...does that mean he's going to object to Jaeha teleporting to Canada with him. That would suck. That would suck so much.

"Yeah, you're not wrong about that."

Argh!

"...you okay? I assume since you weren't monogamous with your last partner and haven't brought it up with me either that it's not that..."

...how does he say "I liked my partner less" in a way that... doesn't sound clingy...

"Well my relationship with him was different. I... think I mentioned we didn't like each other very much?"

"It didn't sound sunshine and roses, certainly."

"So there was at least part of it that was that we, ah, kind of didn't want to spend much more time together than we needed to and weren't very interested in what the other was doing." Mostly Wo Do-in, Jaeha himself actually had never made use of the "fuck whomever you want" permission until he met Haru.

"Well, arguably you didn't even spend as much time together as you needed to but I guess if you were barely tolerating each other to begin with and also free to fuck around that makes the neglect, like, not necessarily excusable but more understandable..." Pet pet.

"Yeah."

Now get the hinnnttttttttt.

"Before I awakened I was kind of - there's not a great one-word label even though I think it's kind of common, like, it's not 'trad' because I can't be trad because I'm gay, it's not 'romantic' because that has all these implications of being unrealistic and impractical, it's not 'prudish' because it was just about how I wanted my own personal life to work out, but like, I wanted to - get it right on the first try, go hard on monogamy, fly the boy of my dreams to Canada and get married and stay that way, not like my parents. And then I awakened and was like, well, that's a liability, if I want all the other things I want in my life, if I want sanity and superpowers, I had better be willing to fuck Sparkler - that's the Canada partner's codename, and, like, not him in particular, I met him later, but people in the general category of Sparkler. So I kinda - edited myself - which then turned out to have been basically unnecessary, because, like, I could do without Sparkler in the specific and Yamanaka turned out to exist, but..."

"...but...?" He knows that any possible way his brain will find to complete that sentence will be worse than reality and he doesn't care to try actually.

"But like, I already did the editing, I'd have to undo it. I'd have to be very sure, to want to."

...ok, no, that's just in fact exactly as bad as his brain had been predicting it. 

"I'm not sure I understand what you mean by 'editing'. ...and please tell me to stop asking if I'm making you uncomfortable."

"I can change the subject if I need to. It's a notebooking thing, I - write a feeling or an attitude or whatever out into all its component parts and sorta... kitbash it into something more convenient. But that makes it sound kind of trivial and it's not, I like myself at least under all the backlash and the process only works if I'm also okay with whoever I'm trying to turn into, so I need a really strong reason and I can't just be a complete chameleon whenever it'd be useful to be different for a month and then back. It'd be a lot, to - be the kind of person I was, and an esper. That stakes my sanity and health very concerningly on one specific relationship, which would be a troubling concept in the best of circumstances, and I don't even know if you'll like me once I'm not your only source of pleasant experiences in the world."

That's fucking insane. 

He's not gonna say that. 

"I'm not—asking anything of you. We're not in a relationship, I don't have any rights to ask anything. I'm just—" What is he just. "Explaining, I suppose."

"I mean, we're in a partnership, and if you'd rather I not go hook up with Sparkler that's a pretty trivial ask, just - planning not to and committing not to are different things, and I have no obstacle to the first and all this baggage about the second."

He knows that the Haru in his head that's using words in twisty ways isn't real but he sure is loud. Let's get him out of Jaeha's system: Haru sure can plan not to but then if it happens, whoops, it happened, he hadn't planned it but he didn't commit so it's fine.

But Jaeha sounds disgustingly clingy and jealous and that's a great way to drive people away and besides Haru doesn't even like him so what right does he have to ask for anything? Especially something like this, which Haru finds so precious, how could Jaeha ask him to limit the tools he has available for dealing with his backlash and feeling like himself again? The person who likes the other one the most always loses, and that's him. That's Jaeha.

King of losers.

So he's kind of stuck. If he asks he'll come off as needy, if he just says "it's fine" he'll come off as insecure, and so he has to figure out a way to communicate that he's not asking that'll be—not either of those. He knows he's been thinking this a lot but he really wishes he could be using his powers here.

It's a good thing Haru is lying on him and not looking at him because it gives him time to think for a second without looking—bad—

"Sorry," says Haru, after thirteen seconds of silence.

"—you don't have anything to apologise for. I'm just trying to think how to respond in a way that doesn't get me misunderstood." Okay that's cool and mature and confident, good tack, keep going Kang Jaeha. "I mean that... we're in a partnership, yes, and the point of it is dealing with the—magical affliction, right? So it's—that's what I mean, when I say I don't have much right to ask for this kind of thing. If Sparkler will cure your magical affliction how could I object to that?" That was sooooo coooooool Kang Jaeha, even if it's 100% just lies it sounded really mature and self-aware and confident. You're acing this.

"I mean, the way you could object to that would be if you had monogamy-shaped feelings, we aren't partners at a law firm, we're shacking up and having sex several times a day, it wouldn't be weird to catch feelings about it. Esper partners do that all the time, if slightly less often than the fandom believes. Anyway, Sparkler will only be a convenient, let alone ideal, way to cure my magical affliction if I go to Canada, and I don't have plane tickets and don't plan to get any for the next few months. I don't expect to need anybody but you for the foreseeable future. It's just that the future's not all foreseeable."

It wouldn't be weird to catch feelings about it, it would just be pathetic to catch one-sided feelings and then demand that the other side behave as if you're in a symmetrical relationship. But Jaeha feels like claiming that he doesn't have monogamy-shaped intuitions would be the wrong kind of lie to tell even if the possibility of claiming that he hasn't caught feelings is ludicrous.

Anyway, it's all moot if Haru's going to leave after Jaeha's fully guided—or if they'll "see where they're at", anyway, whatever that means. That's still within the "foreseeable future" window, he's pretty sure.

...he really shouldn't hope. Hoping is how he'll get fucked over. He should just—work. Work to be someone Haru will like now. And maybe fucking kill Johnny that's just the jealousy talking and he needs to get over it.

"I suppose we'll see where we're at once I'm out of my hole." He needs a cigarette.

"Mm-hm." Snuggles make it difficult to go get a cigarette.

And he hasn't smoked this whole week anyway and isn't about to, not in front of Haru. He'll just deal.

"I'm really different to be around when I am and am not backlashed and I don't know if it'll be that dramatic for you, of course, just, it might be."

"...you're not, really. Or not in—the ways that matter, at least. You're—doing different things and—but it's still you. Maybe if you're really extremely backlashed, but not as far as I've seen."

"...aww. I think I've gotten better at balancing, since I awakened, but - it still feels really different." Snuggle.

"Yeah, I can see how it would. And I don't want to say that you're unreasonable to feel that way. But from where I'm standing, it's still the same person there, just—you know."