This is great!

<Yes, I am. Does Malinin Misha-shi want to test for compatibility?>

…Yeah, yeah, you know what? I do. Wouldn’t it be funny if he found an even better partner than his stupid ex? “<If you don’t mind.>” He even made it super polite! So good at this.

He sticks his hand out for a handshake.

Lawrence will remove his right glove and shake!

Hm. Better than average. Not good enough to partner partner, he thinks? Better than Leah...worse than Lachlan. Lachlan was really remarkably compatible but he's in Singapore and conscripted and it's way better to have a partner in the same organization. Still, it's decent.

<I have decent compatibility with you, from my side.>

“Yeah, same.” That one comes out in Russian and he has to try again. “I mean, <yes, I feel the same.>” Still, it’s… something. “<We could work with it, maybe.>”

<We could!> Smile. He has a prospective partner for the short term, at least.

<I have not had any...> he has to ask again for words, <medium-term partners. I had hoped to find one before the confluence but the esper I found who I was compatible with is from another country. You would be my first partner, if you were willing to temporarily partner with me.>

“<I could be convinced.>”

“<I am a high-grade combat esper so I tend to have a lot of backlash onboard.>” Always from very responsible uses of his power, of course. Definitely not from dumb impulsive stuff. “<I can tolerate it pretty well—no huge issue—but I’d want it gone as fast as we could so I can get back out in the field. Is that a concern for you?>”

Isn't that...unwise? I mean he supposes one can't help it if it's a confluence, but he's pretty sure you ought to regularly zero yourself on backlash. Otherwise it turns into chronic backlash.

It takes a few moments for him to translate the Korean into English in his head — he hasn't gotten to that stage yet where he can think in Korean — and then a few more to recognize what Misha is actually asking about.

<I haven't engaged in any sexual guiding before.> he says plainly. He's going to have to get used to talking about that matter-of-factly, if he's going to do any work as an esper.

Well, okay, when you put it like that it sounds—

“<Would it bother you? I mean, if I end up needed back-to-back, I wouldn’t have time to do anything less. I just need to know my options.>”

He didn't really expect his first time having sex to be with someone who's doing it just for guiding. Well, he didn't expect to be an esper at all, but. And accepting would mean that he has a partner too, and could himself be helping in dungeons. Both of them are psychic espers, so it seems like it would be a good match, tactically...

It takes a while for him to speak.

<I am open to trying it and I do want to try it. But I am new to it and I do not know if I would like it, or if...> he gets help to phrase this next part... <I cannot separate emotions from the physical component of guiding, in such a way that would upset me.>

This is probably one of those little cultural things, isn't it? Because where he's from, the proper etiquette would be to call this guy a pussy and punch him in shoulder for worrying about his feelings.

He elects not to do this and instead nods, because he is a responsible elder-esper who takes these things seriously and not a selfish jerk looking to use a local ingenu for sex. Or guiding, rather.

"<It is impertinent to ask, but do you mean that you are new to guiding, or—?>" This was getting tougher on his powers as they got further out into specifics. He was relying on his power for the words he didn't know already, and oddly enough "proper etiquette and useful phrases for discussing guiding and sex" wasn't in introductory DuoLingo.

"Ah, respectfully. This conversation seems important. Could we maybe have it in English? I can understand English pretty well, but I am not very good in Korean yet."

"Ah. Did you want to end the lesson early?"

"I think...yes. What do you think?" he asks Misha, not yet replying to his question.

"I am fine to continue the Korean stuff or talk about this, just not both at the same time. Maybe this is more important, though."

He would have thought that language learning is more important, but. There is a confluence on.

"Alright. In that case, I would like to end the lesson early."

<Thank you, seonsaengnim.> He bows.

Yeonwoo does likewise and leaves the room, closing the door behind her.

"I am very new to guiding in general because I am a new esper, and also I have not had sex before."

Ahhh, fuck. He had really been banking on the idea that being the most junior meant that everyone else was a fully degenerate bunch of buttlovers already. Of course he got the newest newbie. Okay, okay, no need to be judgmental of the innocence of youth. That had... really screwed him up when it was his turn, after all.

And he was willing to be a jerk to power, but—now he was sunbae. He had responsibilities.

"Okay, well, the first thing is definitely to figure out guiding first, and then graduate upward. We can—I can help you with that, if nobody else has already."

"Thank you. I think that would be good.

When I was doing power testing in the Philippines and in Korea, I did hand and arm holding and hugging."

Okay, that's a good start. "What does it feel like, when you get guiding?" He holds his hands out, palm up, across the table they are sitting at, to invite him to touch again. "I think it feels a little different for everyone."

That looks like an invitation but he's not sure! He's going to put his hands on the table but he's not going to touch Misha's.

"It's hard to describe. I think it's like...stepping into a bath that was the right temperature. It feels...right? Correct? Like when you put on clothes and everything fits really well and it's like you're wearing nothing at all. And when you're incompatible it's like, things keep pinching or pulling or rough or itchy. But more abstractly — it doesn't feel like any of those things specifically. It's like you took the platonic ideals of these things and added them to the base sensation." Okay he didn't intend to say that many words but he ended up doing so.

"For me it feel like... connection. Like when an old friend calls you on the phone after a few years of no contact. Or visiting your parents after you've moved away." He wiggles his fingers suggestively. "Come on, no need to be coy," says possibly the coyest man in Korea.

Well, Lawrence was fine with moving to Korea in no small part because it moved him away from his parents, but Misha does not need to know about his baggage.

He will place his hands delicately atop the other's. The feeling of guiding continues to be really fascinating and good!

"I've got more onboard than you right now. If you use your power a little bit, you'll feel the sensation ratchet up in intensity."

"Okay. I'll use my sensory power. I've been taught that guiding happens faster the closer the espers are in their levels of backlash."

He sweeps the entirety of the room with it.

"There are no sentient entities in this room aside from us. And I can feel it, indeed." It feels more right. 

He had been in like, second year of high school, maybe, in biology class when Sergei Pomerantsev had said that you could manually stimulate the release of oxytocin by pinching or play with your nipples, and of course a bunch of the guys had all put their hands under their shirts, grinning and sneering at each other and at the scandalized girls nearby. It hadn't really had a noticeable effect, of course, but this was what he'd imagined would happen when he reached under his shirt back then. Just kind of a flood of warm feelings and empathy.

"Neat power. Probably useful for finding victims in a dungeon, I imagine."