"You're back, Xio."
Fors lazily turned around and poked her head over the back of the sofa, looking curiously at her friend.
Xio usually left early in the morning and did not return until after dark, exhausted. Coming home this early was decidedly unusual.
"Xio? Why do you look so down?" Seeing that something was clearly wrong with her friend, Fors shed her languid expression and sat up. "What happened?" she asked worriedly.
"Sigh..." Xio hung up her coat and let out a heavy sigh.
"Did you run into trouble with a job?" Fors guessed. She sat up on the sofa, forced a smile, and tried to comfort her. "Don't let it get to you. Look at me. I lost all the royalties from my last book in the stock market, but I'm still... still doing just fine, aren't I?"
She forced a smile onto her face, but she clearly did not mean it. Losing those three hundred pounds had nearly broken her heart. To forget reality, she had spent the past two days in a sleepy haze. This was one of her rare waking moments.
Xio raised her eyes and glanced at Fors's forced smile. Rather than respond, she spoke slowly in an even gloomier voice. "I went to Scott's firearms factory today, and... I heard some bad news."
The smile on Fors's face froze, then quickly vanished. An inexplicable sense of dread gripped her. "Wh-what news?"
"Scott's in trouble," Xio said somberly.
"What?! He's in trouble!" All of Fors's drowsiness vanished instantly.
"What happened? Is it serious? Is his life in danger?!" She sprang up from the sofa and hurried barefoot over to Xio. Their difference in height forced her to lower her head slightly as she questioned her anxiously.
"Uh..." Xio was taken aback by her violent