"Vulnerable to what?"

Shrug.

"Them saying something? Doing something? Just thinking something?"

"Both 'yes' and 'no' sound incorrect about all of those. ...forming an impression, I suppose, and so being—causing problems. Making it harder to—do things. I can do more things if people like me?" That's not... all of it... but it certainly is a part of it.

"What kinds of things do you most worry about being able to do?"

"I don't. Really. But I know that if a guy who knows a guy owes me a favour then I have a guy who knows a guy."

"A guy who can do... what?"

"Get me a last-minute reservation at a fancy hotel or restaurant. Find details about an esper I'm looking into to maybe hire." Lol. "Get me an in with a research department studying a promising dungeon material. Just say my name in positive tones around people who might be feeling generously disposed. It's like having hands, what do you do with your hands, well, everything hands can do."

She nods thoughtfully. "And when you can't have the control over your reputation that you want, it feels - crippling, to extend the analogy?"

"...yeah, something like that, I suppose."

"Are you looking more towards seeking control less in the first place, or coping more gracefully with situations where you fail to get it?"

"I think... more the former, but both, really. I want to—want it less. I want it to not be terrifying that I might ever say something wrong and cause someone to hate me forever. ...someone I don't want to hate me forever, that is."

"Is that about people in general or is there anyone specific in your life who you're worried about hating you?"

"Well if Haru hated me that would be the worst thing in the world but he actually likes me quite a lot for some reason so I'm not really worried about that. And other than him... not really."

"That's your partner's nickname? Why would it be the worst thing in the world?"

"Because I really like him." Because he wants a gorgeous Autumn wedding.

"Can you tell me more about him? It sounds like in the time you've been together he's become a key figure in your life."

"He's—" Pause. "Is it going to be a problem that we're in a homosexual relationship."

"No. I see espers, this sort of thing has come up before. It doesn't affect his ability to be a stabilizing and strengthening force in your life."

He's going to not read into that answer because he knows he has a tendency to read into these things and it does not reflect reality. 

"He's very—smart and—I'm actually not sure what kind of answer you're looking for."

"How did your relationship start, what things do you do together..."

"We met in Japan, he was rescuing people from a psychic dungeon whose effects turned out stickier than expected and I was requested personally—he has this really charming habit of fist-bumping other espers so as to gauge compatibility in a way where flinching from incompatible touches isn't socially marked, and we fist-bumped and turned out to be really compatible. His backlash is loneliness and he asked if we could hang out after the dungeon and we did. We chatted and spent a while together and eventually—got together.

"I didn't have the best relationship with my old partner and I knew he was on the verge of deciding to leave; Haru's old partner's backlash is needing to be left alone, which is super compatible on paper but meant that she wanted to forget he existed so they did only the bare minimum of physical contact necessary for guiding and it was unpleasant for both of them.

"My old guild made Haru a mediocre offer to join, Haru's old guild made me a mediocre offer to join, Quasar made really extremely attractive offers to both of us, so now we're in Quasar, and partnered, and we live together."

"Hm. And it didn't - bother you that your old partner was ready to leave, his partnership wasn't something you were trying to control?"

That's a good point. 

"I think I'd been—resigned—to being unable to do that with someone whom I got as close to as a partner. That wasn't my first time. And I had in fact, at first, been conceiving of my potential partnership with Haru as inevitably doomed and temporary. 

"It's probably relevant that my backlash is apathetic depression and it's hard to care about those control desires when I don't care about anything else."

"Were you spending a lot of time backlashed, then?"