"Why do I even talk to you."

"You love me."

Here's Yeo-ji. "Hey."

And Ji-pyeong. "Hello, ladies."

"It's 2036, you should really stop with that."

"—is anyone here, like, actually offended. I thought we were all secure in our masculinity."

I-jin hops on.

Followed by Dawoon.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever."

"Alright, so, spill. Is it dead? It's really dead? We all saw it on the news. Are you a bamf?"

"...well..."

"...is it not dead?"

"No, no, it's dead. Just, uh. I. Didn't help."

"Fuck you mean you didn't help?"

"I mean, I helped, like, yesterday. And the day before. But, uh, last night—this timezone, I mean—I, uh..."

"I'm sure someday you'll actually say words."

"...I kinda broke both my legs."

"You what."

"I'm fine now. I was actually fine by, like, midnight or whatever."

"Oh, I see, so it has nothing to do with how you didn't help at all."

"I helped with the worms! And I helped guide hyung when he went in to rescue everyone! I helped a lot!!!"

"TMI, Tae-hwan."

"Is it TMI that we fucked all morning like crazy—"

"Yes!"

He laughs.

"But it is dead. Like, maybe you didn't help kill it at the very end, but it's dead, and you helped a lot to contain the damage, right?"

"Well, yeah."

"What's the estimate on lives saved and property damage prevented?"

"Uh..."

Woo-young sticks his head into the video call. "Hundreds of people and at least tens of millions of dollars, respectively."

"Ack, hyung!"

"Holy shit, man."

"My best friend is a bamf. And he's covering BBQ for us when he's free."

"Yeah, yeah. Might need to wait until the end of the confluence. Hyung and I have another dungeon scheduled for later today already."

"Oh I actually got swapped to a different one."

"You did? Why?"

"Guess."

"Is it some non-Euclidean bullshit."

"It's some non-Euclidean bullshit. Escher-wannabe."

"You two had better sleep, then. How's your sleep schedules?"

"All fucked. We're, like, kinda synced to here now, but I'm still jetlagged as fuck. And we'll sync back to Korea next, there's no reason to stay here now that it's dead."

"I'm still salty about the dumb portals. 'You hard counter it', bullshit."

"Well, I've seen some talk that it's getting posthumously upgraded to S-rank. You would've countered it all the previous times it showed up."

"Hundreds of people and tens of millions of dollars," he repeats. "That's, like... tens of billions of won, holy shit."

"You're embarrassing me."

"What happened to the Tae-hwan who loves being a superhero?"

"It wasn't all me, anyway. There's this esper called 'Flywheel'—it means flywheel, she has a power that's like kind of like mine, kinetic and stuff, but it's different—she did more than half the work."

"Was she pretty?"

"One, she's an esper, two, she's got a ton of stuff to deal with."

"But you thought it."

"...she's compatible with hyung and not very incompatible with me. They made out. I, uh..."

"Oh my God."

"We're not touching that right now."

"Yeah, she, uh, just lost her partner. I don't think it's the time to, uh. Think about any of that."

"Oh. I'm so sorry."

"But I promised to keep in touch and to introduce her to proper tteokbokki. She speaks a little bit of Korean but apparently never had any tteokbokki and didn't even know what it was."

"I think that's, like, actually a crime?"

"That's what I said."

"You can introduce her to us then. Unless she's like super introverted I guess."

"Oh not at all, I think she'd like that. She really looked like she could use some friends."

"But, uh, bring your girlfriends, let's have at least some variety in this sausagefest."

What an extremely poor choice of words that Woo-young will not comment on!

"Not all of us have girlfriends!"

"You still dating that guy? What's his face, something Tae-seo?"

"Oh, nah, we broke up. I'm single and free, baybeh~"

"I think Yoonhee would like to meet her."

"You don't know anything about this girl, you just want more excuses to bring your girlfriend places."

"Don't be hard on him, they're in the honeymoon phase."

"I'm not, it's adorable. And sure, I'll bring Ji-hye, too."

"Damn, big tteokbokki party?"

"Big end-of-confluence party. Because, like I said, we're so fucking busy."

"Maybe Jin will have a new boytoy by then."

"Excuse you, I am always very serious about my relationships!"

"You're as serious about your relationships as Tae-hwan and hyung are about the girls they meet at bars."

"Just because it's short-lived doesn't mean it's not meaningful~"

"You're all clowns."

"But we're your clowns."

"I am not Tae-hwan's clown."

"Honk honk."

These guys are all so funny. Woo-young is glad Tae-hwan managed to keep them all these years. They always make him smile, and that makes Woo-young really happy.