"Your kink is not my kink but your kink is okay."

"Busted."

This doesn't feel any worse than being near Lee Tae-gun but it's still not actually improving his mood at all.

"I heard Yun Minseo-sunbae and Baek Ji-woo-sunbae have also started dating," Lee Tae-gun observes.

Gasp. "Tae-gun, are you... ahead of the gossip mill??"

"...I just ran a dungeon with Yun Minseo-sunbae the other day and she mentioned it."

"Oh but this needs confirmation, brb," he says, getting up again to walk over to the other table.

Everyone! Everyone around him! Gets to have that! And he doesn't! And he won't!

Argh!!!!!

...handsqueeze?

His Haru is so good he really likes his Haru he wants to be with his Haru and none of these people especially not Lee Tae-gun.

He squeezes Haru's hand right back and—doesn't quite succeed at masking any better than he was a second ago, which was enough to fool everyone other than Haru.

We can go home if you want.

His Haru is so good.

I don't want to ruin your fun.

You can also go home without me if you'd rather, I'm not in a particularly bad way right now and I can coast for an hour no problem.

...I definitely don't want to be away from you right now

He gets to be clingy like this, right? It's fine? They're in a stage of their relationship where that's alright?

What's the matter?

Really difficult to explain and definitely not over text.

"Folks, I hate to bail but something's come up," he shakes his phone, its screen carefully blanked, "ping me on chat if you have any horse-sized-duck emergencies or whatever." And he tugs Jaeha out of his chair and away from the table.

"No worries, it was nice seeing you. Good luck with whatever it is."

"If it's anything any of us can help you with just holler."

...now he's feeling bad about being bitchy at them in his head.

Anyway, he successfully stands up and can bow to his sunbaenim before leaving with Haru.

Haru keeps looking worriedly at him during the walk home.

He has the best Haru.

That's why this is going to suck so fucking much augh.

And home and inside and a quick check to make sure Cricket's not in earshot and - "What's eating you?"

"So many things." He needs to sit down, he's gonna go sit down and bury his face in his hands because it is so many things.

Hugs for his Jaeha.