"Flying is fun! It would be hilariously inefficient to do it by myself, I'd go out for two minutes and then I'd panic and land near the first person I saw who looked like they might speak English and accost them with my loneliness. And I wanted to know more about your powers and testing them requires backlashing you which requires guiding after which works best the closer our levels are." Arm in arm into the house and onto the couch. For snuggles. Platonic... bro... snuggles? For now.

Sure, this leaning is nice. It's... Kind of very nervousmaking in the same way Wendy taking off her shirt was? Which is sort of hard to think about. In what may or may not be a backlashy way.

Haru wants to stop being backlashed. That's - very nice and clear, okay. He can unbacklash Haru. It's not difficult.

"I'm worried I'm not being a very good guest and not making a good impression. Because of my anxiety. Which is a vicious cycle."

"I can see why it would be, but I think we're getting along well so far! If that helps to hear, which I can imagine it might not."

"...Can you please commit to telling me directly if you want me to leave, even if that seems rude to do?"

"...yes, if it is ever the case that I all things considered want you to leave I will ask you to leave."

"Okay, now my backlash can shut up a bit easier because you have mysterious reasons to not want to kick me out yet. Thanks." 

Sigh.

"...Is Maple Group any good, as an agency? Vanguard was... Pushy, in retrospect. As if they latched on to one positive comment about sensors being good for helping people in dungeons and ignored any contravening inconvenient information. They mostly were just the physically closest esper agency location to me, anyway."

"I like my agent. Mostly because she picks up the phone and answers texts very very fast. I didn't form much of an impression of the agency even while I was interviewing others."

She sounds stressful. Not for him.

"So focus more on the agent than the agency. Fair enough... Hmm..."

What now, what now.

"Video games! My main hobby aside from reading. I'm probably content with most places to live that have a good spot for my desktop tower and a very fast wifi connection. Have you heard of Factorio?"

"I've heard of it! I haven't played it, my thing has always been Civilization and stuff like that."

"Civ is good too! Is it the city-building type thing...?"

"Yeah, I just like being emperor of an imaginary society and pulling off a tech or culture victory. I like the fantasy skin."

"There's this indie game called Stellar Empire that is about - managing court politics, cultivating people to be competent and loyal, choosing high-level policies, negotiating with aliens, and stuff, there's not that much you can command directly. It was ultimately kind of shallow but it sounds like the right feel?"

"That does sound right, yeah."

"Cool good to know. I like factory-builders. Automation games. Figure out the fiddly production chains and make everything just so. Also, MOBAs."

"What's a MOBA?"

"Uh, multiplayer online battle arena. Bunch of people join a match and fight it out. There's a few subgenres, fantasy top down fights, hero shooters, and big brawls with dozens of people. League of Legends, Overwatch, and World of Tanks if you want an example of each."

"I'd probably find it easier to get into the factory ones than the fighting games."

"Valid. They can be... Kind of toxic in chat. Er, toxic being slang for mean, rude, generally nasty. Factorio has multiplayer support! And I like a lot of board games too! ...Not that you have to play video games with me or anything."

"I haven't actually checked if multiplayer games work for me backlash-wise, but if we can come up with a guiding-friendly configuration I'm up for trying it!"

Oh right Haru is just using him for backlash help. Of course.

"I sat back to back without shirts with Wendy while we were both on phones, that seemed fine-ish."

"I could get my laptop and we could try that now, if there's a game that'll download quick enough."

"Overcooked? Action game, cook food under chaos."

"I will probably suck at it, I haven't practiced anything which calls for twitch, but sure. You have your computer?"

"Which one?"

More seriously he adds, "I have my laptop, not my desktop, in my backpack. It should be fun even without twitch, it's a lot of - coordination?"

"Should hit the spot." He goes and gets his computer from where he left it on the kitchen table and comes back and takes his shirt off.