"What's wrong with me?" Ai asked Kousuke in a tone that revealed neither joy nor anger.

"What I mean is, even though you're still young, you need to take care of your health," Guangyou quickly corrected himself.

"I heard it." Ai's expression didn't seem angry, and her tone was the same as usual.

She repeated what Guangyou had just said:

"You said I'm not young anymore."

"You must have misheard, Ai." Kōyū shook his head, not admitting it.

"Confess and you'll be treated leniently," Ai said calmly.

"Resistance will be met with severe punishment."

Without Ai saying anything, Kousuke took the initiative and said to her:

"Ai, you know that's not what I meant."

"What do you mean?" Ai pretended not to understand.

Seeing that Ai was pretending not to understand, Kōyū's lips curled up unconsciously, but he quickly returned to normal.

He was about to speak directly when Ai interrupted him, saying:

I know that's not what you meant.

"Just kidding."

"That's good." Guangyou deliberately breathed a sigh of relief.

The two never got angry with each other from beginning to end. Ai just wanted to use Kousuke's words as an opportunity to make a joke with him.

After realizing this, Kousuke cooperated with Ai to continue.

"Speaking of which, you really should get some rest." Kwang-woo looked up at the star-studded night sky.

He said to Ai:

“Sometimes when I get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I sometimes wonder if you are still working on it.”

"The thought that you might still be researching makes me a little uncomfortable."

"You sit at the table, flipping through documents and doing research, while I'm comfortably sleeping in bed, unable to actually share any of your burdens."

"But thinking about it, I didn't know what else to do, so I just went back to sleep and did something else."

"For example, I'll make you something delicious."

“Some people have praised me for knowing a lot, giving people the impression that I can do everything.”

"But in the end, I couldn't offer any real help in this matter."

"Now that we have Friday, the work of data collection and calculation can be handed over to it."

"Isn't this helping you share some of the burden?"

"Yes." A strange emotion flashed in Ai's eyes. She raised an eyebrow, nodded, and gave an affirmative response.

She then said to Kwang-yu:

"You don't need to worry about this too much."

"You don't owe me anything."

"We are equals."

"You don't need to feel like you owe me anything just because you can't help me develop an antidote."

"I know."

Guangyou was well aware of these things, and he explained:

"We are indeed in an equal relationship."

"But as a human being with feelings, as someone who likes you, I feel sorry for you."

"Perhaps others, or even yourself, think it's nothing. You used to do this often, even staying up all night to do research."

"But in my eyes, I really feel sorry for you."

"There was no other way before, only you understood this, so we needed to develop a permanent cure as soon as possible."

"But now that we have Fridays, some work can be delegated to them, and you can relax a bit."

"Take care of yourself and get some rest. Your health is the most important thing."

“I know,” Ai replied.

"You know?" Kōyū looked down at Ai and suddenly asked her.

"Mm." Ai nodded in response, her expression unchanged.

Seeing Ai's reaction, Kōyū decided to ask her directly. He asked:

"Leaving aside the past, just yesterday and the day before, what time did you go to sleep?"

"How many hours did you sleep?"

If Ai had only been studying until around 10 PM, he wouldn't have needed to say those words.

Ten o'clock isn't that late.

Lately, Ai has been yawning frequently during the day, and you can even see bloodshot eyes in her eyes.

While cleaning the kitchen tonight, he inadvertently noticed a packet of instant black coffee powder in an inconspicuous corner of the cabinet.

In addition, he discovered many small details.

All signs indicate that Ai has been staying up late recently, and it's not just a matter of finishing around 11 or 12 o'clock; otherwise, she wouldn't be drinking black coffee to stay awake.

He estimated it would be around two or three in the morning.

"I went to sleep after sending you the text." Ai didn't look away, meeting Kōyū's gaze, and didn't seem guilty at all.

"Really?" Kōyū asked skeptically.

"..." Ai remained silent.

"Confess and you'll be treated leniently." Kōyū repeated the words that Ai had said when the two of them were joking earlier.

Like Ai, he didn't say the second half of his sentence.

Three o'clock.

After a brief silence, Ai spoke up to answer Kousuke's question.

"Three o'clock?"

Actually, Kōyū originally thought it was really three o'clock, so he just asked casually, but he didn't expect Ai to say:

"I've been going to bed around 4 a.m. these past few days."

"Four o'clock?" Guangyou calculated for a moment. "Including the time for washing up, preparing breakfast, and eating breakfast, you only slept for two or three hours?"

"Hmm." Ai looked away, glanced at the grass not far away, and nodded.

He was about to say, "This amount of time is not enough for anyone to rest," but then he suddenly remembered something and asked Ai:

"Ai, tell me the truth, have you been eating breakfast every day lately?"

"I ate," Ai replied truthfully. "I ate a sandwich or bread from a convenience store."

These things are quite convenient, and they don't even need to be heated.

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