Haru decides it's his turn to cook and he's zero backlashed so he doesn't want help. Jaeha has till pancakes are up to notebook.

But he wanted to keep snuggling this is probably good.

Right. Okay. So what things did he want to think about?

One of them was how he felt last night when they were talking about date ideas, which feels... scary... to think about, for some reason. He jots that down word-for-word, including the ellipses. He's also got to think about what to do about his father, and he had a related thought involving charitable giving. That one is really easy to think about, though, so he writes some things down and then moves on to the date thing.

Why is it scary to think about that? What feels scary about it? If he tries to force himself to think about it despite it being scary, the way his brain keeps sliding off it is "well of course we shouldn't do anything that Haru doesn't want to" and "of course the things Haru likes out of dates aren't going to be just the standard romantic tropes" and so on, which... hmm. Points at something. Especially given that, you know, it's not that picnics aren't a standard romantic trope? So that last sentence in particular is hiding something. What's it hiding?

It's that... Haru is special, and romancing Haru is not like romancing other boys, and part of that is that Haru is the kind of person who knows what he wants and goes to get it even if it's strange or unusual or nonstandard. But why did that feel relevant? What if it weren't the case that Haru was special, what if Haru did want the standard romantic tropes? Well, then he'd have accepted Jaeha's ideas, which means that if he did like them but also didn't accept Jaeha's ideas that would've meant he didn't want to do those things with Jaeha specifically. So using that particular excuse is a way for Jaeha to protect himself, his own pride. If the reason why Haru doesn't want to do these things is because he's special and needs to be romanced in a customised way, then it doesn't say anything negative about Jaeha and about their relationship. It is true that Haru needs to be romanced in a special way, of course, but the fact that it's true is what was giving that particular thought the necessary oomph to support itself as a face-saving measure.

So, Jaeha's scared that if Haru doesn't want to do those date things with him, this means that Haru doesn't actually like him. That's patently stupid.

But he was still rejected, in a sense, and that felt bad in itself. Why did it? "We shouldn't do anything that Haru doesn't want to" is hiding something, too. Is that true?

Some of it is. Some of it isn't. You obviously shouldn't force your partner to do things that they dislike, that are upsetting, or anything like that. But on the other hand, some amount of give is necessary in a relationship, some amount of doing something you don't want to do if it'll make the other person happy. Jaeha's pretty sure, anyway, it's common wisdom and it feels right to him and thinking some about it he thinks it's probably true. That's, like, the difference between being in a relationship and just kind of existing adjacent to each other doing whatever they want to do, right? It being a relationship means that there are some responsibilities and expectations in addition to the rights and privileges, and some of it is just the mundane "I'll do something I don't really like that much because it'll bring my partner joy" kind of thing.

The fact that that phrasing is where his brain went to is interesting, though. "Bring my partner joy." Would going to a fancy restaurant bring Jaeha joy? He said that his taste buds have been deadened for years and it's not the taste of the fancy food that he wants, and after stopping to think about it for a little while he agrees with that, it really isn't the taste of the food. But it's also not just the narrative, like he told Haru yesterday, not by itself. There's something more.

He actually has some trouble pinning it down, and it's interesting (and unpleasant) that the emotion he feels while he tries that is embarrassment. What's there to be embarrassed by? He wants to go to a fancy restaurant with Haru for an embarrassing reason, what is it?

Actually... Didn't he say he wanted to do a little bit of a production? Why did "a little bit of a production" conjure that image he described to Haru, of picking him up at his door, slightly overdressed? He referred jokingly to "the gay teenage romantic I never was but who still lives in me", but was it actually a joke or did he just put it that way self-deprecatingly in order to protect himself and his feelings in case he didn't get what he wanted? Wow, uh, when he puts it like that the answer is really obvious, isn't it. He cares a lot more about that than he thought he did. He wants it. He actually really, really wants it. He wants to, to...

He wants to pick Haru up at his mum's place, be really polite and charming to Ren and tell her that he'll bring Haru back by midnight and take good care of him. He wants to be driving a car slightly nervously, stealing glances at Haru when he thinks Haru won't notice, except of course Haru will notice and he knows that Haru will notice, but they'll pretend he doesn't while his hand is conveniently located for Jaeha to hold it if he wanted to, and after a little bit of this he'll wipe his hand on his trousers because of how nervous he is and he'll tentatively take Haru's hand and Haru will jump a little bit because he got distracted right that moment which will make Jaeha panic but before Jaeha can properly pull his hand away Haru will grab it firmly and keep hold of it, looking out the window. Jaeha won't be able to hide his goofy grin, even if they're holding hands for only a few seconds because he has to drive, and Haru will think he's really cute, and they'll talk about nothing at all until Jaeha gets them where he got a reservation for. He'll be trying so hard to impress his date, and it's completely unnecessary because Haru already likes him, but Haru will indulge in it because Jaeha looks really cute when he's flustered and trying to hard, and Haru doesn't really care about the restaurant but he does care that Jaeha was so thoughtful and thorough and is trying so so so hard to get it right. They'll talk about all sorts of things, because they just click together, and Jaeha will get distracted from feeling nervous, and on their way back he will be a lot more confident in holding Haru's hand, and he'll walk Haru to his door and look around a bit nervously before stealing a kiss from him on the porch and fleeing into the night.

...hahaha wow uh that fantasy really got away from him what was up with that.

Jaeha wants A Romance™. He wants to feel giddy and happy, he wants to do the things he never did as a teenager because he was too much of a shitty person to do them and then got his brain overwritten by his backlash. He wants to do the normal things, the things that teenage romance movies show, except he seems to have some really specific images in mind because it's not like picnics don't happen in those movies.

Except... that...

Except that, no, now that he wrote out the whole embarrassing fantasy he's no longer particularly feeling the need for it? And he's not feeling sad or rejected that Haru didn't want to do it, anymore. Why would that fix it? Nothing changed—or did it? He supposes, logically, it must have, but...

He reads back over what he's written so far (God, Jaeha from five minutes ago was so cringe) and the part of it that makes his heart make a funny noise is the bit he wrote about not liking it when Haru rejects something that he cared about. And it's that whole sentence that's making his head go weird, but it's not broken down into anything simple...

"Pancakes! Do you know if you like ma- never mind. Today you are going to try maple syrup!"

—and he's out of time! He thinks he made good progress, though, that was pretty productive.

"As my prince wishes."

"Oooh, I'm a prince now. Should I have a crown?" Pancakes with butter and genuine imported Canadian syrup!

"If you want one, you should have one. You'd look fetching, I think." Pancakes with butter and genuine imported Canadian syrup! Also coffee, he should get himself coffee, that is a thing he ?likes?.

"Benkan look kind of dorky, I'd probably go more European. To complete your mental image." Haru doesn't drink coffee on lazy mornings, so as to not develop more of a tolerance than he needs; he's having orange juice.

Jaeha's pretty much fully tolerant, he thinks, it's more a habit than a need for the stimulation. He sets the coffee machine to grind some beans and opens Google. "Do you like the kind that has the red velvet thing or not? Open or closed top?"

"No velvet, open top. It should make a statement with, but not be completely incongruous with, jeans and a T-shirt, like, it should say 'the emperor likes wearing jeans and a T-shirt', not 'an eight year old has stolen the emperor's crown'."

"'The emperor', hmm? I like the taste of that. Masaharu tennō. Or should I call you tennō heika, would you be emperor of Japan?"

"Eh, there's already an emperor of Japan. I think ideally I would be the emperor of, like, Mars, or a tame dungeon pocket dimension, or something."

"Mars might be more tractable but if I ever find a tame dungeon I'm gifting you it."

"Well now I'm going to spend all day thinking up names for my hypothetical tame dungeon empire."

"What kinds of things does Your Imperial Majesty look for in an empire name?"

"Oh, it has to be clever and aesthetic and ideally it'd also have anything do with the nature of the dungeon, which is what makes it so difficult to do it hypothetically."

"Are there specific types or aesthetics you'd most like for the dungeon your empire's in?"

"Oh, one of the fantasy ones for sure. With plants in it."

"Open air, I assume? Without the claustrophobic feel."