The night before the festival, Hayel couldn't sleep again. Fortunately for him, nothing happened this time but that doesn't mean he wasn't anxious the whole night.
Today is the day he will go out for the first time in two months and as the time to leave draws closer, he starts to imagine more and more scenarios of things going wrong.
But there is no point in doing that since he already came to a decision that he will go no matter what, mostly because Layla will drag him out no matter what he thinks.
Hayel decided to wear gray today; short sleeves, thin pants and old black leather boots that once belonged to his father. The boots are a bit too big for him but they are comfortable and definitely look better than the usual shoes he wears.
Normally when he goes to the city for work he doesn't really pay that much attention to what he wears, however he still can't go wearing whatever he wants. People care about appearances in the city quite a bit, so going to work or even worse to a festival to walk around in clothes that scream poverty is not a comfortable experience.
Of course, the clothes he is wearing right now are very simple, clearly he is someone who is not from the city but they don't seem dirty or like he doesn't care about his appearance at all so that is acceptable.
Right now it's a little past afternoon, in about 2 hours the sun will start to set. Soon Layla will come knocking at his door to scream at him to get out.
Honestly speaking, he doesn't have a clue what he will be doing at the festival. While he does have a little bit of money left since he didn't really buy food or anything to be exact, it's definitely a lot less money than he would like to have.
The good thing is he doesn't have to bother that much about starving anymore, the bad thing is he will still have to buy food if he wants to be careful. After all, there are not that many people in the village that sell food so they will notice that something is wrong.
Just like now probably, there are definitely rumors about him going insane circling around the village, it's just that no one can even speculate anything about him not needing to eat since Layla brings him food from time to time.
"HAYEL!"
'Wow, she didn't even knock.'
"GET OUT HERE RIGHT NOW!"
Hayel quickly grabbed his wallet and ran to the door. The slower he is, the worse his situation is going to be.
Stepping outside of the house and seeing her looking pleased about the fact that he actually listened to her, Hayel starts feeling a bit better, at least he will not have to listen to her scolding him for too long.
"Good, you are out. Let's go now! And! You ARE going to tell me why the fuck you've been shutting yourself inside your house! Just to be clear, I do not believe that you were sick… at least not physically."
"Layla, are you trying to say that I'm crazy?"
Layla grabs him by the shirt and starts pulling him to start walking "Yes."
"I really was sick."
Layla looks at him with a weird expression "Sure, sure and I really was a queen yesterday."
"But I really was!"
Layla clicks her tongue and says "Really? Because I'm sure you would have at least gone to a doctor if you were."
"What if I didn't have enough money for a doctor? And how do you even know I didn't?"
"Hayel, if you wanted to go to a doctor while being so sick I'm very sure I would have gone with you because that's how it's always been. Also if you didn't have enough money you would have told me. I know you for long enough to understand how you act, so don't even try lying to me."
'…Okay, next thing to do, I have to become smarter.'
"What? Cat got your tongue? Seriously, what is it that's so bad that you cannot just tell me?"
Hayel decides to just stay quiet, there is no point is saying anything anymore.
"Ugh! Fine! I won't ask anymore, but you understand that I'm just worried about you right? Imagine if I started acting like you, would you really just brush it off?"
"No."
"Exactly!-"
Hayel cuts her off "It doesn't matter anymore, everything's fine now."
Layla just rolls her eyes "Okay, but I really do hope that you are gonna tell me at some point."
"Okay."
Layla finally changes the subject, so as they are walking towards the city, the feeling of the previous conversation disappears. Hayel stops feeling as anxious as before, however the feeling still lingers. He realized that he forgot to breathe while talking to her, which is a bad thing, he must not forget to do that while inside the city.
After an hour of walking, they finally arrived. So many flowers decorate the city, making it seem like something out of a story. The streets are also crowded with children running around and adults looking like they have no worries.
'I really hope I won't run into sir Kinnel, he will skin me alive if he sees me.'
And as Hayel starts worrying about yet another thing, Layla's voice brings him back from his thoughts.
"Since I was sure that you will lose your job after the first week of being an idiot, I was actually able to save up a little bit of money. No need for a thanks. I know, I know, I'm amazing."
Feeling confused, Hayel asks "How were you able to do that?"
"Not gonna tell you! Deal with it."
Layla dramatically turns around and starts walking towards a stall selling some kind of sweets. Wearing simple light brown flowy dress, she still stands out from the crowd.
In the end she buys some kind of chocolate for the two of them and they continue walking down the street trying to find something to do.
It's not that there not many fun things to do, it's just hard to chose from especially since you can't do all of them because of money. He did tell Layla though that he still has some money left which gave them more options.
There are all kinds of activities and food to choose from, but eventually they decided that they will do some kind of activity instead of spending money on food.
They just need to find one that lasts longer so that their money doesn't evaporate too quickly.