Right, so he's gonna go have a normal life like a real human being, while Jaeha is here.

...

Hey Kang Jaeha, remember that thing where you thought you deserved suffering for all the shit you did? Where's that? Could you get it back? That was better than this.

"Sounds interesting. I might wanna read the transcription even if it doesn't make it on the blog."

"Sure, I'll make a note to email it to you."

"Thank you."

And since he's not backlashed he can let the silence sit, right?

Sure can. Eggs get et. "See you this evening!"

"See you."

Teleport and gone.

Sigh.

Okay. What's scheduled for today?

Food, of course. They still have leftover salad, but he could complement that, and he will. Maybe he should cook some Korean stuff, though he's not sure what Traceless's spice tolerance is like so he'll probably need to pick something mild. And he has stuff that he bought that might arrive today. And Traceless suggested that he go volunteer and... now he's gotta. Doesn't he? That's the fucking annoying thing, the corner he's been backed into, is that if he doesn't then he's a worse person and so he has no choice.

Jaeha doesn't like needing to please his captor, it turns out. News at eleven.

Maybe he should read more of the stuff his captor wrote. Maybe that'd be good. For understanding him better. ...and also so that he'll stop being so annoyed, he wants to remind himself that Traceless is a... decent human being... rather than this machiavellian figure trying to manipulate him and who will just put him back in prison the moment he's annoyed. Even though he could.

Jaeha doesn't like the situation he's in. At all.

So back to the blog on his phone he goes (man, he misses his commscreen...) while he's making food, to troll for something good. Maybe Traceless's got an "about me" that's useful or—

—huh. He's got an... interview with himself? Well that's probably useful.

Man, that's, like, an old post, like, over a decade old, huh. It was right after he awakened? Kind of self-centered.

Now I have one at my mercy and he cannot escape me

Okay but he is painfully charming and it annoys Jaeha to no end.

My backlash is that I get lonely - and consequently chatty and huggy and people-pleasing.

People-pleasing???? Since when? Maybe he got more on top of that recently but Jaeha has not particularly noticed that. And definitely not huggy, he certainly hasn't tried to touch Jaeha. Has treated Jaeha like he's sort of completely off-limits for any kind of normal human interaction, really, which Jaeha realises is part of the problem he's been having.

now I kind of think that "isolation site" is a silly thing to want to have

Is that so. Really. So you think it'd be a great idea for Jaeha to keep running around in public when he's got "become a monster" brain disease. Or people like poor Lee Tae-gun who'd do absolutely mortifying things and ruin his image. Backlashes are bad, and embarrassing, and painful, and of course people want to isolate so they can deal with it without other people observing.

At least for me.  I'm sure they do most espers a world of good.

...right. Traceless isn't a dick. He kinda forgot.

A fair few backlashes sound pretty weaksauce and silly when one first hears about them.

Ain't that the fucking truth.

If you can't imagine being so lonely it kills you

...actually that's a good point, how does it kill him?

They're magical injuries, not random presents from the magical claw machine.

...yeah.

For one, people who are likely to be compatible with me are going to be people whose backlash is opposite of mine. If I'm feeling huggy, too bad, anyone I could usefully hug is going to flinch away from the prospect.  (This might not be universal but initial investigation is not promising.)

Tiniest fucking violin for you, my guy.

I do not naturally like most people or most conversation topics and also don't like lying to people or using them,

Uh huh.

which is a pretty awkward combination with not being able to shut up nor tolerate being ignored/rejected in even the most trivial ways.

Uh... huh?

while magically lonely, I'm also hyper-aware of anything that looks like the people around me withdrawing from something off-putting I may have done or said

Uh... huh.

Ah, shit.

He closes his eyes for a second and draws a deep sigh.

He's been such an asshole to this guy. And he didn't even realise.

If you keep doing something over and over again that your every instinct tells you ought to work, and it doesn't work, and it will never work, and you are so consumed with the problem you are failing to solve that you can't simply accept that it's staying put and go do something else, then what?

You have sex about it with someone compatible so that it'll go away. ...he guesses Traceless's partner doesn't want to have sex with him. He could be having sex with Traceless he will not repeat the reasons why this is a bad idea.

I am all-consumingly lonely to the point of physical pain.

How can you be in physical pain from loneliness? That makes no sense.

Because I am so focused on this situation, the way I would be focused on being on fire if I were on fire, I can't do anything that would not (if I were just lonely the normal way) make me feel better.  So I do a lot of socializing.  Any way I can get it.  Ad nauseam and beyond.

He supposes that tracks, with the way other people handle their backlashes.

"The reason this isn't working, and I don't feel any better, is because actually the people I'm talking to - my loving parents, for example - hate me."  Never mind that I'm not psychic (even now) and couldn't necessarily tell if that were true, I'll start reading into things like whether they're looking at me moment-to-moment or whether they take an extra half-second to answer a question.  Never mind that whether people secretly hate me is not actually a primary input into whether socialization relieves loneliness.

...he's been such an asshole to this guy. And he's so self-centered, making it all about himself. He's, like, kind of made peace with that fact about himself, but still. Man. That must suck.

"Since talking to a person ought to make me feel better, and this conversation is not making me feel better, that's probably not a person I'm having it with; they - my loving parents, for example - are robots, or dream-characters, or hallucinations produced by my own addled mind."

This on the other hand seems fine? A lot more comfortable than the other thing anyway. It's not like it matters if no one else is people.

when I wrench out of that corner of my backlash and into the one where I'm just ninety percent fawn response, I'm very ashamed of myself and petrified that I've alienated them forever

And this is back to sucking a lot.

I can fly.

He is painfully charming and it's a problem.

So I'll come to terms with the crushing loneliness and learn to work through it.  There's lots of work to do.

And this, this is...

...it's also charming, but in a different way. It's kind of painful to think about. It's, it's...