Not before he takes a big mouthful of roasted carrot with tahini sauce. "Mmmmmm I was right to arrive hungry! - so anyway," potatoes! "the budget ought to be stable, we're not having an economic downturn or anything, but maybe there's some kind of issue with the," he has now cut off a bite of lamb, nom, "schools or the roads or alternately there's hideous corruption afoot. Or it's a coincidence, can't forget that, there could be some moron who got a solid ninety-six percent on their academy graduation exam and has been involved with a weird fraction of the dungeons I've heard about of late."

He is so cute and hot. Was he created to torment Jaeha in particular. Why.

"Seems strange for it to be something that changed in the past few months though..."

"No, if they graduated in October and it's one or a handful from that class that'd be about right."

"I suppose that makes sense yeah."

"I... can't look up inauguration dates or anything at the moment... I'll call Tess..." And while he works his way through the rest of the plate, he sends Tess on fact-checking missions, and then pokes the phone numbers Jean sent him and leaves a message with the academy secretary and the provincial comptroller's office although he winds up fidgeting very uncomfortably while he's delivering a message to an answering machine, and then he puts the phone away. "Sorry about ignoring you."

"—no, that was interesting to watch." Can he get Traceless to talk to him like that. Can he.

"What, getting Tess to look things up on Wikipedia for me? Real spectator sport, that."

"I mean the whole—problem-solving thing, the steps you took, the investigation, and—it's interesting to see someone be competent."

"I have to spend a lot of time on the phone, so I try to make the most of it. You can get a lot done on the phone."

"...yeah," that much he knows from quite a lot of undesired experience. "I can also look things up on Wikipedia for you if you'd like." Simp.

"I pay Tess for that, you know, I hired her because I was asking Paula to do that sort of thing too often and it's not really her job."

"And I'm desperately bored all the time and hoping to find more things to do so if you think about it asking this sort of thing is a kind of payment."

"I'll bear that in mind. She takes Mondays and Wednesdays off."

He mimes writing this down on his little notebook. "Mondays and Wednesdays are Wikipedia days, got it."

"It's not always specifically Wikipedia, she does lots of PA stuff for me while I'm illiterate, but yeah."

"Who usually does them on Mondays and Wednesdays when she can't, then?"

"Usually I arrange to be literate on those days, or go back to pestering Paula."

"Then I suppose at least until we've dealt with the mountain of backlash on my shoulders you can pester me instead, and after that—you can probably still pester me instead."

"It's a hell of a mountain, doesn't that hurt if you leave it lying around?"

"What, physically? Yeah, it does, but I guess I got used to it." Lee Tae-gun had it so much worse, he doesn't say, because that would hurt a lot worse than the pain from the backlash. "It's been getting better with the guiding."

"That's good... I have been known to low-key envy people who get to just be unconscious while they're awakening and I think if it were me in your place I'd want to keep taking the pills but takes all sorts I guess."

What, and go back to being an object some stranger is using for their satisfaction and not even in a hot way shut up????

...he guesses Haru isn't a stranger anymore, for all that it's not been two weeks that they've been doing this.

"I'm not sure if my reasons to want to be awake aren't insane, but they're there."

"What are they - you don't have to answer that, I'm just backlashy. Is there dessert today -"

"New York cheesecake." Up he gets. "...I just... if I'm going to be guiding someone I want to be the one doing it. I guess."

"Ooooh cheesecake, I love cheesecake. You don't have this problem with falling asleep normally though?"