...Hye-jin usually says "tadaima" when she arrives. Also, she does not usually start crying immediately, which is a thought he only has once he's close enough to hear that she's crying and which makes him rush the rest of the way to her much faster. He—doesn't know what's wrong nor whether hugging would be good or bad—so now he's hovering like an anxious bee. "Hye-jin-ah?"

"... hi," she mumbles, from behind her knees. She's curled up into a little ball on the couch, arms wrapped around herself.

She doesn't try to explain. She doesn't know how to explain.

"Hug or no hug?" because he has learned a thing or two about communicating.

"... hug," she pronounces, between her quiet little sobs.

Okay cool he can be a good boyfriend and sit next to her and wrap his arms around her and pet her soothingly and kiss her hair softly.

Okay. Cool. Then she'll just sob on him for a while.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" he murmurs. She might want to just be hugged, or she might want more than that, and he has, again, learned a thing or two about communication.

"Quasar's still not giving me any dungeons to do," she says, because, because. It's the only thing that comes to mind as relevant. She doesn't know if there's anything anyone can do to help, really.

...well, yeah, he knows, on account of how he's her partner. "Do you... want them to?"

"I - they're probably right?? I'm - I'm so incredibly not okay, and I've bitten the heads off of three therapists so far, and I'm not okay and I don't know how to be but it's - it's the only thing I'm good at...!"

"Hye-jin-ah, I think that may be your hell iPhone autocompleting," he says, gently.

"I don't care!" she snaps, suddenly furious, pulling away from him. "That doesn't make it go away, that doesn't make my brain stop, it's just fucking - dismissing my feelings again and again and again and I, I'm, I'm fucking allowed to be dramatic without someone fucking spritzing me with a water bottle or some shit!"

He winces. "I'm sorry." Don't take it personally. "I didn't mean to dismiss your feelings. I don't know what to do to help you. Would you like me to—tell you about the things you're good at? The things I like about you?"

"I - I don't know. I don't have a map. I, just, I can't be okay, and I can't make friends, and I can't feel at home anywhere, and I can't get along with a single fucking therapist because I don't want to talk about any of the ways I've been fucked over by the world and all of the many ways I've failed at doing everything I set out to do except kill dungeons."

"You're an intelligent, kind, passionate woman," he says, deciding to just Try Something and leaning over to her to pick her up in a bridal carry, "whom anyone would be lucky to befriend. I really, really like you." To the kitchen! "Finding a therapist that can work well with you is really difficult and not always the right choice, nor always the right time," or so he's heard. Now ice can be used to open the freezer and get two tubes of ice cream. "Strawberry or vanilla?"

... sniffle.

"... Strawberry."

She is a massive crazy bitch and she doesn't deserve anyone being this nice to her anyway.

Strawberry it is! "You're resourceful, adaptable, really good at knowing and enforcing your boundaries, really good at figuring out what you want and going for it. The underwater silo is beautiful, the decorating you've been doing of my place is really cute." Say aaah.

Aaah.

Nom.

"Thank you," she mumbles, because she does have at least one manner inside her somewhere, even when she's - like this. "... they still don't feel like home, though," she then blurts, without knowing why.

"Maybe a new place would help? One that's not a silo, so it's not inextricably tied to your job and—everything—nor my place, which." He does not need to finish this sentence and can instead keep feeding her ice cream.

".... maybe," she agrees, between ice cream bites. "Thank you. Sorry I'm such a crazy bitch." Sniffle.

"...I don't know if you want me to go into it but I want to leave it on the record that I object to your self-characterisation as such."

She gives a watery giggle.

"I - don't know either. But I feel like one. A lot."

"You shouldn't hold your pain and upset against yourself, nor expect that you'll be perfectly composed and calm and held together all the time. And if there's anyone who—signed up to deal and help you with times when you're hurting or lashing out—it's your boyfriend." NAILED IT.

"I - yeah. I guess you did." Smile. "Thank you."

"But that doesn't give me a free pass to just..." sigh. "But I don't know how to moderate between keeping everything bottled up and. Not. Do I."