The receptionist blinks.

"Ah, hello. How exactly do you mean, sign up?"

It takes about twenty seconds for him to summon the courage to say the dirty word. "I am an esper and I want to offer my services!" He can feel himself turning red. "My power isn't very useful, but I xave experience guiding other espers and I can xelp anyone who will use me." Oh, honey, 'anyone who will use you,' huh? You just gotta put your whole ass on display for this secretary right out of the gate, don't you? You're as bad as they said. "I mean—you know. Guiding. Services. Guiding assistance. Assistance with backlash." Don't get hard at this, my god, Yuri, why are you like this.

"—oh! You're an esper! Um, I see? This is—irregular—do you not have current representation?"

Ahem "I moved recently from outside the guild's zone of operations. I xad intended to seek representation once I was settled in, but with the confluence occurring I felt that it couldn't wait." Good job, so professional, you can do it! Just keep this momentum.

"As I said, my power is not much use in combat, but I'm excited to do my part for my fellow espers." Nope too far now you sound like a glory hole again. Why don't you just ask if you can get fucked straight out if you're going to sound like this?

"Oh. Um. Alright. I see. Just a moment, please." She starts typing into her computer.

"Yuuuuuriiiiiiiii!"

In a staid place like a front office, a bellow that loud might as well be a gunshot.

Fuck!

<"There you are, you scoundrel! I really thought I'd lost you this time!"> He's just merrily hollering away, in Russian, in the middle of this hectically busy but still polite front office like it's a dance hall and he's the DJ.

<"Heyyyyy, Quasar, huh! You step out of Russia for three seconds and then you're right in the Western devil's smoky asshole, huh? Look at this cute shit everywhere. Looks like my babushka's matryoshka collection. Like what the fuck, am I right? Are those real fish in there? Dude they have real fish in there.">

Fuuuuuuuuuu—

<"Yo, what's with the horndog thoughts you got going in there, by the way? Are you into this bimbo or are you just that excited to see me again, queer?">

He was all ready to snap at this insolent idiot but said idiot clapped his hand right onto the back of his neck and—guh!—it was taking all his strength not to fall forward and brace himself on the desk in front of him. His knees were weak.

<"You fuckface, why are you using your powers? You've got enough backlash onboard to kill a squirrel outright."> And isn't it wonderfullllll.

And that's when an exceedingly short blond himbo shows up in a localised flash of blue light in front of them. "Hi, hello, I seem to have heard we have two people wanting to apply to join Quasar? Why don't you guys follow me upstairs?" he asks in English.

"<Aw come on, you're right here to discharge it. Not like it—woah, fuck, that's English!> Oh, hey, nice to meet you—<wait, we're joining Quasar?>"

"<I'm joining Quasar and you are sitting your ass down.> Sorry for the confusion, sir. Yes, I'd be happy to follow you wherever." Fuuuuuuck can you stop sounding like that for four seconds! People will get the right idea!

... the wrong idea.

Yeahhhhhhh, no. Fuck you. "Absolutely, sir, we're right behind you."

"Excellent, please come with me. Jaehee, give me their cards?"

"Catch!" says the receptionist, throwing two blank plastic cards in the air in his direction.

He catches them and then hands them to the other two before turning on his heels and leading them past the electronic turnstiles and towards the lifts.

"<Aww, I was hoping to get teleported. I'm all sweaty from jogging after you. Couldn't you have imagined me more attractive when you feared that I'd tail you here?>"

"<If you do not shut up, I am going to store your body in a freezer for when I need to dump backlash.>"

"I hope the start of the confluence hasn't been too difficult for Quasar."

"<Turnabout's fair play, I guess, given that while I'm alive you're my backlash booty call.>"

"Yeah, I've heard this is supposed to be a bad one."

"It hasn't been long enough to know how bad it'll be," the man shrugs. Here's the lift, it's just the three of them going up.

"Eh, no news is good news, maybe!"

"If I may, ah. I'm Yun Dasol, and this is... Nemtsov Sasha. We're honored to make your acquaintance."

"I'm Ha Si-yeon," he says. Index and middle finger pointing forward and sliding down spawns a holographic screen before his eyes, and he taps at it a bit. Three more screens show up, rectangular and blank, and with a few gestures he sends them to hover above each of their heads. "Feel free to use whatever language is most comfortable to you," he says in Korean, and a translation to Russian appears in text above his head. 

Ding, floor 23.

"Hey, that's pretty sweet! You can understand — us..."

"How convenient!" Sasha: You, the freezer, & the long embrace of eternity starting tonight!

"Anyway! You were just going to tell us all about how to get involved with Quasar."

"Yes, please, we're both eager to hear how we can help."

He looks amused. "I didn't have this translation method enabled until just now," he says as he leads them down a corridor and into a small meeting room. "Anyway, yes, so—"

"—how exactly were you guys planning to evade the Russian government before deciding to join Quasar? Sorry, that sounded menacing, I'm on your side here, I don't want to give you two back to those fuckers, but I need to be calibrated about just how much protection you'll need."

"I—respectfully, I wouldn't need to. I'm nobody to them. A D-rank esper by your system, just another battery for someone better. They can find my old partners new guides without an issue, I'm sure." He turns to glare at Sasha. "You know. Assuming they were still in Russia like they're supposed to be!"

"Well, excuuuuse me, princess. Sorry to ruin your pity party." He shrugs and looks back at Ha-Something. "I figured he'd only be here a few days before he decided to come back and then it'd all be fine. We'd kiss old Klimka's ass a bit—Yuri literally, probably—and maybe have to do some pull-ups or something. But now it's been two weeks, so we're definitely AWOL and I need a better plan than that."

"Please forgive xis informal way of talking, Xa Si-yeon-nim! It's not intended—actually, feel free to take offense and ship xim right back to Vladivostok if you prefer."

That was it! "Ah, he's right. Sorry, Xashiyannim. I'm a little backlashed right now. I actually would appreciate your help."

"Alright. So, uh, to be clear with you guys here I'm not actually part of regular intake procedure it's just that if two Russian espers show up in the middle of our reception without prior representation then their government suddenly knows a lot about where their runaways might've been and dealing with that kind of thing is arguably my job."

He bows as low as he can manage. “We are sorry to xave caused so much trouble! I meant to xelp but I can disappear again. I’m probably more xelp if you can’t see me, anyway.”

…Of all ways you could have phrased that, and you go for the glory-hole option. Again.

“Come on, dude, he hasn’t said ‘no,’ yet! Don’t go all tissue-paper on h—wait is this a politeness thing? Shit.”

"Don't worry about politeness," he shrugs. "So... I guess since I'm here and I decided that I am gonna take care of you guys because f- uh. Because of reasons. What exactly do you guys need?"

"I mean, knowing your reasons will help us not cause problems, right? We can color in the lines better if you tell us how. Normally I handle that kind of 'figure out what they want of me' thing myself but you're super blanked right now."

"Well my reasons are that 'fuck Russia' but I think I won't be making friends out of you guys by saying that."

Holy shit, the degenerate West really is out to get the motherland. A bunch of ... mother(land)fuckers, the lot of them.

Heh, man I wish I could make that joke out loud right now.

"We get that a lot." That will have to do, for now.

Dasol watches Sasha carefully, surprised that that didn't provoke a more negative reaction. "Admittedly, I xad xoped to leave everything as unfucked as possible when I left, I mean, I guess I was going to be a little fucked regardless—" couldn't help yourself, could you? "anyway, I think I just need someplace to xide? Maybe a false name and papers so I'm xarder to trace? I assume they found the bank account I'm using here now. I transferred most of my savings before arriving. But please don't make too much effort on my account! I know you xave important affairs to attend to."

"... Is that code for me or—?"

"<For the love of God, Sasha.>" That one's in Russian, though he's been trying to stick to Korean throughout this conversation. Some levels of exasperation just don't translate in text floating over one's head.

"Do you?" he asks Sasha. "I'd have thought my reasons are kinda me-specific. Anyway, I don't want to, like, be a dick about your country, just, whatever reason you guys had to leave, that's the sort of thing that bugs me and that I don't wanna enable.

"All that said, if all you want is asylum then I should probably get in touch with someone in the government, that wouldn't be a guild matter."

"Asylum? Fuck, this is like. Real."

No shit, Sasha. Deep breath. "No, Xa Si-yeon-nim, that wouldn't be right. I cannot in good conscience ask for the government to xelp me run from my problems when there's a confluence on. I will disappear on my own, when this is over."

He gulped. "I am just here to xelp with the confluence. Xowever little I can."

"Alright. Well, Nemtsov Sasha-shi's powers are on record but yours aren't, and you said you're D-rank and if I understood your meaning you wanted to work as a professional partner? I'm a bit unclear on you guys's relationship and expectations, here."

"He's my primary partner—"

"He's just a fr—"

"I mean, we're compatible! But I can guide wxomever needs it! Including Sasha-shi, of course!"

Perhaps in some limbic recess of his brain, he knew that Sasha liked him—as a guiding partner, anyway!—but the sheer weight of grievance radiating off of that surly, betrayed grimace was so genuine in a way that Alexandr Nemtsov never was in his life that Dasol couldn't help feel a little—fuck they're both still staring at him! NOT NOW, YOU STUPID BONER. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

What's Ha Si-yeon-nim going to think of him now?! No, he's not paying attention to that, a high-powered hot guy high up in a guild has better things to be worrying about, just act professional, act professional, act—

"I meant to say that I am experienced in serving multiple partners, and that you can assign me as you see fit." Do you hear yourself right now?! 'Just a hole, sir.' Fuck! Have some self-respect! "Sasha-shi and I are compatible but it may be that you xave better partners for xim. I will go where I am needed."

"Okay, I believe that you may have some assumptions about how things work from the GBE that don't quite translate," Ha Si-yeon temporises, carefully.

Having sufficiently embarrassed himself for at least the next five minutes, Dasol folds his hands in front of him and nods demurely for Ha Si-yeon-nim to continue.

"If you were to sign up to be a professional partner, Quasar would try to match you with espers that might have compatible backlashes, and you'd interview each other. If both you and your prospective partner wanted to work together, you'd sign a contract delineating exactly what that'd entail.

"Regular esper partnership contracts don't typically concern themselves in detail with which guiding methods are expected, as it's understood that either esper can choose to find a new partner if it's not working out, but due to the responsibility differential involved in professional partnerships and the fact that professional partners are more likely to have multiple partners than dungeoneering espers, the contract will cover what you've agreed to do under what circumstances. Then you'd get scheduled according to your partners' schedules, and you'd be provided with non-dungeon means for safe backlash accrual to match the expected levels your partner should leave their assignment at.

"Sometimes professional partners will accompany their dungeoneering partner, depending on their respective powers and the dungeon and what they agreed on, to provide onsite guiding, as needed."

“Interesting.” Excessive. Things are much more efficient the Russian way.

“Interesting.” Exciting! Things are so much more exhausting the Russian way.

“How fast can we get all that done, though? With the lawyers arguing, we’ll be onto the next confluence before we’re ready, and you need all the help you can get now.”

"Pretty fast, usually, but this is a marathon, not a race. The confluence will last at least a month, and given how long it's been since the last one, probably longer.

"The dungeoneering esper contract is probably more similar to what you'd expect. The broad strokes are the same as what I mentioned for a professional partner but will also include powers testing and training and an expectation of dungeon clearance within certain bounds in the standard contract. We'd likewise offer to help you find a compatible partner as needed."

“Well, you said I’m in your database and you had the sense to shield up before talking to me—paranoid of you but whatever. Point is: you probably have a decent sense of what I’m capable of.

“What do we expect to get from you all?” It better be good, if I’m letting you rent out Yuri to some randos. “Just, like, money? We had plenty of that back in Russia. No need for Yuri to come all the way over here for a few extra rubles.”

"Well, no, I didn't imagine Yun Dasol-shi's reasons for coming here were monetary," he says, a half-smile playing around his lips.

"It was mostly for the sightseeing."

Active Strikes Against This Guy:

1. Agent of a Degenerate Western Government

2. Has a better sense of our motivation than we do of his
    2a. Damn I hate psychic shielding. Cheaters

3. Coyly smiling
    3a. Don't coyly smile at Yuri while being that hot. He's a little f*#&!t and can't be trusted to make good decisions around that.
    3b. Don't coyly smile at me while being that hot! It's weird, bro. It's damn weird. 

4. Is that eyeshadow?
    4a. It's definitely eyeshadow and your makeup game is weirdly good and that's very untrustworthy (see point 1)

5. Weirdly chill about this whole confluence thing
    5a. Weirdly chill about me volunteering to help out and not immediately thanking me

6. Non-hostile relationship to lawyers and the law (see point 1)

"... yeah, it's been cool to see my ancestors' land."

Active Points in Favor of This Guy:

1. Fuck Russia

2. Clearly understands me and my situation

3. That smile?
     3a. People usually sneer, or leer, or fear. This guy is just very relaxed.
     3b. Anybody who can set off Sasha like this is pretty inherently trustworthy.

4. What are those piercings?
     4a. Someone that willing to express themselves on their body in a highly conformist society must be trustworthy

5. Weirdly chill about this whole confluence thing
     5a. Weirdly chill about me volunteering to help out and not immediately pressuring me

6. Actually, we're upgrading 3b to its own separate point because it is so important

"If you want to discuss compensation, that's going to be with legal, but the basics are money, access to Quasar's facilities and personnel, access to the commscreen," which he gestures at the translation above his head to demonstrate, "and access to teleportation credits to use Min Woo-young's powers. Less direct benefits include us being the biggest guild in Korea and one of the biggest in the world, hosting powerhouses like Kim Hye-jin and Lee Tae-gun and Min Woo-young himself, plus we've got the best work culture in Korea." He flicks one of his piercings to clarify part of that he means.

"You guys have Min Woo-young?! The transport esper of all time? Fuck." It's probably fine to geek out a little bit in front of a guy in eyeshadow. What's he gonna do, judge me? "Transport is my favorite power. You can get so creative with it. And it looks awesome when people are like, 'he's right behind me, isn't he?' and then I'm right there. Man. Good times."

Aww, man. They have Min Woo-Young? He's even famous in Russia. Not even to mention Lee Tae-gun and.... They have... everybody already. They're not going have any use for someone like me....

"Okay, so like, I can get that sick tattoo I've wanted forever, and I can meet Min Woo-Young. That's like... not the worst pitch, dude. So far anyway."

I'm useless. I'm so useless. This guy is probably only talking to me because of Sasha.

"Yeah you guys can totally meet him, although he's like super busy because it's a confluence. Might want to wait until afterwards. Or maybe when he's taking a break, he's one of those rare espers who have heard of a work-life balance."

"Anyway we'll probably need to give you guys new names, though. And you should avoid speaking Russian in public, and Nemtsov Sasha-shi should take some Korean classes, too. You can't blend in exactly but let's be real no esper can, we're all so, you know "

"We?" I don't deserve that comparison! I'm not even close to having such unique and charismatic presence.

"That makes sense. I only ever went by 'Yuri' in Russia, since the government only recognizes Russophone names. I could stick to 'Kim Dasol' or the like to avoid the surname."

"We?" I don't deserve that comparison! I'm not even close to your gay ass.

"I've been doing my DuoLingo since I found out Yuri wanted to run away! I'm up to level 23."

"We're going to get you better teachers than Duolingo," he says, with a completely straight face. "Kim Dasol works. Nemtsov Sasha-shi, do you want to pick a different name and nationality?"

"Nationality? Uh... I can't just be Russian? I don't really know any other languages well. My English is fine if I'm writing but my accent..."

"With my hair this color maybe people would believe Irish, or like, Dutch? Don't have to worry about people trying to talk to me in Gaelic around here. Or American, they kinda look like anything. Just gotta smile like you're insane all the time."

"You're an esper, can't really hide that, so your hair colour is just a hair colour. You could always be Ukrainian," he suggests.

"Come on, I don't sound Ukrainian. 'Lyit's hit hoin', Serhiy!'" His smile falters. "I could maybe do Ukrainian. Isn't that kinda... too close, though?"

He shrugs. "We gotta balance not being findable by pressing Ctrl+F on the esper database with being something you can actually pass as. And while I don't doubt you can do the crazy American smile I think your English is clockable."

This would be a lot easier if y'all had stayed in our orbit instead of the anglosphere—okay, you know what? I just played that one back and maybe the whole 'fuck Russia' thing is more understandable than I was giving you credit for.

"Okay, well, It'd be nice if it was an easy name for you all to say. I mean, in Korean, no? That's like... what we make you all do in Russia...." Smooth, dude. Smoooooooooth. Fuck, I hate not being able to sense what he's thinking. Is it polite to try to find a good name? Is it rude? Is it... fuck. He blinks suddenly and looks away from where his eyes had settled on the man's collarbone.

"How about... Misha? Like, Mikhail? Uh, Malinin, maybe? Is that... those are all Korean sounds."

"I vote for Misha. Two-syllable names, that's our jam."

"Yours is... four? Xashiyannim..."

"It's two, Sasha! Xa is his surname! And 'nim' is like 'sir!'"

"Shit, Yuri, we've been calling this guy 'sir' this whole time? Did we offer to suck his dick, as well?"

don't visualize don't visualize don't visualize don't visualize—

"Too laaaaaaate~"

...

"Sorry, uh, inside joke. Anyway." He coughs into his fist. "Yeah, so 'Misha Malinin' is a fine name. Uh, and for a patronymic... Mikhailovich for simplicity? Mikhail Mikhailovich Malinin. Em-em-em."

The problem with talking to this guy is that he has none of that low-level brain hum that Sasha was used to. It's weird! He hates talking to people like this. He always wants to fill the space with chatter. "I don't think I can get down to one syllable for a surname. Is that going to ruin anything?"

He looks extremely amused by these antics. "No, and it would be weird if you did. People will probably call you Malinin Misha-shi."

The more amused Si-yeon looks, the more Sasha visibly relaxes. "Okay, well, guess I'm that guy now. Uh, 'm' looks like a little box, right? So I'm... box, vertical line, wave, vertical-line-plus-two-tick-marks... that's not horrible."

All this thinking about his own identity is making the silence in Si-yeon's head more frustrating. All he can hear is fucking Yuri and his fucking desire to collapse inward and disappear which is not helpful! It's hard to sound chill with these vibes.

He needs either more physical space or less mental space. "I, uh, you got a bathroom I can use real quick? I gotta piss so bad."

"Yeah. Second door to the left," he says, gesturing.

"Ugh, thank god." He stands up, shaking his legs out and turning to go. As he does, he gently punches Yuri—more like places his fist against Yuri's ear—letting the contact linger as long as he can for the guiding—which, practically speaking, is exactly enough to get that little thrill of release but no true relief. "Don't sell your soul to the handsome devil while I'm gone, okay?" And then he's walking as fast as he can without losing too much face toward the second door on the left.

"Yo! You guys even got nice bathrooms?!" he shouts amicably as he disappears within.

Dasol gets out of the chair and bows the moment the door clicks shut. "I am so sorry about xim! Please do not take the things xe says too much to heart. Trash-talking like that is much more acceptable in Russia."

"Also much more acceptable in Quasar. When he's back I should remind myself to tell him that one of our differentials is that we're allowed to yell at the guild president when he fucks up."

Dasol isn't finished! "I take full responsibility for xim being Korea at all! I will—" and then the words penetrate. "You what? You do? That's... unorthodox."

Just look at him, Dasol! Does he look orthodox? You're so ready to be considered a fake Korean that you're not even looking at the hot guy grinning at you and—actually nope, that's too much looking. Tooooo much looking! There is a proper, medium amount of looking that is appropriate in this context and that is not it.

"You know, thinking about it, a more relaxed corporate culture may be just the thing for two new immigrants." He bites his lip like he is considering, and then unbites it when he thinks too hard about how that probably looks. "If nothing else I'm less likely to offend someone." He sits back down gently. "May I—would it be impertinent to request Korean lessons as well? For myself? I am conversational but I could be much stronger."

"Oh yes I definitely think you should. I talked mostly about him getting lessons because he needs to be taken down a peg or twenty but you'd do well with some accent practice, too, at least."

"Xa! Yeah. I fear that nothing will get through to him except a swift kick to something soft. Though your shielding certainly has him on edge. He's not used to being unable to feel people out as he's talking. He's worried you don't like him."

Why are you sharing this, Dasol? He doesn't care. "He's less of an ass when he's comfortable. Which is mostly never."

"Oh I like him! He's very charming. But he's a bit of an asshole too and if he wants to dish it out he better be ready to take it, too."

don't visualize don't visualize don't visu—wait, he's not here. "Xe's always xad too much to prove. I guess from being upstaged by Snegurochka all the time or something. I don't know. It's a very different life for them than for me."

"So while he's not here, I should make it clear that you don't have to partner with him or anyone else in particular. We're not going to assign you to people. Partnerships are mutually consensual or they don't exist. The Degenerate West is pretty serious about that, for all that we're mostly east of Russia."

Then what am I good for?

"I guess you probably know of several likely candidates for my xoobae on the company payroll off-xand. I think xe will probably be xappier, that way."

"...oh maybe? I'm talking about you, though."

"I'm sorry. I suppose that was obvious."

Several perceptual millennia of effort to generate a follow-up comment leaves him staring plaintively at Si-yeon, bolt upright like a startled rabbit. It's been a long time since he had had to proffer an opinion to questions other than yeah, you like that, cocksucker? and he had forgotten how.

"Man, see, this? This is why I hate Russia. What did they do to you. Dasol, what do you want?"

"I just... want to be... useful." No, not quite that. Dare he?

"I mean... I want to feel useful. I want... I'm sorry, this is inappropriate of me." Nope! He did not dare! Back down off that cliff, boy.

He considers excusing himself, but Sasha is already monopolizing the bathroom. Why couldn't that idiot come back now? Come back, come back, so that this man could stop pointing his soft eyes and hard biceps and white teeth and violent pity at him for a moment! Dasol's belly churns like he's going to puke.

Dammit, Sasha, always letting me down when I need you.

"I already dropped the honorifics, go ahead and be inappropriate, no one's watching."

"Fine," he says. In Russian, because fuck it.

"I don't know the words for this idea in Korean, so I have to say it like this. I know intellectually that guiding is important. That people die if you don't do it. I know that even if I have a horrible useless power that I can still make a difference in the world. I just—wish I felt that way in my heart. I wish I could guide people without—things happening, uh, natural... responses to relaxing. That make it creepy and make people call me a freak. I wish someone would look at me the way they look at Yulya and Sasha."

"I just want to matter."

He wipes his face with his sleeve, angrily. "I'm sorry! Okay? I'm sorry I'm like this and I can't fix it! I just want to help without being a freak they have to hide in a cellar!"

"You're not a freak. Why would you be a freak?"

No reason.

Please stop looking at me, Ha Si-yeon-nim.

"Oh is this a homophobia thing? Okay let's be super clear here, I'm really queer, so're half the espers in Quasar, hell as far as I can tell so're half the espers in the world, and most places aren't the way Russia is about it. There's really nothing wrong with it."

Fuck! "No, you don't understand—It's not—everybody knows espers get a little—look, I—!"

He jerks to the side suddenly, sagging over the armrest, like a fuse popped in his brain. After a moment he sighs resignedly. "I guess you have to know eventually. My backlash is that almost anything I touch feels painful. Even my clothes. I have to—I have to be totally naked when I'm guiding, and I'm usually—fuck me—I'm usually hard while it happens. Like, massively massively hard. Like no pretending." He sniffles. "They wanted me to guide in dungeons, you know, because I'm so compatible with several real espers, but... too many normal people would see that and... it wouldn't be good. So they hide me away in a cellar where there aren't any windows while I lick Snegurochka's body all over. She can't touch me so much while I'm high on backlash, so I have to touch her with my... the palms of my hands and my tongue. It hurts less that way. She calls me her little dog."

Okay. Did you really have to add that last part?

"Then once I'm a little lower I do Sasha. It's less efficient but he's also a bit more specialized that she is, so I can work with him overnight. But—they wanted me to be able to go out with him. To dungeons. I was going to hold their hands and help them, but I couldn't wear any clothes at all after a minute or two and I'm such a—

"such a—

"useless fucking guide!" 

"Okay none of that makes you useless. If you don't want to be hard, there's meds for that. If you want to dull the sensations, there's meds for that. If you don't want to like it, there's therapy for that.

"But I know an esper, an incredibly powerful esper, whose backlash turns them into a whimpering horny mess who's begging to be fucked until they pass out. I'm obviously not telling you who, and no you're not going to guess, but the lottery roll of backlashes doesn't make them useless and neither does your roll make you useless. And none of it makes you a freak."

"Is he running around naked in dungeons? Because it's one thing to be horny all the time and another to have it in people's faces!"

Wow, that was, uh... more forceful than he'd really intended. He clears his throat delicately and sits up straight again. Please, Sasha, be too busy to come back out here now.

"I never found anything that dealt with the sensations effectively enough to make me useful in high-intensity dungeons, but it also wasn't a priority at the GBE, since we're assigned to the far-eastern sector and most resources go the more-populated west. If... if you all felt that that was worth your time?" He sighs. "Honestly, I was hoping that if I matched with enough powerful espers, maybe you all would think it was worth trying to treat the symptoms. I wasn't thinking Sasha would want to come do all this but since he was here, you know... that's one more argument in my favor. Not enough by himself, but maybe I've got more compatibility around here. And I'm—I'm very good at guiding! It's not really a skill, exactly, other than just being patient with people, but it's something!"

"Again with the low standards," he sighs. "Even if you only partnered with a C-rank who works in construction we'd still think it was worth our time and effort to treat you the symptoms. You don't need to justify your existence and presence, here. We're not going to be like, oh, he's not guiding enough high-ranking espers, he's not worth helping."

They called me a hero worth their time before I’d signed anything in Russia, too, Si-yeon. And it was bullshit then, too. “I appreciate the sentiment,” he says the way tourists appreciate being offered tripe or beef tongue. “I still am committed to assisting anyone who can tolerate me.” Well, at least you avoided ‘use me’ this time. Is pathetic a step up from whore? Maybe not. Whores get paid.

He brushes his own thoughts away, determined to wrest this conversation back to professionalism before Ha Si-yeon could show him anymore pity. “You said it is worked out between individuals. Xow would they choose me, then? Do they get a… a dossier? Xow do they test compatibility?”

"...Yun Dasol-shi," he says, switching to a more formal register. "Let me try to put it this way: you will be wronging Quasar's interests if you go into this expecting to just be useful to and used by 'anyone who can tolerate you'. It would be a PR nightmare if it ever became known that a professional partner in our employ was doing anything that might even remotely look like it was under duress or under the impression that... I don't know, that they'd be left in a bad situation they can't leave otherwise. Professional partner contracts have the most generous exit clauses out of all contracts we have because of how much of a disaster it would be to make a professional partner stay in a partnership that wasn't good for them. And the best way for it to not look like that's the case is for it to in fact not be the case. I'm not saying this out of pity for you or a desire to rescue you; it is literally a legal liability for it to be otherwise.

"And to answer your question," he continues, not letting Dasol respond to that, "initially we will present you with people that might be compatible based on our understanding of their and your backlashes and who they and you are compatible with, and further guesses will be refined from the compatibility map we build. You will shake their hand to gauge basic backlash compatibility, and then you will talk to each other and get to know each other, and see if your expected work conditions are acceptable to each other, and see if you have some basic level of personal compatibility such that it won't explode in a messy legally complicated breakup in three months."

He’s too deep in his feelings to censor himself. “So, what, I just shake their xand and say, ‘by the way, I’m a walking sexual xarassment lawsuit?’ At least when it isn’t my choice it’s also not my fault that I’m assaulting their eyes when I guide them.”

Dasol, manners! Apparently there are things more powerful than embarrassment and shame. Like the prospect of further embarrassment and shame!

"You inform them in advance—or we can, if you'd rather we filter it—that you cannot suffer backlash and wear clothes, and that they must be fine with that. That's really not as big a deal as you seem to think it is, I'd say at least half of esper partnerships involve sex, there's a reason sex is sometimes called the 'standard guiding procedure'. That includes gay sex. 

"You could also just not accumulate any backlash for your guiding. It makes guiding less efficient but that's all it does, is make it less efficient."

By habit, he glances around the room the moment the word gay is said, and then closes his eyes and scolds himself. “Sorry, I am not used to being so matter-of-fact about… everything. I will practice being more open.” What does that even mean? He doesn’t know. He’s just saying words to keep from getting kicked out at this point. As mortifying as it is to be talking about this, there’s also that horrible niggling feeling of hope and trust in his chest. That urge to let his shoulders down and smile tiredly. Or maybe cry. Or maybe kiss him. The kind of feeling that gets you beat up when you least expect it.

Thank God Sasha is taking the world’s longest piss.

”I do think it would be nice to warn people ahead of meeting me. If that can be done.” Suddenly an overwhelming pressure bubbles up in his chest. “I can make it nice for them! Snegurochka likes scented candles and… I always made sure we had some for her bad days. And she relaxed better if I made little barking sounds.” He can feel his skin turning drunkard-pink but if that were enough to stop himself he wouldn’t be here at all, would he? “It’s not all about me, is the point! I am happy to accommodate my partner. They should put that in the file… too.”

"...I think that's probably better discussed in person personally but that's just a suggestion, other than vetoing classified information and similar stuff and giving you advice Quasar lets you put whatever you want in your file.

"Does it help with the 'being open' thing if I tell you that all of Lee Tae-gun's partners prior to his current one were male, including myself, and that it's not a secret that Tae-gun had sex for guiding with all of us?"

“I assumed that was Russian propaganda.” He starts laughing at himself, partially from embarrassment, partially from relief. Mostly to preclude picturing this man naked, lying on his back, beckoning with a simpering expression before closing his eyes and relaxing while Dasol takes his left forearm and starts to rub all the tension out—

Ahem. “How did you—how did you negotiate that? If it isn’t too much to ask! I’m sort of used to it being… something you don’t say. Ever.”

"I don't remember the exact meeting, that was almost a decade ago, but it went roughly like..."

"So, Ha Si-yeon-shi, what, uh, forms of guiding are you comfortable with?"

He's given up on getting Lee Tae-gun to not call him "shi". If Lee Tae-gun had been the only person he'd met from Quasar he'd think Quasar was just like every other guild, but thankfully he knows enough about both it and Lee Tae-gun to know that this is just what he's like. He's even wearing his piercings for this! In the office! In an interview! And Lee Tae-gun didn't even make a face about it, despite looking otherwise extremely stuffy!

"I'm game for pretty much everything."

"I'd like it if, uh, could you be a bit more... specific...?"

"Sunbae, I'm really queer and not particularly prudish. We can snuggle if you want, and we can have sex if you want." He'd say 'you can't scare me' but actually the quiet types always end up being the kinkiest and Si-yeon is kinky but he knows there are people who are kinkier than he is.

"O-oh. U-um." He flushes red. "I see. I, uh. I am also. Comfortable with. Uh. The standard guiding practices."

Yessssssss he knew Lee Tae-gun was into him he was so right. "Then that works out great for us, doesn't it?"

It requires most of Dasol’s brainpower to actively avoid connecting any dots at all vis-à-vis Si-yeon being excited about pairing off with a very strait-laced guiding partner for intensive backlash mitigation work. He manages, though! Thanks, self-loathing!

“It sounds like you had to put up with a lot to develop the rapport you needed,” he offers diplomatically. “To get him to relax and… work with you.”

“Why’d you stop?” Bored of him, probably. He deserves someone more confident and playful.

"I met my current partner, and we're a lot more compatible than I was with Lee Tae-gun. We stayed together until Tae-gun had a few prospective partners lined up so I wouldn't leave him in the lurch, though, and from what I could tell he was also a lot more compatible with his next partner than he was with me."

See? Bored. I knew it. He found someone better and that was that. Sasha and Yulya would have done the same by now, too, if we had been stationed somewhere with more resources.

“Congratulations on finding an ideal match. Was it… similarly difficult to become comfortable with them?”

"—oh it wasn't difficult to become comfortable with Tae-gun at all. Behind that tough exterior he's a sweetie, newcomers are always intimidated by him until they get to know him and then they realise he's just very shy. 

"And my new partner was... a different beast altogether. She was actually tougher to get used to than Tae-gun, by a lot, though for a completely different reason."

“In Russia, they generally don’t allow that level of intimacy across sexes in case it takes a valuable esper off the board for nine months.”

Clearly, he is developing whiplash in his self-restraint muscles from this conversation. “I’m sorry, that’s not relevant. I think maybe I’m just uncomfortable… advertising myself.” And why’s that, bitch? You’re so good at it when you’re not intending to! “B-but I can work on it.”

"...do they not use birth control? Also most combat espers can't carry a pregnancy to term anyway, the stress of combat and backlash usually deal with that, but like, Chun-hee has an IUD.

"Anyway, uhh. I don't know I feel like I still haven't gotten through to you that you don't need to do anything to convince me to work with you here...? You still seem to be expecting us to drop you if you're too inconvenient or something and I'm not sure how to convince you otherwise, help me out, here, where's the disconnect?"

Are you allowed to tell me about people's IUDs?

"Pardon my—" he shakes his head, collects himself, and proceeds more slowly. In Russian again. "You seem like you appreciate more forthright speech." He came all the way across the bay just to find the most Russian-talking Korean he could. There's some humor in that, to be saved for later when he isn't scared out of his mind. "They said the same thing in Russia, okay? Klimka—my recruiter—he said the same things. 'Oh, we need you. Oh, you're special. Oh, we'll be the only ones to take care of you. Oh, nobody else will appreciate you. Oh, we will be understanding of your condition.'" He stretches his words out and drops his pitch into that melodic cadence his former captain used, and raises his eyebrows while lowering his eyelids and gesturing with his fingers. Sasha loved this caricature.

"They did. Klimka did his best to get me things, but eventually I still ended up shut in a cement cellar for days at a time because they just couldn't ... make it work. Make me work." He sighs and looks down again. "I was too broken. And—I hated that. Call me a wimp or a pussy or whatever, but I just couldn't take it after a while."

"Forgive me for being impudent, Si-yeon, but why would I believe you could make any more of me than the government of Russia?"

"Oh several reasons.

"One, Quasar itself, as a company, is richer than the Russian government. We don't need to count pennies and only spend our effort and energy on superstars. We're rich enough everyone in our employ can have decent working conditions by just doing their job. Russia is a poor, backwater country that clings to ideals built in a broken past who can barely pay their workers what they're worth, that's so bad to live in they have to censor the internet because they know if everyone knew what the rest of the world was actually like without any propaganda they'd leave. They do leave.

"Two, we're not pretending to be religious and adopting insane social and sexual mores that make no sense as a consequence.

"Three, we have free speech. If you post something on the internet about how terrible your working conditions are, the ones who get shafted are Quasar, not you. I'm not going to say it's all roses and money and influence don't matter because it's not and they do, but you're coming from a context where criticising the people in power is dangerous and arriving at one where it's commonplace. Still not as commonplace as in the US, Koreans are really bad at the whole, like, sticking out thing, but in a way that makes them a lot more sensitive to it when it happens. 

"Four, I actually don't think you're special, nor that no one else will take care of you or appreciate you. I think just about any guild in Korea would offer similar terms. We offer better terms, because, again, richer than Russia, but the service you offer isn't special. It's normal. It's a normal service that has a normal going rate and that makes you very employable under very pleasant conditions, because the bar you need to meet for employing you to be valuable to us is actually very low. We don't employ you out of charity, we employ you because the amount of money it costs us to have you on our payroll is more than made up for by the service you provide. That's, like, almost tautologically true. And that remains true even if you don't try to bend over backwards to make yourself as small and unobtrusive as possible."

"... I want windows. Giant windows. They can be tinted or on the 30th floor or whatever but I want windows." His eyes mist over, and he rocks back and forth in his chair. "And cotton sheets! Full cotton, no plastic! And... and soundproofing so I can scream as much as I want when it hurts!" His eyes go wide, though he still can't see through the water in them. "Oh! Earplugs! I want earplugs so my partners can't hear me! And—and—" He jumps from his chair, hair flopping at an impudent angle, giving him the mien of a half-starved rooster. "Morkovcha! I want two kilos of morkovcha available for snacks! And—" 

Ha Si-yeon is probably just staring at him, not that he can tell. Dasol thrusts his arms out toward him, to touch, to be reassured he is still there, and then he pulls them back into his stomach and doubles over and cries. "Tell me to stop, Ha Si-yeon-nim! Please, tell me to stop! Don't pretend! I'll do it anyway! Just don't lie to me."

"I mean no that all seems pretty reasonable. I mean I guess I don't know what 'morkovcha' is," he says, butchering the pronunciation. "If it's the name of a type of passenger plane then having two kilos of it for snacks would probably be a bad idea but...

"...do you want a hug?"

No, I want to fuck until I can't feel my legs and drink until you don't remember this conversation. He nods but doesn't move closer.

He'll move closer to wrap his arms around Dasol.

They're slightly compatible. He's kind of surprised.

So is Dasol, who was rather banking on there being a certain amount a miasmic displeasure to the contact, because the opposite of everything feeling wrong and dangerous is feeling really, really right and safe and—

Oh, fuck.

Dasol scoots back a bit and twists his hips to prevent—you know what? Hell with it. He'd already told Ha Si-yeon what happened when he was guiding. Serves him right for asking! Yeah! It's his fault for being so nice and kind and patient and hot and thoughtful and compatible. Comforted by the thoughts of justice, Dasol squeezes Si-yeon tighter, buries his face in the man's improbably coiffed hair, and cries.

And cries.

And cries.

"Yeah. Second door to the left," he says, gesturing.

And Si-yeon's power is very versatile. So versatile, in fact, that when the thing he wants is to attach this unobtrusive microphone that looks like plastic wrapping of some kind of cheap candy, the kind you step on while walking down the street and only notice when you get home, to the sole of Sasha's shoe, well. He can just do that.

"Ugh, thank god." He stands up, shaking his legs out and turning to go. As he does, he gently punches Yuri—more like places his fist against Yuri's ear—letting the contact linger as long as he can for the guiding—which, practically speaking, is exactly enough to get that little thrill of release but no true relief. "Don't sell your soul to the handsome devil while I'm gone, okay?" And then he's walking as fast as he can without losing too much face toward the second door on the left.

"Yo! You guys even got nice bathrooms?!" he shouts amicably as he closes and locks the door. It's a single-occupant situation, tastefully laid out and immaculately clean and—oh thank fuck there's even a nice big vent gently blowing cool air. There's a nice large sink and hand dryers and towels and the toilets. He'd been in worse hotels.

The lock shachunks with satisfying heft and he leans back against the door for a second with a deep sigh, the cheeky grin on his face melting to the floor. Finally. Peace and—well not 'peace and quiet' exactly. There was already too much of that. But the hideous awareness of Si-yeon being right there with no thoughts was finally gone. All he had to even suggest that anyone was even nearby was the murmur of Dasol's voice through the door every so often. He stood like that for a good thirty seconds, just finding his bearings after... whatever that was.

...That dude was totally flirting. He groans a little as he pushes himself off the door and stumbles toward the toilet. His heel slips just a bit as he clomps across the tile floor, a gummy sensation he barely registers. Man, he's backlashed. Yuri—whatever his new name is. Tassel? Tussle?—Tussle was trying to be all sneaky about heading out and it had taken like, several false starts to find a mind in that subway station that was thinking, I hope to make it to the appointment so he could run. The whole way. On esper juice. And even then he didn't know which appointment so he just had to keep knocking on heads until he found Tussle's thoughts and followed them. Man. Really made him work for it.

And for what? To get flirted at by a foreign government agent! And, like, even if it wasn't full-on flirting, it was not not-flirting and when you're that fucking queer you really owe it to everyone else to be, like, super clear about whether you're flirting because it's very confusing. Mostly for poor Tussle, of course. Little buttfucker can't keep it in his pants on a good day, and Xashiyan was very much not a good day. Not even for him, and was totally straight by esper standards—

He sucks his teeth as he tugs his zipper down, then carefully pulls it back up to free the pinched skin. "Going commando was not the ideal disposition for this mission," he muttered to himself. Tussle had tried to leave before he woke up so he had had to rush. Which had been mostly fine except it hid fucking nothing when he was backlashed and had to piss and was getting not-not-flirted with and—his cock springs gaily from its prison. It bobbles a bit before settling at a jaunty upward angle, and very slightly to the right. Sasha pushes it downward, but it's no use. Up or bust.

"Shit! Come on!" he groaned and looked up at the ceiling. "I'm not pissing all over the floor because of that fucker." He closed his eyes and thought of that one freaky dungeon with the creepy animatronic dolls of Lenin. No boner survived the animatronic dolls.

(What on Earth is that boy doing?)

It's not working. He's so backlashed he can't even hold an unpleasant thought in his mind right now. Everything just sort of sidles past and lands back on whatever the fastest route to feeling good is. Which is, of course, now snuggled happily in his right hand.

Ugh, come on, can't I at least piss first?

He cannot.

He closes his eyes in disbelief. "I'm not fucking jacking it in this fucking snotty fucking pretty-boy twink's fucking bathroom," he mutters, as if giving voice to it might lend it truth. "I am not letting him get me that easy."

Fuck, yeah I am.

Stupid—hnngh!—backlash.

(.........you have got to be kidding him.)

(Boy it's so good he has so much practice controlling his reactions because the emotional whiplash of listening to this and Dasol at the same time is... a lot.)

The problem with being an esper...

is that you get used to having a really good partner to rub off on while he's pretending to sleep...

and then it's really tough to go back to just a hand.

Man, it'd be so fucked if they knew about this right now. 

It's also remarkably difficult to cum when you have that full-bladder sensation already. Like the urges were fighting each other. Now he really wishes he could have pissed first. That would have made this whole business a ton faster.

And he really needed to get out there and save Tussle from this handsome degenerate trying to sucker them into... whatever his sketchy mega-corporate capitalist plan is. Probably something awful. Whoring poor little Tussle out to whomever. There'd be so many takers! Tussles very good at his job.

... what if I'm the one with the important compatibility, though? Would he whore me out?

He gasped a little as an electric zing ran up his abdomen. Some improbably hot... person of indeterminate sex... cumming all over him, like that one time he got Tussle too riled up and—

Oh fuck?! Oh— Oh— OH!—

...dammit.

(Si-yeon thinks he's probably not a Russian spy.)

Alright, buddy, back on the horse. Back to thinking about hot people other than that guy—

"...Dasol, what do you want?" Ha Si-yeon's voice can be heard, when he momentarily raises it.

Wait, what? That sounds suspiciously like a Mephistophelean bargain in the offing. He pauses his ministrations and cranes to listen, but of course Tussle is too freaking quiet. Shit. It really sucks how backlash-inefficient it is to pull on the urges of people he can't see.

...But it's also really backlash-inefficient to have to fight an agent of the West in a sick duel to the death because his dumb guiding partner got himself stuck in some hellish contract and now he's locked away in a basement somewhere. That's how you get the chronic stuff. He closes his eyes and feels around. There's a bunch of minds nearby, now that he's sensing for it (except one—fucking cheater Xashiyan) but thankfully he's very familiar with Tussle's mind, so it takes hardly a moment until it's screaming through his body—

—Why couldn't that idiot come back now? Come back, come back, so that this man could stop pointing his soft eyes and hard biceps and white teeth and violent pity at him for a moment! Dasol's belly churns like he's going to puke.—

He doesn't get exact words, of course, just this sort of baseline urge for something to be true, but this one might as well be in words for how simple it is. He's in trouble! Don't worry buddy, he thinks as he tugs the desire, pulls it into his being, makes it his own, makes it truth. Don't worry, Yuri, I'm coming as fast as I can! I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm cumming—

"FUCK!" he screams as his mind is overcoming with images. Yuri sucking his dick, Xashiyan sneering at him and leaning in, biting a nipple, murmuring something about owning him now, contract says he's a little whore—it all blurs together and he shudders and it washes over him. He's not even touching himself—the illusion is doing all the work as he just stands there, cumming down Yuri's throat and writhing and twisting—

And then it's over. And he's perfectly lucid, not even a hint of post-o. Which would suck a lot if he didn't have places to be. He bends down and grabs at his pants where they've fallen, but the pressure on his bladder makes his wince. The illusions can give him false sensations, but they can't avert reality. Alright, pissing first, then saving Yuri-I-mean-Tussle from whatever's happening.

(Once again, Si-yeon is happy he's very good at controlling his facial expressions. He might need to end this conversation rather abruptly pretty soon depending on why exactly Sasha just cried out.)

Okay. Okay, okay, okay now we are good to—well. He hates it when I don't wash my hands, though. I should— but he's already washing, scrubbing furiously away like Klimka insisted on teaching them and now Tussle won't every shut up about it—count to 20—

Should he try it in Korean? He knows enough Korean to count to... fuck, this is taking too long. Okay this is good this is good. Hang on, buddy.

After all this time, honestly, it feels kind of better to have Tussle or Yulya or Klim bopping around in his head than it does to be all alone up there. They were familiar. Like houseplants you greet because you're a sad bachelor with only greenery to come home to. He kept tugging on the thread of Tussle's urges as he dried his hands on the stupid fucking towels why are these so soft?

Irrelevant, what is relevant is Tussle's needs. He was living for him right now. Run, run, fast, nothing in the way, nothing in the way of what he wants—

—Please, Sasha, be too busy to come back out here now.—

Make up your damn mind! Except no, don't bother, Zhuchok doesn't need your wishes anymore, and anyway, he has nothing left to do in this bathroom so. Request denied!

He reaches for the door handle, undoes the lock. Looks down.

At the most massive tentpole he has ever thrown. Are you fucking kidding me.

"But, I literally just—" but did I? Was the whole... orgasm illusory? Or just the sensations and visions that caused me to cum? I was soft enough to be able to pee. But that doesn't mean anything, the illusions can cause physiological effects, maybe just thinking I finished was enough?

Somehow, improbably, this has never come up before.

Maybe the first one was real and this is just an illusion. The problem, of course, being that it doesn't really matter since stimulation triggers erections, so it'll be real enough by the time he's done contemplating. He taps the tip with one finger, experimentally—and the stars behind his eyes blind him as he staggers bodily into the wall. "Holy fuck, that felt good." Not even the finger, actually, he realized: just the rubbing of the fabric on it was enough to send him toppling over. He could barely breathe. He couldn't really do anything except—

"Okay, one more time."

(If this guy is a Russian spy he's a damn good one.)

(Si-yeon doesn't love this but he has had situations where someone tried to throw him off by acting inappropriate before doing spy shit, so.)

In an ideal world, he'd just reach out and grab at different thoughts until he found one that could help him out of here, but—that's so much backlash. And seriously, every touch feels beyond amazing, like just the contact is enough to—

Oh my god, it's simulating being guided. He groans once it clicks in his head. That's where he is pulling the illusion from! Of course! And given how much backlash he is holding onto right now, that would keep him tied up for like, at least an hour, right now. He sinks to the floor in the corner, hand working, eyes unfocused and half-closed. Am I pulling from Tussle's experience of being guided? Is this what it feels like for him? The idea gives him goosebumps, and he looks down at his dick with a renewed analytical eye.

Still looks like his, pretty much. But it would make some sense, if Tussle's backlash was pain, that the guiding might just feel like... overwhelming pleasure. He has goosebumps on his arm as he thinks about it. This is what he feels when someone strokes his dick? Huh. That's kinda—unfair. Why does his feel so much fucking better? Shit, no wonder he's popping boners all the time. 

He did, too, didn't he? Sasha thinks back fondly to all the times he'd teased the poor guide over how hard he was whenever he was working. Dude was like a rock constantly, it was annoyingly difficult to ignore. He is probably hard out there now, knowing him.

Maybe Xashiyan is making a move out there. He had been really flirty, or not-unflirty, and—it's not like Tussle's hard to turn on. The two of them could be making out right now, the shorter man sliding his hands into sweet Tussle's pants—

Ech, fuck. Nów I'm stuck with that image. He blames Xashiyan. All of this is his fault really. Especially because if he were flirting, that stupid shield is making it impossible to be sure—

The stupid image of them making of out wasn't going away—though it was getting steadily nakeder. He finally sighs in frustration. "Fine, Xashiyan, if you're not going to buzz off, come on in. Door's open, I guess," he mutters.

(What on Earth is this man talking about. Si-yeon has a moment's worry that he's been found out but—he doesn't think so. He thinks Sasha is still just talking to himself.)

I got you, relax, he whispers to the Tussle in his head as he wraps his arms around his partner's abdomen and nuzzles his ear playfully. Just relax and enjoy it. Relax! This hot demon shill for the lawyers can't hurt you now. He looks down, in his mind's eye, to where the improbably hot devil is going to fucking town on Tussle's dick. Yeah, go for it, cocksucker. You don't have to worry about overstimulating him! That only happens due to the guiding and you're farrrrrrrrr less compatible with the world's best guide than I am so you can just do whatever the fuck you want down there while I make his whole back and ass light up like a Christmas tree. You aren't even necessary, he can cum just like this! Though you do look—hot—

"Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck cum on his little bitch face!"

YESSSSSsssssssss...

...

...

He shudders gently as he opens his eyes some infinitude later. Hypothesis confirmed: the first one had been the illusion. Definitely. Wow. ... also, while we're here, fuck this stupid-ass twink! Even with the makeup ruined he probably looked hot. Based on recent simulations. Honestly he kinda looked better. That's just... gay, man.

Anyway! Up and at 'em... as soon as his legs work. Damn.

(Wow the whiplash. What is going on with this man that he decided to do this, here?)

He staggers to his feet, tucking himself carefully back into his pants and slouching over to the sink to re-wash his hands. It was a particularly... sticky load this time; he probably isn't hydrated enough. At least the sink is nice, he thinks to himself. Porcelain, kind of a classic throwback, with an elegant silver fixture. Good water pressure, too. Someone put up one of those cute little bathroom displays here, the box with the super-soft towels fold neatly on it, right next to a delicate Polish-pottery bowl filled to the brim with morkovcha.

...why the fuck is there a bowl of morkovcha in this bathroom?

He picks it up on a whim—or, no, not a whim. He's still threaded into Tussle's urges, isn't he? I guess he's hungry? He did always fucking love this stuff. Had it at every meal. One of the downsides of being this freaking backlashed is that he can't really distinguish the urges very well anymore. They just kind of all feel like his. He really should sever the connection.

He really should. But—

He'll just go hug him later, instead.

He hums to himself as he slides the bolt on the bathroom back and pulls open the door, giant bowl of snack balanced in his other hand. "Hey, guys, did someone order snacks?"

The scene he runs into is Ha Si-yeon hugging a Dasol who had clearly been crying.

Ahem. "Hi, Sasha! Are you feeling better? You were gone a long while."

Is Dasol pulling away from the hug or...?

Well, yes, because it's been kind of a long hug and now there's a third person here and it would be weird to keep his back turned to them—

—and also because he just realized that he's been crying into a stranger's hair for the last, like, minute, and that is mortifying.

"You good, dude?"

"Hmm? Yes! Yes, I was just telling him about how things were in Russia and you know. Some of the inconveniences involved with how I have to guide."

"It wasn't that bad. You don't have to be, like... that about it." He resumes his approach. "Here, I made you something." He thrusts the illusory bowl of morkovcha as hard as he can into this wimp's solar plexus and plops as heavily as possible into the chair beside him. "Seemed like you wanted it."

"You were in my head? Sashka, you're going to be backlashed to hell and back—"

"It's one bowl of morkovcha, dude! It's not that expensive—"

"You've either been in my head this whole fucking morning or you reached out while you were in the bathroom and couldn't see me! That's extremely inefficient for you—"

"I know that but you were crying like a little baby and I wanted to make sure you weren't getting, like—"

"You already had a ton on board from tracking me down this morning! You can't keep using it—"

"Well, back then, I thought I still had a primary partner, so I figured he'd guide it off for me because that's— what he's— FOR!"

"Sasha, that's not—"

"No, whatever, it's fine, we're both Yulya's bitch and it was stupid of me to figure otherwise just because we became international fugitives. Now eat your dumb carrots while I sign away my life to this conniving pretty-boy bastard here so I can suck the dick of commerce long enough to not die of a heart attack from trying to protect you—"

His head snaps towards Ha Si-yeon. "You got something for me to sign, or what? Just do it before this bitch touches me and I'm feeling less impulsive, okay?"

"Sasha—"

"Shut up, cunt! Don't touch me!"

"And my name's Misha!"

"I'm not legal, I don't have a contract for you. But what I do have," he says, spawning his commscreen and causing two pieces of ID to appear in front of each of them, "are your new IDs."

He was already crying from talking about windows and morkovcha and then he was crying because of what he'd just done to Sasha and now he's crying because he's going to be an actual Korean and that's three reasons to by crying which is too many reasons.

Can he even trust his mouth to make words right now? Or will it just come out baby-sounds and that strangled noise from gulping air after a good scream?

He has to try, anyway.

"Thank-you-Xa-Si-yeon-nim-for-your-help-you-didn't-have-to-I-promise-you-will-not-regret-it—

gassssssssssp of breath—

"I-will-be-the-best-guide-in-all-of-Quasar-thank-you-thank-you."

"...Thanks."

"And yeah, he will."

He turns to leave, slouched so low that the crown of his head barely clears his shoulders. "See ya, fuckers."

"W-where are you—"

"Legal. Obviously. I gotta get a partner before I croak. Finish your carrots, Yurochka. Or—whatever the equivalent is in Korean." 

"Sunbae, to you."

"I wasn't asking."

He disappears, finally, around a corner and out of sight.

"Kim Dasol-shi, how likely is Malinin Misha-shi to be about to cause a problem I'm going to need to rescue him from if left unattended right now?"

Sigh. "Xe'd need someone to desire violence or destruction to do any real damage, even when xe's like this. And—" he holds up the bowl— "this is still here, which means that xe's not swapped targets yet, and probably won't. And I've been willing xim to be calm, so xe should be pretty tame for at least a bit."

He fishes in his pocket for a bit and pulls a pair of chopsticks from his pants pocket and stares at them. "<Aww. He even remembered the chopsticks,>" he says, to himself in Russian, with an utterly flat tone. He takes a quick bite and then looks at Ha Si-yeon. "...Want some?"

"Uhh... is that real? It's an illusion isn't it? What is it?"

Dasol nods and puts the chopsticks down in the bowl so that Ha Si-yeon can take them. Yeah, sharing's a little weird but whatever: they were compatible. He'd enjoy the extra zing, probably. "<Morkovcha!> A perfect illusory replica of the way my mother makes it, specifically. Whenever he tries to make it for me it always comes out just like this, even if I try to spice it up and imagine a different flavor." He giggles. "You'll probably like it? Do you like kimchi? It's just kimchi but carrots instead of cabbage. Traditional in my area."

If he focuses relentlessly enough on the morkovcha then he will not start crying again! Probably. "Mâr-cove-châ! I don't actually know what it would be in Korean. Try it."

He blinks and... tries some?

It's a rustic, down-home dish on the steppe, but the mother's love really shines through! It's spicy, too: Mrs. Yun liked it hot!

He's Korean, spicy can't scare him. "It's tasty. Was this the thing you wanted two kilos of?"

And who wouldn't, really? It's delicious!

"Ah! You remembered. That's so thoughtful of you! Xaxaxa. It's not actually a big deal, of course, I know it's probably not a thing in Korea proper since you have cabbage and all—"

"Dasol you could have ten kilos of this every day for the rest of your life if you wanted. No, sorry, that's still an underestimate, but I don't want to do maths right now." It's so good he can control his facial expressions and voice because he wants to scream.

This? This was Dasol's deepest, most forbidden desire? Carrot kimchi??????

Carrot kimchi????????????????????????????????????????????????

He hates Russia so much.

Ahhh-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa don't cry don't cry— "What would I even do with ten kilos of morkovcha, Ha Si-yeon-sunbae? I doubt anybody else here will want to share it that much and I can hardly just throw it away. You would just make a menace of me as I forced it on every poor partner I had. Two kilos is more than reasonable, given how much I eat."

"That's—not the point." He sighs. "Sorry, never mind. I don't think there's anything I can say that'll convince you as much as just being here and seeing that nothing terrible happens will.

"...but I am going to look at your contract when you draft it up and if you don't include amenities to make your backlash more tolerable in it I'm going to rip it up and make you come up with some, myself. I'm really overstepping here but it's really hard to watch this, I want you to figure out what a silo would need to have to make you comfortable in it while backlashed and demand it."

Ugh, fine. "I don't really know what would help. At high enough levels of backlash to really matter, most stimuli are painful to me. Water is slimy, wind and fabric feel like razor wire, most food textures are like sand or glass. I can taste just fine, usually, so I try to comfort myself by holding something tasty in my mouth." Like Yulya's skin. Bark-bark. "Temperature is the first thing to go bad, and too hot is worse than too cold, but unless you can heat the floors or something crazy—"

"Okay, heated floors, that's pretty standard in Korean houses. Good sealed windows so there's no breeze, that's doable, too. Good temperature controls overall probably good, if water feels better than air probably a bathtub with a good thermostat."

"... you can do that? Heat floors?"

"Yeah. Some cheaper modern housing has done away with it somewhat to reduce costs but it's pretty common. We don't wear shoes inside our houses, after all, and the winter gets cold. Not as cold as Russia's, but..."

"'Pretty common?!'"

My god, they were not kidding about the degenerate West. Who can afford to spend money on that?

"Yeah. Unless you're specifically renting somewhere really cheap, the floors will be heated."

"...Fascinating." Now I need to check whether the floors in my current place are heated. Surely not... It was a few thousand rubles a night.

"Sunbae, you're going to spoil me. I really just need a place where people can't see me during guiding that's a moderate temperature."

"And any partner of yours who wasn't raised in Russia will look at—will be really mad at Quasar for not making your stay more comfortable than that. And go yell at prez about it. And for once it won't be deserved."

"Well, I guess... if it would cause guild-president-nim shame if I didn't accept it..." This is how the Western devil gets you. First it's heated floors, then who knows what.

"It would cause him shame if he didn't have a pretty good answer to anyone coming up to him to ask why we didn't provide you with the barest of necessities to care for your backlash in your silo, and different people will have different ideas about what the barest of necessities are but you are way more likely to undershoot than overshoot so why don't you try picturing what the actually perfect solution would be and we work off that? Like, would a sensory deprivation chamber work or would the liquid in it still feel bad or would it just be too boring or claustrophobic?"

This is a remarkably tough question. It has been years that he has been dealing with this, so... he had mostly just taught himself not to imagine alternatives. Now when he tries, there is just kind of a blank. "I mean, the perfect method would be just don't get any backlash until someone who needs me is right there. It's... a little tough to do without causing a disturbance. Sensory deprivation might be nice while I'm singing, though, so I can ramp up without being in too much pain. Easier to keep it not-horrible-sounding, too."

"—sorry, were you expected to stay at high backlash even when you weren't about to need to guide someone...?" He hates Russia. "Ah, what's your power, exactly?"

"Of course not!" says the delicious bowl of morkovcha. "It's just that his symptoms start to manifest pretty quickly, but it takes a while to build up to really high backlash unless he's specifically screaming at the top of his metaphorical lungs in a funny voice, preferably while singing. He's gotten very good at 'Elmo-from-Sesame-Street sings the Russian National Anthem over the local emergency-broadcast system.'

"Incidentally, you should have another bite of me, the best morkovcha in the world, before I go poof in a few minutes!"

"What the."

"Come on, sunbae, I'm very tasty! I would be healthy, too, but actually I'm completely calorie- and nutrient-free, since I'm not real.

"Is this the reeeeeal liiiiife? Is this just fantasyyyyy—ow, fuck, I shouldn't sing without somebody to touch! Ah, these socks are so scratchy, fuck, I thought I got the softer ones—"

"Oh that's you. Dasol, what is it with you and Misha-shi and gratuitous power use?" he wonders, taking Dasol's hand for what meager guiding that'll do.

"First off: anything for the bit.

"Second off: it's a shit power unless he's using it to make people happy, so why not?

"Third off: he will keep this up until you eat more, especially if you're going to make it cheaper by holding his hand. So get me in you, pretty boy. Yeah, you heard me. I'm not a proper Korean dish so I don't use honorifics. Russia forever, baby!"

"You're impossible." Sure he'll eat more fake kimchi.

"Not so fast! You gotta savor! Reaaaally enjoy the tangy acids and spices. Let it wash over you. Forty-odd non-real carrots did not sacrifice their lives for you to just power through it."

Dasol can't stop himself from dissolving in a fit of giggles now and nearly drops the bowl.

He can't help but laugh, too. After Dasol's constant gloom, this glee is infectious. 

(It's such a shame it would be unethical to kiss him.)

"I can get pretty loud with it, too. And throw it a lot further. Usually I just try to max myself out as fast as possible, but it's fun. If it's daytime when Sasha and Yulya are working, I would sometimes do Chekhov plays. With the voices and everything. I never saw because, you know, naked while I was doing it, but supposedly some of the kids from the military base would gather and listen, if Klimka told everybody I was going to be doing one." 

"He—might have just been saying that to humor me."

"Well, sound proofing should be straightforward, too. Or, I suppose it depends on how loud but it's probably not so loud it's dangerous, right?" Otherwise he could be a combat- hmm. Maybe not, with his backlash.

“Well, strictly, I can get loud enough to cause hearing damage. But so can a normal shout, if you sustain it long enough. They tested extensively to try to make it more useful but weapons-grade tinnitus is both worse and less useful than you might imagine.”

"Gotcha.

"Anyway, uh, what other wild desires for your silo?"

“… is it weird to inquire about… uh… lubricants?”

"Not particularly. Is this lubricants for sex or do you have car repair hobbies or..."

Somehow the joke made it worse. “No… the first kind.”

He’s going to have to get used to this, isn’t he? Ugh. “I don’t actually know the Korean word for this stuff. But the kind for people.”

"Yeah you should probably have lube in your silo."

Obviously he shouldn’t be focusing on that. “Maybe… analgesics? Like uh, ibuprofen and the like. It doesn’t help a lot, but it does help some.

“If I can throw my voice to another room, it scales me on backlash a lot faster as well. So a separate room that I can shout into would be good. Unless you can come up with something more useful.”

Secretly he’d love to do more plays for people. That’s probably a silly thing to inquire about, though. Then again… Ha Si-yeon did just say he should go for the most outlandish…

“I would enjoy it if… people wanted to listen to a play or something. Since I have to talk, anyway.”

"Oh I bet people would find that a lot of fun. You could even sell tickets, it's the kind of gimmick people would pay to see."

Well, 'hear.' Surely they would not pay to see him in that state. Still! "It's only a little reading. I'm sure very few people would be interested in that." He is just a little too Russian to really know his way around the performative modesty thing but hopefully the saucepan-sized eyes and big, hopeful smile got the message across. "Perhaps I can do a few for Quasar staff first, to see how it goes."

"Yeah, I think they'd like that."

The floors don’t have labels in the elevator, and like hell if he’s going to ask when he doesn’t know Korean. The floating words above his head feel humiliating, now, like training wheels. Tussle did all the talking before and he just tried to pick out words and grammar particles! Or get bored and try to sneak his hand onto Tussle’s back to make him gasp in surprise and then turn all red.

He’s on floor 12, now, having gone to each one, walked around, tried to match the signs to the translation of “legal” that he managed to get this little thingy to give him, and sulked back to the elevator. He took a break at floor nine to go wipe his eyes in the bathroom, but now he is in one again, the tiniest most out-of-the-way one he could find, with nobody apparently nearby, so he could cry properly.

Because a good cry, as Tussle would agree, requires plenty of wailing and screaming and cursing and maybe punching something metal. Which he is now doing. With gusto.

His translation thingy disappeared when he was about 5 floors away from Ha Si-yeon, so now he no longer has that.

This becomes more obvious now that he’s looking in the mirror. Man, what a brilliant metaphor for relying on the degenerate West. He was mostly going to curse out himself for being horrible and useless, but now he can work in some invective for Xashiyan too! This is good. Anger at others is much easier to handle.

“And fuck that stupid bitch Xashiyan and his stupid translation thingy that disappeared before I could use it and so now I’m lost—” Would he have used it? No. Obviously. But the imaginary Xashiyan he is cursing out doesn’t know that! He imagines a contrite Xashiyan apologizing for this oversight and it soothes him exactly enough to return to his main course of self-hatred.

“You’re a fucking freak and I ought to kill you dead right here!” he yells at the mirror.

(This kid... needs therapy.)

“Why’d you even bother running away, moron? You should have just told Klimka right away what Yuri was planning rather than hopping on the boat and — and — no money, you don’t speak Korean, you don’t even have a partner anymore. Everyone hates you, you stupid fag—”

woah. He’d never called himself that before. Sure, other people had, plenty, because espers, but he knew better. Never once, not even that one time when he’d— a horrible knot coalesces in the pit of his stomach at the thought. No no no—

“Bitch!” he yells. “Pussy! Wimp! Idiot!” He throws them all over top the offending word like dirt into a grave, burying the thing. Eventually the word is so deep under other expletives he hardly remembers it anymore. And then he turns on the sink to splash water on his face.

(Now he kind of wants to hug this kid. Damn.)

“Okay, bitch, pull yourself together. What can you do about this? You don’t know anyone except for the two guys you just fled and you need to find someone in legal who both speaks Russian and can help you get a partner before this backlash kills you. And won’t immediately shaft you for asking from a position of weakness.”

Well, when he puts it that way, it sounds even worse.

“I’m so screwed.”

(Okay Si-yeon might need to go help this guy out somehow. This is heartbreaking.)

He grabs his phone, but naturally, it’s outside of the service range. As it has been for the last two weeks. No Internet, either. Why did he even bother checking?

So he really is, well and truly, stuck.

Fuck.

Back to crying like the little bitch I am, I guess. He might actually die in this immaculate bathroom.

Well.

Of the two of them, right now Dasol is the one in least bad condition. So, after making sure he'll be okay, Si-yeon drops Dasol off with legal to discuss contracts, and goes looking for one sad Russian boy. Thankfully, he has access to Quasar's cameras, so he knows where to find him.

He knocks on the bathroom door. "Mr. Malinin?" he calls, in English because Misha doesn't speak Korean and the translation subtitles won't work if they're not actually face-to-face.

…How the actual—

“Can I help you?”

No, I can’t, because I’m useless and backlashed to hell and back and the whole fucking world hates me and I don’t speak Korean and —

"Can we—talk?"

No! Fuck you, you fucking fuck, I don’t have a partner and you have a stupid mind-shield and I don’t even like you, you stupid makeup-wearing prettyboy! Do you want to gloat about how I’m sad and alone now? Why would you even want to—

“Fine.” He hadn’t remembered to lock the door, even, because he’s a miserable, useless failure. So he just opens it, after quickly checking that he’s not, you know, a total mess. Can’t let pretty boy have too much advantage. “What do you want?”

Well one thing he wants to do is give Misha subtitles again. Then, in Korean: 

"I wanted to check up on you. You seemed like you wanted to be left alone but you also didn't seem really okay."

“You’re very kind. I, uh, just got lost on my way to legal and took a pit stop.” He jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “So, yeah. Nothing too horrible. Thanks for asking.”

It doesn’t occur to him until finishes speaking that he had been staring at Xashiyan’s shoes this whole time. Also his voice sounds like he’s been crying, which, what an impression to give.

“I’m a little backlashy, I guess,” he offers as an excuse.

Uh huh.

"I also feel like you might benefit from some more—context? About everything? That I shared with Dasol while you were away earlier."

“What’s there to know? He was upset, I wanted to help, then it turned out he was fine or something and didn’t need me, so I left.” He folds his arms across his chest stoically.

"I mean... about Korea, and Quasar, and the way expectations for how to operate as an esper here might differ from doing so in Russia. Your relationship with Kim Dasol-shi is, I've only just met you today, I don't really get to butt in."

“I think you officially are as caught up on the state of my relationship with Kim Tah-soul-shi or whatever the fuck his new name is as I am.”

“Is this gonna take a while? Could we maybe not do it in a hallway?” He gestures behind him. “At least in here I can be a little bitch about it in private.”

"Yeah," he says, following Misha back inside. "—also, 'Dasol' is the Korean name his parents had already given him. It's not new."

Why didn’t he know that already? Yuri had always just been Yuri. “I see. Ta-sool. Daasool. Dasor? Tasol. Am I—is that close?”

"Yeah, pretty close. Dasol," he repeats, more slowly.

"Taa-sool. Is it 'oh' or 'oo,' because it sounds like you keep switching."

Reflexively, he tried to ping off of Ha Si-yeon’s mind to grab a proper pronunciation but: “You don’t need that stupid shield, you know. I can’t do anything bad to you that you don’t want to do yourself. As you know since I’m in a file somewhere.” He leans on the sink, glancing in the mirror to double-check that—okay he looks pouty but not wretched, so that’s good, anyway; maybe pull his hair over to the side a bit more? He was always so uncomfortable around guys who obviously looked good on purpose, like it was a foreign language. “Save whichever poor esper you’re milking all that power from for a real threat.”

"Well, fair enough, actually," he says, opening a commscreen to send someone a text:

I think you can drop the shield now

If I need to I can subdue him but I don't think I will and it'll buy goodwill

I don't like how often he kept pushing. He's been trying intermittently, and just made another attempt.

But all right, letting it go now, let me know if you want it back.

I don't like it either but I don't think it's a liability, I think he's just dysregulated

It'll calm him down though and make him less erratic if he has any purchase right now, I think

Yep, it's gone, but I'm gonna grumble about it.

Kid has some real bad habits.

He does

We'll figure it out

"It's gone."

"Really?" He wasn't actually expecting—but, no, he reaches out again, and there's a warm, cuddly mind, right in front of him. He hates how visibly he relaxes at that but he's way too backlashed not be showing his whole naked ass right now. "You mind if I—?"

Why was he even asking? Shit.

"Go ahead." He's not sure what Malinin Misha is asking, exactly, but he's right that Si-yeon knows what his power is and it's currently not really a threat.

There's not a lot in here. Warm vibes. Concern. Gentle worries. Calculation.

Wait, deeper in. A sense of falling... no, leaning... a bulwark... a cane... two hands, cupped around a newborn kitten... don't squish him, don't drop him, don't hurt him... why is it so fragile? When will it open its little eyes? How the fuck are we supposed to care for this thing? Let it turn out all right. Let it turn out all right.

"<I'm okay, dude, really. I'm just disoriented because I was worried about Dasol at first and now I suddenly have to worry about myself. But since you're asking, I would appreciate your help, sunbae.>" All in perfect Korean so it lands with maximum impact.

"<I'm okay, dude, really. I'm just disoriented because I was worried about Dasol at first and now I suddenly have to worry about myself. But since you're asking, I would appreciate your help, sunbae.>"

He reaches out with both hands, palms up, the picture of tranquil self-awareness.

"Wow that's freaky. Also a huge lie."

"What?! No, I mean it!" I absolutely mean whatever the hell I just said in a language I don't speak.

What have I done, what have I done? Ruined everything, that's what.

Swing and a miss. Try again. What else do we want, what else do we want?

There is nothing else! We only want what is best for the tiny kitten!

What's best for me is guiding but I don't deserve that.

"<I am struggling right now but a little guiding and I will be right as rain ag—>"

Kiss him.

That is not us "being better."

I'll never be better, I'll never be better. I am trash and I deserve to feel like this.

Kiss him.

We will not. We will be the mature and composed person we desire. We are in control right now—

Not for long.

Ahem. "<I am struggling right now but a little guiding and I will be okay, okay? I can control my emotions better when I'm not backlashed. I am only like this because I was worried about Dasol and did something unwise, but now he's obviously in good hands, so I will be more responsible in the future.>"

Is that... better? Whatever I just said?

"Malinin Misha-shi, I am simply not going to believe anything you say in Korean. But this is demonstrating part of the reason why I was shielded. You can figure out what I want, but if you just try to give me it using your power that will, definitionally, not actually be what I want. It'll be an illusion."

He knows I'm lying. I'm such a loser. I deserve this. I hope he hits me.

Time is—

No, net yet. We can recalibrate. Back down. We don't want Korean, then we can do it in Russian. We are not out of control yet.

"What's the difference? You want me to be... chill, or whatever that was, and so I was acting chill! And I'll keep it up for as long as it takes for you to be satisfied that I deserve to have all this backlash guided off so that I can think straight again for real. What's the difference between 'acting how you want me to be' and 'how you want me to be?!' It's all a fucking act, anyway!"

"The difference is that what I want isn't for you to act or be chill. What I want is for you to be okay. In the long term. I want you to live a long, fulfilling life, doing a job you love, surrounded by people who cherish you and support you and make you stronger, from whom you don't have to hide and around whom you don't have to act or pretend. And there is no path to that that runs through you just figuring out the right words to say right now.

"You should probably stop digging your backlash hole any deeper, though. As a first step in getting it all guided off."

What if we want us to—

No. No. We cannot want this. Impossible.

Tactical honesty time. This is an emergency.

"If I stop now—you'll hate me. It's the only thing holding me back."

"Malinin Misha-shi, there are very few things that would make me hate you right now, and they are all crimes."

"I think technically this would be one."

"Not all crimes would make me hate you. The ones that would would all involve other people, anyway, and no other people are available."

No, wait! Give us something more to—

Sorry.

Time's up.

"You know what? Fine!"

He dives down, wraps this prick's head in his hands, and kisses him full on the mouth, and everything

feels

better.

Of fucking course they're very compatible.

Called it.

Si-yeon—probably could've stopped this. Maybe should've. But either they wouldn't turn out compatible, and Malinin Misha would pull away immediately, or they would, and that'd be a tiny bit of guiding.

Still, he should push Malinin Misha gently but firmly away. This is not appropriate.

He stumbles back like he's been thrown, and looks at Xashiyan's shoes. "I told you."

I've ruined it. It's too late to fix. I'm too late to fix. I cannot even die with dignity anymore. My powers couldn't save me from the fact that I'm a fucking unlovable queer and now I'm going to live with this backlash forever.

Run.

He covers his face with one hand and lunges for the door. Thankfully he's not crying but he wants very little, right this moment, quite like he wants out.

"I'll go now," he says helpfully by way of explanation. "Sorry for taking your time."

Unfortunately Si-yeon is in fact still between him and the door, so that will not actually happen.

"Malinin Misha-shi, I don't hate you, and I don't think you should go."

"Well, I hate me, and I think I should go, so in case of a tie, I win!"

He can't touch this guy, though, because then he'll just want more guiding, so instead he backs himself up into the far corner of the bathroom and presses himself into it.

"And you should hate me! What do I have to do to get you hate me like you should?!"

"Why should I hate you?"

"Because I'm a fucking freak and a Russian and probably a Communist and I'm rude to you and I'm insulting and somehow I think I hurt Dasol whom you actually like and I can never be whatever it is you want of me because I can't find it in your head because I suck at using my powers and I just kissed you and enjoyed it and you're probably not even gay because I just remembered Korean guys wear makeup sometimes as a normal thing so you should extra hate me now and I keep talking even though I really need to shut up and please just let me go and die like I probably deserve and leave you all in peace!"

How the fuck does he engage with any of that.

...

Sigh.

"Malinin Misha-shi, since we are compatible, do you want to go to a silo and I try to get you guided down to manageable levels?"

We want us to get better. We want us to calm down. We want to fix everything.

What?! How are we supposed to even—

Do it.

"<No, sunbae, you don't have to—>"

...

"I mean. Please."

"Alright. Hold my hand?" he asks, holding his hand out.

"...yeah, alright. That's normal in Korea." Maybe not while coming out of a bathroom, though. Oh, well. Desperate times.

"Are your hands just really fucking soft or am I that desperate for guiding?"

"I moisturise. This was also a technical request," he says, opening his commscreen again to request a teleport, bypassing the usual requirements for bringing someone else along for emergency reasons. He'll need to write a report on this later for someone to evaluate whether he is making a stupid mistake but he thinks the alternative is sedating Malinin Misha and that would be much worse for everyone involved.

And then they're in a really fucking fancy apartment.

"Ah, so this time I get the fancy teleport," he giggles. They're still holding hands and the feeling has him a little giddy. "So is that like, a thing you do, or is it somebody else? Because I fucking love teleporters. Did we talk about that already?"

"Oh, this is Woo-young's battery."