***Double-ish update as a thank you for being featured!  Make sure you've read chapter 29!***

Sleeping in a bundle of furs and blankets was so cosy that when Seoyeon woke up, it took her some time to shake off the confusion of where she was.  She’d dreamt about being back home in their mansion in the country, tucked in on a luxurious mattress with a duvet made of soft down.  Opening her eyes to an earth ceiling propped up by timbers was quite disorientating.

The familiar sound of a page being turned eventually reminded her that she had company, and she rolled onto her side to see Chanyeol reading in much the same position he had been the day before, flat on his back with one knee bent and the other leg crossed over it.  He’d balanced a lantern on his head so that he could see the book properly.  He was also chewing his bottom lip absently, and Seoyeon had to look away, her face brilliantly red, at the memory of him kissing her the previous day.

That was also confusing.  While he’d laughed and quite a lot recently, she’d been more under the impression that he’d decided it wasn’t worth his energy being permanently annoyed with her, not that he might actually think favourably of her.  She was pretty sure that kissing somebody actually indicated quite a lot of interest — romantic interest.  Seoyeon didn’t how why he would possibly like her in that way after all the trouble she’d caused him, but after a moment or two of perplexity, she decided it wasn’t worth worrying about.  There was a Seoyeon-sized space between his side and the crook of his elbow because of the way he was holding the book, and Seoyeon-sized spaces should not be empty of Seoyeons.  Unless she’d been dreaming about Chanyeol kissing her, she didn’t think he’d push her away if she occupied the space.

Seoyeon made her move quickly, pushing back her furs to comparative cold, and shuttling herself across the couple of feet or so to pop up in Chanyeol’s embrace with her head on her shoulder.

His body went tense with surprise at the abrupt intrusion.

“Han Seoyeon,” he said, shocked, as she rearranged the furs and blankets he was lying on so that she would be warm.  “This is most inappropriate.”

Seoyeon turned her head into his shoulder.

“It’s very appropriate,” she disagreed.

He laughed.  She could feel it reverberating around his chest in a very comforting way.

“I was only intending to read until you woke up,” he told her, “but something tells me you’d be unhappy about that.”

Seoyeon nodded.  With a sigh of mock suffering, Chanyeol lowered the hand of the arm around her so that he was embracing her properly, resting the book lightly on her side, and tilted his body so that he’d still be able to read.  She listened to him turning the pages for some time until her curiosity got the better of her and she turned her head to look.  It was a fiction book about a girl who hunted dragons, from what she could make out.  The book itself was rather old, words painstakingly hand-written on the yellowing pages and the ink slightly faded.  Chanyeol was a slightly slower reader than she was, usually reaching the end of the page three or four seconds after her.

Eventually, he paused and spoke up.

“You like reading, don’t you?” he said.  “I often saw you with your nose buried in books in Ximo.”

Seoyeon started.  Granted, when she got lost in a good book, she was pretty much oblivious to everything going on around her, but she was pretty sure that she read mostly in her own room, and also that she hadn’t seen Chanyeol around when she did.

“When?” she asked.

“All the time.”  He set the book aside and took the lantern off his head.  “I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.  Also, it’s mid-morning — there’ll probably be sunlight if you go outside.”

It was such a foreign concept after weeks in the dark that Seoyeon almost didn’t understand the word.  She sat up to free Chanyeol’s arm, half tempted to go outside, but then she remembered that she had no footwear and Chanyeol seemed to be putting together breakfast, and so she stayed put.  Without his body warmth and his arm around her, it felt unnaturally cold, and she shivered.

They ended up sitting opposite each other eating porridge.  It made a nice change from the foods they’d been eating since they’d been in the Neuma, even though it was almost tastelessly plain.  Chanyeol seemed lost in thought as they ate, and Seoyeon tried not to watch him too conspicuously in case it made him uncomfortable, though she was still unable to take her eyes off him.

“This evening,” he said, “we probably want to leave just before sunset.  We won’t have to walk more than a couple of miles, but I’d prefer to be back in the Borderlands before nightfall.  If we can make Ximo before it’s fully dark, even better.”

Seoyeon’s heart sank.  “I thought we were having an extra day,” she said in a small voice.

Chanyeol sighed heavily.  “A day, yes.  I can’t afford an extra night, not so close to a Dark Solstice.  It’s too much pressure on Sehun.”

“Oh.”  Feeling winded, Seoyeon picked up their porridge bowls to take over to the wash basin and clean.  Chanyeol stopped her before she could stand with a hand on her wrist.

“I apologise,” he said, looking her dead in the eye.  “I should have been clearer about this yesterday.  It wasn’t my intention to give you false hopes.”

She nodded numbly, biting her lip in an effort to hold back tears, and quickly looked away.  It was a stupid thing to cry over, but she’d been looking forward to a nice, relaxed day, just the two of them, and maybe even being able to sleep that night wrapped up in his arms.  It had been very comfortable while they’d both been reading.

“Seoyeon—” he began, then stopped.  She felt him tugging the bowls out of her grip.  He didn’t let go of her arm, though, and she couldn’t help looking up again when he shuffled closer.

“This is my fault,” he said.  “I’m sorry.  I’ve been extremely selfish.”

Seoyeon blinked, confused.  “How?”

“Because I knew how this was going to end.”  He paused, clearly thinking through his words before he continued.  “When we get back to Ximo, I will no longer be your equal.  You’ll have to forget—”

Seoyeon pulled her arm back.  “What?  But you’re a ranking military officer—”

“I’m a captain.”  Chanyeol laughed.  The sound was oddly dead, neither bitter nor amused.  “I rank far, far below you.  You’re the daughter of a minor noble house.  When your father finishes his duties at Ximo, your house will be elevated to a major noble house and you’ll have come of age as a very eligible young noble lady.  I don’t feature in that and I know that.  I overstepped when I agreed to call you Seoyeon and then again last night when I kissed you.  It was very unfair of me to do that to you.”

“But I asked you to call me Seoyeon,” she said in a small voice.

“I know.”  Chanyeol’s voice was very soft.  “I should have refused.  You calling me Chanyeol is fine, but it shouldn’t go the other way around.”

“I don’t care,” Seoyeon said.  “I don’t see why— you’re going to be promoted anyway, everybody at Ximo was saying so.”

He laughed again, and this time the sound was warm and genuine.  “After what happened on your birthday, I doubt it.”

It took Seoyeon a number of seconds to remember what he was referring to.  “Why were you sleeping outside my room?”

“To protect you.”

He said it so simply and with such little hesitation that Seoyeon couldn’t help a very dark blush heating her cheeks.  She was trying to formulate another question when he continued.

“After the Neuma trashed your room when you went to the library, I realised you needed proper Borderlander flames nearby throughout the night, not just the Borderlander candles.  It would have been better if I’d lit them in the fireplace, but I didn’t think you’d appreciate me sneaking into your room and I didn’t particularly want to get caught.”

“But you did sneak into my room at least once,” Seoyeon accused.  “You shut the window—”

He grinned suddenly.  “Ah, that time I set your candle on fire to distract you while I got out?  I admit, that was me.”

Seoyeon was about to let out a triumphant, fully vindicated “I knew it!” when another, completely mortifying memory sprang to mind, and she felt her cheeks burning even hotter.  She had to look away from Chanyeol.  While it would not be at all inappropriate now, accidentally declaring her undying love for him in front of so many of his peers because of poor word choice had definitely not been one of her best moments.  And then something else occurred to her, and her jaw dropped open.

“Y-yesterday,” she managed shakily.  “When you asked me to l-light your candle, did that… was that…?”

“That’s how we ask somebody’s permission to court them in the Ximo area.”

Gaping, Seoyeon pointed to herself in disbelief.  “But why do you want to court me?”

Chanyeol seemed amused by the question.  “Because you’re frustratingly adorable.”

She stared at him, speechless.

“Actually, we ought to talk about that,” Chanyeol mused.

Seoyeon managed to make a questioning sort of noise, though she had no idea what she was asking or what she even wanted to ask.

Chanyeol straightened up, his gaze distant as he thought through what he wanted to say, and then he nodded and his eyes snapped up to meet hers.

“Before we return to Ximo,” he said, now businesslike, “we ought to establish where we stand with each other and what we want to do about it.”

Seoyeon’s mouth worked silently, almost like a fish, as she tried to process where the conversation had gone.

“It?” she managed to ask eventually.

He t