He looks at her phone curiously, on reflex, then looks away again because whatever that was is none of his business.

She doesn't notice his attention, and is mostly thinking about power testing and how she will be doing it. Idly, she draws circles on his knuckles with a thumb.

".... I'm not keeping you from anything important by wanting to do power testing, right? I figured this would be very useful for you, considering, but, uh. Let me know if you have people you need to go save," she says, when she remembers she's holding hands with Korea's S-rank.

"No, today is my day off," because the guild president makes him take those. "If I weren't doing this I'd be working out or practising my own power use so this is fine."

"Oh! Okay, good. So this should hopefully just be backlash positive for you regardless."

"Yeah."

She smiles at him, then arranges to have her arm hooked through his so they can both be on their phones while waiting for the backlash to subside. (She bravely resists the urge to lean on him.)

"Okay," she pronounces, after a while. "I think I'm okay, and my little beeper implant agrees. Destructive testing?"

"H-huh? Oh. Um. Yes."

"Sorry, were you in the middle of something? It can wait for a bit if you need to...?"

"No, it's—fine. Don't worry about me. Um. More practising?"

Nod!!

Then it's on to gleefully testing her destructive power! Which, predictably starts with her trying to get her incineration as clean as possible. Because she hadn't been done.

It doesn't, actually, take her all that long for it to stop smelling like smoke. She'd been right before, when she'd thought that she was very close. It's - mostly just a matter of focusing more, and working... it feels more methodically, is the best way she can describe it. From there she runs through various available materials to get the same trick no matter what she's burning, which she doesn't seem to have too much trouble with at all, really. What's harder is when she purposefully tries to make as much smoke as possible, in case of needing a smoke screen - she can manage it, but it takes a couple rounds of practice to get the appropriate amounts of smoke, and to use the reactions she's making to direct the smoke a little; it's more useful if the smoke is pushed in a particular direction, instead of just omnidirectional from point of fire, plus up because of how heat works.

Then she works on aim!

... she turns out to not have really needed to work on aim. Doing artistic fire projections is actually harder than just directly setting things on fire, and she can adjust the aim of her fireballs on the fly. She is really very good at setting things on fire.

"You're going to be at least A-rank," Tae-gun observes. "Might get S, depending."

"You really think so?" she asks, pointing her brilliant grin at him. "I thought it was kind of - presumptuous to expect A-rank, much less S-rank. What does it depend on? It's easier with you here."

He once again wants her to smile like that at him forever.

"Some of it is raw power, some of it is backlash rate, some of it is flexibility, some of it is—personal adaptability. The fact that I use my conjuration to fly or occasionally go into melee when it makes more sense is part of why I'm S-rank, it's not just about the power it's about how I use it. You clearly have a lot of raw power, and your backlash rate seems really good. Fire is, qua fire, somewhat less flexible than what I can do, but there might be more things to look into regarding the fact that your power isn't necessarily specifically fire. And the way you've been thinking about it, looking into creating more or less smoke, and trying to generalise and expand outwards your conception of what you can do, that is the kind of mindset that'll get you to quickly upgrade ranks."

She bounces on her toes and makes a delighted little 'eeeee' sound.

"Thank you!! That's a really thoughtful answer and it's very helpful and, um."

"I'd like to hug you. May I hug you?"

"O-oh. Um, s-sure?"

She makes another little 'eeeee' sound and then bounces over and hugs him.

Oh.

Okay.

Um. 

okay

Hugs with someone she's this compatible with are so incredibly nice. There are clothes in the way, but they're very close despite them, and there's still more skin contact than the earlier handholding.

She wonders what they'd be like with less clothes on - she should try and have literally any chill with this very nice man she met a couple hours ago.

She does, eventually, pull away.

"U-um. More practice? Maybe with the ice walls?" she says, still - feeling a little flushed.

"Oooooor are you backlashed enough that I should apply cuddles, stat?" she asks, concerned.

wha

He jumps away suddenly and turns his back to her, visibly flushed from head to toe.

"I-it's fine. Apologies for being inappropriate." Goddamnit Lee Tae-gun get a fucking grip. "Yes, we can use ice."