Counting to Infinity

Chapter 25

After Raine and Nikolay finished their first shifts at Tabitha's bar, they discussed their future plans in Aurelinne Village.

While it was true that they needed to collect all artifacts before the prophesied 'blood moon' occurred, Nikolay begrudgingly admitted that they had made up for lost time in the past few weeks.

"We can take a few days to figure out how to descend into Lake Litchmere," Nikolay had said, to Raine's surprise.

He attempted to tease Nikolay about it, but received a noncommital shrug in response. It seemed like something was bothering him, but Raine knew that asking about it wouldn't yield any results.

On the bright side, though, Raine was able to sleep in a comfortable bed for a whole eight hours without being interrupted. And on top of that, he woke up to find that Tabitha had brought up breakfast leftovers from the bar.

"Lucky you," Tabitha said. "You're getting rewarded for sleeping in."

Nikolay ate his portion before Raine woke up, leaving exactly half of the plate untouched. The gesture was touching, but Raine had a feeling that it was a product of Nikolay's meticulousness rather than compassion.

The plate was, unfortunately, regular-sized, which meant that it was hardly enough for two people. Beggars couldn't be choosers, he supposed. Raine polished off the plate's contents within minutes and walked over to brush his teeth.

Raine startled when Nikolay stood next to him in the bathroom.

"Huh? Didn't you brush your teeth before you ate breakfast?" Raine queried.

Nikolay casually took his toothbrush and squeezed toothpaste onto it. "The other day, you had a point about brushing your teeth after eating. So, I adjusted accordingly."

A wide grin slowly stretched across Raine's face. He leant onto Nikolay's shoulder dramatically, almost causing the other man to drop his toothbrush in surprise.

"Aww Kolya, you should've told me that you wanted to brush our teeth together," he teased. "I would've changed my own schedule if you asked."

"That is not why I'm brushing my teeth again," Nikolay groaned, despite a telltale pink blush appearing on his cheeks. "Didn't you hear what I said?"

"Sure, sure, I hear you," Raine said, very clearly not listening to Nikolay. "Totally believable. Yep."

Nikolay cleared his throat purposefully. "Ahem. On to more pressing matters. I'm going to help Tabitha with the inn during the day as well. She mentioned monetary pay for working extra hours, so we might as well earn enough for the rest of our journey. Once we accumulate a decent amount, we can start looking into the diving equipment for descending into the Temple of Time."

"Well, we can do both at the same time, can't we? I'll go looking for the equipment while you work."

Nikolay lowered his toothbrush and stared at Raine's reflection. "You don't really have to. We have enough time to take things one at a time. If you want, you can spend the day drawing in our room, or catch up on lost sleep from all our early starts."

"Yeah, but..." Raine spat out the toothpaste. "I'll feel bad for lazing around while you're doing all the work. Your plan only accounts for one person, you know."

A few back-and-forth mini arguments later, Raine left the tavern and headed towards the market.

Surely he would find somebody selling diving equipment at the market. It was a market by the side of a massive lake; there was no reason why a market stall owner wouldn't capitalise on their location.