I press the key-card, the innkeeper entrusted me with, against a digital lock and observe as a passage is created through a wall of thick cyan ice where there once was nothing.

Behind me, Nero gasps. “Woah. I didn’t know ice could do that.”

Our footsteps echo across the walls as we enter the average-sized room. “It’s not really made of ice,” I tell him as I close off the passage again from the inside. “Well, most of the wall is, but this is merely…like a secret door made to resemble ice. It’s complicated. Anyway.”

I take a peek at our surroundings. Before us, one tiny window allows for the light of this planet’s moons to hit the tiles at our feet; everything—asides from a blanket, a stone table, and the doors—seems to be made of ice.

Well… I huff. We’re certainly not bathing in luxury, but I suppose this is good enough.

“Are we a couple now?”

I choke on my spit.

My head snaps toward Nero.

“Nero, no!”

“But you said—”

“I know what I said! However, if I had told him we weren’t, he wouldn’t have let us stay here. It’s a great cover, that’s it,” I assure him as I wave my arms in the air. “I swear, that’s all there is to it, and all there will ever be between us.”

Nero recoils in on himself and looks down to the floor. “I didn’t realize…” He brings a hand to his heart. “I didn’t realize you hated the idea of being together so much.”

“Huh?”

“You seem very passionate about saying it could never happen”—his eyes find mine, and the sorrow that lingers within them tells me I’ve messed up—“do you hate me that much?”

Before I have time to answer, Nero turns to walk away from me, but I grab his arm and blurt: “N-No! Listen, Nero, that isn’t what I meant. I merely…” I bite my lip and lower my voice. “Ideally, people become couples when they fall in love with each other. And although I appreciate your company, we barely know each other, let alone love one another.”

Nero’s stomach grumbles again. “Food,” he says, his tone softer than before. “We should eat.”

“Oh.” Suddenly, the weight of the two boxed meals the innkeeper gave me earlier on feel much heavier in my hands. “Of course,” I tell him, while heading towards the corridor that supposedly leads us to the bedroom, as I swipe the key card across its digital lock. “We should sit down on the beds, surely, it’ll be more comfortable than—”

“Than?” Nero echoes as I freeze upon laying my eyes on our new predicament.

“Than sitting on the floor…” I mutter.

Perhaps it should have been more obvious with the way the innkeeper was talking: this room only has one bed.