic espers are constantly coming in and out, weird unexplained shit can happen all the time.

(Granted, the procedures were not designed with the level of complete fuckery Kang Jaeha is capable of in mind so if it weren't for Hana's timely intervention they wouldn't have caught him. A fifty-page postmortem incident report detailing everything that went wrong today and what they should've done instead will be landing on someone's desk soon after anyone knows what to write in it.)

When something strange and unexpected happens involving psychic espers and/or dungeons, you send in robots. Drones, to be more precise, as well as some operatives with strong mental shielding making zero decisions on the ground and following step-by-step instructions given remotely by people nowhere near the incident site.

(There are no known espers with the power to affect targets remotely through technology.)

...self-hatred and disgust, that he knows what to do with. That was pretty much what he'd been feeling before, and he's—realising—that the jig is up, that that woman caught him and stopped him despite everything, and of course she did, because he's not good enough at this, he's never been good enough at this, he's been lying to everyone and most of all himself for years and it was bound to catch up to him someday and today is that day, apparently.

That's fine. It's fine. He was already planning to do it. He wanted a more foolproof method but he knows where his carotid artery is and he has a knife on him and if his hands are trembling and he feels like vomiting and his vision is swimming, well, he still has proprioception, so before the friendly men in the full-body armour can do anything he can grab his knife and close his eyes and—

When Hana wakes up, she's in a room on her own. It's not a prison cell, there's a sofa and a table and a chair and an open door leading to a bathroom, but there's something that looks quite a lot like a one-way mirror, a camera, and a locked door, and all of the furniture is bolted to the floor.

To someone as fond of procedure as Hana is, this will be familiar as one of the possible responses to a psychic esper who may have been compromised. It might take her a bit to actually realise this as she's coming to, though, since the effects of the sedative doesn't wear off immediately all at once.

....????

This is not quite Hana's worst nightmare, but. It's definitely up there.

Oh no what has she done, who has she hurt, nononono she should have never been born -

"... can I have my partner," she mumbles incoherently to the ceiling. Maybe someone will hear her, somewhere.

"As soon as we've determined you're safe," says a pleasantly calm and professional voice in Japanese. "I'm sorry for this. We don't think you did anything wrong and in fact as far as we can tell you acted admirably in a stressful situation and should feel proud of yourself. We just need to make sure you are not currently compromised."

"Okay," sniffles Hana, who is kind of unhappy with this particular procedure, even if procedure is usually so incredibly great. "Please let me know if there's anything I can do to assist."

And then she can begin quietly crying, because: she earned it, okay.

(At least someone said she acted admirably and should be proud of herself. They might be lying, but. ... It's nice to hear.)

"Please let us know as soon as you remember everything that happened before we tranquilised you. That may take a while, and that is a normal and expected effect of the tranquiliser, so please do not worry."

"Mhmm," she whines. "It's - I don't - it's very confusing? I... can try to explain..."

She does find systematically working through what happened from her perspective somewhat soothing. She is following A Procedure, and Doing All Of The Tasks. This is despite what she's relaying being extremely confusing and more than a little distressing, especially when she gets to the part of trying to explain her - complicated emotional state and what logic she used to justify using her projection powers at someone in a - somewhat hostile fashion.

"So, I, um. ... Trusted myself and. Trusted the people around me to know what to do. I was - really mirroring my own emotional state at him, nothing, um. Complicated. Is - um. There anything else you need to know?" (DID SHE DO A GOOD JOB???)

"No, your description is consistent with our observations. You have made tactically sound decisions that you shouldn't have had to make and our procedures will be updated so that situations like these don't happen again in the future.

"Do you believe you are currently under the influence of any mental effects aside from those inherent to your backlash?"

"..... I don't know how I would know?" she says, after a pause. "My - emotions make sense with what I remember but - I don't remember sending out any kind of suicide watch alarm. Or even how I got out of the tent and in front of him."

"Kang Jaeha-san erased your memories and those of all present of the few seconds just preceding and just following your sending of the alarm, and then he did the same for the memories of you going after him. Those effects are not ongoing; the memories are just gone."

???? why does anyone even have that power.

"Okay. Well. To my perception and current knowledge base, I do not think I'm being tampered with."

"It is not our current assessment that you are, either.

"Thank you for your work, Fugimura-san. Do you wish to be teleported to your shared silo with Min Woo-young-san?"

"Yes please," she says, immediately and without hesitation.

"Please standby."

It takes one second.

And she is suddenly being glomped by her partner. "Why is it that everyone in my fucking life is so obsessed with giving me heart attacks. Good God, Hana, are you okay?"

WHINE.

"I have a whole lot of feelings and will need to cry on you but I think I am physically unharmed???" she says, leaning into him. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to give you a heart attack. ... Proverbial, yes?" Because if she gave him an ACTUAL HEART ATTACK she will fling herself out of the nearest window.

"Yes, proverbial, girl. I'm so proud of you. You did so well. Did they tell you that? I told them that if they kept you for a minute longer than necessary I was personally getting you out, you were amazing, I know it's procedure but fuck procedure, procedure almost let that bastard walk off to do God knows what—"

"... I actually was following procedure for most of that..." protests Hana, but then she reassures: "They did tell me they were proud of me though, and said I performed admirably."

"You did, you did so well, God—"

The people in his life really, really need to stop giving him heart attacks.

Lean.

"Also I think he was going to commit suicide because he tried to have Kim Hye-jin assassinated and he couldn't see another way out. And, well, also Nightmare, but. Quasar was avoiding him, not Nightmare?"

"...how did you know all of that?"

"There aren't a lot of people that would want to kill Kim Hye-jin, and there aren't very many good reasons for Quasar to avoid an S-rank dungeon so systematically? And you have been very worried about me every time I went to work, even though I don't go into Nightmare."

He closes his eyes and hides in her hair.

...and starts crying.

???? oh no, has she done something wrong????

She will pet him and see if this helps????

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, it's been—so much—this man has been, has been—and then Tae-hwan—" sob "—I'm so tired. I'm so tired of all of this, I'm so tired of, of—" He hugs her more tightly. He's trembling a bit.

Pet pet pet pet pet.

"Yeah. I'm sorry. I think it's over now, though? There was an email last week to the Nightmare staff about a new humane solution for rogue espers, in retrospect it seems very conveniently timed."

"...what??"

"... There was an email. From Quasar's president. Saying that if we should encounter an esper driven - bad, I suppose - by Nightmare, that there was a solution for humanely shutting them down. Was it not actually about a clever way to stop Kang Jaeha??"

"....I have no idea!!!" What the fuck, did prez find—something—what—

Well, she'll show him the email, if he'd like to see?

Yeah, yeah he would, but—

"I, that—I don't know if it's—I should tell you what the cameras caught. But. I don't know if it'll matter so much, because—Kang Jaeha had a knife and—"

He's sobbing, he's lost track of how long he's been sobbing for, he's snotty and disgusting and he can't seem to stop crying. He can't stop. His brain isn't even having any coherent thoughts, anymore, just a repeating loop of the same thing: 

It's over. 

It's over. It's really, really over. He's free. They're free, they're all free, it's over, that, that thing is gone, it's dead, it'll never touch him again. Never touch Hye-jin again. It's over. It's all over. He doesn't know what all of the feelings he's feeling are, he's sure there's grief there, somewhere, too, but the main one is pure relief.

It's over. It's over. It's really over.

Hye-jin is... well, she's fine, actually? It doesn't feel real, yet, she doesn't fully believe that the danger is gone. She doesn't trust it, which leaves her at square one, really. Which is - not great, but fine. If it's actually over, then: good. If it's not, well. It won't catch her by surprise again. All of her ability to hope that it'll be over has been systematically bled out of her over months.

But she will be holding her boyfriend regardless, and making sure he gets enough calories and liquids into him to offset the crying.

She does, actually, hope that it's over. For both of them.

(But she'll need a while to believe it.)

...I missed, a small and unimportant part of his brain registers. The side of his neck is bandaged, and he must've bled quite a lot, with how weak he's feeling, but—he's alive. He's alive, on a hospital bed, hooked into IV fluids, handcuffed to the bed.

He thought he was suicidal before, but he really had no idea just how badly one could want to die. No idea at all. 

The handcuffs are not the only restraint holding him in place, because they wouldn't be enough to make sure he wouldn't try to kill himself. He's properly tied to the bed, he can barely move, he can't pull those bandages off and try to finish the job, let himself bleed the rest of the way out. 

He's got an inkling of what the handcuffs are for, though, ivory in colour and texture, cold to the touch. The way it feels like they're pulling something from him, draining him of—something. The way it feels like they're not quite made purely of matter.

When he told Nightmare he was going to want to die if he ever ran out of backlash, his prediction had been completely correct.

"Please," he tries to yell, tries to call out to someone, anyone at all, but his voice comes out in a hoarse croak. "Please kill me. Please. I can't, please, I don't deserve to, I'm—"

Everything he's done. Everything he's done. 

What has he done?

They're too late. Too late. If there was ever a time when he could be saved, that time is long gone. He doesn't understand why this, why now, how they have some, some—it must've come from a dungeon, whatever these cuffs are made of. He has no access to his powers, none whatsoever, and all of his backlash is gone, or at least the parts of it that aren't just physical damage. 

And this? This is much, much worse than death. 

He should've let Nightmare keep him. Should've let it eat him, take him away to wherever it is that the people lost in dungeons go when the dungeons disappear. It was stupid, thinking he could have any measure of control over how he'd go. He should've just gone. He should've just gone, just surrendered to the dungeon, walked off into nowhere until he starved.

Or just killed himself in there. No one would've stopped him. He would've succeeded, if he'd tried. Except maybe Nightmare would've stopped him, would've made him just keep wishing he was dead forever. 

At least outside he'll only wish he was dead for at most as long as it takes him to die of old age.

"Please," he whispers, feeling the tears run down his face and not even able to wipe them off. "Please. I'll do anything. Please. Just kill me. Just let me die. Please—"

How could he. How could he? How, how dare he do all of this to, to, to Tae-gun.

His Tae-gun—

He can't. He can't call Tae-gun "his". There are many people who can. Min Woo-young can. Kim Hye-jin can. He cannot. He has lost the privilege to do that, if he ever even had it. Min Woo-young was better for Tae-gun than Jaeha could have ever been. 

If, if only—

He wishes Min Woo-young had caught him earlier. Had figured it out earlier. That whole year in which he, he, he hurt Tae-gun so much. 

The most important person to him. The person he loves the most. But how could he ever claim to love him, after having done all of what he did? 

There were so, so many times when he could've chosen something else. Could've done something else. Something that wouldn't hurt Tae-gun, something that wouldn't hurt hapless bystanders—

Insoo.

Why did he do that? 

Kim Hye-jin.

Why? Why? 

Can he figure out how to bite his tongue hard enough to bleed out from that? He's heard about this.

Except that with all of his feelings back he's also afraid of the pain.

That's so pathetic. He's a worthless worm, worse than that, he's a disgusting parasite and he can't even do the world a favour and die properly. 

Why did they save him? Why did they keep him alive? 

"Please," he repeats once more. There must be someone listening, they wouldn't just leave him alone here, would they?

But maybe it's what he deserves. Maybe death is too good for him. Maybe having to live with the monster he is, with the memories of the last nearly eight years is his punishment. 

Maybe he should have walked off in Nightmare. Maybe staying there forever having his entire life twisted into the tools of his punishment is what should've happened. 

Maybe he can convince someone to let him do that. If they're doing this so he can suffer, that might get somewhere.

No, he doesn't think he can do that. Selfish until the very end, is Kang Jaeha. He thinks he can, actually, muster up the courage to bite off his own tongue. In the worst case, someone will have to find him and then he'll be able to beg more effectively.

He opens his mouth.

And fails to close it.

Oh for fuck's sake they had some fucking esper install a compulsion or some shit in his brain, he can't even take actions to kill himself.

Does it count as cruel and unusual punishment, to keep him here against his will without any human contact while he finds every second of existence excruciating and worse than death? He supposes not; institutions exist, after all, so even if it is cruel it's not really unusual. He's even been in one, when he manifested and had to experience the full brunt of his backlash for several days.

But this is still worse. Back then, he just couldn't feel anything as strongly. Right now, this is agony. This is the definition of hell, is being forced to look at and live with everything he's done, especially everything he's done to the love of his life. Being unable to escape, unable to think of anything else, his mind drawn inexorably to all of the ways he's been horrible, to the memories of how Tae-gun's been worsening and worsening over the years because of him. It's sickening, and it's sickening that he ever thought he'd be able to live with himself at the end of it all. It's insane that he failed to understand what it meant to not feel backlash, what it would turn him into, until the very end. He's disgusted with himself, disgusted with how the emotion he felt when he saw a person healing Tae-gun was anger and hatred. Kim Hye-jin is everything he isn't, is better for Tae-gun than he could ever be, and instead of being happy for him Jaeha was jealous and possessive and wanted to get rid of her.

And he can't even convince himself that the person he was while backlashed isn't him. He knows what he's like, what he was like, when fully guided. That person was still there, under all of the backlash. Someone else with his backlash wouldn't have done everything he's done. Tae-gun wouldn't have done everything he's done. The only difference between him now and him yesterday (or however long ago that was) is that now he is aware of how wrong it all was.

Please let him die. Please. Please, please, please. What does he have to do, how can he make it happen, trying to think of ways to end it all is the only way he can distract himself from the rest of his thoughts and it's not any more pleasant but at least it's unpleasant in a different way.

He hates himself. He loathes himself. He's a mistake, he's a blight on this world, he should have never been. Tae-gun should've found Kim Hye-jin first, should've known the happiness he's currently experiencing years ago, should never have been touched by Jaeha. There is no Jaeha without Tae-gun, and Jaeha should never have touched Tae-gun, never have sullied Tae-gun with his existence, and therefore Jaeha should never have existed.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

He shouldn't exist.

Eun-ji has been having a very exciting confluence. It's a good thing this isn't her first, because then she thinks she'd quit out of despair that every single one might be like this. As it is, she's - well. Coping.

And the guy (probably) responsible for giving her such a massive fucking headache is, at the very least, in custody. That helps. Means the headache is almost over. Probably.

"Oh, oppaaaaaa~" calls Eun-ji, poking her head into her cousin's office. The secretary let her past, obviously. "Hello, this is your regular wellness check from your very favorite cousin, how big's your headache?"

He looks... alright, actually? Almost cheerful?

"Oh, better than it's been in weeks, thank you for asking," he says.

"And I surely have no idea why that would be, and will make no guesses as to anything in particular that might be causing it," agrees Eun-ji, nodding.

"If you don't want to make any guesses, then, is there something else I can help you with, Eun-ji?"

"Aw, I can't just actually come to check on you?" She pouts, briefly, then smiles and shrugs. "Fine, you're right, it's nothing like me. Your fancy secret project! The handcuff one, not any other secret projects you may or may not be doing in the background. Someone sent me a message saying it was doing something against backlash? What are the specifics there, because it'd be great if it were a miracle but, like, I doubt it's that simple because weird dungeon tech's never that simple."

"It really isn't," he agrees. "So remember that time a while ago our favourite S-rank espers walked out of a dungeon carrying several deer skulls encased in ice?"

"Yyyyyyes. Vaguely." She was kind of glad that they encased them in ice and avoided a social media headache of them dragging out literal skulls, and that's about all she remembers. "Were they, like. Power negating or something?"

"Pretty much. The antlers, specifically; Tae-gun couldn't cut them off because they were turning the ice blades he'd been using to try to do that into, well, just regular ice. And a material that negates esper powers was not easy to manipulate, let me tell you that.

"Anyway, they suspend the effects of all supernatural phenomena touching them and start slowly absorbing them, and also if they happen to form a closed circle around something supernatural they completely suppress those effects. If Kang Jaeha-shi takes them off then his powers and his backlash will be back, but if he keeps them on they will actually drain his backlash completely over time." He sounds kind of excited about this. "They don't do anything about the physical symptoms, though. Those need actual guiding."

"... Huh! So this is actually a helpful backlash mitigation method, along with being - you know, rogue esper shutdown. But it's - suppression, not elimination, yeah? So if it gets marketed out to everyone you get a brand new set of wannabe Tae-guns, all breaking themselves because they don't feel their own backlash screwing them over."

Eun-ji: already thinking of how this can be leveraged for the good of espers everywhere. Obviously.

"There's also, you know, a finite number of them." Some people over the years have discussed the possibility of keeping a dungeon that produces good materials open to farm them but unfortunately dungeons will just in fact eventually seal themselves and then reappear years later much deadlier if you do that so it's not worth it. "And they get filled up, sort of like batteries. It seems like if they're not actively absorbing anything though they get slowly drained over time? But it's not certain and if it happens it happens very slowly."

"Yeah. But good for the mental backlashes that mess with cognitive function. To be researched, very experimental, don't get excited, I know the drill. What's our explanation for, uh, handcuffs in particular? We were going for backlash reduction bracelets and then, whoops, we saw a potential niche when the power suppression hit?"

"No, I think we're going for a more holistic approach, we weren't aiming for anything in particular but we saw the vague nebulous potential of power and backlash suppression and it's been such a problem over the years that there are certain espers we can't safely contain in humane ways so we've had to do distasteful things and so on so forth. ...but it was Kang Jaeha-shi in particular that I poured that R&D money into this for. Eun-ji you have no idea how happy I am that creature is contained."

"I've got some guesses. Congrats, oppa. Oh, and if you haven't heard, but you probably have - Nightmare sealed itself up and left, so the pressure to release Kang Jaeha on necessity's left with it."

"I have absolutely heard that." He's not even trying to pretend he isn't extremely gleeful anymore. "Pray to our ancestors that the confluence is over, Eun-ji, I think the stress's eaten about ten years off my lifespan. I'm getting grey hairs, Eun-ji!"

"Why do you think I dye mine," snorts Eun-ji, flipping her hair. "I will be praying that we never get another confluence like this again, this has been way too long and too damned exciting for my taste."

"Haah..." he sighs, dropping his head onto his desk with a loud and painful-sounding clunk. "...ow. The dramatic effect was not worth this." He doesn't lift his head up, though. "And on yet another bright side, Kang Jaeha-shi is not my problem. Lucid's going to have a very tough time and we're going to look prescient. I'm just worried about what this whole thing will do to the public perception of psychic espers—" He cuts himself off and looks at her again. "Actually, have there been any leaks about his powers yet? I know nothing official has come out but..."

"No. I've been keeping an eye on it. It's, like - so all of the people that experienced it were Nightmare people, who had worked with him for years at this point? All professionals who do this as their job, not civilians with phones. And they and the public seem to be glossing it as 'Nightmare caused him to have a breakdown,' over, you know," she wiggles her fingers ominously. "Anything else that might have been happening. So, pretty leak free, with a lot of speculation about Nightmare growing scary new abilities."

"...honestly, that's fucking me up, too, pardon my French. How did Nightmare get to him? Was he... refusing to shield himself for some reason? It can't be a coincidence that he broke down like that right after leaving Nightmare, but... it feels like there's still stuff I don't understand and I don't like having stuff I don't understand about that guy."

"I don't know. It's scaring a lot of other people, too. There will be a lot of questions around that, but." She shrugs. "We've got our own problems. Let's let the Nightmare people sort theirs out, and we'll sort out ours, yeah?"

"Yeah. Yeah. You're right. I'm just... I'll just enjoy the fact that it's over. God, I hope this gives Tae-gun some peace. I hope he'll be able to go out in public again. I hope..." He hopes that he can finally make up for failing Tae-gun so completely years ago.

"Yeah." This looks like a job for hug. And: "Good job, oppa. You got him."

He hugs her right back. "Nightmare got him. Our fucking luck with Kim Hye-jin's powers being as bullshit as hunny gunny's got him. His own goddamn obsession with hunny gunny got him. I sealed the deal but he dug his own fucking grave, for nearly six fucking years.

"...but thank you, Eun-ji."

"Fine, fine. Team effort. But you helped, so. Good job."

"That fucking bastard," growls Si-yeon. "Of fucking course he'd do something like this. Do you know how easy it would be for the postcog I had on the case to track his original connection now?"

"Impossible?"

"Ding ding fucking ding we've got a winner! Of course the causal entanglement between him and the assassin now will be fucked to hell and back! But hey at least we fucking confirmed it was this person who shot the bullet that got Kim Hye-jin, ain't that fucking awesome."

"Oppa unclench your fingers."

He does, taking a deep breath, then grabs his shot glass of soju and downs it. "Fucking bastard."

"It's honestly really an annoyingly smart move on his part."

"We were almost onto the shooter, too! We already knew like eighty-five percent of the evidence he collected, I'd have given you even odds we'd have found her in a week."

"Surely he'll have left any trail, though? How else would he have found her before anyone else if it wasn't him?"

"That's what we're hoping to find but I'm a lot less confident now. It's easy to prove he was the one who found the assassin but everything else..."

"You've got leads?"

He presses the heels of his hands into his eyeballs. "No! That monster is going to fucking get away with it!!!!"

"...hey you don't really think..."

"I don't knoooooooooooooooooooooow," he wails.

"I don't know. Now he's just going to, to claim it was Nightmare messing with him all along or some shit, even though that makes no sense unless he was actively refusing to shield himself for some goddamn reason."

"Oppa..."

Si-yeon wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. "Look at me go, breaking down because of this when Tae-gun had to endure it for years." He slaps his face a few times. "No. We'll figure this out. We're getting this guy behind bars come hell or high water. He's in custody right now, that's, like, half the battle already."

"...that was a quick turnover."

"I'm too pretty to be upset for very long." He fills his shot glass with soju and drinks more. "And I've got a meeting in an hour with someone who's going to help me and I should not ruin my makeup."

"You wear makeup?"

"Duh. Gotta accentuate my assets."

"How have I known you for almost a decade and never been told this?"

"That's entirely on you, noona."

"Who are you having a meeting with?"

"That is, unfortunately, confidential, and also doesn't matter. It'll work out. I know it will."

Jaeha was eventually informed that he'd been left alone to guarantee that he was not still under any hostile effects and not because they wanted him to suffer for his sins. He is not as far as he's aware under any hostile effects other than the compulsion not to bite his own tongue off, and once he's no longer being IV fed most of the restraints come off except for the cuffs tying him to the bed. Since he understands incentives and any other suicide attempt would not only fail but also get him restrained again, he doesn't try to do anything crazy anymore. 

There's a TV, and he has access to some books, but not to the internet or the news, so in addition to acutely miserable he's also bored.

He is visited soon enough by a woman in a pencil skirt and professional blouse.

"Kang Jaeha-nim? I'm Kim Su-bin, I'm here to help advocate for you on behalf of Lucid. First of all, I'd like to apologize for your treatment so far. It was largely out of our hands and we've made numerous complaints already. You should have been treated with kindness and respect instead of suspicion, instead of used as a test subject for a rival guild's pet project, and certainly not given solitary confinement for such an abominably long time. I hope these amenities have helped put you at ease. Is there anything I can do to make your stay more comfortable?"

Kill me. 

He doesn't say that, because he, again, understands incentives. He'll leave it for later. "I feel very honoured to have been used as a test subject for said project and my only regret is that this wasn't available as an option seven years ago. My life would be much different nowadays if I had had it.

"Under the circumstances it is unfortunately impossible to make me any more comfortable without sacrificing some other things I believe Lucid to care about, though."

... What?? This is not the way she was expecting this to go.

"In... what way do you mean?"

"Why don't we start by you telling me what your goal would be, here?" he counters with the kind of mildly interested tone of voice that would be paired with folding his fingers and leaning forward on a desk, were he able to do that.

"I'm here to help smooth over this incident and get you the help you need, so you can live a long and fulfilling life, Kang Jaeha-nim," she says, with all of the impassioned inflection of a seasoned bureaucrat. Which is to say: none.

"What does 'smoothing over this incident' entail, exactly? What would the end result have to look like, for you to consider it to have been 'smoothed over'?"

"... We'd like to avoid you ending up in prison, or a psychiatric ward," she says flatly, after a pained pause for the realization that he's not going to be cooperative.

"Ah, I see. Would that remain true even if I had in fact commited any crimes? Not that I'm claiming I did, of course." Yet.

"Well, first, I would like to stress to you that I am not a lawyer, and this conversation is being recorded, so you should not be taking this or treating this as legal counsel. Second - we at Lucid feel that the situation after your latest foray into Nightmare is extremely extenuating circumstances, and you were almost certainly not in your right mind at the time, and cannot be held accountable for what was obviously a hostile attack on you by Nightmare itself."

"It is certainly understandable to not want to hold anything that happened then against me. I agree I wasn't in my right mind." Those statements are both true and mostly entirely unrelated to each other, of course.

"I'm glad you recognize that. So - on that note, is there anything I can speed up for your comfort? Having your partner visit, maybe?"

"I think Kim Insoo would prefer not to see me right this minute." He's going to ignore the painful pang of conscience he gets whenever he thinks about how horribly he's treated Insoo. "What you could speed up is me getting out of here, of course, but I assume I'm stuck here until Lucid has determined that I'm safe?" That might be illegal but he doesn't actually know what comes next instead.

"I'm afraid so. I apologize, but there's not much we can do. You're - in sort of a legal grey area of not officially being arrested, but nonetheless detained here for the foreseeable future."

"I'm certainly not in Lucid's custody, though. I'm sure there are other people who are going to be checking in on me, if nothing else to make sure I'm being treated according to the law."

"You're not in Lucid's custody, no. We have been advocating for your interests so far, and will continue to do so where possible."

"Mmhm. Then I'm not sure what it is exactly that you need from me. Tell me what the party line you want me to parrot is and I'll do that. It doesn't seem like I have any power here to make any choices."

"Sir, that's a very cynical outlook. I'm here to help you accomplish your goals." The addition 'as they coincide with Lucid's' is unspoken, but still very obvious to anyone with experience in these matters.

"Kim Su-bin-shi, you cannot do that."

She definitely can't if you don't tell her what any of your goals are, jackass.

She does not say this.

"... If it's all right with you, I'm going to request private sessions with a therapist," she sighs, instead.

"Kim Su-bin-shi, what I would like is to confess to a laundry list of crimes I've committed over the past six years including having been the one who called the hit on Kim Hye-jin, to make amends for those to the best of my ability, and then to die."

"... what," she croaks, a little hoarsely.

"So, as I said, there is nothing you or Lucid can do to help me."

"I can see you're likely still in the middle of some post Nightmare processing and potentially backlash recovery. I'll request that your partner come visit you. In the meantime I'm... going to go... send some emails. There - should be a buzzer available for you to press if you want anything? Please do if you need to."

And then she flees, because it is absolutely not her job to risk Lucid for this one guy, A-rank unparalleled mental esper that he is, and what the fuck.

Oh. Maybe telling her what he wanted is going to help him get what he wanted. Surprising! He's not going to complain.

Things are starting to go his way. Maybe he will soon be able to die.

It's only a few minutes later that the door to his room slams open. "Hyung!"

Oh. Oh no.

"Hyung what the fuck happened I got a message saying you're, you're, unstable and maybe I shouldn't come but maybe you're being affected by some experimental drug or something?"

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

"Insoo."

"What? What, hyung? You don't look unstable but do you need guiding—"

"Insoo, stop talking."

"...well I guess you can't be that unstable if you're already back to being a dick—"

"Insoo I am so, so sorry."

...wait, what.

"I... am about to tell you of a way in which I have harmed you and have been harming you for years. It will make you hate me. You will be right to hate me. I want you to wait until I'm done and then if you—want to hit me or, or something—"

"Okay I'm not sure I'd call this unstable but you're freaking me the fuck out, hyung."

"I have never loved you."

oh

"We are not compatible. Not symmetrically. You guide me very little. I have used you to keep my backlash levels stable and high for years."

"Wh—wh—"

"I'm a horrible person, Insoo. I have been obsessed with Lee Tae-gun for almost a decade. When we were together, I systematically used my powers to isolate him from his support network and trap him with me because of that obsession. When he finally managed to break free from me I devised a plan to get him back while my backlash was getting steadily worse. I manipulated you and used you, I kept you exactly as close to me as was necessary for you to never leave me but not so close that it would be surprising if I did—"

His legs almost give out and he has to lean against a wall to hold his weight up.

He continues, relentless. "I kept obsessive track of everything Lee Tae-gun was doing. I diverted potential partners away from him. I tried to make sure he would get more and more backlashed over the years until he eventually had to choose between me and dying in hopes that he'd choose me—"

"Why—"

"I didn't want anyone other than him to guide me. I felt disgusted every time you touched me. I used my power on you constantly to manage you and make sure you only saw what I wanted to show you. I lied to you. I manipulated you. All because of a deranged belief that if I did this for long enough I would be able to get Lee Tae-gun back."

This, this, this is too much. This, it, it doesn't, it doesn't, "This doesn't make any sense, hy—" Can he even call Kang Jaeha "hyung"? "Just—who are you—"

"Insoo—"

"It, it, it's Nightmare. It must be. It, it got to you somehow, otherwise, otherwise why—why would you—"

"The experimental procedure is these handcuffs." He rattles them. "They seem to be completely suppressing both my power and my backlash. I have not felt this guided in years—since, in fact, I was Lee Tae-gun's partner. I'm confessing all of this to you because I—"

His voice cracks. "Because I cannot bear to keep hurting you this much, Insoo. You didn't deserve this. You didn't deserve me. Didn't deserve the awful ways I've treated you, didn't deserve this, you're—you're such a good person, Insoo, such a bright and, and, and beautiful—you didn't deserve any of this. You didn't deserve any of this. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Insoo, I'm so, so sorry—"

"I, I, I, this, but, Nightmare, you—"

"I'm sorry, Insoo. I'm sorry. Please hate me, please don't, don't think it was your fault. All of the little ways—the insecurities, the way you felt like you were never enough—I did this. It was me. I made you feel this way, I made you feel like you're not enough, but you are, you are enough, you've always been enough—"

Oh. Oh, so he—he knew. Of course he knew. He knew, because it was him. All the, the, if he knew—he knew—

"All Nightmare did was shown me in detail that there is no way for me to get Lee Tae-gun back." The tears are flowing freely, now, and he's staring at the ceiling, because he can't bear to look at Insoo's face, he's a coward and he's selfish and he can't even face the man whose life and self-esteem he ruined almost on a whim while he finishes crushing that man. He just can't. He's too weak, he keeps saying he'll face the punishment but even wanting to die is just wanting to run away, because he can't actually face any of it. "And so I wanted to die, because if I couldn't have him then life wasn't worth living. Everything else was—an accident. I was caught before I could act on it, and I got here, and they happened to have this—humane esper containment procedure—" Because he also got the email and it doesn't take a genius to put two and two together. "I'm sorry, Insoo."

"I have to go. I have to, have to—" He doesn't use the door, he just requests a teleport from his personal stash of credits so that he can be away as quickly as he possibly can.

Jaeha squeezes his eyes shut. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry—"

Someone else pokes his head into the room about half an hour after Insoo leaves.

"Kang Jaeha-nim? I'm with the Korean government. If you'd like an attorney present, we can provide one for you, but you said there were several crimes you wanted to confess to?"

He's managed to calm down some over the past half hour and he was allowed to go to the bathroom and wash his face but he still kind of looks like shit.

"I would in fact like an attorney, if possible, yes." Not because he doesn't want to confess; rather, he wants to figure out how to, in the process of confessing, get all of his money and assets into better hands so that he can at least make any sorts of amends at all ever. He's filthy rich, surely he can use that to bring some good in the world, even if it doesn't offset all the harm he's wrought.

Damnation. It would have been so straightforward to just get a confession immediately, and if what he said earlier was true, the public outcry would be enough to get it fastlined through court. But yes, yes, fine. This will probably go over better legally, anyway. He's well aware that Lucid would absolutely be up his entire asshole about taking advantage of an esper in an altered state of mind if he actually managed this.

"It's absolutely possible. Would you rather leave hiring one to your guild, hire one personally, or have one appointed by the Korean government or someone you trust?"

"I have a lawyer on retainer," courtesy of dear daddy being one of the richest men in the country, "so I would like to keep working with her, if possible."

Nod.

His lawyer's name is retrieved, and then the man scurries off to go retrieve her.

Soon enough he will be legally represented while he confesses to all of his crimes. He'd still like to do that, right?

Yes, he would, with again the caveat that he wants literally any good to come out of it and "his father gets all of Jaeha's shit back" would not count and he's not totally entirely sure what happens if he gets sentenced to life in prison or (even better) capital punishment. Like, can he donate his assets, how does he do that without fucking Kang Jaehyuk claiming he was too mentally unwell et cetera.

.... wow.

Everyone is very impressed with the intelligence and efficiency with which he is systematically destroying his own life.

They're sure not going to stop him, though. Not even Lucid. He has successfully communicated to his guild that they can't protect him without going down themselves, and that he doesn't want them to try.

So they won't.

Yeah.

He hopes Lucid and the Nightmare team can figure out a way to spin this that won't cause any splash damage to other, innocent psychic espers. This was, very much, all him.

He's sorry.

"He.... confessed???" blurts Hye-jin, having just made the stupid decision of checking the news even though, probably, she should just stay in the underwater silo. Even though it doesn't have internet.

...there is really only one person she could be referring to in that sentence and with that tone of voice but since that does not actually make sense as a thing to have happened he is just—confused.

YEAH. YEAH HER TOO.

"I don't understand, why would - why would he - what," she continues, scrolling through the article and trying to figure out where the fucking trap is.

"You mean—you mean—"

She shows him the article.

Kang Jaeha confesses responsibility for attempting to have Kim Hye-jin killed, reads the headline, and that is not the end of it. There's a whole list of crimes he's confessing to. So many.

"I don't understand."

No. No. He's fine. He's safe. He's safe. It's not just because the world doesn't make sense that he's, that he's—

—but this makes no sense. This makes no sense. Why is this happening? What is he trying to accomplish? How sure are they that their sense-data reflect reality they're safe.

"... Should we go - ask - someone questions or. Go hide in my silo until the world maybe makes sense again????"

He might notice that she's started trembling. No no no no no damn it she didn't want to be right she didn't want to be right why isn't it over what's he DOING!!!

He needs to hug her. She's trembling, he's terrified, hugging is how you solve this.

"I... I don't know."

Whine. Lean.

"Okay. ... Okay. How - sure is - everyone of the power suppression."

"Prez said... very sure?" The article also explains a lot more details about Kang Jaeha's powers, details that had been confidential, so apparently Kang Jaeha confessed to those too, which means that people must trust the suppression at least enough that even while they're aware of his powers they're still... interacting... with him...?

"Then what the fuck!!!! ... I wonder if people will let me go ask him directly what the fuck, as the person who was almost assassinated. And on a, a - timer to teleport out regardless."

"Hye-jin-ah—"

"It's better than waiting around seeing how the fuck he's going to spin this!" she defends, immediately.

"I, I, I get it, just—I'm scared. He, he, he already tried—"

"Yes. But now he's apparently locked up and depowered and - look, I - don't want to be blindsided, again."

He hides his face in her hair. "Okay." Not that he needs to give her permission to do it, but...

... but he sure is unhappy with her, yeah.

Sigh. Hug.

"........ or I could just video call him," she admits, after several seconds of actually thinking about logistics. "Or email, but I'm not sure he's getting email in prison."

He'd feel a lot safer if she video called him, yes.

...but also if it were him he would not want to do it via video. He's not going to do it regardless but if he were going to. Video just feels... too impersonal.

"I will support you no matter what you want to do."

"I will... ask. Someone. I guess. ... I will ask my lawyer to ask, how about, and we then go hide under the ocean for a while. Does that sound good to you?"

"...yeah. It does. Thank you."

"Okay." Kiss. "Sorry."

So, uh. Apparently Kim Hye-jin wants to speak with him. He does not by any means have to. But he can. If he consents.

...yeah, he does. Is she... coming here...?

(They still haven't decided on a full sentence for him. His prison cell is comfortable. And, like, this is Korea, not America, but still, why did they have to make his prison cell comfortable.)

No. Video call.

A little tablet is set up in his cell, and after some fumbling:

Here is Kim Hye-jin. Even in video, she holds herself differently than Nightmare did when it was pretending to be her. It was always casual and languid and sort of catlike - the woman shown on the screen is stock straight, completely humorless, and looks like she is terrified and deals with this terror by killing all of the things that scare her personally. It's pretty clear that if she could incinerate him through the screen, she'd be tempted.

"... Hi," she says, lamely, staring at him like she's waiting for him to turn into a viper and rush through the screen to bite her.

.....aaaaaahhh????

Well, she's half-Korean and half-Japanese, even if he can't properly grovel he can rest his forehead on the table so that the video camera is showing the crown of his head. That's what matters, anyway. "I am so, so sorry, Kim Hye-jin-nim. I—" But he has no idea what to even say.

".... okay. Sure. Now please explain what the fuck your game is because I do not wish to have an exciting new surprise for the fourth fucking time."

"There is no game. I—has—I'm not sure what information's been made public. Do you know about the handcuffs...?"

"They are suppressing your powers very thoroughly, apparently," she says, cautiously, like she doesn't even trust that.

"And my backlash. Which—I assume Lee Tae-gun told you about but—"

Behold: the face of not even an ounce of sympathy.

He does have to look up now, since she didn't make a noise, and he winces when he sees her expression and lowers his eyes again. "So, I—regained what tiny shreds of empathy I possess and realised I have spent the last seven years being scum and I wanted to—do whatever I could. In the other direction."

"I see."

She doesn't. Well, she understands, just. She doesn't believe it. Hye-jin has never known Kang Jaeha the man with empathy. She has only known the man who has tormented her for half a year.

"That... is all. If there is—anything else you want to know, or that I can—do. I am at your service."

There's a pause, then:

"How many people know where I live. How many of my neighbors did you fuck with the heads of. Are you going to pay for some of the truly phenomenal expenses for the silo I had to have made when I realized my home was under threat from a mind esper."

"I am the only one who knows your personal address, specifically, beyond anyone you may have told, yourself. I... did not keep track of all of the neighbours of yours I used my power on, but I would be able to recognise them. And yes, I will, if it is within my power." He is really happy he kept the ability to use money for this kind of shit!!!!

"Great. I'll probably still end up selling the place, because it's pretty ruined for me now. I'll send you the bill for the silo."

Click. The video call cuts out.

That seems to be all she wanted to say to him.

...he was... expecting more yelling, honestly.

Hoping for it, really.

This wasn't cathartic at all.

He shouldn't be looking for catharsis. He doesn't deserve catharsis, and he doesn't deserve closure.

He hopes she can make Tae-gun happy.

Conversation done. Handcuffs do backlash suppression too, or something.

I might want to yell at Quasar's president for not giving us a heads up about that tbh.

I messaged him while you were talking.

He said they hadn't known for sure it would do that and he didn't want me to worry about it.

He actually said that he didn't want me to have a panic attack about it and he is right about that.

May I come over and hug you?

Yes.

Teleport!

Is he in the bathtub? She bets he's in the bathtub. She will join him in the bathtub, actually, they can have their incredibly dramatic shower of angst together.

Yeah, he's in the bathtub, with cold shower water splashing and mostly in control of his hyperventilation.

Mostly.

Yeah.

She sits behind him, wrapping her arms around him regardless of the cold or the water. She... starts humming a lullaby, for lack of a better idea. Maybe that'll help.

Having more things overwhelming his senses helps, yeah, but the hug helps most. He leans on her and closes his eyes and sobs.

(Why now? Why? Why couldn't they have found this before? It's been years—)

(He loves her. He loves Kim Hye-jin. He's, he's moved on from Jaeha. But it still hurts so, so much.)

She doesn't say anything. Just holds him and hums her very insufficient lullaby.

This crisis doesn't last very long, relatively speaking. About fifteen minutes later his breathing is mostly normal and he's not sobbing at all. And he's sufficiently recovered that, after clearing his throat to make sure his voice works, he asks, "How... did it go?"

"Fine. We didn't... have much to say to each other, really. He apologized. I asked him to pay for my secret silo, because it was admittedly absurdly expensive."

He nods. "And was that... all? He just—his backlash is—is that the whole reason? No plans, no, no—other shoe to drop—?"

"The handcuffs suppress his backlash, apparently. I don't know how well or how completely. I. I mean emotionally I feel like there's got to be something, right, but. I don't know what it is."

He nods. 

"Well. Good. Good for him." He hugs her closer and says, in a tiny, tiny voice, "It's really over."

"I hope so." But doesn't believe it. Still. "... The confluence looks like it's finally winding down, too, there aren't even any A-ranks they're hiding from us for our own good or something. I checked." She did admittedly want to burn some things, but objectively this is better for the world.

"Yeah," he says, still in that tiny voice.

He doesn't know what comes next. 

"I don't know what comes next."

"I don't either," she sighs. "... I guess practically speaking I'll probably sell my house? It's pretty ruined for me now. Even the prospect of him being in prison doesn't... un-sour it for me, so. I think that's probably it for it." Which is really depressing and upsetting, actually.

"...do you really want to? I, I mean, it's your house, I just mean..." What... does he mean, exactly? "I think that, if, if it were me that might be the kind of thing I'd convince myself of that, um, might not really be true." Because, as Woo-young might put it, he's a drama queen.

"Mmm. So the - joy in putting it together is gone? When I'm there I don't feel hopeful or safe, I mostly just feel sad. Or angry, or at risk, but. Mostly sad. I had a lot of plans that I wanted to do that got dropped, and I've essentially raided it for all of the stuff I liked in it for moving into your house or my underwater silo, so. It's just this. Sad empty husk that I don't even feel potential possibility in."

He nods and hugs her tighter. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry being with me was the source of this. I'm, I don't think it's my fault, but I'm sorry it happened because you were with me." Giggle-hiccup. "I'm sorry I have such shit taste in men."

Hug. "Juheon seems pretty cool. I guess you didn't date him, but. I like him," she snorts. Echoing silence on Si-yeo, though he's, fine even if she doesn't like him personally. "And I don't think you had shit taste in men, exactly, just. ... Man. He, the person beneath the backlash, made so many incredibly stupid and selfish choices so systematically that I don't know if there was a way this wasn't going to explode horribly."

"Maybe. It still feels... like that's not true. There were... so many times he could've, could've..." But he's had this thought before. Said this exact sentence before. It hasn't really taken him anywhere.

"Right. There were lots of - ways he could have prevented it. But his backlash impairs his ability to care to. And he didn't... You didn't have a panic button to press if you thought he was getting out of control, yes? Because no one did. It was reliant solely on him not fucking up, on doing everything right, all by himself."

"Well, who else do we know who's just like that," he mutters mostly to himself.

"And I called you a dumbass for it, too," she snorts. "Think of how bad it could be if your backlash went into violent anger!"

"Yeah," he sighs. "I know."

"And he had - I'm correct in that he'd had a history of doing that sort of casual mind editing, yes? You said you were where he learned how to be himself. So. Like if your backlash sometimes veered violent, and you knew this from experience, because you had."

"Yeah..." He shakes his head and turns the water off. "I... don't want to talk about him anymore."

"Yeah. Sorry. I - should find someone else to talk about this with, really. Since I actually can now."

"Maybe Woo-young," he suggests, to her and also to himself.

"Ehh. He can be your person to talk about Kang Jaeha with, if you want, I will probably go explain everything to my mother. Who has some of the information on this, but not everything, because I did not want to get my mother involved in a lawsuit."

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense."

"Mhm. Or I could make other friends! Maybe! ... Ugh, lots of people are going to ask me questions and feel sorry for me, aren't they. I'm going to hate that."

"Just smile in a way you don't mean and tell them you have somewhere else to be. Like this."

Giggle. "Speaking from experience, hm? Yeah. Sounds good." Kiss. "Now c'mon, out of the tub, I can dry us both off."

Yeah, yeah, he can git.

It is much easier to dry off after a dramatic shower of angst with a fire esper girlfriend!

And once they are fully dry he places a hand behind Hye-jin's lower back and pulls her close to his body. "I think I'm in the mood to do some boyfriendly activities with you that are completely unrelated to my backlash, right now."

... Giggle!

"Well you should have mentioned sooner! We could have just taken off the clothes."

"Didn't realise I wanted it until I saw you standing there being gorgeous and got reminded of how much I like you."

"Ah, well! It happens. It'll be easier to take off dry clothes, anyway." Kiss!

He kisses her back, and goes to work on doing just that.

taegun fan no. 1183: @youngwoo did you know
taegun fan no. 1183: had you always known

🧋youngwoo: yeah
🧋youngwoo: i've known it for years

yoo-min-max: what the fuck
yoo-min-max: what the everloving fuck
yoo-min-max: is that why tae-gun stopped coming to the gay meetups?
yoo-min-max: is that why he fucking vanished for years?
yoo-min-max: that fucker???
yoo-min-max: he did this??????

🧋youngoo: yeah

💤Zzzzgirl: is that why he hadn't had a partner for so long????
💤Zzzzgirl: because his last one sucked????
💤Zzzzgirl: poor hunny gunny!!!!

🍵Tconnoisseur: and tried to kill the one partner he did accept
🍵Tconnoisseur: like out of a bad manhwa

ChoiBokBok: hey quick question
ChoiBokBok: why did we let him RUN RAMPANT FOR HALF A DECADE

🧋youngwoo: a combination of an NDA that would get Quasar to go bankrupt, prez keeping close and constant track of that dude's actions to make sure he wasn't doing anything weird, and tae-gun specifically asking us to not do anything
🧋youngwoo: mostly that last one, clearly we're no good at figuring out that he's up to shit
🧋youngwoo: but you guys must've realised something had happened
🧋youngwoo: at least the ones of you who were around back then

🆘SeoAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA: it's one thing to realise that something's weird and a whole other thing to guess this

yoo-min-max: I thought it'd been a bad breakup
yoo-min-max: like a really, really bad breakup
yoo-min-max: i wanted to believe that was all it was

🧋youngwoo: well, it wasn't

yoo-min-max: i'm like, the worst friend ever

🪁freefall: bro you literally cannot say that
🪁freefall: you wanna know who the worst fucking friend ever is?
🪁freefall: me, his ex-partner, who really, really should've known better than this

🦔gangnag: whoa si-yeon rareposting

kitkatcat: I knew something was up
kitkatcat: and I knew he was bad news
kitkatcat: but wow

🍵Tconnoisseur: that fucker better get the death penalty
🍵Tconnoisseur: by fire queen or hunny gunny if either of them want to

💤Zzzzgirl: stoned to death in the public square

🚫do-not-jin: i'll give everyone a pass once because this really is a lot but no more violently wishing for someone's death in this chat please no matter how much you feel it may or may not be justified
🚫do-not-jin: if you want to discuss bloody murder do it somewhere you won't be recorded
🚫do-not-jin: why do i feel like we've had this conversation before...

🧋youngwoo: he's behind bars and not going to leave anytime soon if ever
🧋youngwoo: that's enough for me

taegun fan no. 1183: not for me
taegun fan no. 1183: he hurt our hunny gunny and our fire queen
taegun fan no. 1183: he must suffer

🧋youngwoo: I gently urge you guys to consider the fact that this is a person Tae-gun loved deeply at one point
🧋youngwoo: nothing is that simple

🦔gangnag: ngl i'd've expected you to be angrier
🦔gangnag: ig since you already knew from your perspective this is things getting strictly better than they've been

💤Zzzzgirl: are we allowed to ask wallflower about what she did to him
💤Zzzzgirl: that's strictly sticking to the facts, no violently wishing for any death at all
💤Zzzzgirl: completely innocent!

🧋youngwoo: nah she's asleep rn and doesn't super want to get into it
🧋youngwoo: (but can i just say? my mind esper beat that jackass and i am unreasonably proud of her for it)
🧋youngwoo: (she's amazing)

LeeTae-gun: She is.

💤Zzzzgirl: wait wait wait wait
💤Zzzzgirl: YOU READ CHAT????

kitkatcat: better hope he hasn't figured out your real name, huh?

💤Zzzzgirl: oh no

🍵Tconnoisseur: lol