"I'm down if you are."

"Okay!  And given that do you maybe want to practice first, at a time when I am not scared of everything?  - Not, uh, probably not right now."

"Sure, shall I, say, hit you up after I next do a dungeon if it should happen that we do not get carried away of our own accord before then? - have you got up to date test results, I do if you wanna see 'em."

"I have some from the start of term and I would have to think for more than ten seconds whether that qualifies as up to date.  I think - I want everyone involved to have full faculties.  The first time."

"Valid to want and possible to achieve, though I do think I'm pretty good at managing mine after this long."

"Yeah, it's mostly just that I have real social anxiety on top of my fake mind control social anxiety."

"Legit. Other parameters? I'm easy. On purpose. I awakened and was like 'I should be easy, that will come in handy'."

"....I am conveniently already easy."  He wishes he knew - ah, fuck, no, he doesn't wish he knew but it's too late -  "Fuck, sorry, aa!  Haha - uh," if he doesn't ask this now he's just going to keep on backlashing them both until he does, "do you know what you're looking for, in terms of like, on the scale from 'second purely-business guiding partner' to 'that plus friends with benefits', to - things farther down the line?  Not that, we don't have to decide right now, today is certainly a lot at least for me but it would be good to have some kind of idea maybe??"

"- wow I hope you learn to stop doing that soon, it's really startling because sudden backlash upticks are also how I notice if something's after me in a dungeon - uh, my default would be friends with benefits to start out but I'm not opposed to things shaking out more relationshippily if the stars align?"

"I also really hope this!!"  Augh.  He's done so much saying of scary interpersonal things already today but!  Probably a huge way to help stop trying to read Haru's mind is to com👏mun👏i👏cate👏 and conveniently he's incredibly powerful and brave.  "I - am also happy starting there, and don't think it would be smart to commit to more than that today, especially not if you don't care to, but - I like you, and I would not be super mega surprised if things maybe shake out in a way that is somewhat more than that.  On my end."

"I like you too and would also not be super surprised."

"Wow.  Nice."  What if they made out about this.

It would be great if they made out about this!!

It would be sooo great, yeah.

....

.......

...If he can enhance his sight, can he also enhance his other - woahhh.  Woahhhh.  It's not that the kissing feels better, per se, but he can get a lot more detail out of the sensory information.  It's not that it's overloading or expanding his feel-good channel; it's orthogonal to that.  (Which is kind of disappointing, but - no.  He can still rack up stupid amounts of backlash if he wants to.  And might even on accident.)  He can just tell more things about the inside of Haru's mouth (and the texture of his skin here, and here, and there, and all the fabrics Julien's in contact with, when he expands the enhancement).  .......Which yeah, racks up some backlash which sure does make the kissing feel nice.

"Mm?" Haru hums in puzzlement, and he pulls back. "That didn't hit me but I can feel when your backlash goes up."

"I can also make my sense of touch get more detailed!  It doesn't make things feel better or worse except for how it backlashes me."

"Interesting!" Back to kissing.

For a whiiiiiiile.  And then cuddles.

Mmmmgood. "This is nice."

"You're nice.  I like you.  ...I now kind of assume that my senses of hearing touch smell and so on are also affectable but I should probably test that.  While you're here.  Or, while I'm here."

"I am happy to be a backlash sink for this investigation. Do I need to get off of you so you can go raid the pantry?"

"In a minute."  Can he hear Haru's heartbeat from over here, yes totally, although it also means he can hear everything else better; he can't just focus in on it.  Mmmmm.  "....Do you think I could meet a dungeon today?  Not to try and help, just to see whether I can hear it..."

"I can ask Paula if there's a secured one they're stripmining."

"Yay thank you.  Soon I will get my own agent but thank you in the meantime."

"Mm-hm!" Phone. Texting.