Oh that's a delightful hack, now he's starting to properly feel embarrassed by needing to use his power. He is awarding himself one (01) cookie for this brain hack.

Okay, he'll get back to that later.

Back on the object-level topic he's meant to be thinking about, he's scared and embarrassed. He's embarrassed because the person he wants to be wouldn't be having so much trouble asking his boyfriend to just go to a fancy restaurant with him, would be able to properly communicate about it like a grownup. And a little bit because the person he wants to be doesn't care that much about it in the first place.

...

No, that's not true at all. The person he wants to be wouldn't be embarrassed about wanting the teenage romance movie dream date. The person he wants to be would be cool and confident about it. The thing is that he doesn't know how to be that person, how to be cool and confident about wanting something cringe, and so he'd rather not want it at all than fail at wanting it in the right way, because if he fails at wanting it the right way then he wants something cringe and he's being cringe while doing it.

But there isn't a way to become that person without practice. No, not even using his power; using his power would make him know how to look like that person, but he wouldn't be that person, and it'd be even more cringe to pretend to be that person using mind control rather than put the work in.

Now the reason he's scared. The reason he's scared is that... Well, he has only one fear in his life, really. It's losing Haru. Everything else is downstream from that. So whenever he does something that seems like it has a risk of causing Haru to leave—like being less sexy and cool, like being a less "objectively desirable" boyfriend, like wanting things that Haru doesn't want, like needing to ask the best way to please Haru rather than magically guessing it through ineffable intuition and thus making the experience of dating him something that is completely effortless on Haru's part—that scares him.

But he can't be just an extension of Haru's will. He can't be perfectly effortless. If nothing else, he—if being around him is perfectly effortless, that's like not existing. Or something. There's probably a better way to phrase that but whatever, this is his notebook, he gets to write shit that maybe doesn't make sense or come off well if it makes sense in his head. The point is that he wants to be a person, he wants to be Haru's person but still a person, and—Haru gave him a goddamn list. Like, what's the point of having a list if he can't even make himself feel secure in being Haru's dream boy by following it? Maybe he could allow himself some insecurity if anyone other than Haru had written that list but, like, Haru is Haru. If anyone would have an accurate list and in fact be happy about the person described by that list it would be Haru.

So he shouldn't feel insecure. He shouldn't feel scared. He's not going to lose Haru, not as long as he's working on being Haru's dream boyfriend.

Easier said than done, obviously, he's sure he's had this exact thought before and he might even have notebooked about it and it hasn't stuck, but whatever, he'll have this epiphany as many times as it takes, so long as he's actually making progress between epiphanies.

And he thinks he is? He thinks he is making progress. Going to therapy is progress. Writing all of this down is progress. Figuring out how to not be a pathetic mess is progress. The person he was a month ago would definitely not have agonised about how he maybe isn't a good person unless he is donating all of his possessions to the needy. Nor would he be notebooking. Nor, really, would he be talking the way he's been talking.

He is making progress. He's really sure of that! He's going to become Haru's dream! (Note to future Jaeha: make a list of all the ways in which he currently falls short of being Haru's dream to do some better-directed self-improvement.) So there's no reason for him to be scared.

There is especially no reason for him to be scared of asking Haru out on a date to a nice restaurant. Even if Haru doesn't like fancy food, Jaeha thinks he can at least make it a nice date, and pamper Haru appropriately.

This is all very silly.

Hey

I have just scrubbed some grime off my brain

My homework is that I should ask you out on a date to a fancy restaurant

that homework is adorable? why is your homework adorable

do you have a place in mind

My homework is adorable because my brain is very strange, the therapist was making some fascinated faces

And I have several!

If you have styles of food you'd rather try tell me them and I've probably got one but otherwise I'll pick one

I don't know what's good in Seoul, I trust your judgment

fancy enough I need to break out the kimono? or buy a suit but I already have the kimono, Ren insisted on it for my 成人の日

I was going to say I could probably bribe them to let you in in jeans and a T-shirt but

The thought of seeing you in a kimono got me hard

Oh, well then.

jeans it is, can't have you distracted from your homework right in the middle of a fancy restaurant ;)

Nooooooooooo

Pleasepleaseplease kimono please

( •̯́ ^ •̯̀)

will it ruin the effect if I need help to put it on, those things are complicated

Nope I will totally help

He might need to stop halfway into it to give Haru a blowjob though.

OK. I need notice to let it air out before the date then :)

Understood 

I'll lyk

is that the entirety of your adorable homework or do you also need to convince me to take tango lessons or something

Well I also had to write down my thoughts and feelings prior to, during, and after asking

Most of that work was in the "prior to" part though

a therapist after my own heart

Well the writing down part wasn't her exactly, she asked me to pay attention to those feelings then tell her about them next session 

But there is absolutely no way I'd remember them without writing them down

Not to mention that they'd have wiggled out if I'd given them any space to

they do that.

what was this homework meant to help with, I've got a mental image of Dr. Park going to her friend in the fancy restaurant industry later for a kickback but presumably that is not it

No but it's

A bit complicated

I have like twenty or thirty pages of notebooking about it

He is NOT embarrassed. He's NOT. He isn't. He is fixing his brain and the way he's doing that is by asking his Haru to go to a fancy restaurant with him in a kimono and that's an amazing way to fix one's brain honestly he's glad there's such low-hanging fruit.

wow!!

I don't usually achieve those pagecounts unless I recently almost died or something!

Not just today to be clear

Just on that topic over, uh, the last two weeks?

oh okay that's less alarming and/or indicative about your wordiness

you have been thinking for two weeks about fancy restaurant dates??