We reconvene over dinner. It’s heated cans of SpaghettiOs. A goddamn luxury, given the cans of cold fruit we’ve been living on the past few days.

The steaming soup is comforting. With the rain still drumming at the window and all of us fresh from showers, the mood is more relaxed. The genny is off again, to conserve gas and avoid notice as night falls once more.

A hurricane lamp sits on the small table between us, and the soft sound of metal spoons against metal can walls fills the space. Thunder rumbles ominously as the storm continues with full force.

Mina picks up from where we left off in our earlier discussion.

“Normally, having more power would be a good thing. I think that would’ve been true for us too if things had happened in a different order. But it seems like things are happening out of order.”

“Wait, wait.” It’s the kid. “You’re talking like you already know what’s happening.”

Mina seems surprised he can talk. I shoot him a warning glare. He glares back but crosses his arms more tightly over his—now fully clothed—chest.

“Well, not completely. But it seems like it’s following the same rules as a genre of web novel I read.”

The kid slides me a look. I tell him to shut up and stop looking at me as best I can with my eyes.

The exchange does not go unnoticed by Mina. She perks up.

“Oh! Are you familiar with it?”

“Not web novels,” I say, rubbing the bridge of my nose. There’s absolutely nothing more humiliating than a man of my age admitting this out loud. I had been trying to avoid it. “Webcomics, but yes. Since the comics are usually based off the novels, I’m sure we’re talking about the same thing: dungeonverse—”

“Guideverse—!”

We say it at the same time, but the words are distinctly different. The awkward silence stretches.

Mina blinks.

“Uh… Guideverse. It’s a subgenre of dungeonverse. So…”

I take a bite of my soup as I try to think if I’ve heard of it before. “I’ve read a lot of dungeonverse but never heard of guideverse.”

Mina is blushing now. “Well, I’m not surprised to hear that. It’s a, uh, rather niche subgenre of… love…”

“I’m sorry. What was that? I didn’t quite catch that.”

Her face goes into her hands. She mumbles from behind her palms. “Boys’ love. It’s a subgenre of boys’ love.”

I pale.

The kid flicks me a curious look, then looks back to Mina. Yuichi seems unfazed. No doubt they’ve already had this discussion.

“What—”

“Don’t,” I say, holding up a hand to stop the kid from finishing that absurdly unnecessary question.

I take a deep breath. “Okay. So. Guideverse. What is it exactly?”

Mina peeks out from behind her fingers. Seeing that I’m willing to take her seriously and hear her out, she calms slightly and lowers her hands back to her can of soup. Her blush is still there, strong as ever. But she continues.

“It generally operates in some form of dungeonverse. Dungeons. Monsters. Breaks. All that stuff remains the same. The main difference is in the manifestation of powers. The rules for powers are different and… therein lies the problem.”

I raise a brow. “Problem?”

“Well, yes.” She shifts in her chair but keeps going. “Of course, you’re familiar with the awakened—hunters or rankers—those who awaken to superhuman abilities. Guideverse takes that one step further by introducing a checks-and-balances system of sorts on powers. Those who awaken to superpowers can’t wield that power without limit. Using their powers causes corruption to build up in their bodies. The more often the power is used, or the stronger the awakened is, the faster the corruption builds until eventually they lose themselves to it—becoming no different than the mindless beasts they slay.”

“Wait, I’m sorry.” The kid leans forward on the table, his can already emptied. “I don’t get it. What exactly is this corruption? It makes no sense.”

Mina laughs awkwardly. “Well. Yeah. I honestly never really thought too hard about the science behind it before. It was never meant to be more than fiction, after all. But… maybe think of it like mana? Like, to use superpowers you must use mana. And when you run out of mana, instead of being tired, you go insane.” She peeks a glance over at him. “Does that help?”

He sighs.

“He was a sheltered child,” I tell her. “Kid—just imagine that you’re the best player on your sports team, but you can only keep playing so long as your water bottle has water in it. As soon as it’s out, you’re benched. For life.”

He blinks at me. “What? Are you serious? How does that make any sense at all?”

Mina’s awkward laugh is back. I shrug.

He looks at her now, somewhat desperately. “That’s it? Really? How can anyone be expected to play a whole season on one bottle of water? Can’t someone refill the water? What about a water boy?”

“Oh!”

Mina’s abrupt exclamation startles us all.

“Sorry, that was just an excellent analogy.” She laughs. “Yes! There is a water boy. The one who can refill the water so you can keep playing. They’re called guides. In guideverse, there are two types of awakened: espers—what you would commonly think of as hunters or rankers—and their guides. When espers use their power, they become corrupted by it. But guides possess the innate power to purify that corruption, allowing espers to continue fighting.”

“For some reason, I don’t exactly feel reassured by this,” I say. “It feels very Virgin Mary in an unnervingly ominous way. Especially given its source genre.”

Mina bites her lip, and her gaze finds the floor. The kid doesn’t miss this, and he slips me a questioning look, which I pointedly ignore.

I tap my spoon on the edge of my now-empty can while I consider Mina further. Her blush hasn’t once subsided. The freckles I hadn’t noticed under her makeup earlier stand out starkly against her freshly cleaned cheeks.

Next to her, Yuichi is a silent sentinel. His expression is guarded, but he’s letting Mina take the lead without interruption or interjection. Is that because he knows nothing? Or because he is letting her decide how much we should know?

“Okay,” I say, choosing not to press her further on the matter for the time being. “And you think that’s what’s going on now? Not just that there are dungeons, but specifically that using awakened abilities will cause corruption?”

She’s shaking her head. “I don’t ‘think so.’ I’m positive.”

I eye her. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because, Jeff, I am a guide. And so are you.” She points at me with her spoon.

I’ve never before found a utensil to be so offensive.

Then she tips the end of the spoon up so it’s pointing at my hair before tapping the spoon to her own head, where her roots have come in white.

“It seems that this mutation has made us easy to spot.”

She smiles at me like we’re friends.

So why do I feel so betrayed?