He waves a hand in circles next to his face, vaguely. "In a social sense, not physically. My personality is divisive. I cause very strong reactions in people, often, and those aren't always good reactions."

“Oh? You seem pleasant enough to me!”

Then again, he thought Sasha Nemtsov was ‘pleasant enough’ as well, and he was definitely, uh, controversial if left to his own devices for long enough. So maybe there’s something to that claim.

"I've been trying really hard to be pleasant enough, it doesn't come naturally."

“Well, you’re hardly the first person of my acquaintance to have that problem. As you are probably very aware by now.” This feels like an awkward direction for a conversation to be headed. Sensitive, maybe, if not quite offensive. He opts to veer back to safer territory.

“What do you do for fun when you aren’t escorting newbies around Seoul?”

"I escort non-newbies around Seoul," he laughs. "I'm—pretty eclectic, honestly? I like learning new skills, I like sports, I like going to bars and dancing. I suppose I'm more of a, go out and do things kind of guy than a stay in and read or watch Netflix kind of guy."

“I have never watched much Netflix, either.” This is because Netflix is still under embargo in the Federation after political fallout from the Slavic season of the popular Lonely Island: Real Silos of the World rather than any actual aversion. But still! Bonding!

"How about you, what is your idea of a fun time?"

“Mario Kart!” he blurts out. “Video games were kind of lifesavers when I had backlash onboard. Blinking lights are distracting and my hands aren’t as sensitive to my backlash.”

"Oh, you know, that makes sense. You must be very good at it."

Back in Russia, he routinely thrashed everyone else in the building whenever he could convince them to play. “Not in the slightest! I’m quite mediocre. I do enjoy it, though. Do you play any? Kart or otherwise? It seemed like Minseo-sunbae did.”

"Not very much. I think I'd be tempted to cheat with my power and that would not go great for anyone involved."

“How would that even work? Would the game crash or be destroyed by a segfault? Or would you make other people go limp for five minutes?”

"None of those are how my power works! My power is that I can do things. And if the thing I want to do is play Mario Kart well, I can be very good at Mario Kart."

“So it doesn’t allow you to like, say ‘I can get four super stars in a row’ or something? It has to be something you perform?”

"Yeah. I usually don't use it continuously, just intermittently. I've learned lots of weapons and martial arts by deciding I could do it for a second, doing a move, then trying to do it again without my power to figure out what I was doing wrong and how it felt different."

“That is really clever.” Really clever. He looks his dinner partner over with renewed interest. “But it doesn’t let you do something physically impossible? Or, uh, impossible within like a game or something?”

"It does let me do something impossible. I sometimes give myself superstrength, or speed, or like make myself jump really high into the air and stay there for longer than I ought to. But supernatural stuff is much more backlash-expensive, and I think if I wanted to temporarily be able to, I dunno, psychically alter the way a game functions, that might kill me on the spot."

“Oh. I guess it’s not as straightforward to estimate backlash for a power like yours. With mine, I can practically pinpoint an amount of backlash to generate within a few minutes.”

"Yeah, bit more complicated with me. Honestly I actually barely use mine while on the field, when I do a dungeon. It's only small bursts of it, a super punch here, tanking a swipe there. Most of the time I'm just a souped up non-esper."

“I suppose I would be, too, if I were ever brought into one. But as it stands, I’m generally kept back for after-action guiding.”

"Honestly, dungeons aren't even the most dangerous kinds of stuff I've had to deal with."

“Well, no, you were dealing with a backlashy Misha earlier today! But what else were you thinking of?”

"Esper criminals. Humans, in a word."

“Ah! So we were both thinking of Misha, after all.”

"He's hardly dangerous." Not contesting the 'criminal' part.