endless path, infinite cosmos

chapter 172

After awakening in the real world, Vahn got out of the bed and made his towards the door. Opening it, he came face to face with Tina who had been waiting for him patiently. The moment he saw the cute little girl, he couldn't help but pat her on the head with a bit of affection. Though it had only been a few seconds for her, it had been three days since Vahn had seen her last. He was beginning to realize how peculiar it was to transition between the two different worlds.

Tina didn't know what Vahn was being so affectionate, but she just closed her eyes with a subtle frown as she resisted mewling out due to the pleasant sensation. Vahn then made his way to the dining room and relaxed with the boys while all the girls took their bath. After Tina had shown up, the children were quickly beginning to open up more and more. It had only been a day since her arrival, but they were already making an effort to be more open with him, so Vahn was very pleased. He asked about what each of them was studying and offered a bit of advice on the subjects that he understood.

Once the girls had finished their bath, Vahn and the other boys entered for a couple of minutes before leaving and preparing for an early dinner. Unlike the previous days, the girls had started preparing the meal using ingredients that had been stocked in the kitchen. Tine had convinced Anubis and the other girls that it wasn't appropriate to rely on Vahn to bring fully prepared food home for each meal. Since she had helped her mother when cooking for the Inn patrons, Tina was actually relatively skilled when it came to cooking the basics.

Though it wasn't nearly as delicious as the normal food Vahn ate, he actually preferred the meals that had been cooked by the people he cared about. After the meal was finished and everyone cleaned up, Vahn made sure to give heavy compliments to the young cat girl. In response to his words, Tina's tail flicked up around slightly and Vahn couldn't help but notice it was a distinctly different motion than when chienthropes were happy. It seemed that cat people tails 'flickered' while chienthrope tails 'wagged' or spun around when they were excited.

After dinner, everyone idled around and Vahn even attended the lesson of Anubis and Tina before parting ways with the rest of the children when it came time for bed. Vahn gave his evening pats to Anubis and Nanu before retiring to his room with Tina in tow. She was significantly more comfortable than the previous night, but Vahn noticed she was still overly cautious of the change in her living conditions.

Without being told, Vahn had already turned his back to her as he began preparing for bed on his own. Tina stared at him for a few seconds before changing into a cream-colored nightgown of a similar design as her light-blue one. She then waited for Vahn to climb into bed before she crawled under the covers before appearing next to his side with a somewhat bashful and happy expression on her face. Vahn smiled and pet her ears for a little bit as he allowed her to use his shoulder as a pillow.

Since she had been in high-tensions all day from interacting with the other children, Tina fell asleep very quickly and curled up into a ball next to Vahn while holding on to the edge of his loose shirt with her small hands. Vahn gave her a kiss on the forehead before he too fell asleep after reminiscing about the day's events. He still couldn't easily wrap his head around essentially spending an entire week of time for every day that passed. It felt like his meeting with Chloe and their promise was several days ago, when it had, in fact, happened only about seven hours prior.

Vahn awoke a few minutes before it was time to re-enter the orb, and he noticed that Tina had been sticking to him more than when she fell asleep. He helped fix her posture and pulled down her nightgown which had been riding up her stomach yet again. After patting her on the head, he relaxed his body and pulled out the orb in order to meet with Eva as punctually as he was able.

Learning from past experiences, the moment Vahn entered the orb, he unequipped his tunic mere milliseconds before Eva pounced on his body. They kissed and cuddled for nearly two hours as she drew his blood and 'enjoyed his warmth' as she put it. Vahn was quickly falling into the new routine he had established inside the orb and spent about 70% of his time forging while investing the remaining 30% in resting and tending to Eva's needs. She had remembered his parting blow from last time and made sure to get her revenge twice-over before Vahn finally conceded defeat and apologized.