"I believe in us. Plus, either we succeed and learn things about company management or we fail and have fun making out, win-win."

"We'd be wasting somebody's time pretty egregiously in the latter case!"

"I'm sure those decrepit old men could learn to deal with it."

"But yeah, I don't actually know how exactly the timing would work. Possibly some combination of doing fewer dungeons and watching some meetings remotely or through recordings. And long breaks whenever Nightmare shows up, of course."

"We'd need good PAs et cetera for our common emergency absences, yeah. I am at least capable of having a meeting while backlashed if that ever comes up."

"I think... if I established a persona as quiet and low-emoting I'd be able to inhabit it even while backlashed."

"You probably could but if I were you I wouldn't plan on it."

"Yeah. But it seems like a surmountable problem, in any case."

"We will have the world's best reason to hide under each other's desks at work."

"Oh I have just acquired a new kink I think."

"Oh no!" Haru giggles. "Whoops!"

"Wouldn't it be so hot? You trying to keep a composed face and listen to a report while I'm hiding under your desk, doing your favourite sex thing..."

"I think I'm just not a very kinky person, I'd be fretting the entire time about the ill-use of whoever was delivering the report! I also didn't get much of anywhere with the," vague gesture, "what did I call it, the brain microwaving."

 “I would also be fretting. —brain microwaving? About—oh. Oh! That."

"Yeah, sorry, it just doesn't land, it results in scenarios which as far as I can tell lack both the virtues of being alone and the virtues of having company."

"That's fine. I—this is kind of embarrassing to think about, but I will frame it as us having a conversation both of us want to have about how to make our sex lives better. Okay, good framing. I want to—be useful, and pleasant, and pleasuring, even when backlashed, especially when backlashed. I don't want you to have to deal with the, the, the... the automaton I become, when backlashed. I want you. Even if at the time I don't remember it very well and can't feel it, in all of the senses that matter I want you. So I—want to find some way to be—yours—that is robust to the backlash."

"That makes sense." Pet pet. "I think you are? You are mine all the time and sometimes you are mine and not in very good condition and I fix you up."

"Well—that's true," he admits, leaning into the petting. "But still, if there's some way I could make it better for you... well, let me know, I guess? I'd like to."

...he's not even panicking about how Haru will definitely leave him if he's too boring. Like, at all. He's definitely thinking about how he's not panicking, which is sort of a panic by apophasis, but that's not real panic.

What the fuck, man.

Mwah. "Mm-hm."

"President Nam Hee-seo will now see you," says Hee-seo's secretary, gesturing in the direction of the hallway leading to her office and waiting for them to follow him.

"Here goes nothing, then."

"Nothing indeed," mutters Haru, "how conspicuous is it if I just never refer to her by name at all."

"So long as the conversation starts with you greeting her by name, not very," he replies in a similar mutter.

"Then I suppose I shall have to suck it up the once." In they go.

Other than some different files on her desk and maybe some slightly moved books in her shelves, Nam Hee-seo's office looks much the same as it did two days ago, and exactly as pristine. The woman herself is wearing a different suit and different shoes, and her hair is tied into a slightly higher ponytail, but her makeup and the smile are also the same.