"Could I get - um.  I'm not much of a foodie, where I grew up it er.  We didn't have a lot of choice in restaurants, it's not like we starved, but if you wanted anything other than a pizza or a sandwich, you were out of luck.  Or, y'know, gas station food, but that doesn't count."  Wait, it's your turn to reciprocate.  "Food illusion is such a -" something true and nice "really interesting power!  Could I try your favorite food, see how much I like it?"  Yes, great, this is working.

He winces. "Oof, that's a difficult question to answer. I can't pick! And I don't know the sorts of things you like. Hm...we went to this Filipino-Korean fusion restaurant recently, and this feels like it would be appropriate to serve in this event. It's ube hotteok. Tell me if you hate it, I can stop. Otherwise I'll do it for a minute."

Simon closes his eyes, and now Timothy can smell and taste something! It even comes with temperature. It feels like he's chewing on a pancake, the scent of hot bread filling his nose, the texture of chopped peanuts on the roof of his mouth, butter on his tongue blossoming into ube and brown sugar as the pancake splits open to reveal the filling inside...

(Feeling weirdly... Hyperactive and slightly bored, Wendy starts juggling and spinning her pen between her non-occupied outstretched arm and her torso, just listening for now... The idea is to keep just barely nonzero backlash, for Tim.)

Tim, being a red-blooded teenager, is intensely aware of the arm.  Attached to the girl.  Attached to NOTHING, because she doesn't EXIST, because he has to make sure Simon is being SAFE.  And then he is intensely aware of the Flavor.  "Oh...Oh wow!  This is...almost like something Maman would make, when I was just a kid?"  Obviously he is no longer a kid.  He is a grown-ass adult man capable of buying cancer sticks if he wanted to die of cancer.  He doesn't, because cancer, but he could and that's the important part.  "It's so weird."  Don't talk with your mouth full.  No, your mouth isn't full, it's just...tasting...like it's full...  "So cool but it's confusing, I feel like I should have a whole mouthful but there's nothing in there?"  Don't drool on the cute girl PROSPECTIVE BUSINESS PARTNER cuddling you.

At this range, and at this strength, Tim is barely racking up any backlash.  His eyes dart towards Wendy's improvised telekinetic fidget spinner and her face because she doesn't have anything but a face because she is a business partner.  "Do you mind if I take it back now?  I keep getting distracted by Wendy."  Um.  "'-s power."

"Not at all!" He smiles brightly!

Tim will gracefully recall his power, taking it back smoothly to avoid sudden strength mismatches.  And immediately 'relax' and let himself start playing with the copper tube fidget toy while staring at Wendy's face pen as it bounces around.  Wendy was thoughtful enough to help him bring backlash down, and he might as well do his part.  "That is so cool.".  Do not say 'hell week was worth it', you only almost died of exposure, you weren't even awake for half it anyway.  But it was totally worth it.

Simon laughs, covering his face. "Thank you very much! What about you, Wendy, do you want a food illusion too?"

She - blushes a bit and catches it with her physical hand. "It really is! It's all - vectors and motion, to me. I don't hold things in place I push them. Hovering something is expensive since I'm fighting gravity the whole time."

...Shifts her arm. The serious boy is rather close. Which is kind of the idea with an esper partnership. But she doesn't know him yet, she was the same way with Teddy at first.

"Ooh. If you don't mind? Let's say something... Not western food. With meat, and spices. I like stir fry?"

Tim is attentive enough to a girl he's literally staring at not that way though she's doing a magic trick to realize she might need some space.  He will disengage, scratch the back of his neck for a minute, and then carefully swallow a yawn.  Doing fine on backlash, that was nothing, it's all in your head anyway.  You're not really tired, you just feel that way.

"Not at all," he says, this time taking hold of Damian's hand.

"This one is spicy. It can get really spicy depending on who's making it, but I'll make it milder to start, unless you tell me otherwise. Tell me to stop and I'll do so." Here's mala xiang guo stir fry with fish balls, lotus root, sliced beef, celery, cauliflower, and glass noodles.

It's seasoned with chili oil made of dried chili peppers, Szechuan peppercorns, star anise, black pepper, cinnamon, bay leaf, nutmeg, orange peel, and ginger.

-? No more holding hands? Okay then?

-!!! Taste!

"Thaph- That is so neat! Wow, there's a lot of different flavors in here. And it tastes... Real. Talking over it is weird... You don't need to get much backlash on my account. Damn, though."

"Thank you!" He stops. "And don't worry, I can sustain it for fifteen minutes without any guiding before I have to stop. I only did it for less than a minute and I have Damian guiding me. I've trained and studied to get my illusions to where they are today." He is Very Proud.

"Sweet. I can see it, I think everyone has a practice element with their power... I'm looking forward to having, like, regular guiding with someone reasonably compatible so that I can practice things more. I've gotta mind my vectors and get used to estimating masses of things. Tim and Dan - Er, Timothy and Daniel - either of you interested in scheduling a little guiding somewhere purely for powers practice? That gun range idea, maybe."

What does she want, she looked like a kicked puppy for a second before got to taste the food.  Er.  The not food.  Shoot.  Tim will use all of his suaveness to dangle his hand near Wendy and whatever happens, happens. 

Wait she said something.  And it was good!  New potential business partner!!!  "Sure!  I'd love to, and Tim's fine for me.  I should get used to Aumento as well.  Just be prepared to - " don't mention torn clothing this time you BUFFOON "wear something easily-replaceable, you know how training goes."  Shit.  Was that better?  I think it was better.  "I had to dump my gi at one point, which was such a shame." Okay, gis aren't sexy suggestive.

"Damian," he corrects. "You can't improve the power itself but you can improve how you use it. Especially backlash efficiency.

I would be interested, yes. Today or tomorrow is most convenient for me, because I have to return to San Francisco in a few days. Otherwise, I could have the two of you fly to San Francisco when you're both free — I don't mind paying for it and you don't have to pay me back." Timothy hasn't said that he's a new esper with no money (relatively speaking) but like. It's kind of obvious.

"You can stay at our house and we can do power testing." Esper money means you can afford Bay Area housing.

Yep, handholding will resume! She's just a hair off from zero backlash!

"Sorry. Damien." He kind of gives off preppy/politician/cop vibes but that's no reason to be rude, and also her immediate prejudicial reaction is probably unwarranted.

"...Hmm. That's a solid maybe, though I might prefer to get an agent and arrange travel and housing through them. Or doing it before you go." So she has someone who is definitely in her corner (for money reasons), and is not doing the sketchy thing of flying to another city and staying at Some Boy's House.

And as for Tim, "Are you from the Chicagoland area? I forgot if you said."

"No'm.  I'm from Vermont, it's a little state just north of New York."  He's clearly had some practice explaining where Vermont is by this point.  "I'd be happy to travel for powers testing, or host if that's more convenient.  If you look at my card, they do free consultations to all espers.  I don't know if you want to deal with the hassle of an out of state agent, or if there are licensing issues or " get to the point "- whatever.  But it might not hurt to give them a look.  Bill's been pretty good to me so far."

Damian has Tim down to a T.  Tim looked at his options, took out a loan for a princely sum and immediately started turning it into personal convenience, trainers, and local high-speed internet.  Then paid it off with professional guiding for Sinkhole.  He's not really a professional guide, but if you're new enough and not running dungeons regularly, it can sort of be similar.

"No problem. Do email me, whatever you decide. Same for you, Tim. I think my — our agency, we have the same one — is really good and fits our needs, but I don't know if they'd have the resources or connections to help you much with your power testing. Probably you'd want one with both dungeon and construction espers? That way you could switch niches more easily...I have a few off the top of my head but they're all based in California and do mostly West Coast work."

"I will definitely be in touch!"  And take a photo of both sides of this card as soon as you're out of eyeshot.  "I want to mingle a little more, you feel like you're down to zero, Wendy?  If I might be permitted the use of my arm?"  God that line is still so cheesy, I can't believe it worked once.

"Before you two go, do you have Instagram? Or any social media, really. I want to take a picture for it. It's totally fine if you're not into that."

Oop Wendy will step away now, hopefully out of frame! 

"Count me out. I wanna delay the curse of internet fame such as I can. I have read esper comment threads."

"Oh, um.  I haven't thought about it for a while, but I guess I do.  It's O-Soto-Gari.  That's O as in Oscar."  You've earned a little showing off.  "... Can I pick you up for it?"

Damian laughs. "Yeah, they can be really awful, I don't blame you," he says to Wendy. "I have my agent make sure anything I post on social media that has people's faces either has them blurred, cropped out, or was taken with consent." He will not prevent her from moving away.

"Yes, definitely. How do you want to arrange ourselves? And what's your handle, so I can tag you?" he asks Timothy. "Simon, can you take the picture for us?"

"Of course."