After what felt like an eternity—though in reality, only a couple of hours had passed—I lay panting on my bedroom floor, with what seemed like every muscle in my body sore and aching. Since the three exercises required different muscle groups for the most part, I had been basically rotating constantly between doing squats, push-ups and sit-ups, only taking a few short breaks from time to time, which became longer and longer as I got more and more tired, and I had finally reached my limit.

I had made a lot of progress, though. Much more than I'd thought myself capable of.

Groaning, I forced my tired, sweaty body to stand up, dragged myself over to the closed blind and dragged it open.

The sight that greeted my eyes took my breath away.

The sun was rising, peeking from between the faraway mountains, the thin layer of low mist that covered the city giving it a mystical, ethereal look. Wishing to breathe the air of the great outside, I opened the window, and the gust of cool, fresh air that rushed inside as soon as I did almost threw me to the floor.

I breathed in deeply, and sighed, this time in contentment.

Really... why didn't I ventilate the room earlier? It was so easy...

Looking around the room, I noticed the piles of crumpled, dirty clothes strewn about.

Will it also be that easy to clean the room up? It can't be that hard, right? Just chuck it in the washer in two batches depending on the color and hang it to dry, I think.

I considered my options, and summarily decided that cleaning the mess up would be a good use of the time I now had on hand.

I mean, I'll be a complete mess by the end of it, dirty from head to toe, but...

I looked down at my body. It was soaked in sweat. I'd taken off my pants at some point, but my shirt was almost translucent, clinging to my frame tightly and uncomfortably.

...It's not like I wouldn't need a shower, anyway.

And so I began. I picked everything white or of a light color first, chucked it in the washing machine, made sure there was enough detergent, and trusted the program was the right one, before turning it on and picking up the rest. The first batch wasn't anywhere near finished washing by the time I did that, so I decided to make the bed, changing both the mattress and bedsheets out for new ones and putting the dirty ones with the rest of the clothes.

The washing machine was finished with the white ones by then, so I emptied and filled it again with the rest, starting it up once more.

Then, I moved over to the clothesline and hung them all up as best I could, and since the washing machine still had a while left to be done, I shaved my face and chest, then took a nice, hot shower, switching it to a cool one when I felt I was dozing off from the relaxation.

As I stepped out of it, I looked myself in the mirror, and noticed I looked better than I had in months despite the slight bags under my eyes owing to a sleepless night. It had nothing to do with this "Playboy System", I didn't think, but I couldn't quite place my finger on the reason.

I smiled, and decided to properly comb my hair instead of leaving it disheveled like I'd been doing lately out of laziness.

After doing that, taking the second batch of clothes out of the washer and hanging them all up, I picked out one of my many shirts and office pants, then went downstairs to have breakfast—just a cup of coffee and some hard toast with butter.

Ring ring! Ring ring!

As I finished them, my phone rang loudly in my pocket. I immediately took it out and tapped the screen, cutting off the sound. It wasn't a call—I had my phone on vibration at night and in the mornings—but rather my alarm. That meant it was 7:30, the time at which I usually woke up. It also meant I still had a good while until I had to leave for work.

I briefly considered preparing breakfast for Alice, but quickly discarded the idea. There was barely any food to even make breakfast with in the first place, and she would find it weird if I suddenly did something like that out of the blue, without prior signs of wanting to reconcile. She'd probably think I had ulterior motives, or something.

Another option would've been to go for a run, but  y whole body still felt like I'd put it through a wringer, not to mention that I'd already showered and changed into office clothes, so that was also a no-go.

And so, finding myself with nothing to do, I took out my phone and quickly went through my messages. Most were from work; things that I'd have to take care of once I arrived at the office, with another few asking me to call them when I had time, but I decided against doing that right now. After all, I didn't want to wake up Alice–

Wait, is she even still asleep?

I remembered not having seen her hair peeking out of the sofa like usual when passing through the living room's door before, but that meant nothing.

I decided to check. Just in case something had happened. I wasn't trying to follow her every move or anything. I wasn't an obsessive husband, no way.

Entering the living room, it struck me just how messy it was. I'd grown used to seeing the mess from the outside, but I hadn't actually gone inside for weeks already. The floor wasn't littered with soda cans or fast food wrappers or anything—that was all in a bin which was so full the trash made a small hill on top of it—but there were all sorts of boxes and chests of drawers strewn about, most filled with messily-stored clothes. I didn't know whether they were clean or dirty, but they were definitely rumpled.

There was a mini fridge next to the sofa connected to the grid by a cable running halfway through the room, the kind that would no doubt cause most guests to trip, and all sorts of random toiletries set haphazardly on every single horizontal surface bar the floor.

Once I'd walked deep enough into the den to see the other side of the couch, I put my hand over my mouth in surprise. I had to wonder why she hadn't thrown it away already. Below the cushions and blanket, it was irredeemably covered in a layer of orangish filth, soaked deep into the previously grey fabric, which I could only assume was a mix of dried-out sugar from many, many spilled soft drinks and the residual powders of all kinds of bagged industrial snacks, which for some reason often had a similar orange color.

Alice wasn't there, though.

Where could she have gone?

Looking at my phone, I saw there was still plenty of time until I had to go to work, so I decided to go on a little search. Just in case. 

Starting from the basement and making my way up, I looked for her in every single room of the house, preparing an excuse for each one in case I ran into her, but found no trace of her.

As I was about halfway through the second floor, I noticed something. The door of a room, one I hadn't entered in months, that I hadn't even dared to look at, was ever so slightly ajar.

The room that was supposed to remain closed was open the barest slit, and I thought I caught a wisp of black hair which disappeared soon after.

Really? Here? Why...?

I took a deep breath.

Then I knocked twice.

There was no response.

Did I see wrong?

Just in case, I announced my entry.

"I'm coming in." I said, sounding much more confident than I actually was. I'd been sure I would stutter there. Perhaps Eloquence had helped me out.

I opened the door, and indeed, saw a jungle of black hair, the head it sprouted from facing away from me. It was Alice's. She was sitting on the floor, shaking slightly, perhaps silently crying, staring at a...

...crib.