Val smiled a little. "Adrien", he whispered, "thank you".

"There's no need to thank me -- that's really what she said! Which was very good, at the time -- I wasn't doing too well in that moment".

"What was happening?".

Adrien quickly swallowed a bite of focaccia to free his mouth for talking. "Well, you know -- I'd just been traveling for eight days and I was starting to wonder if I'd gotten over my head with this whole thing, and I hadn't met you yet, so I didn't know what it would be like... Then I'm almost there, and when I tell this lady that I was going to the tower, she reacts all surprised, and -- in that moment, my whole world fell on my head", Adrien laughed.

"She was surprised?", Val asked, his expression growing more concerned.

"Ah, because -- because she said you don't have many guests", Adrien explained.

Val looked down at his plate and nodded. "...She is not wrong", he sighed.