Hand in hair?

Pet pet pet.

Yessss.  "Does this count as socializing slash are you back down now."

"I'm mostly back down, enough that this counts fine - especially because there's also guiding. The thing that makes me the most fucked up is when I'm socializing and it doesn't help and I still can't intellectualize why I continue to have a problem in a way that resolves to something other than compulsive chat. This does help so it matters less that it's dubiously socializing."

"That sucks."  (Partially fake, but only partially) contented sighhhhh.

"- Ugh, Julien didn't form a concrete preference on whether he expects me to wear a shirt tonight.  And his reasoning's - it's like how the atmosphere hits different temperature extremes in different layers, I think?  At different levels of assumed sanity the correct outcome switches back and forth."

"...I am not sure what that means."

"Well, from a sane perspective I should not wear a shirt, because obviously, and from a like slightly insane one I should, because it's reasonable when you're feeling shitty to not want to additionally have to worry about being shirtless in front of your mom, even if it would not in fact be weird, just because you're like, anxious and feel bad about it.  And on the second level you shouldn't, because maybe you think your discomfort doesn't matter and you should just do the practical thing regardless.  And -" Julien also didn't form concrete preferences on whether it was okay to tell Haru about being nervous about his mom knowing he's gay.  Ughhhhhh.  "It just goes on from there.  So there's not really any straightforward way for me to respect his preferences."

"Huh. Personally I would just go without the shirt and trust my mom to deal, my mom had to deal with way worse and coped, but my mom is not your mom."

"This is true.  I'll think about it, I guess."

Pet pet.

The thing is that if he's not explaining his own existence and approximately pretending to be Julien, then... yeah, shirt off plus time elapsed is probably sufficient to explain the difference in functionality.  He'll go with that.

And eventually his mom is at the door, knocking with her knee since her hands are full of insulated casserole dish.

Haru gets the door. "Hi, c'mon in."

Bug trails close behind!  "Hi Mom!"

"Hi there, Julien.  How've you been doing?"

"Honestly, really pretty good.  All things considered."

"I imagine that's a heck of a caveat, but we take what we can get!  Now, mind if I use your oven?  This could use a bit of warming up."

"Go right ahead, it's not preheated but it's pretty quick about it."

"Thank you."  She sets the dish on the stove and sets the oven to warming up.  Hug?

Hug!!  "Have a good week?"

"It was fine.  I've been worried about you."

"The reverse was briefly intensely true but mostly hasn't been.  ....I was worried you'd die in a car crash on the way home, last time.  It was really nice when you texted me to let me know you hadn't."

"Yes, well, I thought something like that might come up."

"Yeah."  Back to bumping forearms with Haru?

Haru is available for this procedure!