Are they even in Malaysia this time? Where in the world have they gone.

Austria but their image doesn't stop mattering just because they're out of the country! Or it didn't in Juno.

Austria can cope.

But can Quasar???????

No, he's not gonna freak out about this, if Quasar sends them a stern email they can deal with it later he's not his BOYFRIEND to make out with.

Quasar can get them a privacy tent if they want. They didn't complain about Malaysia at all!

That's... true... but still...

They aren't, in fact, needed to kill the dungeon, so they're allowed to go home.

Haru does feel private about some things enough to want to put them off till they get home.

The obvious, but also - "How was that, temptation-wise?"

"—can we talk about that once I'm at zero? I feel the temptation to—not think about it—and I want to be my whole self." He doesn't, actually, but he knows that's who he should be so he's gonna be him.

"All right." The obvious, then.

He really, really likes the obvious. He particularly likes that the obvious, with Haru, takes him to zero. He wants his motivational system fully online.

It's really nice to be sane! One should set aside time to be sane every day!

Yeah. And since he's sane now, he can work on the answer to Haru's question.

"So one of the problems I had was, when we were having conversations I felt tempted to use my illusion powers. The flavour of the temptation was that I didn't want to be my true self—or, perhaps, my unfiltered, backlashed self—in front of a stranger, and that I wanted to come off as a real unbroken human. I also had the explicit thought that I... was... failing to say the things I wanted to say how I wanted to say them because I didn't know how."

"Hm. Would it work to text me instead, when we need an escort or have a victim in earshot?"

"Would... your backlash accept texting?"

"At low levels always yes, and at middling ones sometimes, it helps if you're right there and I can tell myself the third party's the only reason not to talk out loud - it's less about the medium and more about the immediacy and the, social validation?"

"I see. That might work, but the way I predict it could fail would be related to, hmm, me being tempted to make people not realise that we're texting. Because it's—strange, noteworthy, unconventional."

"We could... ask what languages they speak and hope one of our three isn't among theirs?"

"That... could work," he says, thoughtfully. "I feel like there's something I ought to take some time thinking about..." Jaeha wants to call it "notebooking" but he feels embarrassed doing so in front of Haru, since Jaeha probably isn't doing it right. "If we—hadn't talked about anything—it would've been fine, I think. Or if I hadn't had to respond. Thinking about it. So it seems like I really care about the expressive use of my powers while backlashed."

"...so it might have been easier if I wasn't there at all being talky."

"Yeah..." Which is not a conclusion he loves. "...I don't think I was close to slipping up?" he offers. "The closest I got was this one time I thought I had done it to gauge our escort's emotions but it turned out I was just reading her body language. I felt tempted to use but not actually in danger of using my powers, I think."

"Okay. Is this something where you'd benefit from more practice with it or where one data point is clear and we just shouldn't do dungeons where we'd need an escort unless there's a particular reason to want both of us there?"

"I think this might benefit from practice outside dungeons? I—even without backlash, I seem to care a lot about how I come off... And I'm hacking this with you by thinking that you'd prefer me to be... raw... and also by thinking that if anyone gets access to my whole brain it's you. But—I haven't really been around people very much, over the past several weeks, and exposure to them could be good for me."

"Okay. We can go places. There are even probably more guild events than just specifically the queer bar night, apparently they're having go tournaments when I'm not paying attention - not that I'm any good at go -"

"I've never played."