"Well, don't, if it's all the same to you, it's not a very helpful feeling. ...although it does defeat the point of this exercise a little bit if now the way you act honest is different because you're not feeling the same way anymore but sure whatever, if you're feeling okay that's good."

"I don't think it was as dishonest of me as you seem to think that I was pretending.  Because... pretending is real, sometimes.  You took a shower, I had a cry—I didn't do any work on spell creation, I'm sorry, I was really upset—and then you came back and you kind of smiled, and I thought it made sense to try and mirror your tone, so I did that.  And it did make me feel a little bit better, than with the sad dial turned up to eleven.  What I meant with needing this spell was that I didn't know which was real, necessarily.  Probably if I was left alone it would have been somewhere in between, but for me acting a certain way begets feeling that way more strongly.  Except now I feel very at peace and I think it would be hard to shake that."

"Alllllright. ...well, I dunno what to do with this. Uh, this power, I guess."

"I think you should touch my hair with it."

Blink blink. "Yes, sir," he says, reaching up to do so.

"That feels really nice.  ....But it would feel better if you did—more with your fingertips, and harder, than—wow, yes, that's what I meant—than like petting.  Also I think maybe we should be on the bed."

Wow okay! Sure! They can be on the bed! And Jeremy can ask Jake to pull his hair! Why not!!

Jeremy lies flat on his back looking up at the ceiling and making contented sounds.  "...I think I love you.  I thought I might not, back when I was about to possess you, because how could I love you and still do that?  But then I came to the conclusion that I'm just an exceedingly fucked-up person who will do bad things even to people I love.  And that assessment still seems correct to me now."

Thaaaaaaat makes him stop and stare. "We've known each other for three days."

"I agree."

"That was a factual description of the matter there wasn't anything for you to agree with." He's kinda frozen in place, no longer, uh, moving, locked halfway into petting Jeremy.

"Well, I also agree with the implication that that's too short a time for a sane person to fall in love, or that my intuitive definition of being in love might be worse than other people's."

"Okay."

Uh. 

He sits up. 

"Why."

"You're so nice to me, you got me a phone after having barely met me, and you didn't mind that I killed you.  And there's something about you where I just felt so swept up with you; I was just trying to seduce you to the point where you'd go along with the possession spell, but I ended up going along with you instead.  I wasn't even absorbed with guilt the whole time and speaking in double meanings like I apparently love to.  You're intensely charming and kind to me to the point I don't understand it.  Also, obviously, I've been severely undersocialized for almost thirty years and that is presumably affecting how quickly and firmly I feel inclined to latch socially onto someone."

He guesses it's as good a time as any to come clean because hoo boy.

"Jeremy, I'm an asshole. I come from a world of assholes, I speak asshole better than I speak Korean. My father expects me to get over this gay bullshit so he can arrange me a marriage that will give Samsung a good partnership with some other big company, I was raised in a den of vipers.

"I'm also a slut. When I met you I was planning to get a fuck or twenty out of you like I do sometimes and then dip when I got bored. Things got a bit—out of hand—when you turned out to be from thirty years ago—but you really, really shouldn't be in love with me. When you can get out of here and interact with the world for real you can find a good boy, a good man, who isn't an asshole and doesn't come with my baggage, who'll be good for you. But I'm not good for you, or anyone else. I'm not good."

He delivers all of this matter-of-factly. Not like he's feeling bitter about it or like he's apologising, just as an objective description of a value-neutral aspect of reality.

"I think I would need a wider emotional range than I currently have access to to properly engage with most of that.  But I think it might be objectively a little funny to claim that I should dismiss you for having baggage when I clearly and at face have more.  ...I somewhat want to say much more but I don't know that that would be certainly true."

"I mean, I don't mean emotional baggage. I mean that even though I do not plan to give my old man the satisfaction of marrying the nice girl he'll undoubtedly find for me he still will find one. There's all these—expectations—I moved here because I was caught in the wrong person's bed and Kang Jaehyuk wanted to get me away from other important people's sons and thought that maybe if I spent a while not able to damage my or his reputation and got all of this teenage rebelliousness out of my system I'd be able to come back to be the cog in the Korean corporate machine he wants me to be. That's part and parcel of the life of Kang Jaeha, I wouldn't wish that shit on anyone else." ...well. There are some people he might wish that shit on, but that's because he's not a good person, as said.

"Do you ever feel like you should be able to know certain things, but you can't because then you wouldn't be... a person?  In the right way, or something?"

"...uhhhh like I don't think so but maybe you'll give me an example and I'll go oh yeah totally that thing yeah."

"I had no idea you had a name besides Jake, not even when I was in your body, even though now that I think about it it would be really surprising if someone in Korea had that name.  And if you told me your family name then I forgot it.  But you just said 'Kang Jaeha' and I should have been confused I think, but instead I was like, oh, that's you!  Am I right?"

"...well, yes. That was—what I was saying. You think if you'd known my Korean name you would've been less of a person??" What in the.

"Nooo, because I did know it.  But I think there are other things I can't know.  I feel it sometimes."  He sighs.  "—Does this mean I can say true things I've never learned??  You should ask me something factual and verifiable that I don't know.  And that isn't guessable at all from context clues."

"...what's the hundred and fifty seventh digit of pi?"

"Uh, seven?"