"Yeah. I'll do that."

Pet pet.

He leans into it and sighs.

"This has to have been really hard and I'm glad you told me even though it was hard to digest."

It was so hard.

"In the interest of transparency," because he cannot shut the fuck up, "I am not sure how long it'll take me to get over my—anxiety—so I'll probably feel the need to cling to you a lot and be half-convinced you're about to leave any minute now. And I realise this might come off as incredibly offputting and—make it more likely to happen—but."

"- okay. Enough that I should cancel some more dungeons?"

"I think this will last several days so you probably shouldn't change your schedule because of it."

"Okay. I cancelled my first one for the day already, though, is this a good time to go to Quasar and have an awkward meeting?"

God. "Does it have to be in-person." Hasn't his pride been hurt enough.

"No, I don't think that's necessary. I wish we had a specific point person to report to instead of nebulous scheduling teams and procurement teams etcetera..." He scrolls through contacts trying to figure out who to text.

Well there's this one esper who's been in Quasar almost since its inception...

You free? Kind of heavy complicated followup on the general topic of Jaeha's backlash hole which I mentioned before.

He does not reply immediately.

Figures. Is he in a dungeon or just AFK?

According to the scheduling app, dungeon as of an hour and a half ago.

He'll probably be out soon, but then he'll be with his partner most likely. "We can wait for Yoo-min who might not get back to us till this evening or I can go with a shotgun approach and we can talk to whatever Quasar rando is most promptly available, I guess."

"...let's wait until lunch at least?" He said "institutional help" but that's different than sharing it with a lot of random people...

"Sure, my late-morning dungeon should have me in a meeting-y mood anyway."

Haru is going to LEAVE HIM if he were going to he'd have done it already. Probably.

"Okay.

"What are you... feeling. Or thinking. Right now."

"I'm nervous. Seems easy to fuck things up from here. I'm worried about you, you look to be having a really wretched time, but simultaneously also kind of worried that you'll panic suddenly if I say the wrong thing and anyone we bring in to the situation is going to have a problem. Kinda wrung out in general, left over from last night's revelations. Mostly I'm trying to keep myself composed so I can be competent in my dungeons."

"I don't think the ways in which I'm—fragile—right now include being sensitive to specific things you could say. I—feel—uncertain, like I don't—this is the kind of situation I'd use my passive power for. I'm not tempted, but it's—I'd use it to know where I'm standing, with you, what you're not telling me because of thinking it might set me off, what you're trying to hide from me, so that I'd know what—possible futures—I could end up in, and prepare for them."

Pet pet. "I'm being, like, at all measured in the language I choose relative to what I might use alone with a notebook when referring to how alarming I find mind control, but mostly because, like, I don't want to be an asshole and it doesn't seem like it'd help anything to go on a rant about that, you seem to get it well enough to be going on with. I'm more worried that like - I don't think you're consciously angling to get me to make dramatic emotional declarations but my not doing that and the things I say instead might be upsetting or triggering? Or that I'll misunderstand something about you and say something dumb for that reason, like, I was treading carefully when I said you need a backup guiding method because I'm very used to platonic non-sex guiding and don't have a great model of what was going on with the monogamy feelings there."

"I think I'd—maybe I'm wrong and just not very creative, but I think I'd find it a lot more reassuring if you were filtering less because then I wouldn't fill in the blanks in the things you're not saying. As opposed to just the things you don't mean.

"I also want to do some of the emotional labour and help support you in what you might need here but I'm not sure if there's any amount of that you'd want from me. It just feels like I'm putting all of my emotions on you and if I want to—be in a relationship with you—which I do—then I have responsibilities towards you, too, and demonstrating any ability to fulfill them even in advance of that hypothetical relationship existing would make me a more suitable candidate for it."

Hug. "I'm not going to get started on a mind control rant right now because I need to be under control to be safe in dungeons but if you wanna get me going this evening I certainly have the material. Supporting me in this is going to almost entirely take the form of making sure it never happens again, though, that and to a lesser extent making it right for the people it's already happened to is what I'm focused on. You are very sweet and I appreciate that you want to take care of me but my own emotional state is and has always been the sort of thing I like to manage myself, when I'm in my right mind, so the emotional support work of being in a relationship with me is mostly going to be happening when I'm backlashed and comparatively little when I'm trying to make serious decisions."

Oh he's getting a hug now. Okay. He's feeling like crying again. "I can try to figure out how I'd 'make it right' for my father. I can also try to figure out what it would mean to make it right for everyone else but it would probably need to be something a bit diffuse and generic for humanity as a whole because I have not kept track of everyone I've talked to for the past eight years.

"And I do want to hear the rant, when you feel like giving it."