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True to his word, Brian did everything he said he was going to do. Gym came first, because it was more convenient to shower after and just use that as the actual shower for the day, even if it meant trudging out of bed after only a few hours of sleep. It wasn’t enough time to get a stupid dream, at least. He kept his gym playlist in the instrumental section; it was one less distraction and let him think about the previous night a little bit more. This was the job, huh? He’d only been at this for one, maybe two weeks at most. Couldn’t some spiritual haunting happen during the daytime? Like, he didn’t really want that. He didn’t actually want Shiki to come barging into his daily routine and muck everything up, but also, despite desperately needing the job for personal, spiritual reasons (pun intended), so far he hated himself afterward every single time. Gym helped with that part, at least -- he could turn that hate into something productive. He was still sore from wrestling with that ghost last night. He’d already forgotten her name, so the ache was the only thing she’d left behind. Next was actual work, and since he had already had to rely on sheer discipline to make it through leg day, there was little left for the monotony of research and paperwork for more research. If he could actually comprehend a whole paragraph at a time, he’d have probably enjoyed these ancient tomes a lot more. Part of Brian was already anticipating having to read everything all over again. The applications got sent out okay, though. That could practically be done entirely by computer. There were a thousand little widgets that could lift all the book’s information and turn it into a request form. Brian just had to click what he wanted. It was still busywork, reading summaries and trying to glean if it was useful or not, but still. Brian didn’t go grocery shopping. He took a nap instead and put it off until tomorrow. What was Shiki going to do, obligate him to incur even more sleep debt by finding some other supernatural force to inflict upon him? And Carmen now, too? The amount of four-letter words he uttered when he saw Shiki’s message and, moments later, Shiki’s van parked outside his apartment was immeasurable. He still put on a jacket and went to it, but each step earned an extra one. “Fine,” he said -- another four-letter word -- as he reached the driver’s side door. “Alright, let’s do this.” Once Brian had actually parsed Shiki’s handwriting, following the instructions was easy enough. It was hard to go wrong with “turn left” and “turn right” even if that was all that really was written down. He spotted Carmen right where Shiki had said she’d be and rolled down his window as she approached. “Hey,” he said. “Hopefully you had a better day than I did, because I bet it’s about to get a whole lot worse.”