I shrugged. "Well, you invited, and it's not like I have a lot better to do right now. So I figured I'd drop in on you, see how you were doing," I said. The circles under his eyes were bothering me some, but I figured maybe it was just the stress of running things to prevent lizards and humans from killing each other.

I'm really good at that denial thing, sometimes.

"Well, it's certainly beyond my wildest expectations," I replied honestly. Mind, my wildest expectations are pretty tame. Or were, before I met Haruhi, but that's neither here nor there. "But it looks like you guys have been doing a good job of making this place one that people would like to live in."