He kisses Haru's temple. "What's she like?"

"She - loves everything. She flips between hobbies and religions and genres and lifestyles like some kind of hummingbird trying to cram it all in. Kind of a scatterbrain. I've been in charge of the grocery list since I was pretty little. She's a kindergarten teacher, she got an offer from a fancy English immersion school in Tokyo when I was eight and we moved away from Toronto that summer. We lived in Toronto to begin with because she didn't fully realize until after she'd had me that she couldn't stand the idea of spending the rest of her life in Grand Forks, British Columbia, she needs cities. Though she's only been kidnapped by a dungeon once, it was when we were just starting to unpack into the new apartment in Shinjuku and I had to call the hotline with my still very amateur Japanese. I think I accidentally claimed that my mother was a dungeon. I theorize it was then because she would have been kind of tickled about it at practically any other time."

"Oh, she sounds really cute. ...and very unlike you." Also the thought of tiny Haru who couldn't speak Japanese saying that his mother was a dungeon is making him feel like he might die of adorableness.

"I look like her! And I do think I got some things from her - we both like to be busy, she's smart if less goal-oriented about it."

"I think I'd like to meet her someday." They've only been dating for a short while and yet Jaeha is being so presumptuous aaaaahh.

"Sure, it wouldn't be hard to coax her over here if we can't concoct an excuse to be in Japan."

"The excuse could in fact literally just be 'your boyfriend wants to meet your mum'." Aaaaahhh they're boyfriendsssssssssssssssssssss~

"It could be! Not that long a flight. Canada, now, that's a longer haul."

"Haru-ya. Haru-ya. Come on. Haru-ya."

"You're going to insist on teleporting over, aren't you."

"What's the point of being filthy rich if I can't even teleport to Japan with my boyfriend to meet his family?"

"I hope Woo-young enjoys the fruits of being the backbone of the transportation infrastructure of the Korean elite."

"I'm sure he's not the backbone of it, we had teleportation before Min Woo-young showed up. ...it did become a lot cheaper, though."

"Teleportation's less available in Japan and even more dramatically in North America for casual use, though maybe what I'm seeing here is actually just a difference in what price tag causes you to act less than casually and, across the ocean, what distances tend to be involved."

"North America is really, really big, and really a lot less dense... But I don't really go there unless there's a dungeon to clear, so I don't really know what it's like. If there's a dungeon that needs me specifically in North America Juno always used to cover the cost."

"Yeah, you're much more prone to being needed specifically than I am. Nobody ever needs to pay to haul me to Vancouver, so they don't."

"Seems like the world is under some misapprehensions about how amazing you are."

"My all-around personal amazingness doesn't make my powers more essential for any dungeons! Anyway, where are we going for dinner?"

"It's a nice little restaurant called 'Mingles'."

"...Mingles? Is that in English? That would be a hokey name for a singles bar and it's just kind of weird for a restaurant."

"They are supposedly 'mingling contrasting elements into harmony' but I can't tell you whether that's the origin of the name or whether they just liked the sound of the word and came up with that later."

"I guess mingling contrasting elements is a sound cooking philosophy. Mingle or Mingling would probably have been a better conjugation if they had to, though. I guess it has no bearing on their culinary skill."

"It really, really doesn't."

"Have you been here before or is it just of sterling reputation?"

"I've been, a couple of times, before I was an esper, when Father wanted to impress someone with both his taste and how much of a family man he was. One time the person we met with had brought their daughter, too, and I have a suspicion or two about that particular encounter, but I was thirteen at the time."