Just a bit, he said.

Right.

"Hye-jin-ah," he manages, eventually.

"Mmm?" she hums, already in the process of taking off his shirt.

"Can we talk?" God she's so tempting, though, she's so hot, and he could—no. Stay down, boy. You'll have plenty of opportunities to ravish her spend quality guiding time with her, don't lose your nerve now.

"... right now??" she says, a little surprised. Usually he's - you know, all for immediate victory sex after dungeons.

"Yeah. Right now. I, I mean, it's fine if—" No. No. "No, right now."

She goes a little bit still against him, suddenly afraid.

"I - yeah, sure, what's wrong?"

He's carrying her since she pounced him so he's gonna relocate the both of them to the living room. 

Also, she sounds anxious, and he can figure out easily what he'd be feeling in her shoes, so, "Nothing bad happened and I'm not about to give you any bad news or anything."

She is naturally suspicious of this statement! Clearly her life is really only filled with bad things happening to her lately, and only bad news. She studies him anxiously and doesn't protest being carried off to the living room.

"... Okay...?" she says, unconvinced.

He sighs but yeah that's legit. Here's the couch. 

"Hye-jin-ah, you're not okay and it's making me worried." That's a good start, right? Not beating around the bush and letting her get super anxious.

"... of course I'm not okay, I'm still backlashed after my last dungeon?" she says, and - look, she didn't mean for it to be a dodge of the actual topic he seems to want to talk about, but, but. Since when has anyone aside from her parents given a shit on whether or not she's okay? It's easier to focus on the immediate, simple, way she is not okay.

"Hye-jin-ah..." She's still draped all over him so even if it's not as much guiding as if he were literally inside her now is not the time for a boner it's still very good, especially with how compatible they are, so she can deal.

"I-I don't... what do you want me to say, I am suddenly okay after being stalked, harassed, and almost killed by an S-rank psychic esper that literally fucked with my mind? I'm not. Obviously. But I'm - dealing with it. I'm fine."

"I've said that exact same 'I'm fine' almost every day for half a decade and it's not any more convincing when you're the one saying it."

She looks away from him.

"... okay, well, turnabout is fair play? And - I mean, really, I'm being much more responsible about this than you were, if anything this is really useful, we've still got the massive backlog of your backlash to chip away at, it only makes sense for me to -"

"That's not—Hye-jin-ah I shouldn't wish what I went through on anyone and I especially wouldn't wish it on you."

"I'm sure it's very inconvenient, having to see what you looked like from the outside," she agrees, for all the wrong reasons.

"—inconvenient? I didn't start this conversation because I thought it'd be convenient—"

No. Wrong. Bad. That's not the kind of backlash he needs to lean into.

Maybe he should actually have started this conversation after they'd fucked each other's backlashes away, it's getting really difficult to go the more useful direction especially with how his brain is now starting to loop around being mad that that's what she thought of him, and being mad that she's making it so hard to help her, and being mad that he's being mad for such petty reasons—

Behold. A girlfriend who does in fact seem to think that of him. What ever could have caused her to do that.

Well that's just making him want to fuck her insolence away—

"I'm going to start talking and hopefully I'll get my point across.

"I don't know what it means, to you, for us to be—dating. Boyfriend and girlfriend. To me it means a lot more than just being friends with benefits. It means a lot more than just, just, just doing whatever's convenient. It's the opposite of that. It's the opposite of that!" Okay, that's working, actually, he's a bit more snappish than he'd hoped but he's getting into gear. "If it's just doing what's convenient, spending nice times together and tolerating each other then that's not, that's not even friends with benefits actually because friends do more than that. I'm pretty sure. I think? No, I know. And I want to do more than that. That means that I—I don't know how to be a boyfriend, really. But I'm not going to magically learn overnight. I'm going to fuck up. I am fucking up. I think not waiting until after we—guided each other—was probably a mistake—"

"It was," she confirms, glaring. "I don't know what possessed you to think that it was okay to - fucking - ambush me when I came here to alleviate my life-threatening medical condition, but making it so that I literally cannot escape your intervention safely is not the sort of thing a partner should be doing. Especially not a boyfriend."

"—I'm sorry. I'm really, truly sorry."

"Uh huh." She's heard that before, and yet.

He sighs. "I—this probably killed the mood. I'd be willing to have sex if you wanted but I'm guessing not? I don't want to trap you. I didn't mean to trap you. I really don't want you to stay if you don't want to stay and it didn't, wasn't, that wasn't the framing I was using because I'm so used to carrying a lot of backlash but that was inconsiderate of me and not properly taking your perspective into account, so I'll try harder to think these things through in the future."

"Yeah, the mood is well and truly killed," she confirms, getting off of him. "And you're right! It was extremely inconsiderate, to a downright negligent and abusive degree, and so I don't want to stay. So I'm not going to. I'm going to go see if Chun-hee's free, and if she's not, I'll take the fucking hospital, actually. Bye."

She then summons a commscreen and teleports away.

...fuck.

Hey Tae-gun was a massive dick, can I come cuddle you as backup, literally right now?

Yeah, of course

Oppa is here, too, should I ask him to go away?

Probably, he can be a bit of a dick too

But if he needs you too I promise not to do anything to his hairstyle or person.

Where are you?

Our silo

We're both almost at zero so he doesn't need me right now

I'll send you a teleport request?

K. Thank you

I apologize in advance for being a bitch and/or crying on you.

It's okay

And she gets the teleport request.

And then here is a Hye-jin, teleported in from the sad skeleton of her once lovingly bought house, that Kang Jaeha ruined.

"Hi," she says, looking like she's only barely keeping herself from crying, "thank you, I'm sorry to surprise you like this, I - don't have any other people I know I'm compatible with in this country -"

"Oh, no, I'm sorry." Chun-hee is in a nightie and nothing more, but under the circumstances that's probably fine. They're in something like a living room, which she moved to from the bedroom due to not wanting to come off... well, you know. But. "Um, do you, um, want to... hug? Or..."

"Hug please," she confirms, and then slides carefully into Chun-hee's arms. And promptly begins to cry. "I'm sorry, my mood is - I - I showed up after a dungeon and he ambushed me with a conversation while I'm backlashing and I, just, I. You didn't sign on to hear my issues, sorry, I'll - shut up and just hug you, sorry to interrupt, I should be safe to be left alone in half an hour at the most -"

"...you can tell me. I don't know if I'll be much help but—it's what friends are for. U-um, I mean, I'm not trying to imply, um—"

"Oh my god yes please be my friend I don't have many in this country, and if I break up with Tae-gun I will probably lose them all," she half-wails.

...awww. Chun-hee will hold her really close. "I wouldn't abandon you just because you broke up with oppa." She doesn't want to make declarations for anyone else but she's pretty sure that's true of at least Hyun-jae, Woo-young, and Juheon, too. Also Si-yeon but Chun-hee thinks Hye-jin doesn't like him.

She doesn't, yep.

"T-thank you." Sob. "I-it's not even that I think I definitely will, or anything it's just, like, he's - everyone was gathered to help him and have been friends with him for years and, it's fine nobody's known me for very long and it's not like I've been the sparkling picture of perfect friend material -"

"...I hadn't really known oppa that long, before... everything. Just a couple of months."

"Okay, good. Mine now. My friend. I apologize for my horrific trauma and bitchiness, I promise to incinerate anyone you'd like me to without asking too many questions," she sniffles.

Well she's going to try not to have any feelings about being called "mine" be a hot pretty girl who can set her in fire!! That's probably for the best!!!!

"Do you, um, want to, um, talk about it...? I mean, oppa."

"... yeah, probably, but I think I want to stop sobbing first, I'm, it'll, it'll all just come out in a mess right now and I'm mostly just really fucking angry that he ambushed me - I - I would have had the conversation if he hadn't of done it - probably?? - but while I'm backlashing is just, I, no, when someone gives me the choice of 'stay with me or die' I will demonstrably choose 'or die' and he should fucking know that by now-!"

Yeah Chun-hee doesn't know what to say. "You can cry as much as you need to. Do you want to move to the bed so you can be more comfortable?" She will VALIANTLY not immediately add a million caveats about how she's not trying to be weird about it because that'll just make it weird. She will just try to be thoughtful.

"This is fine," she whines. "I'm sorry, I'm a mess, I don't have an instruction manual for how to handle my crazy, everyone wants one but I don't have it, and my emotions are all over the place and I'm a fucking dungeon obsessed psycho and it's no surprise that no one gives a shit about me as a person or what my needs are - you not included, sorry, this is my emotions not what is reality I, just, I." More sobbing.

...note to future Chun-hee, tell the others to more actively show appreciation of Hye-jin and care for her feelings and needs. Also she still doesn't know what to say but maybe she should just keep hugging and petting her and letting her let it all out?

That seems to be the correct thing! She devolves into uglier sobbing and less intelligible watery mumblings, including but not limited to:

"Quasar sucks and I hate how their incompetence keeps screwing me over and leaving me in the lurch, where the fuck was it for helping with my fucking S-rank stalker."

"Tae-gun-ah is the most self absorbed selfless man in the entire fucking world, and the biggest fucking hypocrite."

"I was nervous about dating but he was very charming and I'm such a fucking idiot why does this keep happening to me, I'm the fucking problem, I have terrible taste in men."

"He promised me things wouldn't change and then he ambushes me and calls it dating, how could he, my backlash is lethal, we can't all just stupidly tank it forever with tissues and porn in our silo, some of us just fucking die you asshole!!!"

"Was it me, was I the problem, did I cut off all other ways of having a fucking conversation with him that he had to resort to this???"

And then she's just sobbing miserably about how she doesn't even have a house to cry in, not really.

Chun-hee observes privately that even while cursing him Hye-jin still called him "Tae-gun-ah". Maybe she'll send Tae-gun a strongly worded text telling him to figure out how to not be a dumbass, Hye-jin is clearly trying really hard to like him and he's making that difficult. 

Anyway, she can provide hugs and an ear and some guiding.

Okay, cool. Then it's going to eventually trail off into a lot of mumbled apologies, and thank yous, and promises to figure out how to be a better friend, and saying she doesn't really have to be her friend if she doesn't want to, and -

- she does, eventually, wear herself out, somewhere around explaining why it's fine actually for Chun-hee to abandon her forever in favor of Tae-gun(still -ah) because it's what she expects by now, and she trails off to drift into exhausted sleep.

She has not really been doing a lot of that. Sleeping, that is. And her dungeon load has been exhausting.