Uh huh.

Anyway, makeouts can ensue. It turns out that he is, in fact, pretty good with his tongue. Benefits of having a paralysis backlash.

Oh ok yeah wow he's, uh, distractingly good at that! Flywheel can be an active and appreciative recipient of his tongue. 

(She's a bit hesitant, at times, but she's definitely enjoying herself, and gets a bit more involved in the process as her backlash gets cleared.)

Excellent! Then hopefully they can get her to zero pretty soon.

(He's glad he can be the source of one positive experience for her. It does not seem like she's had many of those, recently, from her... everything.)

It's nice. Her brain tries to make withering commentary or remind her of Tia or just call her an idiot. She lets it wash over her. She knows - Tia's gone and it's her fault, she's making stupid choices because she's an idiot, she's broken and a burden and horribly selfish. Right now, she doesn't really care? She's making out with Min Woo-young (who is, in addition to being the most impactful esper of all time, a really good kisser...)

It only takes about 10 minutes of this to clear her backlash.

Oh huh he thought she had more backlash than that, nice.

He, uh, got more than 10 minutes of backlash from teleporting Tae-hwan just now. Lol.

(Flywheel hasn't yet gotten enough data points to pick up on the pattern where most of her compatibilities are asymmetric in her guiding favor. Given her mental state, this is probably for the best?)

She's (uncomplicatedly endorsedly) happy to keep making out until MWY is zero'd out. 

And now he is!

"Pleasure doing business with you."

Flywheel laughs, just a bit, and Woo-young can probably tell that it's actually genuine. "Likewise!" 

She looks around. "Ah, uh - where did you send him?" 

"A C-rank he was a maybe on going to in case you guys didn't turn out to combo well. He should be done in like ten to twenty maybe."

Oh, that makes sense. She nods.

...but, uh, now what. 

They could make out more? But - it's not strategically indicated and she doesn't want to assume it's more than business, for him (she could just ask she doesn't want to, apparently she could guess based on his body language she really doesn't want to, apparently?)

She could stand around awkwardly! That's always an option. (she could go looking for the moon, that's an option too she's not! doing that!)

She could talk to him. (Seems kinda mean it's not like there's anyone else for him to talk to! She can keep pretending to be a person for a bit longer, it's not going to kill either of them.)

"How long have the two of you been partnered?" (Don't think about Tia don't think about Tia don't think about Tia)

"About five and a half years, now? Fresh out of his awakening."

"Did you meet through Quasar?"  (She's pretty sure she remembers reading that most mixers in guild countries are hosted by guilds, but it's always possible something else happened...)

"Yeah. I was just out a partner who—was not thrilled when I came out as bi. And Tae-hwan had awakened like... two weeks earlier if I recall correctly? And had done a little bit of power testing but not a ton because his backlash really really sucks if it goes unguided and also his power was kinda complicated to use. But we turned out really really compatible and then Choi Seungjoo—that's another Quasar esper with a somewhat similar power, I mentioned him earlier—coached him in some unofficial power testing and we found out his power was actually great."

"...they dumped you as a partner because you came out as bi???" She knew that there's a fair bit of homophobia in Korean culture, but - among espers, it seems so - obviously dysfunctional - (...people do stupid dysfunctional things all the time! this shouldn't be surprising! She's just an idiot!)

"And yeah. Choi Seungjoo's power is very similar to mine; when we were figuring out how to use my power we looked into how he used his." (Tia's idea - she'd had Cara write to him to ask for more information and suggestions, which had been a good idea.)

"Yeah basically. And we weren't really all that compatible, not as much as I am with Tae-hwan, both in terms of backlash and on a personal level, so all in all it was a very good trade. So to speak. He's one of my three favourite people in the world."

Awwwww. (He so obviously means it, too. It's painful cute.)

"If you don't mind my asking, who are the other two?" (And if you do mind me asking, feel free to teleport me into the ocean or something, that'd be fine. is she listening to herself right now. who even thinks things like that. what's wrong with her. you know, besides the -)

"My twin sister Min Ha-young and my best friend Lee Tae-gun."

Oh, huh, he's a twin. Neat. (And they're still close, which is neat. She's mostly seen twins drift apart the way siblings often do, but... she thinks it's neat, when they don't.)

And wow she knew they were in the same guild, but she had no idea he was best friends with Korea's Skybreaker don't call him that! It's a rude way to talk about Lee Tae-gun, even if people online make the comparison all the time! (Asshole. Fuckhead. Shi - okay no she's tired of this one she's going to stop now.) 

(...it's frustrating to be meeting an esper she thought was so cool she wrote a term paper on the impacts of his power and to be this bad at talking to him. Why did it have to be today. would it really have been any better, two days ago? what the fuck is wrong with her. rhetorical, obviously, she knows what's wrong with her)

"Oh, gosh. Is h-" (hey idiot, the most well-known thing about LTG beyond the fact that he regularly solos A-tier dungeons is that he is very private (so private that nobody knows who he's been partnered with for the last five years, which is really unusual in Korean esper culture)! Maybe don't offend his best friend by being nosy at first mention of him!)

"-err, do the two of you work dungeons together sometimes?"

(Wow! Smooth! Nailed it! Good job! Definitely nobody will have noticed.)

"Sometimes! But honestly everyone in Korea does dungeons with him sometimes, he does like, three to six dungeons a day, six days a week, the madman."

Oh, she knew that at one point. (They looked at outliers in addition to averages, when Tia and her were deciding how often she should do dungeons a conversation it really might have been smart to revisit, once they both knew more about her backlash! But she kept putting off bringing it up, because she's a coward.)

"Man. That really is a lot of dungeons." (Wow! What incredible conversational skills! She's really acing this!!)