"You know," At Asya's words, Jacob turned away from the tent he was setting up and stopped hammering the half buried pole, Asya was beside him, her face a mixture of happiness, apprehension, and guilt. "You don't have to do all the work when I can just pay a few of the workers to set the tent up for us." Jacob raised a hand to reply but Asya continued, her face red, "I- it's the best I can for us alright? I don't- I'm not sure if I feel comfortable sleeping with someone in the same tent since I've always slept alone but... maybe it wouldn't be so bad?"

Her smile was shaking, "if you want to sleep in your own tent, I don't really mind." Jacob replied, giving her the most reassuring smile he could muster, "It's fine. You know? I only invited you out of courtesy."

"And I accepted." Asya replied, her face now just a slightly rosy pallor instead of full on crimson, "And that means as I must-" she went red again, "- I mean I should sleep with you out of courtesy as well."

"You don't have to do that," Jacob said in mirth, trying to keep the emotional distance between them still. Though, does the girl know what she sounds like?

"But I do! And now I have to take responsibility for my own words and so I need to sleep with you on the same tent. I can't take it back." Asya nodded to herself, clearly pleased with what she said.

With a shake of his head, a resigned Jacob went back to hammering the poles of their tent. Asya had been that way ever since he offered that they sleep together, for extra security on the girl's part, when she asked why, he answered that he didn't feel like leaving her alone. And Jacob was telling the truth- Asya's earlier showing didn't give him the reassurance that she would be fine sleeping alone tonight so he decided to help her, no strings attached.

Sort of. He wasn't blind or even socially inept, he's aware that Asya is going to be sleeping right next to him and he is self conscious about that, but not enough to stop himself from offering the girl help- He also hopes that Asya is just struggling with the fact that she's sleeping with someone of the opposite sex and that's why her face flushes whenever them sleeping together gets mentioned.

He's not really sure though, but tomorrow morning, when the looming social threat of a boy and a girl sleeping together disappears and Asya goes back to her usual self- then he's sure that their relationship is still platonic.

And he'd like to keep it that way for the time being, he still had a lot to do and with a new world ahead of him, he didn't really feel like settling down and being responsible for someone.

Were relationships nice? Absolutely. But the responsibility baggage that comes with them is pretty heavy, so he's not getting into one of them again.

Pitching the tent had been easy and Jacob was done way before the darkness came. "I told you I could do it," he said to Asya as she unrolled the large mattress that they call their sleeping bag inside the tent, she stayed silent and took out a bedsheet with a floral pattern followed by a black blanket, then out came the pillows, which Asya had dozens of inside her Port for some reason.

"Why do you have so many?" He asked.

"S- they're supposed to be used for weeks." Asya answered, looked down, and sighed, "I... didn't really want to pay for someone to wash them while I was in the village so I thought that bringing a lot of them would help with that." She admitted, "I'll just have to, you know- change them every day."

"That's a pretty good idea." Jacob complimented, "Right. Are you keeping the ones you've used?"

Asya nodded, "Yes."

Jacob nodded back, "So... which side am I gonna sleep in?"

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Asya raised a dainty finger that pointed to the right side of the large mattress, "there," she said, her eyes placed over the open space at the center of a gathering of pillows, here hand moved and pointed directly to where she's standing, "and I'm gonna sleep here."

"Cool." Jacob said with a shrug before proceeding to put himself on his spot, he grabbed a pillow with his leg and locked it between his calves while his head found itself lying down on one of the soft pillows. "This. Is. Nice." He said in bliss, the room he had back in the Tavern was nice but this? This is what he's used to. A whole lot of pillows and a mattress with foam so thick, you can't feel what's underneath it. "Thank you, Asya."

"Don't mind it." In the corner of his eye, he saw the girl smile.

Asya's eyes looked outside of their tent, "by the way, what are you going to do while waiting for the fire to start? Aren't you gonna hunt?" She asked him.

Jacob answered with a shake of his head, "What? No. I'm not gonna do that," he replied and sat up, he grabbed a pillow and stacked it on top of another one, then another. He used the resulting tower of pillows as a backrest, "I have food in my Port."

After saying that, he reached into his bag and took out an entire wheel of cheese, bread, and then a small leather bag that contained his "dried soup", these would be his meal for the night. "See?" He said.

"I do see it yes." Asya giggled, "And what? Did you just put an entire wheel of cheese in your bag?"

Jacob stopped halfway through storing the wheel of cheese, "is that bad?"

"No- just, I find it funny." Asya replied, "Usually we wrap them around stuff."

"But if I don't wrap them around stuff it'll still turn out fine, right?" Jacob asked.

"Yes." Answers Asya and that was all he needed.

"Good! I thought that it would give me some random disease or something but I guess not." He shrugged and stuffed the wheel of cheese into his bag, the rest of his foodstuff soon followed.

When his hand came out, a book was held between his fingers, and on the front of its leather cover is a simple title: The History of the World.

He had a lot of catching up to do and Jacob deemed that knowing what happened in the past is a good start. He'd feel like he wouldn't have the necessary context otherwise.

"Guess I should start reading too then." He heard Asya say but Jacob didn't react, he kept his eyes on the pages of the book he's holding and started reading. In the corner of his eye, Asya's movements made themselves obvious as she meticulously positioned pillow after pillow to create a square fort made of the soft things.

That got Jacob to look away and stare at her, "what?" she asked while grabbing the Wild West SuperHero book she's been reading. She gestured at the various pillows around her, "This is perfectly normal."

"I'm not judging," Jacob said, choosing to back off. He relented and started reading again and so did Asya.

Time passed and the pages of the history book in his hands started to flip themselves bit by bit, Jacob learned more and more of the world's history, and admittedly, he is guilty of skimming a few of them but he at least knows the general context of those parts. Also, he isn't that guilty in skimming, he didn't want to read about the various children of some king and their "historical feats" that might as well be something that a toddler with a sword can do.

Eventually though, their time had to get cut short as the people outside started to chatter, their voices were building up and when Jacob looked away from his book, he saw that bright orange light washed over everything. "Huh, they must have one hell of a bonfire to do that." He commented, causing Asya to look up from her own book, "You think everyone's about to eat?"

The girl shrugged, "Maybe, wanna find out?"

Jacob nodded and stood up, "Sure."

And as it turns out, people were actually preparing their meals. A few younger of the younger servants stared at the two of them as they made their way into the bonfire, and around it, Jacob saw a few people setting up fires of their own to cook their food. Jacob followed after them and dug out his own firepit and lit it up using the fire from the fire a few meters away from him.

He started setting up his stuff- it was nothing special, just a pot full of water on top of a fire. He chose to withhold using his dried soup for now and instead, he decided that he wanted to try the "cheese soup" that goes great with bread. "Cheese soup tonight huh?" Asya asked as she sat right next to him, taking up the remaining space on his camping sheet.

Asya started pulling out her own bread, "I gotta say, I never thought that you'd enjoy this sort of thing."

Jacob shrugged and took out his pickled vegetables and jerky, "And you're right, I'm not much for cheese and bread." He said as a knife popped right out of his bag, "Say, have you ever had sandwiches before?" The bread came out as well, it was soft enough that it can easily get cut. Expensive too.

"No?" Says Asya, "what's that?"

Jacob smiled and was thankful that the girl chose to buy the soft loaves instead of the rocks that the baker back at the village called "bread", "You'll see."