"Ah, you guys haven't gone to sleep? Sleep is good for your body, you know." Benjamin said it with droopy eyes.
Dark circles had somehow already formed under them — faint but visible in the hall light, as if the drain had written itself onto his face in the few minutes since the blade was finished.
His smile was still there. It just sat a little lower than usual.
Katana stood beside him. The corridor went quiet in the particular way a group goes quiet when they have been caught waiting.
She was too excited to truly notice the ideas her party members were forming in the hallway.
Where she stood, she kept fidgeting, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, the small motions restless and unconscious.
"Thank you once again, Benjamin, for upholding your promise. I have not felt this great in decades."
The words came out bright and unguarded. There was no filter on them, no awareness of how they might land.
