"My mother is aware that I am homosexual. I haven't updated her about you but guiding is a perfectly good reason even if you were straight."

"I.... but. Presumably she can tell?"

"She might guess. It doesn't bother her."

"That... huh. It is probably silly of me to be skeptical of a mom not minding when I have met my mom's, uh, partner."

"Your mom had... a girlfriend?"

"Yeah, if that's what it's called nowadays. She was uh, very much a character. Taught me how to fire a gun."

"Useful esper skill. It is what it's called nowadays. - for girls. Guys are boyfriends."

"How is it a useful esper skill?"

"Well, when I go into a dungeon, being invisible at the monsters doesn't kill them. I bring guns for that."

"Ah. For some reason I thought that between it being the future and superpowers existing there'd be a better solution."

"Well, they're better guns."

"I did not really like shooting with Deb - my mom's girlfriend - but I suppose I can get used to them if I end up with relevant powers."

"I mean, you don't have to do dungeons. Lots of espers work in the civilian sector."

"I definitely prefer that! Civilian sector esper work is really neat."

"Yeah, I could see you with construction powers or something. It'll probably be conceptually opposite your backlash somehow, but that's easier to retrodict than predict."

"Construction powers would be extremely good."

"Here's hoping."

Oh no Haru has a smile. Lucien noticed this before but it wasn't a homosexual noticing and now it definitely is.

Let's pretend that isn't happening. Next week. Next week when he's in his right mind.

"Uh. What other sort of things do you do while backlashed?"

"I call people on the phone. I have Cricket sit on me and purr really hard - the least horrible flavor of my backlash is touch starvation, the purring is really good for it - and explain the plots of things he's been watching, like you saw. When I can focus on text enough, I sometimes read comments on my blog, or on fan sites that have me on them, and this is at that level close enough that I won't do anything impulsive trying to find something more spot-on."

"You have a blog? And fan sites about you?"

"Yeah. I think I've told you about the blog, though since it isn't about you it makes sense it would be hard to remember. A lot of espers have fansites and I have slightly more fans than most espers who do my number of dungeons because I'm so friendly when I'm lonely."

"I am interested in your blog, I think? Also I am sort of nervous about what people say about me on the fansites so maybe I don't want to see those."

"I don't think you've been spotted by the fansites yet."