She thinks about a young Traceless (only he wasn't Traceless back then, yet. Who was he? (She doesn't get to know. She's not safe to tell!)) staring in awe at a floating pencil. He must have been such an interesting kid. She wonders if it was basically ok for him. (She'd guess yes, by the vibes, but she doesn't have a lot of clues so it's not a confident one.)

She thinks about herself, age 11, already dreading puberty and knowing that trying talking to her parents about it again wouldn't help. 

She thinks about - no she doesn't!!! 

"And now here you are, capable of levitating just like the pencil," she says, smiling. "Maybe that's how it works." (Her tone makes it very clear that she's joking.)

She feels sick. She feels like she's controlling her body at a distance. She feels like a fraud.

But none of that really matters. Obviously she's going to be miserable anyways. She might as well build rapport while she's doing it. Successful espers spend their time efficiently, after all.

"Would that it were so, controllable power manifestation would be a bigger breakthrough than nearly anything."

"Maybe it's only a small influence and most people don't remember the inciting event so it's gone undiscovered! Clearly we should speculatively be funding a program where every elementary school in Seoul sends kids to go hang out with Min Woo-young at work for a day." 

She wants to throw up. She's not going to, she's not a kid and she's not sick, but she wants to. She's horrible.

"Well, that wouldn't replicate whatever got him his power... uh this might be a backlash symptom but did something I said bother you?"

"N-" it's rude to lie "-not in a way where you did anything wrong."

She sighs and drops her cheery mask like a stone into water. "...lots of things are going to make me think about - my recent unpleasantries, sometimes via circuitous and unpredictable routes. I couldn't list all the things that will make me randomly flinch even if I tried, and I wouldn't want people to be avoiding them even if I could?"

It probably wouldn't be reassuring to add you have no idea how many of these you've missed and she's definitely not going to say it's viscerally embarrassing to me when I don't successfully conceal my problems because it'd be even more embarrassing to say that, but she can't really help but think it at least he can't read her mind.

"That makes sense but inveighs in favor of phone based socialization pica when I'm at high levels at least unless we're going straight to sleep."

Blegh. "Is that still true if chatting is useful for me and I endorse doing it in spite of it being sometimes unpleasant?" Does it help if I try and hide it better If it does asking that is anti-productive! He can weigh in on it if he notices it happening or concludes it might be and has opinions.

"That would help if I were, like, sane, but at high levels I'm really not and would rather not supplement having to actually be careful that I'm not abusing you with the delusion that I'm doing so by chatting."

?Abusing her?

Cara nods. "Alright. Uh - do you need me to be tracking the point at which it's fine to talk to me, or..." 

"No, I can track my own levels, just a heads up. Psych backlashes, ugh."

She nods. "That's fine with me, then."

And, ugh. "...I don't think you need to worry too much about abusing me on accident, though. I'm - well, having a bad week, obviously, but - I'll be fine." (She does earnestly believe that, apparently despite the claim having no clear basis in reality. Perhaps she is some kind of idiot?)

"...I know this is a bad week but that is not too closely related to why that might be a risk. Especially if you twig to, like, expressions of concern and not just commands."

"Lots of expressions of concern are fine, there's just - edge cases." She shrugs, and spends a lot of effort keeping her body nice and untense. "But I basically always can just - tell you when I'm zero'd or low if something wasn't great, and we can figure it out from there? It's okay to make mistakes."

"I expect to be able to relax some when we're more used to each other?" he offers. "But I think it's best practice to do that from a place with lots of safety margin."

"Alright." She doesn't want to be a burden but she's pretty sure if she just says that he'll give her one of those Looks. "Thanks."

She leans into him, and tries not to let her mind wander back to browner pastures.

"You’re welcome. Almost done, igloo dungeon wasn’t backlash intensive as they go."

"Got it." She's getting a feel for his backlash levels, though it's taking some time - she's used to guiding exactly one person.

...she stifles a sob, and gets a bit clingier. "don't love being like this," she whispers, since she's getting a better handle on how much she can leak before he notices and that was definitely too much.

Hug. "Doesn’t look fun at all."

"It. Sucks. Sometimes it feels like - literally anything can make me think of her and all the stupid mistakes I made, and it's - really distracting -"   

"I’m not sure what to suggest."

She hiccups. "Sorry, you don't have to suggest anything, I'm just - complaining about it instead of bottling it up." 

Because it's better to be a nuisance out in the open rather than hide it and fail sometimes, maybe or maybe grief just hasn't made her any less of an attention whore! that seems pretty likely!

"Yeah, I would probably not even say 'I don't know what to suggest' if I were presently capable of shutting up."

"Right, yeah." (hey idiot give him something to work with) "...is it better for you if I - explain, like that, instead of just flinching quietly and leaving you to worry if you said something wrong?" 

(which isn't the only reason she's doing it. She's not - okay, well, she is stupid, obviously, but she's not so stupid she can't notice that she probably does need to talk to someone about this besides her inner whiny bitch critic. And he has more context than... almost everyone.)