"I mean, insofar as I've identified a cause it's at least sixty percent your asshole dad. I'm horrified that doing tons of mind control was appealing, I guess? And that there was nothing in place to - bring you up short, before now, that there wasn't enough anti-mind-control in the water to give you any more pause than it took to write up an NDA, and that you hadn't been sold on the value of authentic human relationships, and that nobody was worried about your backlash levels till me - were you actively concealing those from past partners such that they couldn't have told Juno even if they'd wanted to be responsible about it -"

"Not—with my powers or anything. I wasn't actively bringing it up every time we talked but I wasn't hiding it or talking around it, either." He laughs at himself, a bit. "I feel like a story trope when I say this but I'm not entirely sure I've ever had an authentic human relationship. Before you, I mean. Maybe I had some friends as a child or young teenager, but..."

"I didn't have friends when I was a kid basically at all. People I'd talk to, sit with at lunch, sure, but I wasn't the social butterfly type. Ren is, I bootstrapped myself up to my present level of social life with a lot of help from her once I needed a social life."

"I think—if that's all—then there's nothing missing. I am also horrified that the mind control appealed, and the only real explanation was that I just straightforwardly didn't care. ...I wasn't under the impression that the people around me weren't real but maybe drawing on that comparison with that part of your backlash might be enlightening about the extent to which I didn't care."

"I am certainly very rude to people when I don't think they're real. It's sort of weird to me that this coexisted with caring about whether they like you."

"That was always flavoured as a transactional thing, in my head. If they like me, they'll do me favours, help me with things. Networking and connections. But also I'm very—proud and vain. I cared—care—about my image, about saving face, about my dignity. And—not really wanting things doesn't mean that I wasn't scared of losing them. That might be another useful way to look at it, I almost exclusively felt the pain of loss without ever feeling the corresponding joy when I got anything I sought after, so I was obsessed with never losing."

"Yikes. I'm - not really expecting it to make a lot of further qualitative difference, but - looking forward to getting you out of the hole."

"Probably the only things missing are pure joy and the intensity of every other good thing."

"Well, those are good things and you should have them."

"Yeah." Especially if he gets to share them with Haru.

🐚snailmail: who's the bomb, we the bomb

𖣘fan_death: legal beating procurement in the unofficial go tournament is not exactly national news

🇺🇳 glob: it's international news.

🇺🇳 glob: because I told people in 6 other countries so far

𖣘fan_death: because you - yeah that, that doesn't count

🐚snailmail: ur just jelly

🌙moon'n'joon: that's definitely it, uh-huh

yoo-min-max: what's up what happened what'd I miss

🐚snailmail: TRIUMPH happened

𖣘fan_death: SECRETLY there is a seventh dan go player in legal. apparently. I'm not bitter.

🌙moon'n'joon: we agreed no handicaps for the tournament :) :)

yoo-min-max: what's a dan

KangJaeha: A rank in go

🇺🇳 glob: yeah 1 dan is like a black belt and it goes up from there.

🐚snailmail: we ANNIHILATED themmmmm

𖣘fan_death: okay you personally don't deserve the credit for it, I creamed you

yoo-min-max: oooooh
yoo-min-max: also hi @KangJaeha! welcome to chat!
yoo-min-max: these degenerates won't be able to thirst over you anymore now that you're here

taegun fan no. 1183: no one was thirsting over him with @traceless here

yoo-min-max: shhhh you didn't have to say that
yoo-min-max: it would've been funny to pretend

KangJaeha: You already knew I read chat

yoo-min-max: oh right

🇺🇳 glob: I remember being impressed at how professionally unthirsty the interview on traceless's blog was

𖣘fan_death: oh hey do you legal department dishonorable cheaters happen to know why the bell. I want a prize

🌙moon'n'joon: a) no b) if we did why would we tell you b2) especially if you're calling us dishonorable cheaters because you didn't check anybody's ELO in advance c) he probably doesn't even have a prize in mind, like what would that even be

...

"Uh. Not that it matters but why the bell?" he asks, failing to mask his intense curiosity.

"Oh, it's a pun on my first name."

"...Masaharu?"

"That's my middle name. I hate my first name and have no idea what Ren was thinking, but I don't hate it enough to resist the temptation to tweak people's noses about it."

"Oh. ...may I ask what it is...?" Wow he hates the fact that he didn't know this a lot more than he'd have expected.