You know I heard that I should be ashamed

Valli did not have days off. He'd worked for more than a decade without taking a real vacation. He'd never been off island. Even the days when nothing was scheduled, he was still on call, ready and prepared for emergencies. It was an unhealthy way to live, with nothing but work, and it had taken an awful lot for him to recognize that.

So he was trying. He was trying to relax, to take time off. He'd taken an honest to god vacation, and left a voicemail on his machine that if it was an emergency they should call him, but otherwise been unavailable. Emergencies would still happen, and he couldn't bring himself to close the door, but it was an attempt.

So he'd gone to a hot spring. He'd soaked in the hot spring. He'd tried not to get too stressed about the fact that his phone was thirty feet away on the other side of a wall, inaccessible and out of reach if someone tried to contact him. He'd check it the moment he got out, he told himself, but in the end he simply ended up sinking lower in the spring and letting the heat soak in.

He probably spent longer than he should have. By the time he remembered he shouldn't be in too long, he'd been in there for more than an hour, and felt strangely languid when he pushed himself out, moving to go get dressed.

He was very nearly out of the building, his hair still damp, when someone spoke to him. He was aware enough in general terms to know when someone was talking to him, but even so it caught him unawares, and his head swung around, having completely missed the woman on his way out. She looked normal enough, but Valli had been born and raised on Manta Carlos, and knew better than to assume that meant she was an ordinary human.

"Oh, yes," Valli said, taking a moment to process her question before deciding she probably worked there. The language was formal enough for it, and she didn't seem at all out of place. "Are you the manager?"

The corners of Valli's mouth twitched upward in an awkward smile in her response. The answer was sort of yes, because the answer you gave when being asked by someone who owned a hot spring compared to someone like a friend would be very different.

"I suppose that's why I answered the way I did," Valli said, pulling away from his chosen path to stand in the seating area where the woman was sitting. "I'm not very good at relaxing. It seems unfair to say that I was expecting something... magical, when really it was just my poor idea of what it would be like. I think I might have enjoyed it more if I'd come with a group - the solitude seemed a bit usual for me."

He was used to being alone, but he'd learned to love having someone else around. Having Gask around had done a lot for his mood, and suddenly being alone again while Gask was in class? Less enjoyable.

"But it was better then being at home, please don't get me wrong. It gave me something to do later, I think."

Valli's life didn't feel like it was moving too fast. For a long time it had felt like it was moving too slowly, creeping along without really advancing. Running in circles, he supposed. How much had he advanced since his mid-twenties? Two decades on with very little to show of it. A long string of patients, but what about friends? Life experiences? None of those things, not until a year ago.

"Mister Bryndisarson," Valli finished. "But just Valli is more than fine." He made a pointed glance at one of the chairs before deciding he'd much rather talk, and opted to take a seat across from the woman, settling in to talk and resting his bag on the floor beside them.

"Well," Valli said, his thoughts absolutely straying to Gask for a moment before he dragged his attention back to the topic at hand. "Yes, but really it was just... someone who wasn't me. My social circle is limited, so the whole idea of... coworkers or friends or something going to the hot springs seemed... wistful?"

He kept having to stop and try to compose his thoughts, but he wasn't actually getting any better no matter how often he paused. He was still trying to find his footing in the conversation, and there was no sign he was going to do any better given more time.

"And you are...?"

So there they were, just two adults--or people who looked like adults, you could never tell on Manta Carlos--swapping stories with no preconceptions. He knew almost nothing about her, but she also knew almost nothing about him. Maybe down the line she'd look him up and recognize his story, but it was small and obscure enough, and it had faded with time. A decade ago people remembered it, but now? No one really cared. His reputation as a therapist had come to vastly overshadow the struggles of his youth, and Valli was happy for that.

"Romance, probably," Valli said. "I sort of miss being in school and getting to swap stories about who was crushing on who, and getting to brag about your emotional victories. Romance was all people would talk about back in school. Like it was the be-all-end-all. But now I realize there's so much more... but there's also that. I kind of scoffed back in my college days about it, honestly."

"People on the island do forget," Valli said. "Everyone has their own problems, their own... lives. issues with their powers, or finding out who they are, or chasing down revenge. But they forget that the island is also a place to live a normal life. To find love, to raise a family, to have a normal job. The little details get lost in the shuffle. Who has time to try and save money by eating out less when the world feels like it's ending?"

Valli lounged back in his seat, stretching out. He felt relaxed after his time in the hotspring, but also a bit restless. He sort of wanted to go for a run, or go spar or something, but Gask would be in class, totally inaccessible.

"There's... romance. I'm muddling through it." Very poorly, in his opinion. "We had a double date, and that went fairly well."