Fantastic.  "Haru went to an emergency dungeon and I ended up getting paid like, a lot of money because of this."

"Is that so."

"Yeah, they woke me up in the middle of the night while I was marked on vacation, for an evil psychic carousel in the States, and he sat up waiting for me to come back, so I told them to pay him what they would've paid June for that."

"June is his partner."  Is this what you wanted, Julien.  Is it winning at task to maybe lightly at all imply-without-implying that Haru might be in some sort of straight relationship.  Is that what you want.  "But I wouldn't have been able to sleep anyway."

"And I have a souvenir for my trouble." He lifts his bandaged arm.

"Gracious."

"We went to a clinic about it and it's doing well.  I helped change the bandage one time.  - I've been fixating a lot on emergency prep of various forms, so.  As part of that."

"That's a smart angle and it's good that you've managed it as much as you have."  She puts a hand on his shoulder and gives it a squeeze.

"Thanks, I think so too."

"The casserole looks delicious, is it the kind you make with canned soup or no?"

"Nope!  Frozen broccoli and tater tots, though."

"Oh, frozen vegetables are honestly better than fresh for a lot of things because there's no problem if you forget they exist for two weeks, not that I'd ever do that."

"Of course not."

The casserole comes out of the oven and is, in fact, delicious.

It is exactly how Julien likes it.  Bug thinks it could use more.... something.  Wanting more out of life than Julien does not actually give him access to information about skills he hasn't developed.  Onion?  Garlic?  Something, surely.  Not that he's going to let onto this at all, of course.

After a fair bit of chatter with mostly Ren, Solène-Luce wonders, "Do you two have any plans for once the awakening's done?"

"Well, powers testing, but other than that, no, you want to make life decisions without any backlash sitting on you on general principle."

Why did she say 'you two'.  - No, that's normal, purely from a career perspective it makes sense for them to eventually have collective plans.  Or she means them separately.  "Yeah.  I'll probably try and finish my spring break homework unless my powers turn out to somehow make it really obvious that I shouldn't finish college?  I've already been working on it some, but -"

"Of course you have."

"Yeah.  But, probably I won't go back to Starbucks.  Except maybe to order something and have a conversation about why this is so."

"Tim's is better."

"On basically all metrics except ease of access from my apartment, yeah."

"That is admittedly an important metric."

Cricket hops onto the table with his own plate, sets it down at the spot on the other side of Haru from Bug, and accepts a tater tot off Haru's plate, which he eats before starting in on his fish. While staring at Solène-Luce.

"Hello there.  How is it?"

"It is a tater tot. Very little has been added to its character."