I'm surprised we haven't yet. Do living things go in, maybe if it looks dicey toward the end you can just stick me in there and bring me back and there'd be two of me which would be weird but useful.

"...Haru. Haru. Haru, Haru. Haru. My Haru. You. You. Realise that. I."

Are you having horny panic or did I alarm you in the monogamy. Or both.

"H-horny panic! I guess if the other yous would... want to... date other people... that might alarm me in the monogamy. But that was mostly the horny panic."

I guess it is possible mes might date each other.

"And now we are back with more horny panic."

Well, try a mouse or something before we go sticking anybody's soul gem in your shield, but.

"Y-yeah. A-and—oh. Okay now I've been hit in the monogamy hard enough that I'm kind of hoping it doesn't work, how selfish can I be—"

I mean, I felt like that about hoping it wouldn't work to mind-control me into wanting Walpurgisnacht dead a lot harder? You have decided you are no longer excited at the possibility of two Harus?

"...I mean. If there were two Harus obviously there's no point in being a me. Is all."

Huh?

"I, I mean." He licks his lips and laughs humourlessly. "Who would even want to date me if they had you around instead."

...is this a serious enough insecurity that I shouldn't laugh it off with "the blowjob asymmetry, obviously" -

"I mean... I guess not? There aren't any other Harus? So I'm probably fine? I just feel selfish is all. ...unless there is another Haru. Is it insecurity, I guess definitionally I would not feel secure but like obviously if we could get more of you we should—"

I can try to come up with a more serious response than the blowjob asymmetry one but maybe not when I'm sort of thirty percent paying attention to class.

He laughs humourlessly again. "It's fine, you don't have to worry about it."

Is it really.

"...it's not your job to reassure me because of emotional damage I inflict on my own self. I promised I wouldn't be making my issues your problem anymore."

That might mean I don't have to worry about it but it does not mean it is fine.

"Well. Fair."

You keep looking at me like I hung the stars but I feel like a weirdly high percentage of our interactions feature me upsetting you somehow, even if it is in some abstract sense not my fault that this happens.

"—sorry. I think I got—fragile—after last loop, and I'm having to kind of mend myself to make myself resilient to stuff again. And it's not really in an abstract sense not your fault, it's—just not your fault? All of it is my fault, I just keep tripping and falling on stuff."

Doesn't mean I relish... being... stuff.

"I don't mean you! I mean just—stuff. Cobwebs and dust and glass shards in my brain."

...you try notebooking yet?