"Oh." She brings his hand to her face and gently kisses it. "Well if you need to go dark for a while in shame, I still have my secret underwater silo, I guarantee no reporters could find you there, no matter what you said."

"I, um. No it's. They were. Saying some stuff. About you. And I got—really mad—and I should've teleported away but instead I—said—stuff to them. Because I was really mad and—I'm sorry."

Blink blink.

"... Why, what'd you say?"

"Just—that—they were talking about these, um, rumours? That—we weren't partners, or—stuff about your S-rank assignment and—I told them they were full of shit. Uh. Without swearing. Um. ...probably you can find it on the internet."

"That doesn't sound like it needs an apology? I can go watch the YouTube clips of it now if you're worried? But honestly that sounds very sweet, though replying just gives them fuel to try and poke you more to see what you'll do."

"I—dunno. Um. I just feel like it's really rude to—talk about you in public without telling you about it and then—"

"—but they're so full of shit, they said your promotion to S-rank was political. Political!!!! Who do they think was gonna be politically satisfied with this? Is it meant to be me, is it Quasar? Is it about fucking, fucking, Korea versus Japan? That's stupid. That's extremely stupid. And then I showed up and the first thing, the first thing they asked me was how I felt about our partnership being dissolved? Like that's some known fact? And I fucking took the goddamn bait and tore them a new one for spreading the most braindead rumours they could find on the internet completely uncritically, and obviously they're, like, some tabloid probably, I didn't recognise their symbol on their van, only I'm not super into news so maybe I'm wrong, but if they're big that was even more embarrassing, can you imagine doing such shoddy reporting? I'd want to quit my job if I delivered something that badly and sloppy. I mean, what the fuck? They were just saying whatever the shit would get them clicks, and then I went and fed them so now they're going to learn that they should talk shit about you where I can hear it because I'm gonna lose my cool and go yell at them and that'll give them more clicks, ugh. And they were just filming the reporter against the blank backdrop of the media screen, too? Like, the scene composition probably fucking sucked, which is points for them being some small tabloid thing rather than anyone who knows what they're doing, but it's still people like them who fill the world with useless slop you gotta trudge through to figure out what's true, and that's why I don't watch the news anyway, and who watches the news anyway, actually, do people even watch things anymore? I mean, I'd much rather read an article. Maybe they were just recording something to be transcribed later. God I'm such a fool."

Oh no, he's adorable?? And she... feels warm fuzzies about her partner having done a stupid media misstep to defend her.

"If you're a fool, then you're a very sweet one. For, um. Thank you."

Oh.

"Kim Hye-jin, I want to have quite a lot of sex with you right now." Turning on a dime, now, isn't he.

She shouldn't be thinking about her ex right now, but she is, and what she's thinking is How many times did Hideyoshi defend me? and noting that the answer is not coming to her immediately. Certainly sometimes he defended her incidentally, when defending them as an esper unit, but. Not just. Her.

"Yes okay," she murmurs, feeling her face heat up even more as she attempts to adjust to, to. Being publicly defended.

Oh but she should not be thinking about her ex at all. She should be thinking about Tae-gun. He will make sure of this. And if this is still fuelled a little bit by being super mad and wanting to make sure Hye-jin feels appreciated and knows that she's great and he loves her and thinks all of those media vultures are awful, well, so be it. 

He loves her. They suck. Fuck them. And also fuck her, but the good kind rather than the bad kind.

Yep, thoughts only about Tae-gun, can do, yes sir.

And then: snuggles. Because c.f. what he just said, he's in love with her and likes spending time with her. It feels nice.

Snuggles!

"Is it weird that I want to look up what exactly you said? Um. I can wait until you're doing something else, if it'd be weird for you, just. I think I'd like getting to see how you eviscerate the tabloid reporter and their shitty leading questions."

"...no, it's fine." And if she hates it then he should be present so that she can tell him off. "Go ahead."

Kiss. Then a commscreen summoning, and:

"Oh no," she giggles. "Oh, you didn't even get asked any of the interesting or funny terrible questions, did you. You got baited by pure tabloid trash. You poor man." This earns him another kiss.

Followed by a little bit of sniffling.

"Um - thank you, this, um, I stand by it being very sweet, it's. I mean they're going to be very loudly spouting nonsense outside any dungeon they know you're in, in hopes that there's a repeat, and you might get ambushed going outside by people asking for clarifying questions, but, I mean, it's. Thank you."