"More than just 'not dysfunctional', I mean. I sometimes like to do humorous under- and overstatements but, uh, I refurbished my brain a pretty extensive amount because of Persimmon and it was really, really good for me."

"...cute."

He is not going to belabour the point.

"Back to the main question, though, he has—so, you know, he did that extremely thorough and detailed confession, right, and it's because being suddenly hit by a complete lack of backlash plus hindsight sort of... seared his empathy, and he has reorganised his internal image as someone who could never, ever recidivise, and I kind of wish I'd met you guys before he'd taken the bracelet off for the first time so I could get some points for correctly predicting the way he'd feel but it does feel very natural and obvious that now even under a ton of backlash he will still be extremely scrupulous about the ethics of his power use. It would feel like a deep betrayal of himself, and now also of you, if he ever fucked up like that again."

"- of me! As of - me getting him out of jail or as of you talking to him."

"I think as of a couple of days after you got him out of jail and it's been getting more cemented. You're this super cool esper who went and did something super weird completely on your own because it was the right thing to do and no one else was doing it and now you're being incredibly decent all the time about it and even if he is frustrated by the social problems you guys have been having he admires you a lot and wants you to not have been wrong to do all of this."

"Didn't you want me to be less incredibly decent all the time."

"I think it would be healthier in interpersonal terms but he still finds it admirable that you commit so hard to your principles."

"Huh. Would it still have been healthier if I'd been like that from the get-go?"

"...hm. Good question. I think it kind of depends on how he perceived your motivations. Probably the healthiest balance would've been something like holding the degree to which you keep to those principles more lightly and update them based on the circumstances of who he is but given that it's only been a few days and it's not like you've had a ton of time to learn who he is I'm not sure that'd have made much difference in practice. And I'm not sure that would've been on net better considering all axes rather than just what's psychologically healthiest."

Nod nod.

"Anyway, did that... help answer the question of why I think he won't recidivise?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Good, I'm glad.

"So, uh, I guess now that this detour is done, what'd I miss, how are we using future knowledge for fun and profit?"

"I'm gonna copy his zoo. ...except I can't steal most of his org chart because his is in Canada. And there's plenty of dungeon material reverse-engineering data to be snagged."

"That zoo idea was so cool. I was also wondering, would Yamanaka want something like my alt's bracelet? Either Yamanaka, though I'm not sure if yours is also called Yamanaka?" He directs that last question to Maple.

"That is her last name but I just call her June, she doesn't have a codename. I think she might? I'd have to ask her brother but - it's a good idea, if the material's not too dear."

"Well, if you tell my alt his bracelet's needed elsewhere he'll stoically hand it over and tank the backlash, and I'm not sure he'd even be wrong to, given that I don't think he's a recidivism risk, but the kindest option would be giving him something else instead. A ring, maybe, if that works."

"I can call the folks in Korea, though I don't yet speak the language."

"It's the Quasar folks, right? They're probably all over it, honestly."

"I hear Cricket would like Yoo-min. Does he speak English, too, my Cricket speaks English."

"He does, yeah." And he got their Cricket to like him, he is not going to be loudly smug about this but he is SO smug about this.

"But he won't know how incredible a recommendation this is."

"Who, Park Yoo-min? I think he'll figure it out pretty quickly."

"I look forward to it."