"Good God, you two, I'd tell you to get a room but you are already in a room."

"Anyway, is there anything else you feel like the guild could help you guys with? I just came up with those ideas on the fly but maybe you had something else in mind... Oh, and I assume I have your permission to share stuff to the extent it's necessary with the people you vet, once I've got those?"

"...yeah."

"Still substantially in the brainstorming stage over here too. I think we're stable, just not redundant enough for my tastes. Thank you so much for your help."

"Yeah, of course. And thank you for trusting me. I—wish I had someone specific I could point to and be like, hey, that person will definitely be able to get you the resources you need, but this problem is... kind of unique."

"Yeah. That it is."

"I believe in you guys. You'll get through it. If you think of anything else feel free to come bug me."

And he hangs up.

Jaeha lets out a breath he'd been half-holding throughout the conversation.

Haru kisses him.

Jaeha kisses him back.

(Look, this isn't the behaviour of someone who isn't romantically interested in him. He'd know, because his past partners weren't interested in him, and very much did not kiss him except when needing guiding. They didn't—hug him like this. Take care of him like this. Worry for him like this. He isn't sure what the difference between this and dating is, exactly, except for the—relative security. If they're not dating and Haru leaves, it's not breaking up. It's something less serious. And Jaeha doesn't like it. But Haru kisses him when he doesn't need any guiding at all, and seems to like spending time with him, and—might be settling for him instead of the man of his dreams, because Jaeha isn't the man of his dreams.)

(Jaeha doesn't like himself very much right now. And he definitely doesn't like being inside his skull either.)

(He wishes he could undo... so many things.)

"How're you holding up?"

"Kind of wishing I could skip to the part where I've figured out what I need to do" for you to like me "without having to suffer through the intermediate steps but, you know, could be worse," you could've already left.

"Yeah, I don't see a good way to speedrun the process or I'd be all over it."

"Do we have any concrete next steps at the scale of hours? ...more words, Jaeha. I still feel like if I do or say the wrong thing something is going to explode and I would like to feel less like that and I am trying to figure out what it would take for me to feel less like that."

"- yeah that doesn't seem like a constructive posture to be in. Uh scale of hours I'm on for two more dungeons and then if you still want my rant on mind control there's that. You could... backread the guild chat or hop on it to actually say things and see if you like anybody in there enough to want them in the, like, support-slash-monitoring network we're cobbling together? Make appointments with the guild therapist folks so you can see if you're comfortable with any of those?"

"Yeah. I'll do that." But those aren't really the things he's scared of—

...no. No, he needs to reframe it in his head, actually.

"I think I'm starting to understand why you use your notebooks."

"...you do?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure. My thoughts are doing something funny in my head."

"...well, I have blank ones, if you want to give it a whirl."

"I think if I do that I'll do it electronically. Besides, I—might want privacy, actually, so this would have to wait until I guided you enough for you to be alright with not being near me."

"Or do it while I'm dungeoneering, unless you think you won't want to drop it abruptly once I'm home - and even then I can keep with Cricket purring on me for a few minutes while you get to a good stopping place, if that's what you need."

"I don't know that I know the process well enough to spend the whole time you're in a dungeon doing it so I'll probably be done by when you come back. I just—want my thoughts to stop doing funny things when I'm not looking."

"Mood."

He squeezes Haru closer. "I'll figure it out. One way or another. I—I will become the man of your dreams. Just you wait. I'll make you proud."