"It's also less comprehensive, I do need to know that there's someone there to be able to do it. I've used my power for stealh in dungeons in the past, though."

"And with dungeons, who we have as yet no way to communicate with to make peace an option, that's fine, as long as it's not a prompt to - spread it around more, but...

"I can be around you to maybe be able to catch you a lot of the time, but not all of it forever, life's chaotic, shit happens, our occupation is not especially low-risk, and... it's not that I'm not terrifically flattered to have played a pivotal role here, the same part of me that thinks it's romantic you wanted a list also thinks it's romantic that you're having ethical revelations precipitated by being in love with me,"

Jaeha flinches, but it's not like he didn't know... or didn't know that Haru knew. He'd just... not said it. Because it's pathetic.

But it was already pathetic even before he called it 'love', so, it's not like it changes much.

Handsqueeze. "- but if we're being romantic and not just assigning me a watchdog role with a deadman switch that outs you to an intractable number of people if I introduce myself to a monster one day, we need to figure out how you can be much, much more robustly trustworthy than that. It's romantic if I got you started but not if I'm the only thing keeping you safe."

"Yeah. That's why I think going public would help. Get our guild's help. I—think—I know we haven't been in Quasar for even a month yet, but from what I've seen of it, I would trust their ability to help with this kind of thing a lot more than I would have Juno's. So that's a—possible first step.

"The thing is—what I said yesterday. I don't know what the actual triggers are for me to fuck up again, because the only time I went from not backlashed to that—level of callousness—was right after I manifested, which I think is a set of conditions that's really hard to generalise from. It might turn out fine. It might not. From my current perspective it would be horrifying to slide back into it. Maybe the ethical opinions I've acquired in the past eight years—at least the ones that had been there in potentia before they became actual—will be enough.

"I also—what I'm about to say is really suspect for the obvious reasons, but—I worry that we might be trying to come up with the perfect solution to a problem we don't know the parameters of yet and can't know the parameters of until we see the problem happen in the wild, and so we won't guess what the right solutions could even be."

"Would you be able to take note of any time it's - on your mind, so we can look for patterns? While doing a very very gentle schedule of dungeons and hitting zero promptly after every time. On the supposition that it occurring to you is the lesser form of being tempted is the lesser form of actually slipping."

"I think so. I—it occurred to me a lot, with you. I wanted to know what you were feeling a lot. I wanted to know if you liked me, if you thought I was cool, if you thought I was stupid, if I was reading too much into things or if I was right that you were just being kind and would fuck off as soon as I got fully guided because you'd realised how boring I am. I wanted to make myself seem cool to you, I wanted to seem confident and impressive and well-put-together. I cursed your power in my head for not letting me do that.

"I... think... I wouldn't have actually done it. In retrospect. Which is suspect again, but... it feels like if I had had the power, back then, I would have realised that I—didn't want it enough to actually follow through.

"But I'm not sure."

...nod. "Well, I'm certainly the safest person to be tempted about.

"Another reason to not run your entire morality on being attached to me is that - however romantic we're being, you have known me for like a month and I am responsible for just about all the pleasant experiences you've had in the last eight years, if I understand correctly, and that might produce some very intense and potentially temporary psychological results. You still haven't hit zero, even if you had the timeline is objectively very quick..."

"I—guiding always felt good. Even at my lowest. So not all of my pleasant experiences. But all of the pleasant experiences other than those, yes.

"I understand what you mean. But I want to—I mean, I don't want to run my morality on being attached to you. But I want to like you. I want to be a person who—" Fuck. "Who's in love with you. And I want to be a person you'll be in love with. And that—doesn't stop if we break up? Uh. Break it off. I—guess the part where I want to be someone who's in love with you might," lol lmao, "but the part where I want to be that person—won't. Because that person is someone who wants to be themself.

"I really, really didn't want to be myself, even at my worst. I want to be him instead."

"...but that's not to say that you're wrong. And that was not what I was getting at when I said the thing about—wanting to use my power on you. I just meant that I think I can notice wanting to, because I did. Because I have been."

Haru nods. "...is there an element of - substituting feeling other people's emotions for your own missing ones, or is it mostly about being oriented and informed?"

"It's almost exclusively about the latter. About—feeling safe, feeling like the Malaysians aren't a threat, feeling like the waitress isn't going to spit in our drinks, like people aren't going to think I'm terrible and spread rumours about me and leave me alone. Like you're not going to leave me as soon as you ethically can."

Handsqueeze. "I'm probably going to stay. We just need - a plan."

"I'll tell Quasar about it, and I'll register every time I feel tempted, and I'll review that when I'm back home to make sure I didn't skip anything, and if I do slip we'll see what went wrong and have a better idea of further solutions. What—parts of the problem—does that fail to address, at least until we know more? —that's a genuine question, I'm not trying to—say that it's definitely enough and we should stop thinking right now."

"Well, I guess it feels like I'm being a dick keeping you in an emotional holding pattern but maybe that's just not solvable today. It also doesn't cover the restitution angle at all, but I could see myself settling for you just disowning your father and no longer taking his money. Who in Quasar are you most comfortable talking to?"

"I... don't know. I wasn't thinking of having any individual person do it, I was more imagining getting—institutional help. Whatever they can offer. As for my father, I—don't know how I would—do restitution, I still—hate him. No longer taking his money is fine, not having anything to do with him is fine—though I think he was bluffing when he said he'd disown me. As far as I know his wife hasn't yet agreed to give him another child to inherit this business and if he doesn't get someone then he'd need to pass it all down to my dongsaeng, whom I've never met and I'm not sure my father has either. It would feel to him like giving his wealth to his wife's family, I think.

"I don't know what he'd do if I tried that anyway."

"...is there any reason to care about the fate of his corporation or whether he likes the number and dispositions of children his choices have left him with, I am not immediately seeing a reason to care about that. I don't have to wish him particularly well to want to not profit off his mind control."

"No. That's why the thing I said I'm not sure how to do is just the restitution, not having anything more to do with him is fine."

"Right. That can go on the backburner." Sigh. Handsqueeze.

Handsqueeze. Haru is squeezing his hand. Haru isn't leaving. He still might, but... not right now.

He feels like crying.

"...I'm trying to think of a better question than 'are you okay', but don't immediately have one -"

He laughs weakly. "I am—better than I was yesterday after we got home."

"...okay.

"...if we discover that being backlashed is a big risk factor, or actually even just until we discover that it isn't, you need a backup guiding plan. I have no intention of dying on you but if I do anyway, or if I run to Japan to bail Yamanaka out of a pickle after she unplannedly rescues thirty orphans from a burning building or something and I'm not on hand, or something. If Tae-gun can guide you from meters away this does not have to involve anything conventionally impinged on by monogamy but you certainly seem to have monogamy feelings about it anyway?"

He shuts his eyes. "It feels—wrong—for someone other than you to guide me. But—I could probably get over it. If I tried. It might be because of how strong my mental associations are between guiding and sex, from how that was the only reasonable option for me with my prior partners. It feels a bit like—having someone else give me an orgasm. Maybe."

"Okay, if Yamanaka rescues thirty orphans from a burning building I can ask Woo-young to haul her here, but - probably work on that in the background and be ready to do it fast if something bad happens."