Despite the tantrum his organs are making over soup he wasn't about to let the metaphorical demons win, so he swallowed hard and waited for the nausea to wear off enough to take another sip. To busy fighting the urge to puke he couldn't start small talk with the father and ended up falling to the mother's babying.

"My poor boy! just last year you could feast on a horse!" she cried, so it was a year since this started..., she leaned close him and brought some sort of exotic fish. "dearest, you seem to be struggling with that, why don't eat this instead?"

He picked the soup because it was a similar dish and he felt like those strange dishes would add to his nausea, but he can't really reject his own mother's kindness, at least not openly.

He gave her an uncomfortable smile and awkwardly said: "if you say so, mother."

He cut the fish multiple times visibly trying to avoid spices and then when he finely managed to find a piece to his liking he decided to bite it little by little, when he finally tasted it, it was actually a bit better than the soup but the woman needed to learn not to intrude so he pretended to suffer with it even more than the soup.

She grabbed his hand with both of hers' and apologized. "You don't have to force yourself just to please me."

"He does." Mr. Willows cuts in. "If it's not for your sake it's for his. Whatever the motivation is, it's a good one as long as it keeps him alive."

"Dear, don't be so..." she began to protest, but struggled to find the words that's when Scott tightened his grip on her hand as a gesture of reassurance.

"Alright, father." He went back to the fish taking occasional glances at Mr. Willows and after several minutes of silence save for the sounds of utensils clicking as they eat or, in Scott's case, play with their food , the butler came in with a letter.

Not wanting to waste his opportunity, Scott speaks: "Father, there's something I'm passiona-"

Mr. Willows grabs the letter and stands. "Not now, I have work!"

Mrs. Willows was quick to react. "Dear, you promised!" but her words were in deaf ears.

So mister 'Your mother weeps day and night for your sake' had to be nudged to join his family for this one dinner because of course his dying son deciding to finally spend time with them wasn't enough to convince him to keep his ass on that chair for a full half hour!

Scott realized that he was getting angry at a father that wasn't really 'his' and put his fork and knife to the side, he wasn't putting it to any use seeing from the modest hole he dug into the fish. He excused himself from the table and offered Mrs. Willows to walk her to her room, she rejected the offer as it was clearly out of obligation.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

the humiliating trip through the hallways was repeated but Scott's ego can't get more damaged than it already is so when he's in his room he doesn't bother to try to heal it instead he prepares for bed.

After a long shower and an exhaustive session of self grooming he leaves the shower to find that someone is knocking on the door.

______

molly has been knocking on the young master's door for a long while, the master has previously ordered her to storm his room if he wasn't responding on account of his depression but he also seemed to value his privacy and she didn't want to breach it again.

she decided to sit on the floor and continue knocking with the back of her hand hoping that the young master would save her from her dilemma.

Her prayers where answered and she heard the delicate voice say: "come in."

She quickly grabbed the papers to deliver them and rushed to the room only to find the young master in extremely inappropriate attire or rather... lack thereof.

With nothing to protect public decency but a mere towel, Molly was overwhelmed by embarrassment and lost her balance causing her to slip on her own feet and fall to the floor.

The young master was quick to drop down to help her from the floor. Which was the opposite of helpful as his undressed figure was the cause of her clumsiness and him being so close will only serve to increase it.

She manged to get up anyways soon found out that the papers she was holding were scattered on the floor. She began to apologize.

"I'm so sorry, sir! I didn't mean to cause such a mess! I'm so incompetent and-" He pinched her lips shut.

"What's important is that you're fine, how about you collect those files from the floor while I dress in the bathroom?" He released her lips but she only nodded as the physical touch caused her access to speech to significantly collapse.

She quickly grabs the papers and puts them on the nightstand and rushes to the door.

______

Scott leaves the bathroom to find his room empty and the files staked on the nightstand, he tries to read them but he quickly finds out that they were mixed up and impossible to read, Molly was probably illiterate and didn't know how to order the pages.

While organizing the pages he realizes that those are last week's police reports. Seems that his acting in front of that maid has paid off but he spent too much time organizing and he cant think past the headache anyways.

But twin lights flicker in the edge of his room pushing him back to wakefulness.

The doll...

The doll jumps to his bed. "Congratulations! you won 32 misery points but lost 28 leaving you with 4! yes 4! points to spend!" the doll oh so helpfully held up 4 fingers.

"Alright, I don't want to spend them."

"Okay... but they will be reset at midnight." the doll blew on it's non existent nails

"What?" Of course the points reset at midnight. "Is there anything else I should know?"

"yeah! If you get a negative total your soul disintegrates and you die forever and ever!" the doll jumped in delight. Scott facepalmed.

"What can I buy?" accepting the fact that the world is set against him/

"I'm glad you asked." the doll smiles mischievously.