[Working at a sandwich shop for locals who, broadly, think you're a piece of shit like the rest of the Chosen (besides that one local regular, who is polite enough to never speak outside of his order) is eventually pretty exhausting; whenever Junpei comes home from his longer shifts he is solely prepared to stare at the ceiling for at least an hour. Maybe sigh a few times. Groan comically, if Charles is also home and will laugh about it.

So today when he comes home to a note about Charles not being great company, his first thought is "Oh, same," and then he can't help but wryly chuckle at himself for that one. Yeah, he's concerned—he doesn't know every detail of Charles' life at home by any stretch of the imagination, and of the things he does know, it's about 50/50 funny to terrible? But they have an understanding, when it comes to their own worser impulses and not-so-great days, so.

Well, it's fine. He'll obey the note and not worry, unless of course Charles is gone for longer than the day or so he promises, in which case he's legally allowed to stress about it—

Which luckily isn't the case, and he's flopped gracelessly on the couch with Gab on his stomach and some boring Aldrip novel he's only half-reading in hand when he hears the door and sits up just enough to see Charles without jostling the dog. Ah, and there's the relief; yes, yes, he didn't worry, but the number of times he's started to say something out loud to Charles and then caught himself with an audible "oops" was starting to get embarrassing.

He then says to the dog in a terrible stage whisper,]

Gab, don't look now, but this really handsome guy just came into the house using the front door for the first time in history.

[Ha ha, but anyway, as he waves the book a little (and Gab snuffles his old man snuffle and resumes dozing),]

Hey there, stranger. You feeling better?

[Not great, not even okay, but like. Better. Better is a good place to start.]