Mmmmkisses. "You're a really good kisser." More kisses. Is Jaeha going to open the door at some point.

He can do that while kissing, he has muscle memory for the door code. The real question is how well he's going to be able to navigate his house while kissing, because he suddenly doesn't really want to stop.

They don't have to make it all the way to the bedroom right away but the front step is a bridge too far.

Sure sure across the door is definitely doable while kissing. "God you're delicious," he says next time he comes up for air.

"I'm tempted to say 'I try' but actually I don't do anything to affect my flavor at all."

He wants to carry Haru to the bedroom.

He's going to need to ask whether he's allowed to do that with his words, isn't he.

Argh.

"May I carry you to the bedroom?"

"Ooh yes please."

So he should've just DONE IT and that would've been so much COOLER and more CONFIDENT.

He does not like this.

It's hard to keep not liking things when he's around Haru, though. Haru is delicious.

He sweeps Haru into a bridal carry and makes his way upstairs to his suite with the king size bed, and then makeouts can immediately resume.

Jaeha's bedroom, if Haru has any time and attention span to pay attention to it, has a lot less personality than Haru's. There's a sleek desk of glass and dark metal with a Macbook on it, there's a half-open door past which is an obscenely huge bathroom, another door that's closed but presumably leads into a closet, a very large window which would have a view to the river were it not covered by a blackout curtain, a couple of paintings on the wall, and little else.

Haru is not looking at the room very much beyond confirming that the curtains are closed.

Makeouts are great.

The problem with loneliness backlash is that, because it is a magical curse and not just a normal emotion, the things that should help don't help. Like an itch you can try to scratch but that never stops itching even after you've got blood under your fingernails, like pouring ice water on your head in 36º weather over and over and never getting a speck cooler, like that weird psychiatric symptom where you feel thirsty forever even as your kidneys give out under the strain of all you've already drunk.

When he's with Jaeha the thing that should help, helps, and it is good and he is at peace.

Another night of guided sex is not going to cure his backlog. It's going to make a dent, but not even a very large one.

It still feels amazing, and afterwards Jaeha suggests that they go wash up together.

It will especially help less after Haru's back down to zero. But even at zero he can appreciate a tandem shower, sure.

"You have been left with a criminally irresponsible backlog and you should never give me your ex-partner's contact information because I would call him up while backlashed and grouchy and yell at him."

Nuh uh it's not a tandem shower it's Jaeha pampering Haru. If Haru will let him. Like wash his hair, he feels like doing that.

(If he could know what Haru is feeling he wouldn't have to ask.)

"I don't feel like you would get along at all, no. I don't have many good things to say about him and that is perhaps a clue that maybe I should've gone looking earlier." Hahahaha that's funny as if.

Aw that's cute and Haru will let him. "Looking is such an awkward process. You have to touch so many strangers and making it salient that you want to re-partner is presumably awkward if you ever have a conversation with yours."

"To be fair I'm pretty sure neither of us would have been particularly surprised or upset to learn the other was doing this. And I suppose he must've been, without telling me." Or he just decided to be alone.

"Man, I hope so, imagine if he just thinks the thing where you can drop dead of chronic backlash is greatly exaggerated and has decided to go try it out, that would explain some things."

That's a depressing thought, someone preferring to see if they'll fall over dead rather than stay another day with Jaeha.

"Well, there's a progression, right? Hopefully once he was halfway to a coma he'd realise his error."

"It's much, much better to maintain a sustainable pace of dungeons over many years, sustainable here meaning routinely hitting zero because if you are not routinely hitting zero then your accumulation rate is higher than your guiding rate, than to land yourself in the hospital with chronic backlash. Or to burn out on the entire concept of superheroics. Or to wind up doing desperate shit to find a partner in an emergency instead of polite shopping around when it is not an emergency. I guess this applies more strongly to people with highly specialized powers, if you're never getting called across international borders because you have some normal monster-fighting ability that could in a pinch be replaced with a squad of marines the argument is much weaker that you have to do this as a matter of, of equipment maintenance, but self-preservation should still feature!"

Yeah, that's a reasonable thing to think. Maybe Jaeha will even start to believe it, if he and Haru actually partner up. If he can get this on the regular, if he can start to actually... deal with his own backlog. That'd be nice.

(If there's one saving grace to this whole entire system it's that being guided feels nice even when nothing else does.)

"Yes, sir. I look forward to successfully seducing you into becoming my official partner so that I can get on that."

"That's very responsible of you." Smooch.

It would not be a great idea to have sex again right now, they're just showering and they should sleep soon, he is actually really tired after all of that social interaction earlier, but every time Haru kisses him rolls the dice on him getting turned on and the dice are loaded.

Haru giggles. "It's late. We should go to bed. You can surprise me at some decent hour, like no earlier than eight in the morning, if you're that pent up."

"I'm not that pent up; you're just that tempting."

"Well, I'll get less charming fast if I begin a campaign of self-neglect." He can have another kiss though. "Do you wanna see if I can do the Cheshire Cat thing, I'll need you to check the results because I can always see myself in the mirror even if nobody else would know I was there." Going to bed with a little of his own backlash will help him pull Jaeha's down in their sleep.