Haru giggles.

"So do you have preferences for what we ought to do for our first date? ...does that time in Japan count as the first, actually?"

"We could choose to tell the story that way but we could have a cooler first date than that if we don't."

"Oof, lot of pressure there."

"I don't think it's hard to improve on desserts you were unable to enjoy at a cafe chosen because it was near our dungeon!"

"Yeah, but now I want to make it really memorable!"

"I bet you can accomplish this."

"I bet I can, too. You know, the gay teenage romantic I never was but who still lives in me kind of wants to make a little bit of a production of it. Show up at your door maybe a little bit overdressed and nervous about it, give you a ride in my car, hold your hands in public while showing you beautiful places in Seoul, get a restaurant reservation for us somewhere fancy... Is it a good use of esper money, getting a last-minute reservation somewhere nice?"

"You should know that I'm not actually a foodie, I might not adequately appreciate somewhere really upscale. I eat microwave ramen and Kraft Dinner and I like it. Also my door is your door, but on this indulgence is free."

"From the perspective of someone whose taste buds have been all but dead for nearly the entirety of the past decade, the appeal is in the narrative and aesthetics, not really so much the taste."

"We could have a picnic, picnics are narrative."

"I like that, we can do a picnic. It would've been really romantic if we could do our first date under cherry blossoms but I'm not willing to wait until April and besides in practice all parks in Seoul are going to be too busy to be properly romantic until at least May."

"Cherry blossoms are nice but I don't even spell my name 'spring'. A picnic this not-technically-the-weekend sounds good to me."

"Perfect."

...he's feeling insecure about something. It's about... having his ideas shot down even though they sounded SO ROMANTIC to him in his head. Perhaps he should tell Haru about it.

...

He doesn't want to. And he's too tired to figure it out, and it's not really that big a deal anyway, and actually starting a conversation about it this late at night is very unlikely to be a good idea. He can try to think about it more tomorrow. Maybe he'll "notebook" about it. Actually he'll write down that he wants to "notebook" about it, so that he'll remember to do it later.

It's quite late and they should go to bed. Even though Haru gets to sleep in because no dungeons.

And Jaeha gets to sleep with him in full certainty that Haru LIKES HIM because he SAID SO and he doesn't say things he doesn't mean and it seems wild to him that just a few days ago he was confessing being the most wretched of sinners and fully expecting Haru to run away screaming and instead they are sleeping together and they are BOYFRIENDS—

...hm.

"This may be a silly question but are we boyfriends now?"

"- I almost said 'if you want' and then I realized that was a stupid answer. Yes."

They are BOYFRIENDS now and he's really quite thoroughly exhausted so he's only going to kiss Haru about it a little bit and hug him a little bit more but the hugging is compatible with falling asleep so it's fine.

Jaeha has the best night's sleep he can remember having ever. Not only is he at zero backlash, but he has a BOYFRIEND and it's HARU. It takes him a little bit to actually fall asleep due to how giddy he is, and he wakes up twice in the middle of the night for no reason at all and is reminded of how CUTE it is that Haru talks in his sleep, which causes him to fall back asleep shortly after, soothed by the random nouns. He gets to wake up feeling well-rested and comfortable to the sight of HIS HARU and he's not sure his life could get any more perfect.

He does still want to write a bit about his thoughts, but he's not sure how he'll get the requisite privacy with Haru RIGHT HERE, he doesn't want to let go. A conundrum.

Haru decides it's his turn to cook and he's zero backlashed so he doesn't want help. Jaeha has till pancakes are up to notebook.

But he wanted to keep snuggling this is probably good.

Right. Okay. So what things did he want to think about?

One of them was how he felt last night when they were talking about date ideas, which feels... scary... to think about, for some reason. He jots that down word-for-word, including the ellipses. He's also got to think about what to do about his father, and he had a related thought involving charitable giving. That one is really easy to think about, though, so he writes some things down and then moves on to the date thing.

Why is it scary to think about that? What feels scary about it? If he tries to force himself to think about it despite it being scary, the way his brain keeps sliding off it is "well of course we shouldn't do anything that Haru doesn't want to" and "of course the things Haru likes out of dates aren't going to be just the standard romantic tropes" and so on, which... hmm. Points at something. Especially given that, you know, it's not that picnics aren't a standard romantic trope? So that last sentence in particular is hiding something. What's it hiding?

It's that... Haru is special, and romancing Haru is not like romancing other boys, and part of that is that Haru is the kind of person who knows what he wants and goes to get it even if it's strange or unusual or nonstandard. But why did that feel relevant? What if it weren't the case that Haru was special, what if Haru did want the standard romantic tropes? Well, then he'd have accepted Jaeha's ideas, which means that if he did like them but also didn't accept them that would've meant he didn't want to do those things with Jaeha specifically. So using that particular excuse is a way for Jaeha to protect himself, his own pride. If the reason why Haru doesn't want to do these things is because he's special and needs to be romanced in a customised way, then it doesn't say anything negative about Jaeha and about their relationship. It is true that Haru needs to be romanced in a special way, of course, but the fact that it's true is what was giving that particular thought the necessary oomph to support itself as a face-saving measure.

So, Jaeha's scared that if Haru doesn't want to do those date things with him, this means that Haru doesn't actually like him. That's patently stupid.