"And he's beautiful and brilliant and ruthless and he desperately needs for you to take care of him. Er-ge."

"Yes, I am very predictable."

"If you ask he's going to agree whether he wants you or not."

"I know. But I can't just-- not tell him-- he's naive but he's not stupid, he's going to figure it out-- he asked me if I was mad at him, about the clothes-- it seems worse to have it there and not addressed--"

"You don't spend evenings cuddling with everyone in the enclave."

"He asked, a-Yao. I-- he's never had anyone he can rely on in his entire life, I'm the only person who's wanted to save his life and who has had the power to do it-- he needs me."

"Your one weakness."

"Of course he's dependent on me. He's never had an enclave before. From his perspective I'm the one person in the world he can actually trust and I can't just-- abandon him-- that's not even about my feelings, it wouldn't be good for the enclave if he didn't know I was there while he was figuring out how to trust the other freshmen-- if he doesn't trust us it's not going to work at all--"

"And you want to fuck him."

"Yes."

"Seoul's wrong. You're not thinking with your dick, you're thinking with your heart, which is much worse."

"Fine, yes, I'm half in love with him already, what do I do about it?"

"Fuck him."

"No. I-- I saw what that did to my mom, to have your life saved by someone who loves you and whom you don't love back, and the only way you can repay them is giving them the thing you want-- it's not good for people. I'm not going to do it."

"And you're not going to lie to him and you're not going to leave him alone."

"I realize this rules out all my options."

"No, it doesn't."

"Do you think you could?"

"I know you better than anyone, er-ge, if I can't make you fall out of love with someone I'm going to decide we misidentified my affinity and actually it turns out I'm especially good at spells which involve the color blue."

"--Let me think about it."

"All right."

"There's time. I tried to explain it to him the other day and he understood nothing."

"Er-ge, that's a terrible idea."

"If only I had you there to navigate all my delicate social interactions for me, a-Yao."

"It's why you swore brotherhood to me."