Kim Hye-jin has been soloing a lot of dungeons.
It wasn't concerning at first, because it made sense as a way to take power back from the people that tried to kill her, be powerful, and at the same time give every other exhausted esper after the confluence a break.
It's now perhaps starting to get concerning.
Outwardly, though, she... seems fine? Just really work focused. Distant towards everyone, maybe.
Before, the image of Kim Hye-jin in his mind was unassailable, inviolable, and most of all not someone he could ever do anything for. He needed her; she didn't need him. That's what he thought. That is, in hindsight, one of the big drivers of why he failed so hard at supporting her. She didn't look like she needed it. He could only take, never give, because he didn't have anything to offer.
Tae-gun knows that was wrong, now, though. Ever since she asked to be pampered, that day, something changed in him. Like some switch flicking, some angle of reality shifting that made him see things in a way he couldn't. She does need him. She needs him, and, God damn it, he's going to be there for her. He can't be anything short of perfect, that's who he is. He is Lee Tae-gun, Korea's only S-rank esper boyfriend. And while he has a long way to go to get there, he knows that the only way is through, it's putting in the work. This means that he's paying attention.
So while Tae-gun's tried to give her some space and taken the couple of rebukes she gave him lightly, he's... noticed. He's noticed that she's not fine. He's watching for it. He can tell. And it's getting to be a bit too much, she's a bit too distant, and he knows what she looks like when she's demolishing dungeons because they're fun and it's not this.
He needs to talk to her about this. He's not sure how, but the only way to figure it out is by trying.
She arrives back from her latest (soloed) dungeon, cheerily half-singing her, "Tadaima!"
Tae-gun has also been soloing some dungeons, if not quite matching her intensity (which is a wild emotional state to inhabit), so he's also somewhat actively backlashed.
"Okaeri," he calls back, somewhat less energetically than he usually does but not wanting to rain on her parade.
In a short period of time, he has a girlfriend on his lap!
"Hi," she purrs, before she immediately moves to kissing him.
—right, he's somewhat backlashed but also he still has a lot of backlog and all it takes is one touch for his motor to rev all the way up. He's so predictable.
He's caught her in his arms and is kissing her back, hungrily, thoughts of Having A Conversation momentarily forgotten, and it takes him all of his willpower to pull away and say, "Do you want water or something before I ravish you?"
He can do that. He can start ravishing her right there and then, and then he can move them to the bedroom, and then there can be some more ravishing on their way to the shower because he accidentally looked at her and remembered how hot she is and how much he likes her, and he should probably give her a break and not ravish her all night long. Her backlash was dealt with a ravish and a half ago anyway.
Mmmmm but it's so nice though, and she doesn't want to have those pesky thoughts anyway.
Eeeee.
She's still at least pretending to be sensible though, so: water and food? While snuggling? She does have more dungeons scheduled for tomorrow, it wouldn't do to show up to them starved and dehydrated.
Mmhmmmmmm. Tae-gun can cook her something nice, he's been looking up and favouring some new recipes to try so that he can be a better boyfriend.
But speaking of being a better boyfriend, "Hye-jin-ah."
"Mmm?" she wonders, a little sleepily, from where she's perched for food.
There's a bit of a break in the cooking while things are being heated up so he can sit on the stool across the kitchen counter from her and hold her hand, running circles on her skin with his thumb.
"I like you. Really quite an unreasonable amount."
Awwwwwww.
"I like you, too," she replies, with one of her pretty smiles.
"So... I... promised things would change for the better and, and I don't know all of what that means yet. I think I'm, I'm probably gonna make mistakes along the way while I figure out how to be a good boyfriend. But I think a good boyfriend pays attention, and tries to make his girlfriend feel better rather than worse, and tries to support her and be there for her and listen to her.
"Hye-jin-ah, I've seen you demolish a bunch of dungeons solo while you're having fun, and it doesn't look like this."
She opens her mouth, then closes it.
".... I..." she begins, then stops. She looks down. "It's."
She shrinks a little in her seat, and murmurs:
"They're the only place I feel powerful and in control."
...he lifts her hand up to his lips and kisses her knuckles. "That's so relatable it hurts."
"Yeah. I've heard someone mention before that they think we're both from the same alien planet, they might be onto something," she snorts.
"Bright side, me handling my baggage with this particular vice will help knock out your backlog faster, so, as long as I don't accidentally die, no loss?"
"...no loss? Hye-jin-ah, I wouldn't wish what I've gone through on anyone. The fact that you can't feel in control of the rest of your life, that's, that's a loss."
"Sure, but. ... I don't know how to fix it. How to regain control. It, just. I still don't even really believe everything is over, you know?"
"I... get that." Still running slow circles on her skin with his thumb. "But it's—it shouldn't be something you do on your own. I also promised I'd be there for you and support you, so let me fulfill that promise. Lean on me. Share your burden with me, let's try to deal with it together."
"I'll - try? Am trying, just." She shrugs helplessly. "I feel like there are worse coping mechanisms than flattening a bunch of dungeons solo and giving everyone else a break? I don't know what else to do."
"That's... fair, I don't know, either, but... that was... 'I don't know what else to do' isn't the same as 'we don't know what else to do' and I think even if you and I don't know what else to do that doesn't mean that we don't... Um, I'm not sure that was a good way to put it."
"I think I understood that? Uh. I wasn't... including you in my calculus of 'welp, better fling myself into as many dungeons as they'll let me and see if it makes me feel better,' which. ... I probably should have. Sorry."
He squeezes her hand, kisses it again, then gets up to go finish up the food now that it's probably cooked.
"And also that there's... things neither you nor I can do alone that we could do together. ...not that I'm thinking of any right now but thinking is also a thing we can do together."
"Yeah. I'll work on it. Try to, you know. Think with you."
"... I did attempt to find a therapist, actually. I haven't mentioned it because it. Didn't go well. She was, ugh, I don't even know how to describe it, she wanted me to talk about how I was victimized and how I was hurt and it was all, just. What part of S-rank combat esper was unclear to you, ma'am, I was shot in the head in a closing dungeon and still managed to survive, don't - ... take away my power like that. I've had enough power taken from me, thanks, someone else doesn't get to dictate my narrative, either."
He flinches. "Yeah. I—told Woo-young something like that once, that I—hated how much of it made me feel so—helpless. Like things were just happening to me and there wasn't anything I could do. Kang Jaeha happened to me, and then I was broken for years, and then—it wasn't because of anything I did that things started getting better for me, either.
"But I don't want to try to—be a thing that just happens to you, either. Just—I don't know. And we don't have to figure it all out right now but I just wanted to—not ignore it, it's... I noticed before and I thought that maybe if... but maybe I should've said something sooner, I don't know."
He serves them their food and brings it over to Hye-jin then sits next to her to lean his head on her shoulder.
"I don't think you just... had me happen to you," she snorts, reaching over to pet him. While, yes, eating food with her other hand. "It - takes a lot of courage, to try again? You wanted to reach out to your friends again, too. I was just the one compatible person from out of meddling range, who was good at holding still and not scaring the shy bunny."
He chokes on his food and reaches for the peach juice to try to clear his throat up.
Giggle!
"You know in English it even rhymes with your name! What do you think, is bunny-gunny, or hunny-bunny better? I feel hunny-bunny flows better, but then people might get confused about who I'm talking about...."
"No? Is there another shy, skittish woodland animal you feel fits you better?"
"Maybe a deer, I could see some kind of deer," she muses, as if he hadn't said anything at all.
He's gonna resume stuffing his face with food rather than engage with any of that. That's what he'll do.
hey
Hye-jin
let's hang out
not like right now but let's go get drunk or something
I guess you don't like getting drunk
ygm
I do, yeah. But no getting actually drunk for me, thank you.
Just hanging out would be nice.
cool
when are you free
I'm joking I saw your goddamn schedule
free up some time for me
also feel free to bring hunny gunny with you if you want ig
lmk if you want me to bring Hana too
lol
I see I've been caught
No double date for me I think?
idk I'm trying to not be joined at the hip with him, get out more
Will do.
Maybe I'll send Tae-gun-ah off to hang out with his hyungs if they're free.
Social enrichment for both workaholic introverts.
excellent
I'm sure if he asks both of them will be willing to free up their own schedules for him
they're literally not
if you poke a hole in a thing it becomes thing with hole it doesn't become a new thing
...I guess a bun becomes a bagel if you poke a hole in it
hm.
I think they're made differently.
Like volcanoes and mountains.
This is a chance to educate yourself! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcano
Well done! We'll have you making more correct observations about the state of the world in no time!
But so fun!
Live a little, delight in the complexity and beauty of the world around you!
Also freed up a space on Friday night, that work okay for you?
She gets an email from one jeong.hoyeon@quasarguild.co.kr. It's listing her some resources she might want that they could offer, ✨just in case✨. It's suggesting that taking breaks is normal and healthy and good. It has links and various people who could be points of contact for her if she wanted this or that.
It's trying to not be overly familiar, but the message is clear: Are you okay? Can we help? Is there anything we can do?
To: jeong.hoyeon@quasarguild.co.kr
From: kimhyejin@gmail.com
Listen, while I appreciate the attempt to help me in a - safe corporate way that doesn't overstep my boundaries, it's really misunderstanding my discomfort? You have clearly spent all of this time and effort to find resources specifically for me, to try to help me, and then you scrubbed all hints of the person responsible from it all, and frankly, that just freaks me out. I don't want a nebulous corporate entity taking interest in my affairs and mental health, I want a person, preferably with minimal strings leading back to nebulous corporate entities that can screw me over.
So: can I have an agent or representative, to interface with Quasar for me? I'd wanted to find something out of guild to represent me in such a way, but, well. Kang Jaeha. I still want that, but I can have a Quasar based representative of me in the interim, and then pick back up my own personal side projects as I'm able. I think it would be both more constructive and more comfortable than this.
To: kimhyejin@gmail.com
From: jeong.hoyeon@quasarguild.co.kr
Cool! I'll start over.
Hi, Kim Hye-jin-shi! Nice to meet you! I'm Jeong Ho-yeon. I can be that representative. Just tell me what you need! You can also message me on the company app, and my work phone is in my signature below.
Hope we can work together productively!
To: jeong.hoyeon@quasarguild.co.kr
From: kimhyejin@gmail.com
I hope so too! Thank you, that's much less disconcerting.
On a direct resources level: I've got a real estate agent already for selling my house, I'm okay on that front. What I'm having more trouble with is finding a therapist. Not in house, please, I realize that means they will probably be worse but I'm already pushing it as it is on trusting Quasar an inch. Just please help me narrow down some options for my extremely weird circumstances, with special care towards avoiding being victimized.
Actually, since it'll be relevant to representing me in the future: how much of my history with White Star, Quasar, and Lee Tae-gun's whole situation do you know of? Because I feel it's important for you to have context of wtf is going on with me and why I'm so wary of corporations, including Quasar. I expect you've heard prez pissed me off, but I think it's still not clear as to how he managed it?
To: kimhyejin@gmail.com
From: jeong.hoyeon@quasarguild.co.kr
I don't know the details of Lee Tae-gun-shi's backlash situation but my understanding of it is that it was really, really bad but he didn't want to have a new partner for what is now clear were Kang Jaeha reasons so prez decided to surprise him with a new one, except he didn't tell you you were going to be a surprise either so you were used as a weapon against Lee Tae-gun-shi against your will. Is that about right?
To: jeong.hoyeon@quasarguild.co.kr
From: kimhyejin@gmail.com
Yeah, that's most of it. I also didn't have a heads up about how bad his situation was - I thought he was some kind of alien or had several other side partners or something, not that I was needed for an ongoing medical emergency. But it was approximately the worst intro Quasar could have possibly made, aside from holding my parents hostage or something, because - it was a lot, to trust a guild enough to leave Japan. I was trusting your company to help me adjust. It sucks to trust someone to catch you and help you get settled in a strange new country, and then immediately get dropped in favor of being weaponized against someone else. Prez did not help by pitching his attempt at an apology as 'think of all the people you're disappointing by cutting contact and all the friends you could make,' which just sounded like entitlement and potential traps to me.
I have since been forced by circumstance to get over it, because Kang Jaeha. I didn't really have any other choice. Frankly, I haven't been particularly impressed with Quasar's ability to interface with me as a corporate entity. No offense to you, I really do appreciate the attempt to help me, just, the way your company is organized means I slipped through a lot of cracks, and no one seemed to care. There were a lot of ways that Quasar could have helped me - sending me links to resources, promising to protect me in legal situations, laying out the rules for whether or not I could tell my parents that I was being stalked by an S-rank psychic esper, helping me find alternatives to Quasar resources - that it didn't, or did later rather than sooner. Hell, I didn't know where the fucking blankets were in the silo Tae-gun brought me to the first day.
So, uh. That's where I am. I do not expect my relationship with Quasar as a corporate entity is salvagable to the point where I'm going to be just another ordinary esper in this guild. I'm going to be weird and traumatized and fighty, and I am and have been holding my nose to work with Quasar as a company this entire time. I trust several people in Quasar, but that's different. Probably all important information in representing/interfacing with me.
To: kimhyejin@gmail.com
From: jeong.hoyeon@quasarguild.co.kr
Man, prez really messed up, huh.
Well, I'll do my best to help. We actually don't have any in-house therapists because it'd be a conflict of interest to have someone who's counselling you about personal things to be in any way employed by your employers, but I have a directory that I can triage and send to you based on recs, how does that sound?
To: jeong.hoyeon@quasarguild.co.kr
From: kimhyejin@gmail.com
He really did, yeah. Downright artful snipe of my traumas, it's in retrospect pretty impressive.
That sounds great, thanks!
To: kimhyejin@gmail.com
From: jeong.hoyeon@quasarguild.co.kr
Alright! I'll get back to you asap. Cheers!
Nothing comes up to interrupt her time out with Woo-young, probably to be yelled at that she's being stupid and breaking herself, but, well. He's allowed to be worried about her.
Anyway, here she is! Attempting to do a social!
And so is he! He thinks they are well past the "hugging" stage of friendship so he will hug her, incompatibility be damned.
Aww. Yeah, hugs are fine, incompatibility be damned. Hug.
"Hi. You doing okay?"
"I am! I've mostly been feeding Quasar's sadly depleted batteries of my powers post-confluence, recently."
"I could use some boring. Unlike some people I know." He can move, which means he can sit at the table of the nice Japanese restaurant they're at, and gesture for her to do same.
Yep. Here they go. Sigh.
She sits, though, giving an awkward shrug.
"Boring just... still feels like an opening for an attack right now, you know?"
"...sorry, I'm not trying to get on your case about it. I'm sure hyung'll do it better than me. Just—it was—I saw your schedule and I thought, she needs a break and she's not gonna take one so I'm gonna be a break and—I should walk the talk and not talk about that, how about."
Aw. She relaxes, a little. Not entirely, but a little. He's trying, and she appreciates it.
"Thanks. I'm - not self destructing, though, just. Letting off steam and chipping away at Tae-gun-ah's terrible backlog at the same time." Shrug. "Anyway."
No idea what thing to talk about instead though.
That's the problem with workaholics, isn't it.
"Hyung showed me the video games you introduced him to a while ago."
"He did. God, it was so stupid, he was still in the, like, that was back when he was still pretending he didn't like you? And he was all like, well they're not that useful I think, though they're interesting and make me think in twisty ways, and I went, are you having fun, and he was quiet for like ten seconds and said I guess??? and I was like then that's probably mission accomplished!! and he looked like I'd grown a second head."
This earns a giggle!
"Of course. What is a fun, can you use it to vanquish more dungeons, if not, then why does it exist?"
"When I suggested that you might possibly maybe perhaps have positive regard for him as a person he looked like he'd never heard of the concept. —anyway I played them, too, and they are fun."
"They are!! I'm glad you had fun. The developer of the - I forget the name, the colored squares through 3D one - is making another puzzle game, it looks neat."
"Oh I should look it up, I was actually really mad about that one because it looked so perfect to have a level editor like Portal 2 does but it just doesn't? For some reason? Like what if I want to keep playing, what then, I've got to do something with my time when I'm sitting bored feeding a battery!"
Giggle!!! "Oh no. Do I need to give you media recommendations? I did a lot of killing time back at White Star, before, uh, my relationship with Hideyoshi went sailing majestically on its maiden voyage off that cliff." As in: before they filled the backlash hours with sex. Cough. "So my knowledge is a little out of date, but I might know something else."
"Yeah, actually!"
She still of course reads, even with Tae-gun present to fill her hours with really-quite-efficient-for-backlash-reduction techniques.
Does Woo-young want strong literary opinions from her, because she sure does have them! (And tries not to think of when she last remembers speaking of her strong literary opinions.)
Hell yeah he'll hear them. He is also pretty opinionated about media—well, perhaps he's just opinionated in general—but he's the type that likes hearing other people's opinions, too, even when they're objectively wrong.
Nope. She's totally right about everything, thank you, especially her dumb shipping opinions. Those two would have been great together if they had ever been put in the same room, the canon pairings are dumb and stupid and they act like idiots!
No he's with her on a lot of those actually, the average writer is just so bad at making the obviously correct pairings happen. Woo-young got queer-pilled on that too after he came out of the closet and realised just how many pairings in stories are just coasting on the fact that the main characters happen to be attractive able-bodied specimens of opposite sexes who spend some time together even while having zero onscreen chemistry or reason to stay together whatsoever, so he started aggressively pairing the girls with girls and the boys with boys in his head and now it's a hobby. Everyone's gay if they try hard and believe in themselves.
Right! Or - well, okay, she doesn't actually aim for same sex pairings in particular, she tends to go with people that have similar sorts of aesthetics? They need to have a similar sort of - feel to them, that they're on at least one similar wavelength while still being different enough that they offer something to one another. But it turns out that because of writing tropes, often that means that the answer is lesbianism (or whatever)! So. They have come to the same conclusion by different methods. Therefore: they are both right. There can be peace in the literary opinion kingdom. On this one topic.
(Okay but like the pacing of that third book was awful, no you cannot convince her otherwise, you're just wrong -)
See, now she went and had a wrong opinion in front of him! The pacing was great, the whole point of what that book was going for was that they were in a chaotic mess of their own making and the feeling of being jerked around by some stuff happening too fast and other stuff happening too slow was meant to instill that same sense in the reader! It was very true to life, too, feeling like time is passing at inconsistent rates because of the shit going on in your life is extremely relatable.
Ahuh, ahuh, except that if it's meant to instill that sense in the reader it also should have given the reader less information, the signal to noise ratio was all wrong. Also, this is probably genuinely personal taste, but why would she want a book to instill the sense that she's being jerked around and things are happening too fast? She has enough of that in her work life! She doesn't want it badly simulated for her in literature!
She is perfectly happy to continue on in this vein for a while. Companionable literature arguing.
They get food, and its arrival prompts Woo-young to start telling Hye-jin about his favourite restaurants in Seoul, since he has a sneaking suspicion the literal only times Hye-jin went out to eat were the single-digit ones he was personally witness to plus that one time on Christmas Tae-gun told him about. Seoul may not be Paris or New York or São Paulo but it has plenty of culinary landscape to be explored, too!
Oooooooo, yes, those are great, and - yeah, he's totally right about her inability to go out to eat. She's down to explore some culinary landscape options!
(She wishes she had more friends to invite to these places, but that is probably a solvable problem.)
...does she want to be matchmade? Most of his friends are espers but not all of them are Quasar and she might get along with some of Tae-hwan's old friends she met on his birthday. Also Woo-young's twin isn't an esper and has a non-esper social network so that might help too?
... Yeah, she can be matchmade. With potential friend options. Um. If that wouldn't be too much trouble.
Sure! Does she want aliens like hyung and her, though, those might be harder to find.
She can in fact interact with people that originate from this planet, thank you, just. ... Please be selective, she's an introvert and, er, a bit... sensitive right now. (Read: she's kind of a massive moody bitch.)
Okay, introverted, thick skin, any other requirements? Oh or does she prefer to be friends with extroverts so they'll drag her places?
Nope, absolutely not, that is Tae-gun's thing, she will resist and furthermore resent being dragged places.
"Alright, I have some people in mind maybe and I'll tell noona about it, too. You do already know Kim Chun-hee, though, she fits the bill, other than being Quasar."
Nod. "I - can try to make friends with her." Considering she.... kind of also.... already got to know her carnally.... ahem.
He peers at her face. "Okay, spill it, what about what I said is making you look like that?"
"Nothing! Nothing, don't worry about it, she's very nice and that is a good plan."
She admittedly might have already ruined it by making it weird via that whole orgy thing but probably it's fine! Esper culture! It's fine.
"She's very nice, is she? I don't think I remember you interacting with her all that much last time we all got together..."
"It was - there were - anyway I approve of this plan so far just, you know, um, I am going to take it slow on the social front and keep being a crazy workaholic because I do find soloing dungeons kind of empowering and, I mean, it lets other people take a break after what was probably the worst confluence in decades, it chips away at Tae-gun-ah's backlash backlog, everybody wins really..."
She's babbling. Worse, she's being too honest in her babbling.
"Hey girl I'm not gonna stop you from using the coping mechanisms you have available to you to get through your life as a sane and functional human being, it'd be real hypocritical of me, I smoke cigarettes. Just, you know. Having nice things in life is nice, regardless of whether it's anything to do with, like, being healthy or whatever. Some video games are just fun."
"Mmhm! And speaking of nice things, have you tried this onigiri here? It's to die for, I would literally trade my soul for the recipe for the filling, it's just spiced salmon but it's delicious."
"I feel like on a matter of general principle you should avoid selling your soul for material goods," says Hye-jin, amused. "But no, I haven't tried it, maybe it really is worth a sketchy backalley soul sale for."
Nom nom nom.
"Delicious! But not worth selling my soul for," she confirms.
"Adding that to my little compiled list of incorrect opinions you hoild."
"I feel like this one is more arguable as objectively correct, considering it means I get to keep my soul! Better for my long term interests!"
"Well on the bright side they only charge money and not souls for these so the question is moot. You have plenty of that."
"It's true, I do. I actually even leveraged some out of Kang Jaeha out of principle, when in doubt apparently my go-to is ask for money."
"I've heard it can generally be exchanged for goods and services so it's not a bad pick."
"Right! And making the world better. I figure there are worse things than extracting maximum financial value out of things and then throwing them at half-decent causes."
"So I usually go for disease eradication or containment, because there really isn't any argument about whether or not pathogens are bad for humans, just math about how efficiently it should be done. For me in particular, throwing money to research and then patent vaccines and then make them free to reproduce is the kind of fantastic absurd big spending only someone like I can do, but I also have a fondness for energy efficiency now after my silo -"
Tae-gun made a reservation, so they're expected, and are quickly shown their private room.
"What made you pick this place?"
"You said Kim Hye-jin was going out to hang out with Woo-young? Are they close?"
"Come on, Tae-gun, I know you pay a lot more attention than you pretend you do. Gimme more than that."
"—and he's—Woo-young. I dunno, he's, he's, he does a thing that's like the thing she does. Of being good at—expressing what he wants. And he stood up for her, and supported her in ways that I couldn't, and then we were there for him when he lost Tae-hwan, so I guess they got close."
"...why? Don't you guys already live together and all? And you've got couple rings, right?"
"It's just different. She'll be my wife. Like, what if I fuck up, what if I'm not a good husband, what if her family hates me—"
"Her mom has said, and I quote, 'I wish you were my son instead of this good-for-nothing bum', multiple times over the years, and that was just within my earshot."
"You're fine, my guy. Noona's lucky to have you, she loves you to pieces, she's the one who proposed."
(...so many moments with his friends he missed, over the years...)
"...I'm not actually worried. Not for real. Just, you know. Anxiety. I'm mostly excited and really happy."
(...but he can be there for all new moments in the future. Like the wedding.)
"I'm sure my mum will love to share pictures of the whole thing but until then you're going to have to live with just your imagination."
"Are you guys... planning to, um. Have kids?" Is that a weird question? He's not sure if it's a weird question. The only other long-term relationship Tae-gun's been in was—you know—and then he was removed from society for years.
"No, probably not. My mum really wants us to, especially since I'm an only child, but... neither of us really wants to stop working, and noona's backlash would be—particularly hard to carry to term with. Not to mention after."
"As, you know, sort of a pipe dream, I guess? It would be nice to be a dad. But I don't think it's in the cards for us."
Si-yeon leans on Juheon and rests his head on Juheon's shoulder. "I think you'd be a great dad."
Tae-gun drags his cushion around the table closer to Juheon so that he can do the same. "Yeah, me too."
He wraps one arm around each of the two of them and squeezes them close, kissing the tops of each of their heads. "I like you guys, too."
Jeong Ho-yeon sends Hye-jin a small but varied list of therapists, organised by type (CBT, DBT, psychoanalysis, a handful of others) and whether they do remote, in-person, or both. Each has a short description with their main area of interest, and Jeong Ho-yeon has also highlighted the three therapists (two DBT and one CBT) he thinks are most likely to be able to help with Hye-jin's problems in particular.
Whether she'll have time to actually look into them will depend on how willing she is to reduce her workload. Quasar does require at minimum four days off a month of its espers, so though, so she could use one of those instead.
And until then, she has dungeons to clear.
She's - cranky about attempting therapists, or perhaps guarded and wary, so she focuses on something she's really really good at instead. That being dungeons.
As dramatic as sending Hye-jin alone to kill a dungeon is, it's not really the norm. She doesn't need any kind of martial backup, she's fully capable of destroying a dungeon on her own, but being directed and supported means she spends less time wandering around and more time being a one woman demolition and firepower team. There are usually teams of (armed and trained) non-espers trailing along behind her to escort rescues to the exit, or direct her to pockets of monsters she might've missed on her own, or relay updates from the dungeon's central command.
She burns through the lock on the door of the last kidnapping victim of the psych-ward themed dungeon, kicks it open (because it's fun), and steps out of the way of her minions assistants to let them do the fiddly bits of freeing the poor soul from the straitjacket the dungeon stuffed them in.
"That's the last one?" confirms Hye-jin, on her comms.
"That I can see," confirms Minseo. "The core seems to be in a chomping deathtrap... thing. Mostly metal. I recommend backup of someone that can pry open things instead of melting through them."
"It'll probably grab someone else in the time it takes to get backup," says Hye-jin, flatly. "Even if it's Tae-gun-ah and he teleports right over."
"... Yeah," agrees Minseo, who does not need to be a sensor to see where this is going.
"And the resource extraction of the fancy glass panes is all done already?"
"Okay. Then let's get this done before it grabs someone else. Spot me so I don't accidentally destroy the core in my path of destruction?"
SIGH.
"... Fine," says Minseo, who really doesn't like this, but: she's not, actually, the boss of Hye-jin, and she already made her recommendation.
"Begin evacuation of the support crew in case I fuck up my aim," she says, as she then marches off to melt through metal.
She does not, actually, fuck up her aim. She neatly and efficiently (and with great unspoken glee) cuts through every single great big chompy death-trap thing that is in her way, along with the spikes and the buzz saws. The pit of fire is neatly flown over, it not actually being all that threatening to the fire esper.
"And the core's in the middle of the pillar directly in front of you - wait, there's something weird with the -"
A small hole opens up in the floor, right under her right foot, then almost immediately closes.
Oh her foot.
Just as neatly as Hye-jin's earlier surgical precision, it slices it off at the ankle.
The walls of the trap were, of course, sharp.
"I'm, fine," hisses Hye-jin, falling to her knees and biting back her scream. She doesn't pass out from pain only because the lava bath was worse than this, actually. "Give me that - back - "
It is hard to think properly while she's in agony, so instead of something with a bit more finesse, she lights her hands on fire and reaches down to the offending hole to rip it open with her bare hands. Her skin sizzles under the heat, but the metal bends accordingly, and her severed foot is retrieved.
She is not really sure if this is going to work, but she doesn't see why it wouldn't - line severed foot back up with her leg, cauterize the edges so it all stays together - that time she screams, though she turns her comms off before she does it - and then - wiggle her toes to test? Yes? Functional? Awesome.
"- done," she says, clipped and business-like. "Retrieving core now."
Her hands are already a bit shot from the whole 'ripping apart molten metal' thing, so, might as well do it again, right? Right. She stands on wobbly feet, limps forward (carefully avoiding anymore floor based traps), and then promptly rips the pillar open.
She takes a few seconds to let the ambient heat cool a bit, so as not to destroy the core. (That she spends the time panting in pain is irrelevant to her mission.) Then she reaches forward with blistered hands and grabs it.
"Got it. Coming back."
"The fuck did you do to your hands. And you're even walking on -" begins Minseo, who then stops and takes a deep breath. "- just get back, I'll yell at you in the debriefing later. Evacuation of the dungeon's nearly complete."
Hye-jin needs to take a break from doing dungeons. She just got her foot chopped off, and her reaction was to blister her own hands getting it back without assistance, before she cauterized it back on her own leg.
She's walking on it now. It hasn't fully healed yet.
Idk, she hasn't left the dungeon yet. I'm going back in for the final look over, wanted to tell you ASAP.
Gotta go.
Hye-jin is awkwardly standing on the other side, still holding the core.
"Um," she begins.
"Gimme that. Out," snaps Minseo, snatching the core from her without looking. (With her eyes, anyway. She's lost her ordinary vision, and is accordingly cheating with her powers.)
"Yeah, okay," agrees Hye-jin, who slinks through the portal with her injured hands and legs, uh, definitely still not fully healed up yet, looking sheepish.
And then he sees her and, still looking perfectly neutral, wraps his arms around her.
"Are you okay?" he whispers, with the barest hint of a tremble in his voice.
Well now she feels terrible for scaring him.
"Yes," she says softly, leaning into him. "Uh - silo time, I'm sorry..."
He doesn't say anything to that and just teleports home. Once they're there, he doesn't let go of her, and just continues standing up and holding her, but he's starting to shake a bit.
Yeah. She'll. She'll just hold him. And consider how much of an idiot she was being - she should have just waited for backup, Tae-gun could have iced over the floor and prevented all of that, and - in retrospect she was going too fast for Minseo to catch everything, in her bid to avoid the dungeon snatching anyone else.
"Sorry," she repeats, feeling like the word is so small and useless and stupid.
"I'm just—I don't want to—I—" He shivers. "Hye-jin-ah, I've lost you twice already," Tae-gun whispers. "I, I can't—I'm sorry, I'm sorry I'm making everything about me, I—"
"I was being very self centered and stupid and I really should have just waited for backup - I mean, look how long it took you to show up, it wouldn't even have - sorry." Lean. "I, I didn't mean to scare you. It wouldn't have killed me, even though I - was being very stupid."
He nods and takes a deep, sniffling breath, and pulls away. "Are you—healed enough that I can—guide you?"
"Um - I should have someone look over my leg probably, because, I, might've..." messed up, considering she reattached it herself.
Knock knock your appointment with me is now
get your ass to my ward asap or you'll never do another dungeon again if I have anything to say about it
Eep.
"- we should teleport over to Ji-woo-sunbae," says Hye-jin, who gets to - oh she just has to accept the teleport, how efficient, and Tae-gun can come too - bwip.
Bwip indeed. He doesn't bother trying to fix his face before accepting the teleport but he does wipe his eyes as soon as he gets there.
Good news for Tae-gun! Ji-woo does not care. She is a very angry healer.
"Foot," she demands, without further elaboration.
Being partners with the sensor that saw the whole thing means that she got all of the gorey details.
There's a pause, then -
"You fucked up your nerves," says Ji-woo, flatly. "Never do another field attachment unless your life depends on it ever again, do you hear me? This is a fucking mess to clean up, would have been cheaper to reattach it myself - rrrgh, got it." From her pained expression, fixing the fuckup was not cheap. "Now shoo. You have used up your stupid allotment for the next six months."
"Thank you, Ji-woo-sunbae," Tae-gun says and then yeah back to silo.
(Note to self: if Hye-jin ever loses a limb again, go see Ji-woo-sunbae first.)
(Hopefully this won't come up again!!! Hye-jin feels really bad, actually!!!!)
She'll just quietly and meekly lean into her boyfriend and murmur another apology. And, um. Maybe cry a little, actually, she feels horrible about - everyone being upset and scared and making Ji-woo's backlash worse.
Yeah. Okay. And he can get them sofa-wards, probably—it'll need a cleaning but what's S-rank esper money if not this—to hug her some more. There is a part of him that's kind of mad, but it's much, much smaller than the part of him that's just worried and scared and upset, and furthermore he thinks that expressing anger will help no one, she's probably beating herself up enough. For the moment he just wants to hold her and make sure that she's here and whole and alive, they can figure out what to do next later.
Yeah.
"I'll, take a break from doing dungeons," she volunteers, after a while of being held and - quietly crying into his shoulder about how she's the worst and most stupid person ever.
...
Well that makes her feel worse.
"You probably shouldn't - I was really very stupid, and, and most of it was motivated by pride instead of sense or logic, and objectively I feel you should be mad at me for getting myself critically injured in a fucking B-rank," which she should probably unpack, normal people don't go 'it's just a B-rank,' actually...
Well he's not normal either. "I don't want to be mad. Hye-jin-ah, you're—very special to me. I want to, to take care of you, I want you to be happy, and I don't want to—I'm not your dad. I'm your boyfriend. You're going through a tough time. I want to help you through it, not, not—scold you. Especially not when you're—there's going to be enough other people who'll do that, yourself included. You don't need to add me to the mix."
Sniffle.
"You can be mad at me if you want to be," she offers, even though he - already went and said he doesn't. "You're allowed."
... She gives a little watery giggle.
"You're very good. I'll - do my best not to scare you again. And. Spend my copious amounts of free time trying to find therapists, how about, because fuck do I seem to need one."
He nods. "How about I draw a bath and then give you a massage? Do you like bath bombs?"
"Only if they're not the glittery ones," she sniffles. She'd protest about the bath if she were going to have it alone, but - she's not, so. It sounds good.
"Oh, no, I'd object to the glittery ones, that stuff gets everywhere." Hyup, he can carry her upstairs.
"We'd be finding glitter in our underwear and sheets for months!" She kisses his nose before he reaches the stairs. "Thank you."
Smoooooooch he is getting the BEST GRADE in being a BOYFRIEND.
Anyway! Bath time! It is time to pamper his girlfriend.
So. Time off.
She's really not sure what to... do with it.
She does the obvious things, of scheduling appointments with several potential therapists, assisting with drafting the whole - announcement thing about her taking a break for a bit, baking Ji-woo delicious apology treats in a vain attempt to make up for the mess she made of her foot. Ji-woo seems mollified by her groveling, and sighs and pats her on the head and tells her to take some time off, but everyone fucks up. She agrees to various things from her realtor about the slow, ponderous process of selling a house, including inspections and price ranges and whether furniture can be moved in to make it look inviting. Her answers boil down to "I will throw as much money at this as you want to make it so I don't have to think about it and it will go away as quickly as possible," which is perhaps not the best coping mechanism, but tough luck, she doesn't like any of the therapists she's talked to so far, it'll just have to be good enough for now. She visits her parents. She spends time with her boyfriend, and tries not to let herself be consumed by raging jealousy over how he's still allowed to do what he's good at and she's not.
Then she does some non obvious things, like picking up English classes, because free time should... probably be productive? English is basically the lingua franca of the international esper world, learning it can only be helpful. She does more interior decorating of her personal silo, which is still ludicrously expensive to even get to, and highly impractical for all non-Jaeha paranoia related activities. She - wants a real house, with an actual internet connection and the ability to go wandering in a nearby town to look at the local hardware store's garden department or book store, but she can't bring herself to go house hunting (or even town and county hunting!) and instead just. Attempts to exist in public sometimes.
This doesn't really go well for her.
Korea has different celebrity norms than Japan, and the media shitstorm around her is, to put it lightly, charged. Kim Hye-jin, fucked a named S-rank dungeon to death and walked out showing her tits to the world, did she do it for attention? Was the assassination real or was it a publicity stunt? Is she a slut for swapping partners so quickly, gosh she's dating this one too, Lee Tae-gun deserves a good hot boy/someone that's not damaged goods/Kang fucking Jaeha instead of her. Is Korea's second S-rank broken forever, is she going to retire, should she retire, doesn't she have a responsibility to the world, why didn't she say anything to the media earlier, is she stupid, why didn't she have a set of bodyguards watching every dungeon portal she ever went through. Was she really just skirting on Lee Tae-gun's coattails after all, she's not even doing dungeons anymore. Endless nitpicking from a thousand contradictory sources that all just think she wasn't good enough, that they could have done better in her shoes.
It's not even all of the - toxic judgmental trash that gets to her, that mostly just makes her angry, it's the pity. It's the knowledge that people keep wanting to have an opinion about her, ask her how she's doing, act like they know anything about her at all because she's famous. Even other espers are all - weird about it at her. She can't even go to mixers without someone asking about if she's going to push Korea to go for the death penalty for a certain criminal. A number of espers are out for blood, the unspoken pact of neutrality so blatantly broken, and maybe with Hye-jin's help in particular they can get it, if she just -
She doesn't want to just. She doesn't want to talk about it. She doesn't want to go on any kind of crusade. She doesn't want him dead, not really, because she doesn't think that'd end things, either, not anymore. She wants to try and figure out how to be a normal person again that doesn't feel like at any moment someone might try to wipe her brain, cause her to commit a murder, or fucking kill her.
It's just really not obvious how. She doesn't, really, feel like anyone cares about her the person. Just - what she's had done to her, or how they've let her down, or how they can use her for their own ends.
Lee Tae-gun is a remarkably offline person. He doesn't really read the news beyond a bare minimum to be at most about a day late to important news, such as that the Earth has exploded and suchlike. He certainly doesn't read anything related to espers, at all, because if anything is relevant to his life his guild will inform him of it. He also has years of practice with being a Korean celebrity, so he knows how to dodge most of that. This is how he manages to be mostly oblivious to the way the public is treating Kim Hye-jin.
It's not that he doesn't notice her upset. He notices it, and he tries to help, and he isn't great at it. And he'd probably have noticed the problem more specifically reasonably soon. But the way he does notice it is... not ideal.
This last confluence changed a lot. Ha Si-yeon seems to have pulled quite a lot of strings and applied quite a lot of pressure behind the scenes, but of course he wasn't the only one, and there was pressure from multiple directions. And while it wasn't an overnight change, it was still sufficiently quick that Tae-gun is still not totally used to the changes. That's why he still steps out of the dungeon portal with his Public Face on, despite the fact that there is now a proper barrier surrounding it rather than just yellow tape and the media vultures don't have immediate access to him. It's blissfully quiet and empty, here, just him and the support team. This was a simple dungeon that he solo'd, and he's sufficiently on top of his backlash backlog that he's not even in a panic needing to go back to his silo immediately to jerk off (or, more likely, have sex with Kim Hye-jin). Not that he doesn't want to, of course, but it's a lot less pressing. The urgency is gone.
So, while he's getting some last checks from the medical team...
Esper hearing being what it is, he of course can't help but keep listening, now that his attention's been caught.
"—that he will be looking for a new partner remains speculative, but our eyes on the scene confirm that he once again went into this dungeon on his own—"
"—has been sighted on her own, too, but has refused to offer comments as to the nature of their partnership and its future. Some sources suggest that her promotion to S-rank was premature and political in nature, especially considering the lack of followup—"
"Excuse me," says Lee Tae-gun, one of Korea's two S-ranks, one of the ten most powerful espers in the world, who seems to have somehow despite his best judgment found himself on the other side of the media barrier right next to a person holding a microphone and being filmed. The van behind the camera person does not belong to a news channel Tae-gun recognises, which makes this an even worse idea, but he is suddenly remembering that "horny" is not the only way his backlash can be and that there are other reasons that he might have wanted to go back home immediately.
Unfortunately, realising this is not actually causing him to go home.
The reporter startles—the camera person didn't warn them that Tae-gun had appeared behind them because they were staring slack-jawed at him for a bit too long—but regains composure quickly. You can't work this job if you let stuff like this faze you. "Lee Tae-gun-nim, care to comment about what your plans are now that your partnership with Kim Hye-jin's been dissolved?"
"Are the rumours that she will be returning to Japan true? How do you feel about having been misled about her abilities as an esper?"
"Reporter-nim," he says, his voice suddenly twenty degrees colder, "if I were you, I would find new sources, rather than mislead your viewership with entirely unfounded rumours. That is, of course, assuming you have any sources, and haven't just made those claims up right now to boost your searchability. But surely a professional such as yourself wouldn't do that, so my belated apologies for casting aspersions on your person."
WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING
GET HIM UNDER CONTROL
HE'S BACKLASHING INTO ANGER AND THAT IS GOING TO EXPLODE
are you hyung's media manager?
you are not
you know who is?
me
and this is a gold mine
you do your job, and I'll do mine
...alright
I'll trust you
but only because you're incredibly talented and competent and have done an exceptionally good job of this over the past several years
don't let it get to your head
"Kim Hye-jin is the most competent esper I have ever met," he continues, not letting the reporter get a word in edgewise. "It has been a pleasure and an honour to work with her. I would not be alive right now if it weren't for her. I would certainly still be under over five years of unguided backlash due to my own idiotic choices, which I am sure on priors alone you and your kind have analysed to hell and back, especially given recent events."
"She has saved countless lives throughout her career, and I would like to remind you, reporter-nim, that the event that promoted her to S-rank involved her destroying a named dungeon that has been around for as long as espers have, a dungeon whose unofficial name was Hellscape. She did it, not me. Whatever else happens, whatever else you hear, she deserved that promotion."
"As to her future plans, they are, quite simply, none of anyone else's business. So it would be appreciated if, as a news outlet, you reported on true facts rather than baseless speculation. I'm certain a person of your professional integrity would agree with that."
"But I should get going, now. I hope you have a wonderful day."
And he is going to teleport away because aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa this was a bad chooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooice aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
come on
it's his whole thing
like I'm sure he was panicking throughout but
come on
if he can be in front of cameras smiling unbothered while his cock is doing its level best to break out of his trousers
he can serve some burns when he's angry on behalf of his partner
I'm gonna need to figure out how much of that is going on Insta but my instincts say "all of it"
it was great
He does not start screaming as soon as he gets home but that's because it would be very rude, not because he doesn't want to. As such: he gets home, takes his shoes off, and does not scream.
Hye-jin is on the couch, idly testing to see if she can get her not-technically-fire lights to be obviously different colors and watching a terrible sci-fi movie. She perks up when she hears her partner arrive, turns off the TV instead of pausing the truly horrendous movie, and heads over.
"Okaeri," she says, tilting her head a little. "Are you - sorry, stupid question, what's wrong, how can I help?"
"...I... think I fucked up. Um." Great, where are the words he'd been saying just now, why have they been replaced by an erection, why is this his life.
"In the dungeon? Is anybody hurt??"
She's not sure how he'd feel about being touched right now, so - she holds out her hand to him, so he can take it when he wants to??
Yeah he'll take it.
"No, no, the dungeon's fine, just, I—talked to the media." Aaaaaahhhhh he wants to do a bunch of things and he shouldn't do them because he fucked up specifically in a way related to Kim Hye-jin and what if she doesn't want to touch him afterwards he should be honest with her aaaaaaah.
"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."
"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.
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."
"U-um. Right." He doesn't know how to respond to that so he just won't. "To be fair to them I didn't give them time to ask any more questions..."
...oh, right, uh. "So, um... Hyung and noona's wedding is this weekend."
"Oh! Yes, it is. Uh - I should have a dress for it, though I've completely spaced on if the dress code is weird. It's probably not weird, I think I would have remembered if it were?" She's not sure. She's been distracted, lately. Ha, ha.
"Western-style clothes are fine, yeah, but if you wanted to come in a hanbok or a kimono that'd be fine, too. I think they're gonna be in suit and dress for the main event but then afterwards there's the traditional part with just their close family and they'll be in hanboks for that."
"Oh I hadn't thought of a hanbok, I don't think I have one, actually - I was assuming that as an esper marriage it'd probably be a bit Western about it, and a kimono seemed weird for people that aren't Japanese, but I hadn't connected the dots there. Uh. What are you going in, can I crib your clothing notes and copy you?"
"I'm just wearing a suit. I don't like hanboks, they're difficult to move in."
Nod. "I don't have a lot of practice with them, visits to my family were usually never formal? But. Yeah I'll just go with a dress, then, that's easiest." And she doesn't have to go shopping and potentially venture into the public eye in doing so, which sounds great to her actually! Win-win.
"You look really good in a dress so I'll be looking forward to it."
That's a good way to cheer her up; she smiles and then leans over to kiss him. "Thank you." Kiss!
Hana's attempting to put together a reliable staff to help with managing her, uh, everything. Objectively speaking trying to do all of the management of where she should be leveraged, and then also squishing feelings and tanking the resulting backlash, would be, well. A stupid fucking idea, as Woo-young would put it. She has the self awareness to know it. And, comparatively, the anxiety around picking the right people to manage her scheduling, the updating and dissemination of her procedures, backlash management, priority lists etc is not as bad as actually doing all of that herself. It's only mostly her fault, not entirely her fault.
Unlike some other things that are arguably entirely her fault. Which she's thinking about right now, properly, instead of spiraling into perfect anxious stillness as is her custom. She's nestled against her partner, and - fidgets in a way that he would probably find telling. It is the 'I am no longer backlashed and I'm piecing together my actual thoughts and they're tricky,' fidget.
(Yes, it is that specific. Hana is very predictable about these things.)
And Woo-young has years of practice with that kind of thing, now. "Let me know when you want my input," he says with a small grin.
She is, if anything, both more self aware and more emotionally proactive than Tae-gun.
"Mhm," she agrees, with a tiny almost-smile.
"My complicated feelings are about Kang Jaeha. I'm - I don't regret anything, exactly," because she followed the procedures and everyone agrees she was very good at doing that, "but I'm also not sure I would have tried to save him if I'd known why he wanted to kill himself? So figuring out how I feel about it is. Hard."
"...ah. Yeah." That one is hard, yes. He feels... complicated about that, too.
"Mhm. So on one hand I - don't think we should let Nightmare torture anyone into suicide if we can at all help it, especially counters to it. From a, a - purely tactical level, it's a permanent loss of resources with which to counter it, which is to be avoided as much as possible. So on that front I regret nothing."
There's a pause as she lets this hang in the air; she checks to see that Woo-young doesn't have any questions, but he kind of likes hearing everything systematically laid out instead of picking through things piece by piece, so she continues.
"But I'm also not sure of - so, because of what he did, he might never be allowed, or able, to ever use his powers again. So keeping him alive is neither useful, nor kind, and I don't like being a party to keeping a man in a box because no one can decide what to do with him if it won't serve a purpose. It's just - torturing a guy."
"Except I then also think about - I am mad about everything he did to Lee Tae-gun and Kim Hye-jin and you and everyone else, but actually the thing that makes me furious enough to want him to suffer in a cold dark cell for the rest of his life is how he - he's not shielded against Nightmare. He was never shielded. And he never told anyone. He just kept going back in and being - the, the perfect anti-Nightmare, when that was a lie. How could he just, I don't understand, it's - I - I have worked so hard to manage my everything, I am still working so hard to get help to better manage my everything. I was and am painfully honest about my abilities and weaknesses, even though it's - not standard for psychic espers, makes me weird and scary to everyone, even my own peers. I spend hours every week looking for potential improvements to my intake and empathy procedures, I carefully catalog my backlash levels and mental state, I'm - attempting to figure out how to hire people that will tell me what to do when I can't think straight, even though I am the one that has to live with the consequences of what I do, and I don't even know how I can give someone that level of power over my life and choices and it's scary, but - I need to. I want to. Because it will help. Because I can't do this by myself. It would be," and her mouth twitches a little and she parrots, "'a stupid fucking idea.' To try to do it all by myself. To pretend I'm perfect to the detriment of all else."
"But then he did just that, and it ruined his whole life, and hurt a lot of other people, who didn't do anything wrong, and it was so stupidly predictable and I'm. Furious. Horrified. Disgusted. I can't - I don't - it's -" Snuggle the partner as she tries to words. Words are so hard.
Yeah he'll hug her and kiss the top of her head. He... does have thoughts and feelings about those things... but he'll wait until she's let it all out before he chimes in. Especially since he also doesn't really have everything neatly resolved in his mind, either...
Hug. Hugs help. For more than just guiding reasons, because she's zeroed out on backlash and this is just ambient 'person that she's compatible with' niceness, now.
"... I used to idolize him," she murmurs. "I - he was - the psychic esper that made me realize that we could kill people's nightmares for them, with these powers of ours. That made me want to try and make it work, with my - my weird and scary power that lets me look into and then meddle with peoples' minds, even though probably no one should have that power. Because the monsters out there are scarier than anything I can do, and they win if we do nothing, and I can learn how to be brave. Even if it sucks a whole lot, and takes so much work, and sometimes I just want to hide under the bed and pretend I don't exist. So I'm angry at him for lying to me, for risking so many people for his stupid pride, for being an active risk to combating and mitigating Nightmare, for - just. He unknowingly gave me a big job to live up to, and then he wasn't even doing it himself. So I think that's what I am selfishly most mad at him about. On my own account."
Pet pet pet.
"He... got to a lot more people than he was even trying to," Woo-young agrees, quietly.
"Yeah." Lean. "... I don't think I actually want him to rot in prison forever, or be executed, it seems like too much of a waste, practically speaking. Anyway it's harder to go on instead of not. So it's probably actually meaner, and it was neither a mercy nor a kindness that I didn't let him kill himself."
Pet pet pet.
"When I first found out, found—everything out, six years ago, I wanted to kill him," he says, matter-of-factly. "I'm not sure I wouldn't have, if Tae-gun hadn't stopped me."
Nod!
"Using psychic powers to tamper with an S-rank is in fact the sort of thing dungeons and their monsters get killed for. I don't see why it shouldn't also apply to espers if they go rogue enough. ... You didn't have a plan for getting away with it, did you. You were just mad."
"What do you take me for, of course I had a plan for getting away with it! It'd take some doing because I'd need to hide the fact that I got suddenly backlashed but I'm sure prez would have aided and abetted me. And if Tae-hwan—" He stops short as the breath hitches in his throat, then clears it. "Anyway."
"Oh, okay. Good. No further complaints, then." Only petting, because. Her poor partner.
"But Tae-gun... loved him. I'm not sure he doesn't still. He... I had to stay mad. For years. Because if I didn't then Tae-gun would keep, keep, keep trying to make it so much smaller than it was, trying to make it his fault, trying to make it make sense by wishing it away.
"But now that everything happened, I'm just... tired. I'm just so tired of it all, and, and I'm sad, because, because hyung loved him, and he loved hyung back, and it was all so fucking stupid."
Nod, hair kiss.
"Yeah. It's hard to - be someone else's defense mechanisms, emotionally. Which is what it sounds like it was? So."
"お疲れ様でした*."
*Roughly translates to, Thank you for your hard work.
"Ha, yeah, I really fucking am*." Sigh. "I'm just... I don't even know. I even feel a bit sorry for him, now that he definitely won't touch anyone. Crazy as it sounds."
* It more literally translates to "you must be/have been tired".
"It sounds crazy for me to feel sorry for him! I hate his guts! I want him dead! And yet! Here we are!"
"No, it makes perfect sense. Humans have complex, multilayered emotions, and you have empathy. It makes you a good person." Hair kiss.
If Woo-young had told Tae-hwan this, he'd have said much the same as Hana, but been a lot more sarcastic about it, and made fun of Woo-young while at it, probably.
That pain is not quite dull, now, but it's getting there. He wishes—so many things, actually.
"Right back atcha."
She gives him a small smile, wishes that she could ever get that message through to her anxiety, then settles in to enjoy snuggles with a brain that has only a normal, nonmagical amount of damage.
They do what they can for each other. It doesn't fix everything, but it helps.
Tae-gun, as promised, is putting on a suit for the wedding. He had it tailored, because Juheon is one of his best friends and it's his wedding and it would not do to not look great for it, it would feel... disrespectful. So he looks stunning, and does not have the ability to appreciate it at all.
Hye-jin picked a dress that matches well with Tae-gun's suit, a deep navy that hugs her curves well without dipping into inappropriate for a wedding. She's similarly deliberate with doing her makeup and styling her hair; she hasn't put in the work to look this nice in... A while. It's nice.
Though something in her stomach makes her feel like she's just been given a pity invite, or is just Tae-gun's plus one instead of a guest in her own right. She doesn't, really, know either the bride or the groom, one orgy notwithstanding.
She pushes aside thoughts and feelings she definitely doesn't have, and takes her boyfriend's hand and tries on a smile.
"Ready," she says, even if it doesn't quote fit.
Tae-gun is allowed to exist in public again but Hye-jin and he are still, you know, world-famous and stuff, so they decided to teleport so as not to draw undue attention to the wedding. It's meant to be Hyun-jae and Juheon's day, paparazzi ruining their fun would suck.
The reception is in a very traditional house, with an enormous garden area that has a little brook with tiny bridges to cross it and gazebos and cherry blossom trees. It's far too early for them to be blooming, but they're still pretty. The area is filled with paper lanterns as the main light sources, and the little cobblestone path stretching out in front of the place they arrive at by the gates leads to the area where the ceremony itself will be held, with chairs laid out in neat rows in front of a flowery arch above a small podium.
It's really pretty and cute, and if the traditional style of the house (kind of like the one she's trying to sell, now) hurts a little, it's not an overwhelming hurt. And she can, um. Attempt to remember how to be normal? She's never actually been to a Korean wedding before, how does its ceremony differ from the Japanese or Westernized ones? Are the seats assigned?
They have assigned seats, yeah, though the ceremony will come first so they should just find somewhere in the "pews" to sit.
