You know what, it's fine if people know he's in the palm of Haru's hand. It's true and not embarrassing and people should know it.

"So how long have you guys been together?"

And now he is in anguish again.

"On paper we've been officially partners just since signing with Quasar. Came together pretty fast since we met."

...okay he. Kind of likes that response. It's ambiguous and misleading and yet it still makes him not look like a pathetic worm who's begging for scraps of attention and is inevitably going to be abandoned soon maybe today. Like, that's still true, but at least he gets to save face about it.

"You look cute together."

"We also look cute separately."

Giggle-hiccup.

Jaeha opens his mouth to say something—

—then freezes.

What... is... that feeling.

He looks at Haru and—it's not Haru, but then—what—

"Tae-gun! For a moment I thought you'd decided to leave us forever!"

Jaeha turns slowly to face Lee Tae-gun.

"Good evening, sunbaenim."

"Ugh, see what I meant?" Yoo-min tells Haru. "And he means it, too! We've known each other like a year and a half now!"

"I'm pretty sure I'm not even his sunbae? I feel left out."

"Good evening to you, too, hoobaenim. —oh, you're Kang Jaeha-shi? We haven't been acquainted." He bows.

"It's nice to meet you, sunbaenim."

What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the—

...is it? He looks kind of constipated. 

Well, he'll sit down. "Oh, Min Woo-young. This is your first time here, right?"

"Yeah, hiiiii."

"Jaeha, you okay?" Haru murmurs, calibrated for a tableful of espers.

Forced smile pasted on. "Yeah, I'm alright. Ah, I just need to go to the bathroom for a moment—"

So Tae-gun was right, he is constipated.

He gets up and hurries in a direction that looks plausibly bathroomwards.

"Anyway I assume permission is not the thing stopping you from just calling me Haru but you do have permission," Haru tells Tae-gun.