"I can't imagine it's come up before, no worries." In go sandwiches and little lunchbox-cakes and bottled water.

It hasn't, because Jaeha is twenty-five and Haru is still his first boyfriend so he has zero experience and is winging it. That's fine, though. It's okay. So long as Haru likes him.

Off they can stroll with their picnic "basket". Holding hands, even though neither of them needs any guiding at the moment.

Eeeeeee.

Jaeha has lived in Seoul all his life and has learned a thing or two about it. As an illusion specialist, he has also learned a thing or two about what things are or are not pretty, and why, so he can point those out on their nice afternoon walk holding hands going to a park to have a picnic together because they are BOYFRIENDS.

Haru's narration is not sure what Jaeha's particular brand of illusions has to contribute to a study of what things are and are not pretty, but Haru will admire things accordingly!

Sometimes he likes crafting illusions that are in fact pretty rather than just insert the emotion of perceiving something pretty directly into people's brains, is what!

Anyway, the Han river is pretty and since it's getting to be sunset they might see some pretty water and light shows from the Rainbow Fountain, which the park Jaeha picked has a view to. He's not totally sure if those are already on, he forgot to check, but now would be the time of year for them.

"I know what a light show is but what's a water show in this context?"

"Different coloured lights are pointed at different fountain jets, and they move in sync with each other and the lights to catch them and refract them."

"Nifty, I hope there is one."

"Mmhmmm." It would be SO ROMANTIC even if Haru doesn't think so. It can be romantic if one of them thinks it's romantic and the other thinks it's nifty, right? Right. That's how this works.

Anyway, they can find somewhere to sit and eat and be really quite gay in public in Seoul which he hadn't really ever quite done before and now he will do it a lot.

Hopefully nobody will decide to intrude on their gay picnic. Not even if Haru decides impulsively to feed Jaeha a piece of cake.

If someone does decide to intrude on their gay picnic Jaeha is going to unfortunately have to throw them into the river because anyone who will interrupt HIS HARU FEEDING HIM CAKE should be eaten by fish.

Then it's a good thing that doesn't happen because someone falling in the river would be very distracting indeed.

Jaeha doesn't succeed at broaching the terrifying horrible mortifying subject—mostly because it doesn't even occur to him to try, it being terrifying and horrible and mortifying to think about—and it is still too early in the year for the Rainbow Fountain shows to happen, but it is nevertheless a really nice date with his extremely cute boyfriend and he even manages to get over himself and not obsess over the fact that there absolutely totally are people thinking homophobic thoughts in their direction for a good fraction of the time! A success, in his opinion.

And then they can go home for the evening. And probably have sex. Because of the narrative powers of picnics.

Jaeha was not aware of the narrative powers of picnics pertaining to sex but is he ever going to refuse Haru anything? That's right, he is not.

Jaeha doesn't figure out a way to do the terrifying, mortifying, horrible thing over the next day. He also doesn't think about his mother, because that sounds like a can of worms. He also doesn't want to think about Lee Tae-gun, not for now, not until he does his first dungeon.

...

He's just been doing a lot of introspection and thinking about hard things lately and it's made his brain kind of fried and he has no idea how Haru does it every day except that it's obviously because Haru is perfect in every way. Jaeha, however, is not, and needs breaks from trying to get his brain to do difficult and unpleasant things. Which means he isn't the man of Haru's dreams, either, because the man of Haru's dreams wouldn't just run away from his problems like Jaeha does, but he thinks he's probably on a good trajectory? He might eventually become the man of Haru's dreams, someday? But not if he burns himself out completely on the concept of having thoughts, which he was risking, there, for a bit.

Gahh. It's fine. They have a dungeon to do together.

App working? Gear all checks out? Is Haru scouting or do they know what this one looks like?

Yes, yes, and it's already been mapped; they get briefed when they arrive.

The terrain is really annoying, interconnected vines and enormous trees with linked roots, tripping hazards everywhere. The plants move around a bit, too, usually not so much that paths become impassable but the "usually" is an important caveat.

There isn't a passive psychic effect, though; instead, there are bark-skinned dryad monsters that attempt to wrap you in tentacle-like vines, who then proceed to make you fall asleep and feast on your dreams, turning them into nightmares. Just physically removing the victim from the dryad isn't enough, though, as the dryad also has psychic vines wrapped around the victim's mind which need to be individually released, lest they damage a victim's mind. 

Or, well, that's the case at least if you aren't Kang Jaeha.

He is Kang Jaeha, thankfully, so hopefully it'll be easier with him there.

"Ready?" Jaeha asks... himself, really. Of course Haru's ready. But he still needs to ask.

"Sure thing." In they go.

The dungeon is open air, and it's permanently night, the moonless sky carpeted with stars hidden by the occasional wispy cloud. They can't see the ground at all, all covered in bark and vines pulsating and rubbing wetly against each other. Fireflies as big as a fist and dragonflies as long as a person is tall circle the treetops, and the air is filled with the buzzing of unseen cicadas. The internal support team's set up around the portal and an esper with defensive powers is posted with them in case any of the monsters decide to come harass them, though it hasn't happened yet.

The monsters can't see Haru. He's sticking quite close to Jaeha in case he needs to grab him in flight, and when he brushes close enough, Jaeha can feel the little licks of backlash come into existence as firefly vision passes through Haru like he's not there.

Haru has a headlamp and another light he mounts on his shoulder, the one he doesn't brace weapons against. "How aggressive are the bugs?" he asks their defense escort. "Are there harvest priorities in here yet or are we still on some-of-anything-as-convenient?"

"The bugs seem to be strictly cosmetic. They haven't done anything yet, anyway. And we're on some-of-anything-as-convenient but mostly because nothing has seemed to be particularly useful yet."