"Huh, what'd you do instead?"

"Showed up to dungeons in a cheap Otto and a swimsuit I already had, that sort of thing."

"Fair enough."

She doesn't have literally zero money, even if Mom still has control over her bank account.

"How'd they pay you?  I'm guessing you can't just walk up to a portal and do a run and walk away with a wad of cash..."

And she'd need a guiding partner too.  Or - 

" - actually, also.  What exactly is a professional partner.  How's that work."

"My agent handles getting payment from the people calling me in and passing it along to me. If you're having bank trouble, you can probably find an agent who'll deal in cash with you while you get that sorted out - I wouldn't know who to ask, though, my agency's Canadian."

How to explain professional partners...

"My partner would probably be a professional partner if she didn't like gardening. They're usually people who aren't doing dungeon work either because they don't want to or their power isn't suited to it, and aren't making money through power use otherwise like Mandragora with her gardening or Vera Ablinger with her teleportation network, so they get paid to guide espers who are making money with their powers directly. I think you usually look for them through your agent, but there might be some who come to esper mixers, too."

"Uh-huh," she says.  She turns over her next question in her head a couple times.

"...can you do guiding in a way where it's, like... like, I don't know, goin' to the dentist or something.  The vibe I get so far is that like guiding is - not technically sex, but, like, you sorta wind up having that kind of relationship with people you guide with anyway."

She doesn't actually know if she feels like dentist-guiding would be better or worse than romantically-laden guiding.  The thing with Kuroko might not've been so bad if she'd been single and gay and local.  But - it could maybe feel less gross to try if the option exists even in theory.

"...well, I'm not sure about the dentist, exactly, but... you definitely don't have to have that kind of relationship with people you guide with. You can have - the kind of friendship where you hug a lot, instead. Or something else. I don't have a lot of experience with the different ways it can go, because I did start dating my partner after a while, but we spent a few months trying out being hugging friends first and I think it would have been fine if we'd kept on like that. And there might be people out there who do a more dentist-like thing, too. To me that feels more awkward but I can see how for some people it could be less."

"I think it just feels gross to - need to have a girlfriend for my job.  Or even a huggy friend.  It'd - maybe be okay once I met someone, but feelin' like I gotta meet someone feels - I don't know."  She shakes her head.

"...yeah. That makes sense. I - felt a little that way too, at first. I'm more okay about it now but it's hard to explain - I guess it's something like - I'm guiding you right now, even though I don't know you that well, and it's not because I want to date you, it's just... because I want to help? And that works okay for me."

"Thanks," she says, feeling warm.  "It helps a little.  And it's not so bad when I'm actually doing it.  Just... having it hanging over my head that I gotta get into a relationship like that.  It feels gross to ask and it feels gross to have it as somethin' on my to do list.  Does that make any sense or do I sound crazy."

"No, it makes perfect sense. I think - getting used to it helped, for me. Shaking hands at esper mixers, and holding hands for a bit with compatible people, and just... letting it get less weird with practice."

"Yeah," she says.  "Thanks."  She relaxes a little, as much as one can while carrying another person on their back.

"...think you can recommend me an agent?" she says, sounding sort of half-joking.  "Maybe not permanently, but at least for catching a few Menagerie critters or whatever I do before I get out of here."

"I can ask if my agency wants to work with a new American esper for a bit. It wouldn't be usual, but I think esper agencies end up doing a lot of unusual things."

Nod.  "What - "

 - she sounds kind of preemptively exhausted.

" - what are they gonna wanna know?  Or need from me or whatever."

"Mine wanted my name, but I think there's procedures for if you want them to help you through getting a codename without ever finding out what your real name is, if you want that. It's probably complicated and annoying to do it that way, though, because one of the things they want is to see your ID, so you'd have to first get their help getting an esper ID and having it successfully delivered to this hotel... there was a big form, but it wasn't so bad because they had someone to help me go through it and tell me which sections I could skip, and it turns out you can skip a lot of sections. Showing them your ID and being verified as an esper - I can do that part - and agreeing to pay the agent to do agent things for you is really most of it."

She nods.  Okay.  She can do that, maybe.  She might do it after she has her first Menagerie critter but she can do it.

"Any tips on how to tell an agent's gonna be cool with the thing where I ran away today?"

"Hard to say. My agent didn't act like there was anything strange about me leaving Aunt Gail's house, but I don't know if that's because it's generally normal for teenage espers to do that kind of thing or if there was some other reason. And I didn't have any siblings tagging along, that might affect things too."

Hmm.  "How much trouble do you think I'm in if I say too much to somebody who isn't?  Some agent."

"I think it would be pretty hard for you to get in a lot of trouble, but if the wrong person heard that your brother left home with you they might want him to go back. I don't think that's likely, but it's hard to say how unlikely it is exactly, and in your position I wouldn't want to take chances on it... I can ask my partner. She's good at - seeing things differently from me in useful ways."

"...yeah," she says, "if they can do anything about wantin' him to go back, that counts as a lot of trouble, cuz I'm not givin' him back."

"Fair enough. I'll see what Mandragora thinks; she might have a clever idea for how to make sure you end up with someone who understands the situation."

"Thanks for being so cool about all this."

"I think, generally speaking, when someone wants to part ways with their family, they usually have a good reason."

She doesn't say anything, but in a good way.

"Um, Parry,"

says a child's voice, as he enters the gym,

and then stops, and blinks at Parry and Watershed.