Okay, that's also missing a huge bright side, which are his superpowers, that's like an amazing bright side, or they would be, if it weren't for how shit Tae-hwan's backlash is, and also for how underwhelming his powers turned out to be. He thinks. He doesn't actually know because he didn't test them very much due to, again, how shit his backlash is. Also, the person they found to guide him during testing was a guy and Tae-hwan is not here for that. 

The person he's about to meet is also a guy, but his backlash might be reasonably compatible with Tae-hwan's so the efficiency might make up for the lack of sex. He's fine with, like, having an arm around his shoulder and leaning on him or lying on his lap or whatever, and he can even do that while not wearing shirts probably, but he's really not gonna do more than that. He's open-minded and he's not homophobic but he's not gay.

Tae-hwan's been informed that the guy's a teleporter but he walks into the meeting room through the door like a normal person. "Seo Tae-hwan-shi?"

A normal person doesn't have waist-length green hair, the hell.

He makes it work, though. Nice. "Hi! You must be Min Woo-young-shi," he says, bowing.

He bows, too, but then walks over to Tae-hwan. "Let's get the shake out of the way?" he suggests, offering a hand.

"Sure!" Handshake—

oh wow is this what guiding's supposed to feel like??

oh wow yep

He pulls his hand away and clears his throat. "I guess we're pretty compatible, huh?"

"Seems like it," agrees Min Woo-young, peering at his face.

What's he lookin' at.

Tae-hwan's face. Wasn't he paying attention to the narration? He just said.

"Sit? I don't know why you've just been standing there, these sofas are really comfortable." He doesn't wait for Tae-hwan before taking a seat, himself.

"...got kinda used to standing up all the time during hell week, I think," he says, but he's at zero backlash right now so he sits.

"Yeah, I read the description, it sounded really rough."

"Got abs of steel now, though."

"I'll believe it when I see it."

"Sure." He lifts his shirt up to show them off.

"Oh you were not kidding."

Tae-hwan thinks this guy might be gay. Then again, who wouldn't be gay for this? He lowers his shirt again. "And I survived it, which was looking kinda shaky by the end of it, so I'm happy with that."

"Yeah, it goes like that sometimes. I had to spend the whole week being IV fed."

"Oh, oof, it gets that bad?"

"Not on the regular. Hasn't happened since, actually. But, you know, now I know how bad it can get and I'm really motivated to not get there. Thus: partners."

"Right. Well I just manifested like a month ago so I don't really know anything."

Woo-young peers at his face again.

"...what! Why are you looking at me like that!" That's the second time he's done that!!!

"So it's fine to look at your abs of steel but not your face?"

"Oh. I guess I am very handsome."

"Uh huh."

"...wait, you're making fun of me."

"Who, me? Nooooooo..."

...

This dude, this guy, this complete stranger, whom Tae-hwan met twenty-seven seconds ago, is making fun of Tae-hwan to his face.

He thinks they'll get along splendidly.

"So why don't you tell me a bit more about what being an esper is like, sunbae?"

"Well, like what? What do you know?"

"Well now I know that we always spend a nice weeklong holiday in Hell before getting our powers."

Woo-young is sitting close enough to Tae-hwan that he can pat Tae-hwan on the head. Pat pat pat.

Oh right that feels so nice Tae-hwan leans into it—

—aaaand away. Woo-young is a guy. Not that he's not fine with guys patting him on the head, his friends also do that, it's just that it felt far too nice.

"Anyway, I also know using powers gives us backlash, guiding gets rid of it, I'm not gay by the way so our guiding will have to stay strictly platonic."

"Sure. —do you know my backlash?"

"...uh, no." There was a file he was meant to have read but he only skimmed and he feels like this is not the time to try to fib. "Something about not being able to move?"

"I lose motor control, like, ability to move. Starts with my legs and climbs up, usually after dungeons I can't walk or worse."

"Oh. That sucks." Sounds better than his backlash, though, at least he can think.

"Yeah. Reason I bring it up is that I will be at your mercy in our silo, and since if I lose arm control I can't even use my phone I'll be watching lots of movies or reading books."

"How do you read books without your hands?"

"I've got something set up to track my eyes and scroll down."

"Oh. That's super cool."

"—wait does that mean you didn't fuck your last partners or are you, like, the girl—"

Woo-young lifts his eyebrow and doesn't say anything.

"—shit. Uh." Good going, Tae-hwan, you just put your foot so deep in your mouth you're going to shit your shoe tomorrow.

Woo-young manages to hold the straight face for two more seconds then cracks up.

Oh. He's not... offended?

Nope. "Are you always this forward or is it only pretty boys that reveal this side of you?"

"—I'm not gay!"

"No? So all that interest in how I have sex was purely theoretical?"

He wasn't interested—wait, he was, wasn't he. "Well, yes!"

"I'm just teasing you, I feel like after saying something like that you deserve to be a little bit embarrassed."

"Yeah that's fair."

He eventually stops giggling. "But to answer your question, my two prior partners were women, and not being able to move doesn't mean I can't get it up. Besides, there are plenty of things to be done with a tongue and that is nearly the last thing to go."

"Oh." Right. He knows that. From experience. Yep. He has a looooooot of experience. Practical, too. "So you're not gay...?"

"I'm bi but I haven't actually ever been with a man."

Wait so that means that they'd both be inexperienced and learning together if they not! Gay!!!

Maybe a bit bicurious though shut up!!!!!!

"Wait but then how do you know you're bi?"

"How do you know you're straight?"

"I've been with girls!"

"Presumably you figured you knew you were straight prior to that, though."

"...huh. Guess I did."

"I actually didn't realise I was bi until I became an esper and was suddenly surrounded by beautiful men."

"Well, you've just added one more to your roster."

"So I have!"

"Anyway, circling back to your question, there isn't a single answer. It'll at minimum depend on what your power is and whether you'll be doing dungeons or not, and then your schedule—"

"Wait, hold on, what do you mean whether I'll be doing dungeons? I'm an esper."

"—yes, and occasionally espers don't do dungeons. You could be doing construction work, helping with research, powers are varied."

Wow that's super lame he hopes he won't have to do that.

"Alright."

"Not your thing?"

"I dunno, my power kinda sucks."

"Oh? I thought you hadn't tested it."

"I did a little but the backlash was too bad and I wasn't that compatible with the other esper and so I dunno much."

"Well, what do you know?"

"I make things go slower."

"...things? Slower than what?"

"Slower than they were going before."

"So your power only affects moving things?"

"...what other things would it affect?"

"I don't know but there's a thing in physics about frame of reference isn't there?"

"I dunno."

"I'm not enough of a nerd to know what this would entail in practice but you shouldn't discount your power so quickly, if you haven't tested it much."

"...okay!" It would be really cool if his power turned out to be good even if he doesn't know how that could happen.

"Let's go on a date," Woo-young decides.

"—I'm not gay!"

"And the fact that you keep repeating that makes it so much fun to mess with you about it."

He's such an asshole.

"I mean we should go on a power testing trip to the gym and then hang out together platonically to guide you about it."

"...okay that's not a bad idea actually."

"I know! That's why I suggested it. Wanna get the preliminary contract over with or nah? I like you, I think we'd vibe at least for partnering purposes, but we can wait until you're more comfortable with the idea."

Would waiting be the responsible thing to do? Probably. Does he want to? Absolutely not.

"Yeah let's do it worst case I'll just tell you to fuck off and leave."

"That's the spirit."

Woo-young texts Choi Seungjoo with a quick summary of what they (don't) know about Tae-hwan's powers to get some help from an expert on their way down to the gym.

The expert arrives shortly. "It's a pleasure to meet you, hoobaenim," he says, bowing.

This other guy tags along. "Yo."

"Nice to meet you too, sunbaenim. I'm Seo Tae-hwan."

"I'm Choi Seungjoo, and this is my partner Park Yoo-min."

"Partner and boyfriend."

"Hyung, that's irrelevant."

"How dare you call our relationship irrelevant! I am wounded!"

"Please ignore my hyung, he hit his head really hard as a child."

Tae-hwan was having some trouble figuring out how to react to all of the that but that last bit tips him over to cracking up.

"Choi Seungjoo's powers are related to momentum redirection and he's an A-ranker who's got a ton of experience."

"Oh, that's cool. How old are you?"

"Nineteen."

"Can I call you hyung?"

"Sure!"

"...oh, you're younger than Choi Seungjoo, now I'm feeling like a cradle robber."

"You can call me hyung, too!"

"Noted, sunbae."

Woo-young giggles.

"Wow."

Seungjoo pats him on the head.

"Have you been an esper long?"

"Yeah. I manifested when I was sixteen."

"Oh, damn, you're, like, really my sunbae."

"Yeah, Yoo-min-sunbae is the oldest and most senior of us here but Seungjoo-sunbae's been doing this for a long time, too."

"Woo-young said you hadn't tested your powers much yet?"

"Yeah, 'cause my backlash is shit and my powers didn't look that cool to be worth it. ...uh, pardon my French."

"Hmm..." Seungjoo opens his commscreen and starts typing into it.

"—wait, can I get one of that? I want one of that! That's so cool!!!"

"Sure, we can—oh." Woo-young looks at the notification he's just received and—gives Seungjoo a look.

If he says so.

A bleacher bench suddenly appears five feet above Tae-hwan's head.

AAAAH WHAT THE FUCK STOP—

It stops.

"...okay that's pretty cool."

Tae-hwan has found himself on the ground, heart in his throat, and... not squished.

"...did I do this? Am I doing this? I am, aren't I?"

"Yep! Congrats!"

"...okay but why'd you do this that's heavy you could've killed me—"

"Woo-young has good reaction times! I told him to teleport it away from you if it looked like you wouldn't get it."

"It was your idea? Why?"

"I read your file on the tests you did run, and I guessed your power wasn't that strongly affected by mass. I was right, wasn't I?"

"...I dunno? How would I know?"

"Hmm, we'll find out I guess. Release it?"

"Trust me, it'll be fine!"

What the hell, he's already here. He lets go of the bench and waits for death.

It slides off an invisible slide towards the side and then twirls in the air a few times before landing peacefully back where it had been before.

"...okay your power is super cool."

"I like it! But I think your power'll be cool, too. Do you know how frames of reference work?"

"Is that a physics thing? Woo-young-sunbae said it was a physics thing."

"Yeah! So the thing is, imagine you're on a train, and you've got your eyes closed, and you're wearing noise-cancelling earphones. How can you tell if the train is moving or it isn't? Pretend it's a really good modern train that doesn't bounce or anything."

"Uh..."

"You can't! That's because there isn't any difference, physically speaking, between the train moving in a direction or the train standing still while the whole world moves in the other direction."

"Okay..."

"So if your power makes things stop in relation to you, but you're moving, that means that the thing that's stopped would be moving with you."

"Wait, what? No."

"I don't know for sure that that's how your power works! But I think it might be."

"Wouldn't that mean his power is indistinguishable from telekinesis, though?"

"Well, it depends on how it works! We should throw a lot of things at him in many different ways until we can figure it out."

Tae-hwan gets to his feet, dusts himself, and walks over to where the other three are so that Woo-young is between him and Seungjoo, then he places both hands on Woo-young's shoulders and lowers his face so it's behind Woo-young's head. "Woo-young-sunbae, I'm scared of Seungjoo-sunbae."

Hehehehehehe.

"Tae-hwan, I think you will find no friends, here."

"None whatsoever," says Yoo-min.

"...I'm fucked."

You know, it's probably good, objectively speaking, that he's in great shape, because it means that even though he didn't expect he was going to be running an impromptu obstacle course where the obstacles could occasionally be literally teleported in front of his face today he still held his own alright.

Also? Choi Seungjoo is a sadistic demon straight from hell.

"Done for now?" Seungjoo asks, crouched and hugging his knees next to where Tae-hwan is lying on the floor panting in a puddle of his own sweat.

Straight. From. Hell.

"That was good, though! You have a really cool power. I think you're going to do good."

Woo-young is lying on the floor, too, shirtless just like Tae-hwan and keeping one arm over Tae-hwan's torso while he pokes at his phone distractedly, just so they can guide each other.

"nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggghhhhhhhh"

"You've got a TL;DR for me, Joo-ya?" He eventually stopped paying close attention, and Seungjoo is a lot better at detailwork than he is anyway.

"Yeah! I was half-right about his power, it is relative to him, but it can also be relative to something else, like if you throw something at him then he can lock himself on it and move with it, or he can make two things move together. We didn't bring the gun safety kits here but I bet he could use one to shoot up really high."

Normally he'd have liked to feel excited about that but the combination of "too backlashed to concentrate" and "too tired to move" is a bitch. All he feels is pain, and he knows it'll feel worse tomorrow.

"A-rank, do you reckon?"

"Could be! That'll depend on how the backlash recovery goes."

...okay he changed his mind, being an A-rank dungeon esper would be really awesome. But, "What's the backlash got to do with it?"

"It's not just raw firepower that goes into the ranking, use and sustain are important, too."

"Yeah, like, if you could be Lee Tae-gun but only for ten minutes a day you wouldn't be S-rank."

"...that's that super famous esper, right? Wait, isn't he in Quasar?"

Sporfle.

"...what! What now!"

"Yes, Tae-hwan, Lee Tae-gun is that super famous esper and he is in Quasar."

"Well, I dunno, I'm not an esper fangirl, I don't keep track of all of the names and stuff."

"Point is that the recovery and how long you can keep going are also an important part of the measurement of your rank."

"Yeah, think about Min Woo-young, here, he's the most powerful teleporter in the world but he's a B-rank because his backlash is so shit."

"Who knows, maybe I'll get a rank up with Tae-hwan's help, we're super compatible."

"That can happen?"

"Yeah! No pressure, though, it doesn't happen often at all, and besides to get the kinds of recovery times that might do it we'd need to do the kinds of guiding you don't want to do."

"Don't want to do?"

"He's straight."

"Ah. Legit. Yeah, it's harder that way."

...ok ngl Tae-hwan had kinda been gearing up to fight about that topic again given everything he's seen about Park Yoo-min's personality so far but apparently it was fine? Cool, he's cool with that.

"Sorry, sunbae."

"...Tae-hwan, all jokes aside, you don't have to be sorry that you're straight. I was just poking fun at you."

"Well..."

"Alright." He's not gonna feel bad.

"That said, you still need some guiding, right? Do you want to head over to my silo and take a shower so we can guide in a less sticky fashion? I don't have clothes your size exactly but if mine fit badly enough there's probably stuff we can get off Quasar's stash."

Tae-hwan got the very few feelings he had about being sticky burnt to a crisp by hell week but he guesses other people probably care more. "Sure." That way he'll get to see what a silo's like, too!

"Alright." To Seungjoo: "Thank you very much, sunbae, that was very informative. It'll be very useful information to have on hand when he does his official testing runs."

"Yeah, no problem."

"Wait hang on time out what do you mean official testing runs?"

"You know, we need to get your powers tested and recorded by official Quasar channels so they have a record and can properly assign you to missions."

"But."

Seungjoo hops to his feet to scoot over to where Yoo-min is and lean into the hug he knows is expecting him. "This was just some fun between friends! It didn't count for anything official, though."

Straight.

From.

Hell.

Woo-young's silo is an apartment. There isn't much special about it except that it's all outfitted to be wheelchair-accessible, plus a lot of it responds to his voice commands. "Lights on, please," he says after teleporting the both of them into it, Tae-hwan next to the door and himself onto a wheelchair he has waiting for him by it, and the lights are on.

He pulls his shoes off and asks, "Do you want to shower first or should I?"

Right, shoes off.

"Um, I don't mind, except, uh—do you usually need help with it, after dungeons and stuff?"

"I don't actually need the wheelchair right now, you've already guided most of what I got from helping with your testing, I'm just kind of used to it." And also, better to be safe than sorry. "Why don't you go shower first, you're stinky."

He flips Woo-young the bird but yeah sure he can go take a shower. Presumably Woo-young's shower isn't weird in some way such that he can't figure it out?

Nope! It is a totally normal shower with totally normal means of operation. But also the stall is very large and there's a shower chair and handles on the walls. And actually the whole bathroom is very large and there is a nice jacuzzi in the middle, big enough to comfortably seat five.

...

.........

............okay but now he kind of wants a bath in the jacuzzi. He probably oughtn't since this is not his place, but. He wants it.

He wonders if Woo-young has bath bombs.

What does Tae-hwan take him for? Of course he has bath bombs. He has two shelves of them by the tub.

Aw man he wants to try them. Is there a glitter bath bomb?

There are two.

He'd be unstoppable.

"You doing alright in there? Need any help?" Woo-young calls from outside.

"Fine! Just admiring your hot tub!"

"It's very nice! I really like it!"

Rub it in, why don'tcha.

Whatever. Shower time.

The water heats up very quickly and it is very easy to set it to the temperature and pressure he wants.

Rich people have some fancy shit, huh.

...is Tae-hwan going to be rich soon, too. Actually this place doesn't even look super rich, just really comfortable, 'cause if Tae-hwan were super rich he'd get such fancy shit. He doesn't know what fancy shit, exactly, but he knows it'd be fancy enough that you'd walk into his place and be like, "Damn, this guy's loaded." And A-rank espers are paid a lot of money, right? He's pretty sure they are.

Oh he's so stoked.

Woo-young knocks on the bathroom door and says something but the water is too loud to allow Tae-hwan to hear.

"What?" he calls back.

Muffled sounds.

Ughhhh is he going to have to step out of this nice and comfy shower to figure out what Woo-young's saying.

Fine. He leaves the water on, though, and gingerly tiptoes to the door to open it and stick his head out.

Here's Woo-young, blinking in surprise. "I said you could use any towel you wanted and I left you some clothes here by the door." Point at clothes.

"Oh. Thanks."

"Yeah, sure." Off he rolls.

Tae-hwan has to shut the door immediately and then go back to the shower to deal with something quite annoying.

Why oh why did his brain come up with a dumb manhwa fantasy of how he'd slip and fall on the floor and somehow Woo-young would end up lying on top of him while he's naked and wet and oh no now Woo-young has to take his clothes off because he's soaked and...

Why oh why is he getting a reaction to this fantasy.

It's probably because of how good guiding feels. And he should not let himself be swayed by the siren song of guiding. He should not. And in order to make sure he won't, he will. Take care. Of. Some business. Or something.

Woo-young is sitting on the sofa watching a dumb K-drama on TV and eating salted cashew nuts out of a little bowl when Tae-hwan comes out. "Oh, done already? That was quick."

"...it was?" He grabs his phone to look at the time, then squints at Woo-young.

He laughs. "Was wondering how much longer I'd wait before I decided it'd be time to check whether you were dead."

"You have a very comfortable shower, okay?" And there was some business.

"That I do. Oh, my PJs fit you?"

"Mostly." He stretches an arm and a leg out to show how they're kind of short. "Also, uh, why did you not give me any underwear."

"...did you want to wear my underwear?"

"...right. Dumb question."

"You'll get those out of your system eventually, I'm sure."

He laughs again then rolls past Tae-hwan towards the bathroom. "Back in a minute, feel free to—do whatever, honestly, just be careful not to cut yourself if you decide to shatter glass on the floor or something."

"...why would I want to shatter glass on the floor?"

"I don't know, you tell me! Why would you want to shatter glass on the floor?"

What.

"Anyway! Brb!" Into the bathroom with him.

What.

He can hear the sound of running water after a few seconds.

Okay, you know what, Tae-hwan will do the thing he always does with things he doesn't understand: ignore them.

...hm. He's kind of hungry. And kind of too backlashed to want to sit down and learn exactly how terrible Woo-young's taste in K-dramas is.

The kitchen contains food! It contains a lot of food that can be microwaved or air fried or otherwise quickly prepared without requiring any manual dexterity, but there's also ingredients for proper meals, including fresh vegetables.

When he walks into it, though, a pleasantly serene female voice comes out of nowhere to say, "Reminder for Woo-young."

"Jesus!" he yelps, jumping.

"Buy more garlic and spring onions."

"I'm not Woo-young," he grumbles, leaning against the counter and clutching his heart.

The kitchen does not seem to care.

Yeah, well, it seems to have wanted to just jumpscare him for no fucking reason.

...he should remind Woo-young of the thing later.

Anyway! He doesn't want to cook a whole-ass meal and he'd have felt bad getting anything else on his own but Woo-young did say that he should feel free to do literally whatever up to and including randomly shattering glass on the floor, so, he'll air fry something that looks tasty and then use his phone and pace while he waits.

Woo-young is out of the shower before Tae-hwan's food is done. "Oh, did you put something on?"

"You said I could do whatever," he says, a touch defensively.

"Yes, I did, and you successfully did whatever. Well-done!"

"...jackass."

"Sorry I didn't catch that."

"Nothing! Didn't say anything!"

"Really? Because it almost sounded like you were being very rude about the nice sunbae who's going to allow you to use your superpowers."

"...sorry."

"...I'm just messing with you, Tae-hwan. You need to actually chill, come on."

"Well, fine, then: jackass."

He laughs. "You're ballsy."

"I'm very good at following simple, clear instructions."

"Really? Sit. Roll. Heel."

Fine. He sits on the floor, then rolls once, then gets up and walks over to Woo-young.

"Good boy!" He in fact doesn't need to be in the chair right now so he stands up high enough to pat Tae-hwan's head before dropping back down.

Okaaaaay he thinks he is now going to sit on the sofa because he has had some kind of reaction to being called a good boy even though he already took care of business augh!!

Ah huh.

Well, Woo-young will sit next to him, then.

...wait, Woo-young isn't wearing a shirt. Uh.

Oh, right, guiding.

...uh.

"Should I... take my shirt off, too...?"

"It'll make guiding go faster but you don't need to."

No, it's fine, he is going to be normal about this. The shirt isn't even his, anyway. Off it goes, and he can, uh...

"Don't worry about my comfort levels, do whatever you want to do. I'll let you know if I want you to stop."

Yeah see that is all fine and good but Tae-hwan is having some trouble with the concept, still.

Maybe he should instead just be normal about it. He is going to be normal about it by wrapping one arm around Woo-young for skin contact (oh but this feels so nice what the hell) and... he will not look at Woo-young because that would not be normal, that would be weird, he's pretty sure. Probably the way his skin is growing warmer where he's touching Woo-young is also weird but it is only going to be weirder now if he stops so like a normal person he will ignore it.

Sure.

"Resume playing," Woo-young says, and the dumb K-drama resumes.

"—oh! Your kitchen told me you should buy garlic and spring onions."

"Oh! Right, thank you." Pause the show, go order them on his phone.

Lalala~ He is being so normal~ He's not paying attention to how Woo-young is moving against his skin~ He's hugged plenty of friends shirtless before and it's been fine~ So normal~

From the perspective of a guy who also thought he was straight for the longest time: it takes quite a lot of mental gymnastics to be hugging someone you're attracted to who is dtf and convince yourself that it would be a great sin to indulge or even acknowledge it.

Woo-young supposes he was older than Tae-hwan is when he had is biwakening, maybe he would've been just as insane about it when he was eighteen. And it is really cute to watch. 

"Alright, done. Oh, give me your finger."

?

"Okay?"

Woo-young summons the chip-installer. "Let me know if you'd rather install the chip elsewhere."

"—oh! Finger's fine."

He puts Tae-hwan's finger in the cube and says, "It'll sting," then it does.

Yeah but he can barely feel it. 

"Cool cool now how do I use it?"

"Two fingers forward and slide down to summon the interface but you can set the gesture to something else. I've registered you in the system so you should have a tutorial walkthrough waiting for you when you do."

Aaaaaaawesome this is so cool!! And it's real!!!! He has superhero tech!!!!!!

He's gonna be a superhero!!!!!!!!!!

Awwwww his excitement is really cute.

The tutorial looks boring though he'll just skip it and figure it out as he goes. 

Ooh what's this, guild chat? Clicky.

And there he goes.

Verdict: guild chat isn't actually that fun. He closes out of it and blinks at his surroundings, suddenly remembering he's... not home.

He isn't! He's in Woo-young's silo snuggling Woo-young while a K-drama plays on the TV. Also it's been an hour and a half and he's pretty well-guided and so in theory he doesn't need to snuggle Woo-young anymore. Which he has, in fact, been entirely normal about while he was distracted by guild chat!

You know, it's really stupid the way he stops being normal about it the moment he realises he's been normal about it. But also, not being backlashed at all anymore doesn't actually make the guided touch feel any less nice and Woo-young is very nice to hug and he doesn't want to stop so he will instead become normal about it yet again through sheer force of will.

"Welcome back to the land of the living."

"...thanks."

"You gonna stay for dinner?"

...hm.

"I should probably go home and uh. Let my parents know?"

"...that... you joined Quasar? —do you live with them? Have you just been gone all day long after going in for a partnership interview with no news?"

He clears his throat. "Maybe."

"Yes you should probably let your parents know, have you connected your comms to your phone yet?"

"I can do that?"

"Yes, you can, as you'd know if you'd gone through the tutorial," he laughs, but he'll show Tae-hwan how to do it anyway.

"Cool, thanks!"

Twenty-seven texts and twelve missed calls from Mum.

"—ah fuck."

"So she was probably worried?"

"I told her if I found a partner I was dropping out of school to be an esper and then I left and snoozed notifications."

He cackles.

"She is going to fry my eyeballs and eat them with pasta."

"Wow that's graphic."

"Laughing at my misery, I see how it is. Just you wait, your time will come, too."

"Oh but you've got me shivering with anticipation."

That! Wasn't! Flirting!!!!

"A-anyway I should go home," he says, pushing himself off the sofa and putting his shirt on.

...Woo-young's shirt, he should go find his.

"Oh I dumped your clothes in the wash but you might want to burn them instead."

"Oh." He kind of doesn't want to go home in some other guy's PJs with no underwear on.

"The system has some standard clothes in most sizes, you can get like some jeans and a T-shirt if you want."

The... system does? He opens his commscreen to look for it and oh what do you know, it does!

"Wait, they have underwear here."

"Yep, and the pile of Quasar clothes I gave you that was next to my pile of clothes had some underwear, too. Lying on top of it, even."

Is he implying that Tae-hwan didn't even look at the other pile of clothes and just went straight for the pile of Woo-young's clothes?

Too bad he can't hear thoughts!

Damnit.

"Well. Okay. Thanks. Um, I'll go change?" Why is he asking for permission. He'll just go.

He's so cute.

This time he will be quick.

"These don't fit very well," he grumbles.

"'Thank you, sunbae, for being so helpful and understanding and such a good guide to the world of being an esper'."

"Thank you, sunbae, for being so helpful and understanding and—"

"—I forgot the rest of the sentence."

"But thank you," he says, bowing, and he really means it.

"You're quite welcome, hoobaenim. Now why don't you stop wasting time and procrastinating and go get the scolding from your mother you deserve."

"...jackass."

"I've been told."

So he grabs his phone and—pauses.

"Uh, what's the address?"

"Oh, I did teleport you here, didn't I. I'll text you it exactly but just text me yours and I can teleport you in front of it."

"...is it okay for you to use your power like that if you're not gonna get guiding afterwards?"

"I'll just buy it off the guild storage rather than use my own, it's fine."

"Buy it off the..."

"You're procrastinating, hoobaenim."

Damnit. "Fine." He texts Woo-young his house address.