"Should I?"

"I mean, I would if I were you, but I guess it's not mandatory. I'll take a bit to pull the trigger on everything that was suspended pending your agreement and whatnot, and I should also get a robot going on the first load of groceries since they'll take a couple hours to show up, what do you want in the cart?"

"No opinions." He stretches out, then, and slowly sits up. "What would your questions have been?" He thinks it's oh-so-easy for people to say they'd do this and that in his shoes but here he is, in his shoes, not doing this or that.

"- you can probably occupy the mental state of no opinions regarding your grocery order but I think I need you to fabricate something anyway, I have no idea what you know how to cook or for that matter what you will be motivated to cook, if you need nothing but microwave meals that implies a very different shopping paradigm than if you're expecting to be so bored that nothing but watching homemade bread rise can fill the hours. Anyway, I might want to see the house? I have pictures. I would probably want a look at the possible partners' profiles, more details on the pharma protocol for ensuring you're asleep when the bracelet's off - do old awakening-zapped allergies come back while you're wearing that thing, I certainly don't know! - you haven't asked how much the self-insurance fund needs..."

He blinks, slowly. "None of that matters. Microwave meals are fine. If I die of an allergy then I die of an allergy. If I run out of money and starve then I ran out of money and starved."

"- I'm not going to let you starve, I am assuming responsibility for you and if it doesn't work out I'll have to send you back but starving's not on the table." He fills up the shopping cart with microwave meals.

"I see."

Glad he doesn't have to make any decisions.

"Personal effects to pack? So I don't have to buy you a new wardrobe."

"I suppose have whatever clothes I've been given to wear, here."

"Yes, perhaps you could gather those while I'm getting everything lined up."

"I can do that."

"Thank you."

Texts are sent. Traceless spends a while on the phone in French. He has to go talk to the prison staff. But scarcely half an hour later, he can order up a teleport.

The cottage is not very large, but it's charming, with lots of cute little bespoke details that would be annoying to replace if they were damaged. They land in the dine-in kitchen. The ankle bracelet's on the dining table and it goes directly onto Jaeha's ankle immediately and some phone-based rigmarole ensues to make sure that's set up properly. The place has seen previous use as an AirBnB, so the appliances all work and there are a smattering of pots and pans in the cupboards; Haru gives him a perfunctory tour thereof, appropriates the only really sharp knife into the backpack he was living out of during his trip, and turns on the heater. There's snow outside.

One prison is much the same as any other he's glad to see his dry drama queen tendencies are still online.

Well, the snow is pretty, at least. And the cottage is cute. Not that it matters.

Alright. What... now.

"I got stuff to knock you out with in the same order as the groceries, it should be here in an hour or so, if it's all the same to you I'll stay put so I'm not buying too many teleports, and then you can crash and we can see - well, I can see, anyway - if you're compatible with me even though you probably aren't just because it'd be so convenient. You're also getting a winter coat in case you need to shovel snow or anything, and, like, a toothbrush and stuff. Wifi password's on the wall, I assume you have one of those implant things that's all over Asia still but if you don't I can get you a phone. Laundry's in the basement. Questions, comments, concerns, blank staring at the wall?"

"I don't have the implant anymore, they got rid of it when I was arrested, but I do have a phone. I can be knocked out whenever, I guess."

Traceless gives him a thumbs-up and takes a seat at the dining table and pulls out his laptop to do some kind of laptop thing and not further hassle Jaeha, till the robot alights on the doorstep and disgorges groceries, a parka, and a pharmaceutical prescription. If Jaeha doesn't get up to help he will put away all the groceries himself - it's mostly microwavable trays of dinners but he's also gotten Jaeha ice cream and pop tarts and a bag each of carrots and apples. And then he fills up a glass of water and decants a little peach-colored gelcap to offer him. "Takes about fifteen minutes to kick in, so that's time to hit the bathroom if you need it and go lie down."

He does in fact help Traceless; it's only polite. Then, yeah, sure, he'll use the bathroom and go lie down.

Traceless locates a box of nitrile gloves so he can handle the bracelet without coming into contact with it, once Jaeha's out.

The pill works really well. That one dungeon that was putting people to sleep with a gas and masking its smell psychically, distilled into pill form. It'll give you asparagus-pee-smell but that's all. This is on the fact sheet, which Traceless leaves on the kitchen table for when Jaeha wakes up. Fifteen minutes to digest the coating and get the drug past the blood-brain barrier, and he's out.

Gloves on. Bracelet off.

...whoa, he was not expecting that.

Convenient, anyway.

He sets himself a timer, de-shirts the both of them, snuggles up, and pulls up Cyrano de Bergerac on his computer.

Jaeha wakes up, re-braceleted, shirt still off but with a blanket on, eight hours later. (They can get him a stronger dose if they ever want to do more than that in a row.) Traceless is in the kitchen at his laptop again.

Blink. 

Blink blink.

He goes to the kitchen.

There's no one other than Traceless there.

"...huh."

"I was surprised too, but yeah, turns out we're highly compatible, I should be able to handle this without diverting any of my charity budget toward bribing people to come by and lounge on you. I'm going to guess you have no opinions whatsoever on how to schedule anything, but of course correct me if I'm wrong and you like being nocturnal or something. Additional good news is I'm already really used to sitting with a partner who does not in any way acknowledge my presence while I make phone calls and stuff, so that's useful."

"...you are? Why?" He guesses he has no idea what Traceless's backlash even is, he'd just been going by Traceless's own expectations that they wouldn't be compatible and background expectations from the general population.

"My heretofore partner has a social anxiety kinda backlash. Mine is loneliness. So she wears noise cancelling headphones and hides under a blanket and I call everybody I know on the phone while my cat sits on me. Speaking of, once you're doing dungeons, we are going to be around each other while I am backlashed and cannot just call everyone I know on the phone; my plan is that you teach me Korean, it doesn't require you to have any opinions or for us to have anything in common and language practice is a good sweet spot for me."

...loneliness does not sound like it matches him at all but these things are really weird sometimes.

"Understood. I assume your current partner has better compatibility with you such that it wouldn't be worth it for you to use," my unconscious body, "me instead." Or maybe they like each other, who knows.