It's because he likes Haru so much.

And then Haru has to bounce off to do his last dungeon of the day before dinnertime.

He doesn't write much more during that time. Instead he messages some people from Quasar's directory of counsellors to set up a first meeting and then does what Haru suggested and starts reading the backscroll of Quasar's group chat, which leads him to notice and accept an invitation to the QQ group chat and read that backscroll.

He starts forming opinions about these people. He's starting to feel kin with Cricket, which can't be a good sign, so he'll need to review those opinions later with a kinder mindset, but it's a place to start.

The last dungeon of the day goes on for a while - it's been around the block a couple times - but it doesn't strain Haru's powers very hard, having a few very tough monsters rather than lots of them. He comes home for dinner. "Tadaima!"

"Okaeri!" He's almost done with dinner, which tonight is spicy tteokbokki with a cheese filling and fish sauce.

"Smells delicious. I will have to take on some cooking duties once I'm not sprinting any more, see how you like what I know how to make." He wants to be touching but he is not so backlashed that he can't allow Jaeha freedom of movement to complete the last steps of the meal.

"I look forward to it. And semi-relatedly, I realised we've been living together for almost a month now and I haven't shown you anything in Seoul, so I am of a mind to take you out on some dates soon."

"Ooh, do you have an itinerary or just a yen?"

"I have ideas of places to visit and things to do but not so much an order of operations or a set of dates in mind."

"What are your ideas?"

"If we start with a walk along the Han river," he says, nodding in the direction of the window that has a view to it, "I could show you some places and see which ones caught your fancy. There's the Yeuido Hangang Park and the National Museum, the National Cemetery is really pretty if you don't feel creeped out by the nearby graves, the Banpo Bridge Moonlight Rainbow Fountain will start having light shows soon, and there are lots of restaurants I know near all of these places. If we're lucky and the cherry blossoms start flowering soon we could also go watch them, I'd love to do that with you... There are other places in Seoul I could show you but I feel like this would be a nice start."

"That sounds lovely. I am not particularly creeped out by graves, graves had their chance to be creepy when we were assigned our ration of supernatural bullshit and they didn't participate at all."

"Well, they do participate occasionally in dungeons, but that's not really the same thing at all."

"Those aren't graves, those are dungeon monsters in cosplay!"

He laughs. "You're really cute."

"No you. You're going to take all the steam out of my rant. Are you sure you want the rant and not to just be cute at each other."

"...I know you too well to think that the alternative would be you doing anything like 'bottling it up' but I feel like there might be some—catharsis—in it? But maybe I'm wrong about what you... mean by it."

"I think the upside potential is something along the lines of - you really could not have picked a more horrifying thing to be going around doing, for me personally, and maybe it is valuable to have that fully communicated both for squishy mutual understanding reasons and also for Project Cut It Out Forever? And also I thought of a very mildly amusing analogy, but it's really not one of my best. It is totally fine if you don't wanna hear it in any more detail than 'that was horrifying, cut it out forever'."

"I... am of two minds, here..."

"On the one hand this could be inviting—stress and emotional harm—that might not accomplish anything, especially given the—distance I want to put between me and those choices. In the sense of—I haven't done it in weeks and there's a chance there's some fragility in my sense of accomplishment which could be disrupted by feeling like, if that clean break wasn't enough, nothing will ever be."

"And on the other, I—want to know you better than anyone else. I want to know you best. So if there's anything you could say that I couldn't predict in—sufficient detail—that means there are things there about you that I don't know. And you don't—owe me, knowing every detail of your life, just because I want to. But I want to.

"Plus, there's a part of me that I haven't entirely, ah, 'notebooked' away, that is still waiting for the other shoe to drop because of how calm and collected you've been about the whole thing so far. That part of me is sure that you're going to be holding something over me, until it can see that something exist and go away. It's the same part of me that wanted you to be completely unfiltered with me earlier, that wants to know—everything, the good and the bad and the ugly, to know what works and what's broken, so that it knows where to step confidently and where to tread carefully."

"Wow, good job Kang Jaeha those were lots of words that communicated things rather than sitting on your feelings, right there, get a cookie." He pats his own head.

"...wow, you're doing amazing, I have never seen my notebook thing work for anybody else." Haru also pats him on the head. "Would it split the difference usefully if I complained about, like, mind control science fiction plots? So that you hear more about my feelings on the topic without it being about you."

"Hmm, it'd—plausibly? I... Give me a moment." He closes his eyes, but it turns out to be just a moment, because this was one of the things that was looming largest on his mind when he decided to start writing down everything he'd been feeling and it's fresh and ready to be put to more words. "The thing about—wanting the other shoe to drop—I know I said I haven't gotten rid of it yet but I don't actually know that I can get rid of it at all, is the thing? Or—probably I'll be able to, eventually, but—given how much it seems like that desire has driven such a big part of why I've used my powers in the past, leaving it to simmer afraid in the background could be—bad—but then again it could be good to just stop feeding it altogether.

"I think if—you did the thing about the plots, but then also told me more about—hmm. I don't know. I don't know what would be sufficient, for that part of me to truly believe that it's safe."

"We can start with that, and see what still feels missing, if anything? I digest most of my science fiction these days in the form of telling Cricket what shows have been recommended to me and having him summarize, but probably if it's going to feel very vulnerable you wouldn't want him in the room, I can dig up a short story or something that I'll have time to read or that you could read to me."