"...I don't think so." He really doesn't!!! That was, like—he's not even sure what he'd been expecting but right now he's just tapdancing in his own head because Haru is taking him seriously and will think about it and he isn't lost, he hasn't lost, he's not the king of losers anymore— "I mean, I won't," he says, with more certainty. "Sorry, I—was right, wasn't I, that it was—not the best time—"

Smooch. "If I'd made you put it off would you have chickened out?"

"Not... altogether... But it might have taken me another day or two."

"Oh, well, that would've been okay, maybe I should've let you. I was very curious though." Smooch.

Heeeee has the best Haru whom he gets to kiss and it might all work fine he's gonna get guided and—

(—a hiccup in this process, a feeling he's not feeling, a thought he's not thinking—)

—Haru will like him and be with him!!!!

Kisses! Kisses are very good.

After his fourth dungeon, and dinner, and having some sense fucked into him, Haru goes off to be with his notebooks and comes back with a list.

"Obviously the interpretation of any given item is more important than the words I chose to condense the concept I had in mind, so, like, obviously ask for clarification early and often when editing your brain to someone else's spec."

Highlights of the list include "intellectually lively" and "scrupulously ethical" and "if we are going to do monogamy or something that closely approximates it till one of us needs a blood transfusion might as well do it in style".

Haru! Gave! Him! A! List! He loves it deeply he is going to memorise this list and he is going to match it perfectly (—another hiccup—) and "Is this a joking way of saying you want a fancy wedding or...?"

"I am not getting engaged to you right this second, you ridiculous romantic. But speaking purely hypothetically my pre-awakening notebooks contain the occasional rumination on the virtues of autumn in British Columbia, the leaves are incredible."

"I am not getting engaged to you right this second either! I am just asking for clarifications. So, intellectually lively, have I been on the right track recently with looking up things I think you'll like and discussing them with you, do you wanna critique my approach..."

"You've been doing great on that front, though of course if you were faking being ticked off about the stats in that one paper you may need to course-correct for sustainability reasons."

"...I wasn't faking it but I did acquire that opinion by—putting it there. You know? But the stats were incredibly sloppy and I felt like believing the opposite of what that paper was saying out of spite—"

Mwah. "Sounds solid to me."

Eeeeeee he has a list and he's going to follow the list and he was actually pretty much following it already (—hiccup—) because he guessed right about the boy of Haru's dreams in a lot of aspects but he will now be able to get a PERFECT SCORE in BEING HARU'S BOYFRIEND.

"You're so cute."

"I'm so lucky—" He doesn't have words to express it so he'll just keep kissing Haru.

"An objectively weird response to getting a to-do list for rendering your personality compliant with my preferences but I'm pretty sure if I said 'that is too objectively weird, do something normal' you wouldn't like that answer, so -"

"If that's what you want me to be..."

"If I told you to be less objectively weird I would be doing it out of a sense of general responsibility and conservatism, my personal gratification wouldn't really feature."

"Mmhmmmmm."

"Honestly the fact that I find this so romantic is probably indicative of what are arguably character flaws on my part!"

Boy you wanna talk about character flaws—

(...uh...)

"I don't think I'm under any particular illusions about what you're like. I like you the way you are."