"If you're sure."  And then there's nothing to do but wait.  He closes his laptop; might as well give up the pretense of being able to accomplish anything right now.

"If you're bored in a way that I can help with you should be aware that you cannot possibly be higher maintenance than I was during my awakening and that's the thing I'm comparing to in my head all the time."

But in that case the people he was imposing on were his parents, and he didn't have anyone to guide him, and in any case bored is not really the thing that Julien is.  "Thanks."

"You're welcome." But if that's all Julien has to say on that topic he'll turn the page.

He doesn't.  It's kind of like being on the bus when he's tired; it feels like he should be able to want to be distracted, at least, but in reality the view out the window and the irregular motion are enough to keep him completely occupied.  The worrying keeps him busy.  (...Although he does spend a lot of thought-time on wishing this bit were over, which isn't entirely unlike being bored.)

Eventually dinner is served. It's very mild for chili; Ren puts extra hotsauce in her own portion. There's cheese to put on it, and sour cream.

Julien will put all three of those on.  Yum.  (- Is he being a worse guest by taking more ingredi - NO.)

Haru holds his hand and eats chili left-handed and reads Les Misérables. He's gotten most of the way through by now.

...Maybe he can be a good guest to Ren by chattering with her??  How Was Her Day.

Ren's students are working on their scissors skills - it's an important fine motor indicator in addition to letting them make more precise collages - she has brought home this particular collage that little Noah gave her, isn't it cute, but you can really see how he needs practice to be able to cut out a really circular circle even if he traces a jar first to have a line to follow -

Being able to use scissors to get results you want sure is useful and important.  Maybe Julien in particular should not be allowed at any, which makes him worse than a kindergartener no.  (Or, maybe he should not in fact be allowed at scissors right now.)  Cutting curves is hard.  That rectangle is pretty nice, though; the longer set of lines are really pretty parallel.

And so on throughout the meal.  Is he at least allowed to help with the dishes???

He can clear his plate to the dishwasher, as long as he does it in tandem with Haru.

That's fine.  Preferable, even.  He doesn't want to create more inconvenience in the form of a slightly-more-insane him while trying to create less of it.

That's the idea.

They can hang out on the couch for a while longer and then Haru can note the time, stop between chapters of Les Mis, and say, "Shower?"

"Shower."  He found his trunks while looking for his computer and left them near the top; here they are.

They can separate long enough to get into those and then reunite in: the shower. Haru manages the faucet for them - "How hot do you tend to like it?"

"...I don't really have much basis for comparison to what other people like.  My mirror is usually fogged up afterwards unless I have a window open?"

"Say when." He cranks it up by degrees.

He turns out to like it pretty hot.  "When."

Then there the temperature will stay. It's kind of awkward and Haru eventually winds up aiming for more of a "standing close enough together that they bump into each other often enough" situation rather than trying to maintain any specific form of contact.

The thing is that this is not actually much more of a show than being shirtless already is, and shorts are, like, normal.  They're normal and swim trunks are really exactly the same as shorts and he's the one making this weird by treating it like they're not.  But also if he opens his eyes longer than the amount of time it takes to find the soap then he will Die, so as a practical matter there will be really plenty of bumping into each other.

Haru's not so much awkward about the level of clothedness as he is about the way one generally moves around in the shower. He's going to actually turn invisible a couple of times, he might as well.

Ohhhh he was being insane.  Insane was the thing he was being.  And he knew that at the time, even, it's just that knowing it didn't make him able to act any differently.  But now he can.

Sometimes Julien can avoid Haru the correct amount just by seeing where the shower spray fails to fall, but he does kind of punch him in trying to put the conditioner away.

"Whoops, my bad." He takes the conditioner; it disappears when he has it and reappears when he sets it down.

......Julien could feel really bad about this but what if instead there was a hug??