After about two months of no power use, she gets sick of dragging her own brain away from the shiny thing she desperately wants, and decides that she is willing to beg. She calls up the esper matching agency to see if she can successfully pester them into finding her someone, anyone, to be her partner. Can they check again for someone who might've awakened recently or something, her backlash is public and really really obvious, it should be easy. She's perfectly happy to travel to places to meet them!! Actually, actually, do they even have to stick to Japan?? She's willing to go to Korea!! She has family in Korea and speaks the language fluently!!

Please???

Pretty please?????

She'll be good!! She won't get hospitalized again!!!

...Korea, she says?

Mhm!! Fluent in Korean, her father is Korean and married her mother and then had her. Do they want her to go to Korea?? She can get on a plane and go to Korea.

(Preferably to poke multiple people in one trip, but still!)

Well, see, there's this one esper that juuuust became available. His backlash is confidential, but his powers seem promisingly related and, additionally, his guild seems to think that there is a reasonable chance that they might be compatible given what Hye-jin herself has publicly available about hers.

Mhm, mhm, okay. Sure. She can go to Korea. Uh, and she can also set up other alternative people to poke if she is not in fact compatible with him, that's fine??

Yeah sure! Also she won't even need to get a plane actually because the guild happens to be Quasar which has this incredibly powerful teleporter that can just get her there and btw the esper they meant was Lee Tae-gun so hope she's fine with that good luck!

The... super competent S-rank esper Lee Tae-gun? That one?

Um.

(Well, now she feels even more embarrassed about that accidental self hospitalization. She already did, but, well. Even more so now.)

Anyway yeah sure she's totally fine with that. The teleport makes this very convenient and easy to schedule, actually, hooray!

The foyer of Quasar Guild HQ is clean and professional but not bare or too utilitarian; it has an almost homey feeling to it, in a "this is still a company" way.

One of the walls is taken over by a cute small café with a few sitting and standing tables, while the center is dominated by a beautiful statue of stained glass and metal wire that depicts different images depending on the angle you look at it from. The doors outside are glass set on glass and the reception desk is across the hall from them. The last wall has four elevators sectioned off from the rest of the room by swing turnstiles which require either a visitor's pass or registered biometrics to pass through, and heavy-duty security people stand at attention by the turnstiles. The floor is marble and the walls are polished steel, and there are two muted TVs hanging behind the reception.

The area is moderately busy, with a few groups of people having coffee or standing around chatting or just admiring/taking pictures of/with the statue.

Cool, cool, she's. Glad she wore nice clothes. Um.

.... she'll grab a muffin? She supposes?? And then, er, see about. Where she should arrange herself for the inevitable handshake??

(Ack this is a really big guild, it's very intimidating and she does not at all feel qualified to be here!!!!)

A bureaucrat in a suit spots her waiting and walks up to her. "Kim Hye-jin-nim?" Not that it could be literally anyone else, the red hair was a dead giveaway already but the red eyes just make it a certainty.

(Her eyes are really more of an amber than a red but sure, close enough. And most of her hair is dyed to match what now grows out of her head, so there's a bit of a two-toned quality to it, but - yes. Definitely. Meets all descriptions, that's her, yep.)

"Ah, yes, hello," she says, bowing.

"I'm Kim Ho-yeol," he says, bowing, too. "If you'll come with me?" And perhaps unlike other bureaucrats she's used to he'll actually wait for her to come with rather than just start walking off on the assumption that she'll follow.

No no she's fine she'll be a good little baby esper hopelessly out of her depth partner candidate and follow along dutifully.

Then up the elevators they go, all the way to the twenty-seventh floor, then down some wide and spacious hallways past some rooms with glass walls and full length windows.

"You've never been partnered before?" he asks casually.

"Er - twice, but not in a professional capacity," she clarifies, immediately. That the first was someone she was barely compatible with that she hunted down via forum posts and lasted like a month before she found her second partner is, uh, irrelevant. "I'd be a combat esper if I were dungeon ready, with my powerset." But the standards are high, and hers are even higher!

"Lee Tae-gun-shi has had three partners so far," he says. "He's—he can come off as a little bit cold and reserved, and newcomers sometimes get intimidated, but please don't be. He's a good person, and not at all intimidating once you talk to him a few times."

"Okay," she agrees with a nod, hopefully sounding more sure of herself than she actually is.

She doesn't point out the gigantic intimidating building or the very expensive and intimidating teleport or all of the glass that's everywhere, all doing a perfectly good job of intimidating her without the celebrity S-rank.

But it's such a nice building! You can see the Han river from here! There's natural light! 

Anyway here's one of the meeting rooms whose walls aren't glass. Kim Ho-yeol knocks then opens the door a little bit to stick his head in. "Lee Tae-gun-shi? I've got Kim Hye-jin-nim with me."

Kim Hye-jin tries not to fidget, and spends the intervening time fixing her hair. It was fine before, but now it is definitely fine.

She can hear a loud thunk sound like someone just stood up too quickly and bumped their knee on a table, then a voice saying, "Please come in."

Kim Ho-yeol opens the door completely then and steps out of the way so that Hye-jin can view the simple meeting room with a table in the center surrounded by office chairs and a whiteboard in the back,

as well as Lee Tae-gun himself, across the room for them, looking stiff as a board behind the table.

....

oh.

She hadn't noticed earlier, when the door opened, but, but - well, she did have a little bit of backlash backlog that hadn't been cleared after the hospital visit and subsequent ending of her partnership. And it's dissipating.

From here.

There are stories about espers that are this compatible, but she'd kind of thought, especially after her many attempts to personally acquire a compatible partner, that it was probably a myth. A fanfiction trope.

"....... hi," she murmurs, feeling like she's in some kind of dream.

(Even as she notes that ha, it'll be really difficult to accidentally send herself to the hospital with compatibility like this.)

"H-hello."

He clears his throat, remembering himself, and bows. "Good morning, Kim Hye-jin-nim. I am Lee Tae-gun. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Right! Right, uh, pleasantries, right, she knows words and can even say them sometimes! She bows back, perfectly polite.

"The pleasure is mine, thank you for having me. Um." Words. She should continue to display her ability to say words in Korean. "My power is inducing exothermic reactions, and my backlash is hypothermia - it's on public record, there isn't an NDA or anything. I am not currently dungeon certified but I expect I could tidily replace a demolition team without too much trouble, though this does mean I haven't been officially ranked, yet..."

Is she babbling? She might be babbling.

"I'll be excusing myself, then," says Kim Ho-yeol, shutting the door behind himself after walking out.

"Inducing...?" That was a lot of words and he's still kind of having trouble focusing on words when his brain is going looooots of different places.

Oh no why doesn't anyone know what exothermic reactions means??? She keeps having this problem!! She's just going to have to gloss it as:

"- Fire," she clarifies. "I make fire. Or, well, heat in general, but it usually manifests as fire if I'm putting any kind of weight behind it. Sorry, I've been trying to figure out the specifics of the efficiencies of the chemical reactions I - cause." She catches herself before she says 'induce' again. Just to avoid sounding stupid.

"—I knew what it meant, sorry." He just kind of blacked out for a second there. "I was just wondering—does that mean you could control the rate of nuclear fission? Could you make nuclear fusion sufficiently efficient? Could you warm other people up by accelerating the rate of heat generation in their cells? ...that might require really fine control...

"Ah, please, sit," he adds, taking a seat again, himself.

She blinks at the depth of the questions, then sits herself. "I... don't know, I can't cause fission or fusion safely, and no one has let me at their nuclear facilities to test it. Uh - maybe on warming people up directly, but my power is pretty dangerous and I'd be worried about messing up their biological processes? What I was working on was efficiency of fuel consumption, I think I can manage to make it fuel efficient enough to avoid dangerous byproducts." When she put herself in the hospital. Ahem.

"Do you need to consume fuel? Can you not set air on fire and just conjure sourceless fire wherever you want? Do you have enough control of your powers to direct and manipulate the fire?" The initial shock of the guiding-at-a-distance thing (and the accompanying... effects... this had on him) seem to be mostly gone, replaced with interest in how her power works.

"No, I don't, but if I want to burn through things like I would for a combat situation, efficiency minimizes dangerous byproducts and would let me break through things that don't usually burn. As to the rest, um. Yes. I can do that." She wants to ask if he wants to see, but probably a guild HQ is not the place for it.

"Hmm, thinking about it you probably could find out whether you can cause fission safely depending on some details, it is a misconception that just breaking down any random atoms would cause a nuclear explosion, you need a good chunk of heavy unstable atoms cascading in a chain reaction to get them to properly explode. Then again, if you just boringly split an oxygen atom in two that wouldn't really be detectable and isn't that useful..."

Ah, shit, he started nerding. "—sorry, I, uh, got distracted and ahead of myself, um." He's not sure what to talk about instead, though, "exothermic reactions" is such an interesting power...

"No, don't be, they're good questions and I hadn't even though about assisting in the efficiency of nuclear reactions!! I would love to see if I could manage, if the backlash wouldn't potentially kill me. I, uh." She should be responsible and tell her prospective partner about her mistakes. "Accidentally put myself in the hospital testing things, while I was being guided by my partner at the time. So. Um."

But they're so compatible so probably that can't happen again!!!

"...with the level of compatibility we have that might be less of a problem," he says, unwittingly echoing her thoughts. Also the sex is going to be AMAZING he doesn't even know if she's down for that but can you imagine the way it must feel to pin her down and watch her moan helplessly with him hilt deep inside her Lee Tae-gun you have literally just met her get a fucking hold on yourself but they could try fireplay, he's never been interested in that but it sounds kind of appealing literally shut up.

"I was absolutely thinking that, but I wanted to warn you anyway, and I don't know what kind of partnership you're looking for so I didn't want to assume?"

But she's totally looking at him almost-hungrily, because. Scientific!! Testing!!! With proper safety margins!!!!!

...okay but "looking at him almost-hungrily" is. Not the way she should be looking at him. Unless she wants the same things he does what did he just say about shutting up.

"Um, but we should, uh, probably figure something out about, uh, the—I mean with this level of compatibility maybe it would just be really stupid of us to not partner even if we hate each other, but—"

"I already like you very much, and on a personal level would be willing to partner with you with, like, half this level of compatibility," she clarifies. "You're asking such good questions!!!!"

Oh. That. That's a nice smile. He likes that smile. He wants her to keep smiling at him like that forever you literally just met.

"Um. I—thank you. There's, um, I mean, there's probably professionals who would ask, uh, smarter questions, I'm just indulging my own curiosity..."

"They're good questions!!!" she repeats, feeling a little inane.

"Though um, yeah we probably should talk partnering practicalities, shouldn't we. I currently live in Japan but I, well, honestly I'm willing to emigrate," oh boy that is a bit too fast down girl, down. "- since I have family in Seoul." There. Nailed it.

"Oh. Right. Um. Do you prefer to speak Japanese, I can...?"

"Either is fine!!" she reassures, immediately.

"Okay. Um. Uh. Do you have—your backlash is hypothermia, right, do you have silo preferences, should it have good heating, probably yes? Do you prefer to have your own silo or shared, I'm fine with shared, but..."

"Good heating, those little - instant heat packs, space heaters, heated seats, heated blankets, hot liquids, all excellent, yeah. Um. I - want to silo with you but have my own silo if necessary? I'm just thinking of like, how it'd be hard to move all of the necessary equipment to warm me up if something happened."

"Quasar can move everything, we have a battery that can store the new teleporter's power and it's very powerful, it shouldn't be an issue. Nor for just getting new ones, either, Quasar isn't hurting for money and will make stuff to our specs."

"Okay! Uh. Designated isolation site for both of us to share, and then I.. also get some kind of apartment? Um. Is Quasar... willing to have me on staff even when I'm not certified or officially ranked...?"

"Yeah, of course. They'll help you get those going, too."

But she hasn't had time to do painstaking research on them!!!

"All right. Um." She will have time to do painstaking research on them, and even her unresearched knowledge is that Guild Big, with a whole division devoted to maximizing a healer esper in a way that sounds very promising, but. She still wants to research!

Okay but more important matters first:

" ............. do you want to see a demonstration of my powers? Not here, somewhere else, without smoke detectors I could set off. My backlash backlog is - kind of gone I think, you probably have more of one, actually do you need, uh," she awkwardly offers her hand, "since you're, you know, official?"

Ah. "Yes. Um." He stands up and starts making his way to her. ...slowly. "There's. Also the question of, um." WHY IS HE THINKING ABOUT THIS. "What—kinds of—guiding you're—okay with." He should ask this BEFORE holding Kim Hye-jin's hand though because. Because.

...because!!!!!!!

"Oh, I'd tried to talk my last partner into kissing for backlash efficiency, but she wasn't comfortable with that," she answers automatically, then her brain catches up to her.

"Um. That. Um. I am inexperienced in more serious levels of guiding but, er." oh no he's very pretty and he's looking at her and he asked such good questions and and and probably touching would be really nice and. "- I'm not against it, though, if, um, I should - probably figure out some sort of birth control situation if you... think we're likely to go there?"

"I," he swallows dryly, "wouldn't want to do anything you're not comfortable with," unless she looked really hot uncomfortable LITERALLY SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Also even while walking slowly it's not like he can dawdle forever so now he's next to her and—actually he's standing up next to her and he's just realised that that is a terrible idea so he'll pull up his chair and drop onto it a bit too abruptly and then hold his hand out and look away.

".... okay," she agrees, then. Gently reaches out to take his hand. "So, uh. Yes, probably, for figuring out birth control, and it's not like it hurts if it's -" her hand makes contact with his and oh no holy shit she wants to be touching him always and forever. "- um. set up but not necessary, whereas the. opposite would be. um."

fuck.

At least he was braced for it somewhat.

(He was nearly not braced enough. He will not move to adjust because that might trigger some—events—but it's taking all of his concentration.)

"Y-yes, you're, um, r-right," he manages to choke out.

"Mmm... mhmm." She wants to nuzzle his hand but that would be incredibly weird so she's not going to do that. Words. Relevant words. Say relevant words while holding his hand. You can do it. "Um - I - should I know your backlash for safety reasons or, like, are you okay if I just have no idea and help make it go away?"

"I'll—tell you when—if—we definitely finalise this and partner—" If he never gets to fuck her he might literally die ok Lee Tae-gun you're getting your "having thoughts" permission revoked. "It will not—I will not have a—problem—with the heating, though."

Nod nod nod. "Okay, it just, seemed relevant." Say something else besides just silently holding his hand and kind of wanting to nuzzle it against her cheek because it feels so nice. "... your powers are really cool," she adds.

"O-oh. Th-thank you. Um. Yours—sound really cool, too." Though he hasn't actually seen her power in action—wait. She said she wanted to show him it, right. "Um. I—would like to see you using your p-powers, yes." And then she'd get more backlashed which would somehow make this feel even nicer??? That's probably, like, actually biologically impossible, but so is conjuring fire out of thin air so.

"Oh! Yes, okay, um. ... It should not be in here, is there like, a power testing room or something here, or, uh, should we find a quiet place outside, or?"

"We—do have power testing rooms—so it's probably a good idea to go to one of them, um."

...

"I-is there any realistic sc-scenario where we don't partner."

"I mean I did literally say I was going to move to Korea for you so, I mean. Probably not?"

"O-okay." He's still not been looking at her. He should look at her to ask this. "D-do you w-want to. Go. Sign the contract. Now. I-it's fine if not, though. Or, if there's—" Fuck he's thinking with his dick but he can't unsay it arghhhhh.

"I-I-I haven't done research on Quasar in particular so I think I'd like to hold off on signing anything based on that for right now, especially while I'm in - power testing and certification limbo - but I think even if I turn out to not like them I'd still want to figure out some kind of - complicated 'we each have our own guild' setup kind of deal where we're still ultimately partners, so if the contract you mean is an NDA or - something, I, um, then maybe yeah??"

"NDA, mostly, yeah." Practicalities! He can stop thinking with his dick now! "Quasar has—I think—I'm pretty sure—a contract for exactly the situation of partnering with someone who is not sure whether they want to join or not but might in the future."

"Okay then, yeah, that would be fine. Though I'd need to, um, maybe get a lawyer to check over it -" but that would take so long though "- or just read it to make sure it's saying what I think it'll say, are the contracts here, uh, clear?"

"Yeah. They are—shorter than other places', or so I hear, because—they say it's because they don't want you to get tripped up due to legalese."

Nod. Okay. Then she'll read it and see if it makes sense and is clear and ask questions and and and if this is motivated by pretty boy holding her hand and looking at her then, um, oops she'll say she was backlashed probably and it'll ultimately be fine - okay no stop it, that's the hormones and guiding talking, be smarter than that.

... She'll get a damn lawyer. She can ask her mom for help on this subject if it's confusing. These are important decisions and she should treat them as such, because getting carried away is in her nature and has already screwed her over at least once and she has learned her lesson, damn it.

"I'll - get a lawyer just in case. So I um. ... Probably need to make a phone call or two." She's still holding his hand. And does not super want to let go.

He also does not super want to let go.

"Sure. Um. No rush. Sorry, I don't want to—pressure. Just. Sorry. Feel free to tell me to fuck off."

"No no it's okay it's just. I'm, um. Also excited?"

Excited? Is he excited?

"Okay."

Yeah. He supposes he is. That is the thing he is right now. Excited. In many different ways fuck,

She lets out a little giggle and looks away from him, grinning.

"Okay - okay, uh. I'll. I'll make phone calls and. See about being a real responsible adult who has more than one braincell bouncing around in my skull." She gives his hand a squeeze, then regretfully pulls away in what is surely a monumental act of will.

Oh God he almost let a whine out pull yourself together Lee Tae-gun you're the most powerful man in Korea get a fucking grip.

"Yeah. No rush," he repeats, inanely.

"Some rush," she replies with a little grin. "But not entirely on your account."

She - aborts a hand movement to reach out and touch him again as she stands up, look it's just so tempting and his hair is right there looking eminently ruffle-able, and instead scurries off to be responsible.

Oh my GOD. He opens the DM group conversation he has with his two ex-partners who are still at Quasar.

LeeTae-gun: HYUNGNIM
LeeTae-gun: HELP

🍀LeeJuheon: What's up? What's happening?

LeeTae-gun: I JUST MET SOMEONE IM SO COMPATIBLE WITH I COULD FEEL HER ACROSS THE ROOM
LeeTae-gun: I ALMOST CAME WHEN I TOUCHED HER HAND

🪁freefall: LMAO bruh
🪁freefall: congrats????

LeeTae-gun: THANK YOU
LeeTae-gun: IM SIGNING THE PARTNERSHIP DOCUMENTS I MET HER LESS THAN AN HOUR AGO
LeeTae-gun: I THINK I WENT INSANE
LeeTae-gun: STO P ME

🪁freefall: hey if she sucks you can break it off and otherwise get ready to have such good sex you might die

🍀LeeJuheon: That's kind of unlike you, Tae-gun...

🪁freefall: fr but it's not that big a deal unless you hate her
🪁freefall: and even then, like, if it's from a distance, you guys can just stay across the room from each other and use your phones

LeeTae-gun: BUT SHE WAS REALLY COOL AND CUTE AND HAD A COOL POWER AND I THINK SHES A NERD I THINK I LIKE HER
LeeTae-gun: WAIT THAT LAST PART IS PROBABLY JUST MY DICK TALKING

🍀LeeJuheon: hahahaha
🍀LeeJuheon: It'll probably be fine
🍀LeeJuheon: And if it's not we'll be here for you
🍀LeeJuheon: But congrats, sounds like you found someone really good for you!

LeeTae-gun: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Aaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

"Heeeeeeey mom so um. I am really really really compatible with the guy in Korea. Yeah no like, guiding across the room compatible, it's like it's straight out of a light novel."

"No I haven't signed anything or taken off any of my -! MOM."

"I was calling to ask about a lawyer," insists Hye-jin. "Because I am being responsible. Apparently there's a contract for partnership without necessarily joining the guild? I want it to be looked over by a professional before I touch it. - No it's not that I'm not willing to maybe join the guild, I just didn't have time to research it and didn't want to just blindly fling myself at a strange Korean guild without at least looking to make sure there's something to catch me first. Right. But I am pretty sure regardless I'll want to partner with him, because, he, it's."

".... No, it's worse than that!! Mom he asked such good questions!!!! I'm in danger!!!! He brought up maybe figuring out a way to use my power to make nuclear power more efficient it was so cool and - no we did not do any scientific testing, I didn't even do a demonstration of any kind to him, I promise I do not want to end up in the ICU any more than you want me to. Right, yes, it's - yes."

".... that was my second priority, yes, I, um. Will work on that but the lawyer was first. Yep. Yep I know, yep. Mom. Mom, yes, I know about condoms, but realistically speaking we would probably be sticking with oral for efficiency of - WELL YOU WERE THE ONE WHO BROUGHT IT UP!"

"No, mom, he literally said he wouldn't want to do anything I'm not comfortable with, with his face, we were alone in a room together and briefly held hands, he was a perfect gentleman, yes I produced these thoughts on my own without any outside assistance, any further questions mother."

"Okay! Great. Thank you. I will - okay, text me the email to send the contract to? Okay. Thank you. I - things are up in the air a bit right now but I'll get it sorted and we will probably all be getting complimentary teleports for life or something. Yes I am still being responsible, you know you still have access to the little temperature tracker if you want to verify, I don't want to scare you again like that."

"Yeah. I - might get him access too, and definitely want someone local who can watch it for me in case of the worst. Yes, mother, I feel like it only helps if more people are aware of what's going on there, but we did meet like an hour ago, and asking if he wants to constantly know the specifics of my internal temperature is a bit - yes. Yes, exactly. Oh, uh - his name's Lee Tae-gun. .... Yes. Yes, he's that one."

SNORT.

"Glad to hear you approve, mother, I'm still not making you a grandmother anytime soon. Talk to you soon. Bye."

She pokes her head back in the office. "Lawyer has been acquired, I have an email to send contracts to for review," she announces, brightly.

"Oh. Okay. Yeah, cool. Good." Congratulations, Lee Tae-gun, she now thinks you are a complete idiot.

From the way she's smiling at him, she really doesn't!

"Are there - things you need to take care of or - want particularly? In a partnership? Oh, uh - and what's your dungeon load like?"

Oh yes. Useful questions. Unlike his gawping like a complete moron.

"I... usually wake up around seven, and I do between two and six dungeons a day depending on how big they are, but most days I do three or four. I like to study dungeons the day before I go into them, and review them just before going out. I've been soloing dungeons since my last partner and I broke it off, and I used to solo some anyway when I went into dungeons without him."

That sounds like so much backlash to offset power testing eeeeeee.

"Okay!" she agrees brightly, not having any real perspective on how insane that schedule is. "I - obviously don't have a dungeon schedule of any kind, yet, but I can absolutely just match backlash as best as I can to what you're doing to get you back down quickly? To, I mean, degrees of safety, my backlash is deadly and I would not like to end up in the hospital, but. I have absolutely been bravely holding back on powers testing basically since I awakened."

She's SMILING at him again aughhhhhhh.

"Yeah. Okay. So if we're—not signing right now, so—wanna do some power testing?"

DOES SHE EVER.

"Yes!! Though let's get a copy of the contract sent to my lawyer first but otherwise - yes."

Yeah that takes forty-five seconds and then—for something like fire they'll probably want the one with the tall ceiling and ventilation fans... "Oh, do you have access to the commlink?"

"Oh, uh, no, I don't."

"Oh. ...do you want it? I mean, you'll get it as soon as you join any guilds but we all use the same system so it might be useful to get it ahead of time?" He slides his right index and middle fingers down in front of him to summon the holographic screen to demonstrate.

"Uh - eventually, but it - requires an implant, right?"

"Yeah but there's a little box that can do it automatically on the tip of your finger, if you want."

"Mmmm, I'll pass for now, I already have a - temperature tracking implant, and I'd want to make sure the systems make nice? And, er, vet things properly before they go inside me."

...... oh no oops that sounded so dirty.

yeah it sure did

"That's fair. I just, uh, can't loop you into the teleport without it."

"Oh. Is it particularly far? Because we could just, er. Walk there if it's in the building."

"It's not in the building, the building is mostly offices. There are a couple of gym rooms underground that are rated for some kinds of powers but for something that could explode we have something offsite."

"... There's no option to teleport with you if you're holding my hand or something??? Hm." But power testing!!!! But she's got such a good streak of being reasonable and responsible! BUT POWER TESTING. Truly, this is a conundrum.

"We can teleport civilians if we tag them with a rescue doodad. I... am not sure if we're allowed to use them for non-rescues, though..."

"Well that's bad design, people shouldn't have to permanently have an implant in themselves in order to use a teleport, and - wait, I was teleported here without one, how did that work...?"

"...maybe they had Min Woo-young teleport you personally?" That wouild be really inefficient, though.

"There was a little alert on my phone that I agreed to for it? Does he work through those?"

"Oh. No, that'd be the system. But then..." Can he actually ping her from the system?

Yep! Totally can.

...huh.

"Are you sure you don't already have the comms implant? I can see you here." He shows her.

"... Maybe the temperature tracking implant?" she wonders, peering at it. "Is there a way to - have it... also do comms?" Damn it, this is making her look like such a dumbass when it comes to technology, she's looking so stupid in front of her new probably-partner.

"...temperature tracking implant?"

"I have an - after my last hospitalization I got an implant for keeping track of my internal temperature so I could get warnings if it gets too low? So, uh. That's probably doing it and implies it might also make nice with the comms system, and I'll. Need to talk to some people about turning it on at some point, probably!" Looking like such a dumbass augh doesn't even know what the things inside her fucking do!!!

"Anyway this does mean we can go power testing now though?" she asks, hopefully, desperately wishing to prove herself at least a little bit competent on at least one axis, somewhere.

"Oh. That's really clever. —right, yes, let's go."

She gets the teleport request notif.

On her phone, like before. Anyway yep, accept!

She's practically vibrating with excitement.

The relevant location is an enormous room, the glass ceiling a good four stories up, and wide enough to comfortably house two football fields and then some. There are various equipment available, such as training dummies, climbing rope nets, and the like, available for people to train or practise.

Eeeeeeeee~

Okay, first she's going to warm up a little - it's been over two months since she's been able to properly use her powers, and with her absurdly compatible partner right there she needs to re-calibrate. With Tae-gun present, it's easier than she could have ever expected, and she can't stop the grin from spreading across her face. Yesssssssssssssssss.

She begins with general demonstrations of pyrokinetic control. It's immediately clear that while she can just cause there to be massive amounts of fire without too much trouble, she's much more focused on precision over raw power, and seems to take some measure of joy in making it look downright artistic. She moves small motes of fire through the air deftly, splitting them off and combining them on the other side of imaginary obstacles, then real ones, leaving them perfectly unharmed, then expands them to make walls and curves and more complicated shapes. At first it's quick flashes of fire, but as she gets used to the ease at which she can use her power with her (likely!) partner present, she begins holding and then dissipating them at will, with only minimal hand movements (mostly to keep track of where things are in relation to things). Then she runs through other practical things - gently warming up a space several degrees, making tiny efficient globes of fire that give off more light than heat, then holding them steady while doing other things. Her power control often originates from herself or her hands, but it doesn't actually need to, and she can just make something be hot over there without disturbing anything in between her or it; the problem is that it's a little harder to aim that way, and she loses out on precision, not that she can't.

Her powers look remarkably destructive, but the training equipment is entirely untouched and intact. Tae-gun can feel the heat from her flames, but only when they're very close, not when one would feel ambient heat from an ordinary fire.

"I'm going to want to practice on the destructive side next," she says, when her phone beeps at her to stop, "I just didn't want to break anything without checking first. But yes, break first, safety."

The smile hasn't left her face since she started using her powers, and it's not going to go away anytime soon.

Her powers really are extremely cool. "I do conjure ice..."

"Oooo! I mean I couldn't do the smoke trick without proper fuel, but breaking through ice things would be really great! I haven't had any practice with ice yet."

There are seats in here, right? She can sit next to him? ... Possibly while holding his hand??

Yes to both. Though he might need a second to be able to concentrate again before he can use his powers.

Oh, she was taking a break because, well, her phone beeped at her that her temperature was getting too low. So he doesn't need to do anything in particular.

Well, except maybe talk to her.

"Um, any tips for what I should work on in particular? Since you are, well, kind of already experienced in the practical side of things. With the caveat that I can do destruction and just haven't gotten to showing you that half yet."

Oh good a distraction. 

"Hmm... So it's hard to say based on just watching you like that because I'm not sure what the backlash accumulation rate was nor how much you can tolerate, and since you were experimenting a lot I also don't have a good feel for your sustain, but, assuming you definitely want to be a combat esper, the precision looks really good for very high single target DPS—that's "damage per second"—as well as CC—that's "crowd control", means basically things that help you herd and arrange the spatial distribution of enemies."

Nowadays these terms are usual for certain kinds of video games but Tae-gun is not sure whether the terms came from games or if games got them from espers. Video games like modern ones didn't really exist in the 70s, of course, but there were tabletop RPGs that could've come up with the terms, and he doesn't know if they did.

"So... work on sustain and pacing myself in a real actual combat situation," she translates, nodding.

"That, generically, is true always, since your backlash is always the thing bottlenecking you. Learning how to get the most effect out of the least backlash is the most important thing."

"Right. And I haven't been able to do a lot of - backlash management because I was bottlenecked on getting rid of it. Though for the record, the experimentation is also about - trying to find the most efficient way to do something."

"Yeah, I figured it would be."

Smile! And handholding.

"Are there combat drills? Available? With Quasar or in Korea in general."

"Kind of but kind of not? It's really, really difficult to do proper drills with the way dungeons are so different from each other and also with how destructive esper powers can be. There are drills for the parts that are pretty common, going in and out, some kinds of rescuing and dangerous terrain, but there isn't really anything other than monsters that I can do—much of my stuff to. But people spar and train with dummies, too."

"Hm. Okay." She's not super happy about that answer, why can't she obsessively practice in safety where no lives are on the line...? "... My power's really destructive, it's, uh. A little frightening, and I don't want to hurt anyone. Dungeons and monsters, sure, just." She waves vaguely. "I definitely don't want to hurt anyone by accident."

"...maybe you and I have different things in mind when you say drill?"

"Probably? Mostly what I want to do is practice my aim and reflexes and keeping my destruction where I mean it to be instead of, uh. Everything burns down. - Actually, if I get control over a fire, I can keep it from spreading and kind of - shush it? So possibly I might want to do some kind of... fire fighting thing."

"Oh. When you said 'drill' I was thinking of something scripted and programmed to try to simulate real dungeons, which is what I think is not generally feasible. We have fireproof—" Hm. "Or at least fire-resistant practice targets, nothing is proof sufficient applications of esper powers."

Nod. "... It'd be useful to have a range of fire-resistant to non fire-resistant materials to practice on. Practicing both the - punching through things that don't want to be melted into slag, and stopping flammable things from spreading completely out of control. If that's, uh, feasible."

"Yeah. That should be easy to get."

"Oh, good! Okay." Haaaaandholding. She checks on her phone what her core temperature is. Ehhhh still not good enough to go back to practicing, it'll just beep at her again. This is still significantly faster than before - especially when it feels like he's got a backlash backlog of his own? - but still. She wishes to science.

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."

"You weren't! Do you need guiding right now? Because I think that takes precedence over - actually absolutely no ice today, regardless, you haven't done anything this whole time, and it feels like you have some backlog? We can just, um, cuddle, and I can occasionally play with fire to help chip away at your backlash faster?"

Hand touch?

aaaaaahhhhh that feels so nice whyyyyyyy "you mentioned kissing" FOR GOD'S SAKE LEE TAE-GUN

"F-for backlash efficiency? Yes, I, um. If you'd be comfortable with it and need to -"

Yeah sorry Kim Hye-jin she's now getting full-on makeouts while Korea's only S-rank esper is bodily attached to you and squeezing you firmly against himself.

oh okay.

this is her life now, apparently.

no complaints.

makeouts with pretty boy who asks good questions and is light novel bullshit compatible sounds great to her.

Fuck this feels incredible. He was reasonably compatible with his prior partners but this is just out of this world. And he is actually a little bit backlashed because he hasn't really been guided at all recently; Ha Si-yeon offered to cover him but he felt embarrassed especially now that Si-yeon has a new partner and he might've given in eventually especially after he got backlashed enough that his dick started talking more loudly than his brain, but right now he's glad he didn't because this is amazing. 

Also, speaking of his dick, there is very little physical space between the two of them.

So, prioritize that birth control thing very much, and maybe try to take care of that in some way before they are next left alone in a room together. That's the major takeaway the little tiny percentage of her that is still thinking logical thoughts has.

She's pretty content to keep things here in the land of makeouts? His excitement is very flattering but evaluating what carnal acts are and are not okay sounds hard. (Heh.) Makeouts are pretty backlash efficient, and also fantastic, and furthermore are plenty new to her in particular.

The little percentage of Tae-gun's brain that's thinking thoughts isn't thinking very logical ones; he's mostly thinking up ways to get Hye-jin's clothes off and then having to stop himself from doing that because they'd both regret it but would they EVALUATE AT A LATER TIME.

But they're interrupted by a wolf-whistle and clapping from a tiny blond bombshell of a man with numerous ear piercings.

????? wha??

Lee Tae-gun has once again jumped away from her and is still blushing and tenting a bit but his horniness is being quickly replaced by annoyance. "Hyung," he says in something that could be described as a growl.

??? but makeouts though??? Whine???

"Oh, please don't stop on account of us, we wouldn't want to intrude."

"Us" in this case being him and a pink-haired pink-eyed girl even tinier than he is, blushing nearly as much as Tae-gun and looking thoroughly embarrassed. 

"Sunbae—!" she exclaims, but she doesn't seem to have a follow-up to that.

Okay brain that is not devoted to a litany of 'do not get pregnant' is coming online aaaaaand:

(That growl was hot though, no bad stay on target!!)

"R-right, sorry, um. We. Are in the practice room," she says, mostly for her own benefit. "We'll, um. Go elsewhere?"

The second half of this is directed at Tae-gun, because she doesn't know an elsewhere for them to go to.

"—my silo? Or—shared Quasar silo?" In case she doesn't want to be somewhere owned by a complete stranger, which Tae-gun is. ...he supposes the Quasar silo is also owned by complete strangers but it's different.

"Awww, so I can't watch?"

"Hyung I will kill you with a knife."

"That a promise?"

He looks at Hye-jin again in a mixture of irritation and horny panic.

His own personal silo sounds like it would end in so many mistakes.

"Quasar silo? If it's, um." she glances at the newcomers who interrupted them, and her meaning is clear. If they're not likely to be interrupted there.

Yup yup yup he can request a teleport and then they're in a nice if somewhat nondescript apartment which includes a suite whose open door reveals a very large bed. 

"I—sorry—he's—"

"An ass, but he did have a point," snorts Hye-jin, who can't stand the lack of physical touch happening and reaches out to take his hands. "It's fine. I'm okay. You?"

He's now making out with her again is how. He forgot to take his shoes off before starting to do that so he'll just kick them off without detaching from her.

She huffs a laugh into his lips, kicks her own shoes off, and starts back up the litany of 'do not get pregnant' in the back of her head.

Everything else is fair game, though.

Tae-gun knows that he cannot be trusted to make decisions in this state but, since she was willing, he followed her lead. He hadn't been with a woman since—well, since he manifested—but a lot of things are the same, and the ones that aren't they managed to mostly figure out. It was even better than he'd expected and he made a bit of a fool of himself but all in all it was a successful, uh, guiding session.

Hye-jin... sure has made decisions and also choices, hasn't she. She can't bring herself to regret any of them, but she sure can be embarrassed about them. And hide in her (technically still not official) partner's arms about it. He was legitimately very sweet and that was really really nice and holy shit she absolutely needs to sort out that birth control thing yesterday because - well, look, there are things Hye-jin experienced that she would also like to experience elsewhere.

She should probably say words, represent herself as a thinking being that has more than just carnal urges.

"I, er, don't actually have to head home tonight," she ventures, shyly. "So, um, if you've still got some backlog - and it seems like you do? - I can stay. For the night."

wha

That sounded a lot like she wants to fuck some more? But they just fucked a bunch? Like he's down to be clear but.

....

"I meant in a, a, sleeping fashion," she snorts, when she looks up and sees the expression he's making. "I-I mean I'm not necessarily against it but, I, like, need an hour or two at least and some water probably? But, um. ... I like the cuddles?"

Oh.

Oh.

Your mind, Lee Tae-gun. The gutter. "Um. Right. Yes. Um. But, uh. Yes. Me too. But c-clothes and, and toothbrush?"

"Those are... probably acquirable? I think? A trip to the convenience store and, like, a spare t-shirt or something?"

"Right so—should I—go to my place to get some of that...?" He does not have a spare t-shirt in the shared guild silo.

She gives a little giggle. "Um. Maybe? Does. Does Quasar have spare clothes on hand, maybe? ... And spare toothbrushes?" The former seems like an obvious thing for a guild to provide espers, who are famously terrible at staying in all of their clothes. The latter... there are still convenience stores that can help them!

"Oh. They might." He has no idea. Maybe he should... unhug... and go find out...

...he will instead conjure some ice he can telekinetically reshape and control and use that to open a closet door and start rummaging from a distance.

.... this elicits giggling from his partner.

"Oh, come on, we just worked very hard to undo that backlash!" she snorts.

"No, we undid a lot more backlash than that. Just hugging you while doing this is still backlash-negative." And Quasar does seem to have a selection of some basic clothes in many sizes, what do you know!

"Yeah, but you've still got a backlog! Like, if I -" she creates little motes of light, and sends them to help light up the closet his ice is working through, "- do that, my backlash fades away really quickly. So."

She is so cute. He hopes they'll be partners. Then he can tell her about his backlash and she can fuck him some more who said that.

Anyway yeah okay they do have clothes and some more exploration reveals they also have toothbrushes and stuff. Yay for forethought!

Yay for forethought!

She finds and retrieves her phone, then nestles happily against him.

Speaking of becoming his partner: "... lawyer's cleared the partner paperwork. So, um. I am up for signing that part whenever," she says, a little shyly.

"O-oh. Um." Now? Can it be now? It maybe shouldn't be now.

"No, uh, second thoughts now that you've, er, checked under the hood...?" she asks nervously, because she doesn't know what to do with his silence.

"N-no! Um. Just. I'm. Free whenever. ...well, no, I have a dungeon in the morning, but."

"So, probably should be sorted out today, then?"

"Um. Um. Maybe? Probably?"

"I-I mean we can wait if you have doubts....?"

She reaches out to pet him despite her somewhat self conscious words.

"No! I don't! I just want to make sure you don't a-and, aren't being, uh, rushed?"

"Oh. No, I'm... you've been really, really great? I don't feel rushed, I just. Like you. Am excited to partner with you. ... am slightly irrationally scared that if I don't lock things in you'll go find someone else but I'm pretty sure that's, just, like. Not literally impossible, but why."

Oh. "I, um, was maybe, um, having the same i-irrational thought." Haha yeah so irrational. Yeah.

"Oh. Well. Okay then, let's get our clothes back on and find some people to watch us write our names on some paper and then probably come back here or - to your silo, maybe - for celebratory sex."

!!!!!!!

"O-okay. Let's, uh, yes. Go. Then. —oh, I need to, uh—lawyer—I mean Quasar lawyer—" He opens his commscreen to try to get an appointment with someone asap.

Giggle!

She gives him a kiss, then gets up to start getting her clothes on.

"And maybe also... grab food of some kind while we're in clothes? Um. ... Make a, um. Date? Of it?"

Oh god oh god Hye-jin you've made it weird-!

He accidentally digs his finger through the hologram when she says that. "Oh um, I, yes, okay?"

"Is... is that a positive okay or just a... you're fine with this okay...? Because we don't need to or anything, it's, just, I, thought it might be, um..."

"It's a positive okay!!!"

"Oh! Okay! Then. Then. Date, of some kind. Probably."

"Okay! Oh I got a reply. Okay. Let's, um, go?"

"You still need to put on pants?" And everything else, but. Probably at least pants.

...right yes Lee Tae-gun do not run off naked with an erection.

He can put clothes on and then they can go.

He's very cute. (And about to be HERS, ha!)

Okay so, uh. Hi yes she'd like to officially be Lee Tae-gun's partner, as per this contract that has been read over by her lawyer, she will probably want to then join Quasar but wants some time to think about it.

Sure thing! Sign here, here, and here, congratulations you're partners!

Aaaaaah.

Hooray!

Okay, next question! ... She glances at Tae-gun, then carries on with asking it despite how her face is turning pink.

Birth control! She has not done anything that will result in children but she would like assistance in preventing pregnancy please, can Quasar, like. Help with that in some way? Get her fastlined to something-or-other? Preferably that works, uh, sooner rather than later and which needs minimal babysitting?

SHE IS NOT THE ONLY ONE TURNING SOME SHADE OF RED

Wait he knows part of the answer to this question. Quasar has pills, both morning after ones and ones you take more regularly, available to all espers from the computer system's inventory.

Lee Tae-gun is correct! Quasar can also provide help with other contraceptive methods such as getting an IUD, and its inventory also has things such as condoms (both male and female) since the fluid exchange from kissing plus the physical proximity really do provide the majority of the benefit and people might not want to bother with other contraceptive methods—though Quasar strongly advises them to not rely exclusively on condoms since that's definitely the kind of thing people can forget in the heat of the moment and even if they remember they can forget to do it properly in the heat of the moment.

...oh Tae-gun absolutely would forget, wouldn't he.

Right! Okay, so which of those can she get as-immediately-as-possible that would be idiot and/or horny proof?

With the caveat that nothing is idiot and/or horny proof, just idiot and/or horny resistant, they have a pamphlet! They can give her the pamphlet, it talks about stuff like long-lasting hormonal shots and birth control implants including but not limited to aforementioned IUDs and a lot of other such things in pretty straightforward terms. It also has a very big disclaimer that these are meant to just illustrate available options and she should go talk to a doctor about this and not just go with whatever sounds good.

The bureaucrat showing them all of this has the phone number of a doctor that works with Quasar but they are not sure if said doctor will be in right now, given the late hour. If it's really urgent (they say, with a completely straight face), there are probably 24/7 doctors they can find, but also the actual only birth control method that will "start working" straight out of this office is a condom.

whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissssssssssssssssssss

Hye-jin meanwhile is honestly very cheered by this matter of fact handling of the situation! She's downright charmed by the pamphlet, even. What a helpful pamphlet!

Literally handing this tonight isn't necessary, but - could they set her up with an appointment maybe-tomorrow to talk her options over with a doctor? Is that possible? She can also do this week but she'd ideally like to save on teleports.

Yeah, tomorrow's probably fine, here's their schedule.

She picks out a time, thanks them for theirs, and then she can take Tae-gun by the hand and they can head out!

"So - food location! Know any good places to eat?"

"Um."

Amazing, Lee Tae-gun, you've lived in Seoul your whole damn life and have worked out of this building for a year and a half and you don't even know any good places to eat. He bets one of his hyungnim would know except he would rather throw himself into a fire than ask.

She blinks at him, then pulls the hand that she's holding to her lips to kiss it.

"Sorry, am I rushing you? I can just, uh, Google something? I didn't mean to put you on the spot."

Aaaaahhhh if she wanted him to answer questions she shouldn't be doing those thiiiiiiings!!!!

??? She seems to have broken him, somehow?

She... will get out her phone and start looking places up?

"Does... barbecue work okay for you?" she asks, because if no one present produces a food opinion they are going to be trapped here forever in limbo, and she hasn't had Korean barbecue in a while, and the Korean style of grill-your-own-meat is the perfect sort of thing for a picky perfectionist like her.

"Yeah. Yeah, that's—fine."

"Okay," she says, smiling at him. "Then I have a place for us to eat!"

"Okay." What's happening? Why is he going on a date with a person he met today? Is it even really a date? Sure they fucked like rabbits but that's a different thing.

If he does not ask these questions out loud then this person is not going to know to answer them! She will instead merrily lead him off to a little barbecue place and see about trying to get them a table.

Okay! He mostly has time to recover his ability to think on the way there. 

(Get a grip, Lee Tae-gun.)

...omg??? Lee Tae-gun???? Yes of course please come in come in where would you like to sit oh hello to you too are you Lee Tae-gun's partner they've never seen you before here's the menu if there's anything they need please don't hesitate to call them also can they get an autograph and a picture.

(Oh. Right. That. If he'd been more on top of things he'd have remembered that.)

He plasters a smile on. "Sure!" Autograph and selfie, maybe with Kim Hye-jin if she wants to be in it?

.... Kim Hye-Jin might perhaps have made an error. In that she forgot her (!!!) partner is a celebrity.

She'll pass on being in the picture, mostly because she thinks her face is stuck on an expression that could be described as a deer-in-headlights. Instead she'll, er, she can take the picture, make sure it's a good one, then hand the phone back.

She totally knows how to smile, do that, c'mon:

"Do you have any private rooms available?"

Please say yes please say yes please say yes.

"—oh! Um, we don't have private rooms per se but we do have privacy screens?" they try. They really, really don't want Lee Tae-gun to leave, are you kidding!!!

That... is better than not that, but possibly they should - no it's Korean barbecue, there's no take out option to speak of - go, somewhere else maybe, um?

She looks to Tae-gun for guidance. Help?

...

Yeah. 

"We're very sorry, we should've looked it up in advance. We won't be able to stay, but please have a lovely evening!" He bows to them apologetically.

Yep bowing apologetically that's a thing she can also do!!

"Oh. That's of course alright, I'm sorry we couldn't offer what you need." Goddamnit, what's the point of working right around the corner from Quasar if they can't even receive Lee Tae-gun!!! They're going to complain to their boss about it.

Right, then! Tae-gun's brain is fully online, now, so he'll be able to properly make decisions. He grabs his phone and starts scanning over restaurants in the area. "I assume you like sushi? I also have Italian-Chinese fusion, regular i.e. Korean, and pizza."

"Anything is fine," she agrees, now perfectly willing to eat literal cardboard to avoid another social situation. Wait, but what if he wants an opinion...? "- I do like sushi, though. Japanese, and all." Ha. Haha. She's recovering, and is going to resemble a real person again soon, probably.

He nods, puts his phone away, starts walking with purpose—

—and a group of three giggling teenage girls walks up to them  "Oppa, oppa!"

(Oh goddamnit.)

??? Why are they calling him oppa, does he know them?

She looks to him for further guidance, and - okay so he doesn't know them, she doesn't think, but then why are they being so weirdly intimate?? That's so rude??

What do. She specifically stated she'd rather eat cardboard than deal with this, it was right there in her narration. Why this.

The flash of annoyance doesn't actually make it to his face. He had Si-yeon-hyung help him practise keeping his face under control by getting under his skin—which hyung had a lot of fun with, of course—so now he's got his Public Face on again.

"Good evening."

"Can we get a picture? With all of us and then one at a time?" asks the one that's been the spokesperson for the group. 

(One of the other two is kind of giving Kim Hye-jin the stink eye, though.)

Ohhhhhhh they're fangirls. The stink eye makes it obvious. She understands now.

Okay, she can do this, all she has to do is be the bad guy who is keeping the hot boy away from them. Easy.

"I don't think we have time for single pictures," she says apologetically, shutting down the attempt to make this a photo shoot right there, and giving Tae-gun the opening to apologetically say they're busy. But he can still let them have one with all of them if he wants to be merciful.

—good job, Kim Hye-jin, you're a fast learner.

"We unfortunately don't have a lot of time," he agrees, bowing. "But we can take a very quick one with the group."

Awww mannnn.

Still, better than nothing. Peace fingers everyone! Kim Hye-jin isn't invited! Cheese!

Cheese indeed. 

"Please have a lovely evening," he says, and starts to stride off with purpose again.

(But they do catch a "He likes girls???" "I know what the hell!" "He's so dreamy, though..." "Yeah, he looks even better in person, I didn't know that was possible..." exchange on their way away, courtesy of esper hearing.)

Ignoring that in favor of, yep, walking with purpose!

She'd like to apologize for being a dumbass when it comes to his celebrity status, but that'll have to wait until they are actually not in public anymore, probably.

The restaurant Tae-gun took them to is substantially more professional about it; if the maître d' is excited about meeting him they're not showing it at all. Here's a booth for them, here's the menu, it's also available on their website, they can press this button to call a waiter or just order on the website itself using this code.

Oh, good. Thank you!

And then, the minute they're alone:

"Sorry, I'm, uh, not used to the... celebrity thing. I'd honestly forgotten."

"Oh. It's fine. It took me a while to get used to it, too. And you did really well with the girls just now, I was going to say exactly the same thing."

"Thank you. I wish I hadn't gotten you into that situation in the first place, though. At first I thought they might know you, from the - oppa thing - but then when they started glaring at me I realized what was going on."

"Oh. That's just what fangirls call celebrities they like."

"With context I now understand that! It was just. Not a thing that would have happened in Japan, I don't think, it's so. ... Cringe? It's cringe."

"Wouldn't it? I thought J-pop was about the same. I guess I don't know if Japanese espers follow the tradition the same way..."

"So, yes, we do have the J-pop culture for espers, but it's also... we're very Japanese? The high pitched fangirl noises are for use with one's esper body pillow and like minded friends, and in - designated fan zones, like if the person is doing autographs or at a convention or something. Calling someone oppa on the street is just." She makes a face. "Overstepping to a huge degree."

"I instead expect it would have been more - shyly asking for one picture, apologizing profusely for wasting their time, bowing constantly, and then fleeing to then giggle. Or whispering to each other while not working up the courage to really interrupt them. Instead of, uh. That."

"...sounds a lot nicer, honestly."

"I mean, to be fair, I have not been on the other end of the Japanese celebrity esper thing yet, and I was really never an esper fangirl. I don't think I have full context to really firmly say. Just - that's what I would expect. With, you know, occasional crazy deviations, like everywhere else."

"Yeah. Well, um. I... I should probably have, um, checked that with you. That you were okay with this. I kind of just assumed, but..."

"The - celebrity element to being a professional combat esper? I mean I don't love it and won't pretend to, but, I was already planning to get into this before I met you, so?"

"Yeah, but you'd—have had time to adjust. With me you're kind of jumping into the deep end. So to speak."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess." Shrug. "Honestly the - parasocial fangirls being angry at me for 'stealing' you will probably be easier to handle than... what would it have been before, trying to ship me with people that vaguely have an opposing element to their powers to them? Getting upset with me if I ever had a second partner after the first? All of the weird reaction is devoted to stuff that isn't really about me, this way. I hope, anyway. We'll... see how I do I guess? I can always go the route of being a house partner or something, quietly rack up backlash doing ovenless baking or something away from the public eye." She does not sound at all enthused about this prospect. Not even a little.

"...that would be such a waste of your powers, though!!!"

Giggle!!!

"I agree! I think I'd be best as a combat esper! But if I'm going to be a combat esper then this was always going to happen, right, and really my only out would be leaving the public eye entirely. Also this way I have, uh. Help? Support?"

"...yeah. I guess you do."

"Yeah." She beams at him, then - yes actually they should get to ordering some of that fabled food that's on offer, she is kind of hungry.

Oh yeah he is, too. Why is he so hungry, actually, he didn't do any dung—oh. Right.

Yes, exactly. Yes.

"... we should probably... have some sort of... talk... about what kind of partnership we want?" she ventures, after they have both picked out things to eat.

Right. Yes.

"My backlash is psychological. Um. It's." The whole POINT of him wanting to do the partnership thing today was that he wanted to TELL HER THAT so that it would be FINE but it is instead NOT FINE because it seems like his mouth STOPPED WORKING.

"I-I-I mean it's at least partially physiological, though, it's why the - er - um. Y-you are my first but the impression I get is that it doesn't usually - stand at attention for quite so long -"

Okay he has to actually hide his face in his arms now.