“Don’t worry about me, I can handle this,” John said as he got Zoey’s arm off him, before walking away. He half-expected her to follow him, but nope—and that’s good. She didn’t have to bother him while he sorted things out at the end of today’s work.

Once that was done, John headed back to his house with a certain numbness in his mind. It’s probably just the usual tiredness, as he paid little attention to it—until he got inside his house, talked to Virgil for a little, and…

That was all about what John could remember before he woke up in his bed. It was already nighttime—how did he end up here? Wasn’t Virgil talking to him just then? Where did he go?

As John jolted up from the bed, looking around for any clues about what had just happened, he only noticed how his bedroom door was opening slowly.

“Virgil?” John approached the door, and he was greeted by Carson instead. Carson had a bowl of soup in his hand, and he looked worried. “What’s going on?” John asked.

“You fainted.“

“What?”

“I heard you fainting from the other room, and Virgil was all panicking.“

An awful realization had just hit John—he was just exhausted, right?

“Eh, whatever. Just get back inside. I need to get this bowl down somewhere. Virgil made this for you.”

Knowing that he hadn’t eaten anything, John ended up eating dinner in his room, with just Carson. Once he finished eating, he asked, “Where’s Virgil?”

“Sleeping.”

“And what are you doing here?”

“Virgil asked me to check on you. He’s sleeping.”

“Huh.”

As John stared at the soup in silence, Carson offered to get the bowl downstairs, leaving him alone in his bedroom. Knowing that it was getting late in the night, John should’ve been asleep already. He better wake up tomorrow, check on Zoey, and—

Carson returned just right on time. “Oh, I forgot one thing. You don’t have to go out to work tomorrow, if you know, you don’t feel like it. I could send you the letter to your guild office.”

“I’m not even that sick.”

“Eh, I don’t know. You seemed pretty miserable recently. I thought you could use some decent break.”

Even Carson noticed that, huh?