SEPARATED

Sori kept glancing at Kai's burned skin secretly when he's not looking, automatically her face scrunched up at the sight of his burned flesh. He has it on his arms and parts of his legs; thankfully none on his face although there's a small cut on his forehead.

It looks very painful, not to mention he keeps hissing in pain every time he moves. If she's in his shoes, she would just lie down and do nothing but of course, he's a man who has probably went through a lot worse than this.

This is probably still okay for him, right?

"Stop staring at it if you can't take it", he suddenly said, meeting her eyes with a chuckle.

Sori looks away, "It looks painful", she mumbles. Kai then raised his eyebrow at her, "You're staring because it looks painful?". She nods while looking ahead, her hands busy moving away plants and trees that's in their way.

She can't help but to stare at it because it really bothers her that he's hurting and addition to that, they're currently walking towards the beach from wherever they are— leaves kept hitting them because there's no path.

Hence, she's the one that's leading in the front while making sure that the leaves won't hit him

"Are you sure you know the way? I thought you've never been in this part of Awa before", Kai asks her and she confidently hums in reply

"I'm half-siren, I know and could feel the direction of any source of water", Sori told him and Kai's face brightens up all of a sudden.

"Then finding Suho won't be a problem then.. if he uses his power that is", he mumbles while looking on his empty wrist where his smart watch usually lies. It got destroyed when the fire happened so there's no way that he or the other guys could get in contact now that they're separated.

"The water guardian? We were actually together with them earlier before you teleported us here"

Kai's eyes widened by that information, "Are we heading towards them then? That's great-"

"I'm not sure", she crashed his hopes with a nervous chuckle. His expression fell in a split second and she sighed, "I'm sorry.. I'm not sure which part of the island's beach they're currently at but.." she trailed off and glanced backward at him, "I think I know how to find them with a help of a friend"

Kai simply nodded as a reply and she continued, "I hope he can find me though". Sori mumbles as she tries to call for her friend dragon, honestly, she has tried ever since they landed at an unknown forest but Shadow never came.

He always comes but for some reason, their connection is fading and she would be lying if that doesn't upset her— It does and it worries her a lot too.

She kept on trying to connect with Shadow, maybe a bit too hard that she lost her focus and actually stopped walking without her realising. It was until she felt his hand on her shoulder, tapping her lightly

"Why did you stop? Are you okay?”, Kai asked her, his eyebrows furrowing as his eyes wander across the area just in case she spotted something dangerous which made her stop.

Sori quickly shook her head and starts to walk again, her mind still trying to communicate with the dragon.

Behind her, Kai kept his eyes on the back of her head; quietly wondering why she’s so distracted.

“Hey..”, he began again and she turns her head to stare at him for just a second before turning it back ahead.

”No pressure, we’ll find them eventually”, he assures her because he think that she might have make them even more lost; they’ve been walking non-stop and there’s still no signs of the beach.

But she finds that quite funny how he’s the one trying to convince her that they will reunite with his friends.

Sori lets out a small laugh, “I’m supposed to say that to you, not you”

”I know but you seemed pressured—“

”I’m not”, she frowned and stopped again to turn around completely to face him. “What makes you say that?”

“Your mind seems pretty occupied. I’m afraid that you’ll end up hitting a tree of you don’t focus”, he said honestly with a straight face and Sori replies by shaking her head.

”You’re correct about my mind being occupied by I’m not pressured because I know exactly the way to the beach. I won’t lead you to the wrong way”

Kai’s expression then darkens a bit when she mentions the last 2 word. He then sends her a suspicious once-over, making Sori nervous.

”Why are you looking at me like that?”, she blurts out quietly and Kai shrugged his shoulder.

”Just a sudden thought; you’re not going to lure me into the sea again like last time, will you?”

“Oh no no!”, Sori’s eyes widened as she tries to defend herself. “I don’t do that kind of stuffs usually, that was my first and last time-“

”You were the one singing right?”, Kai butts in, interrupting her as he points at her.

”Well.. yes because they made me do it but I only did it to fit in” Sori told him with an exasperated sigh afterwards, feeling really guilty for their first encounter.

Both of them kept quiet after that, Sori staring at the ground as she plays with the dried leaves with her feet while Kai continues to stare at her.

He still remembers her voice up until now, it’s stuck in his head and sometimes when people aren’t around him; he finds himself humming to the tune of her song.

It was that addictive; her voice is quite unique, seductive yet feminine.

“You have a nice voice”, he suddenly compliments, throwing her off. She lifts her head in surprise and saw his confused face. He tried to cover his expression by letting out a nervous chuckle.

”That came out of nowhere, sorry”, he mumbles and then tries to hide his embarrassment by covering his face for a second, “Shall we go?”

”Sure”, Sori turns around after mumbling a thank you in return.

They continued to walk through the self-made path in a quiet manner, it is quite suffocating because it was too awkward but none of them dared to say anything because something more awkward might come out if they did.

They stayed like that up until Kai suddenly yanks her backwards. In a split second, she finds herself behind him and the first thing she could make sense is that he has a gun in one of his hand.

"What are you doing?", Sori asked in panic as she tries to follow where his gun in pointing at. "Where did you get that? You have that the whole time?", she asks again.

To think that he has a gun with him from the start scares her, if only she did something that he finds dangerous.. she don't even want to think about it.

"There", he told her with a low voice, his hand already ready to pull the trigger. Sori squints her eyes and tries to stare at whatever he's pointing at the ground near them.

Then she hears a growl.

Oh no.

She gasped out loud and before she could do anything, the dragon leaps out of his hiding spot and starts to dash towards them. His fangs are out; in which he rarely does when it’s just the two of them and even his body began to show some spikes at its spine which shocked her.

That's the first time she saw Shadow being that scary.

"Wait guys, no!", she shouted and immediately grabbed Kai's arms, lifting it upwards to the sky and if she was one second late, the bullet might already hit her friend.

"Sori! What the -", Kai shouted, trying to yank her behind him again and immediately lowers down his arm again to shoot but Sori dashed to the front much to his dislike.

'Is she trying to get killed?', his eyes widened but nevertheless, he readies to shoot the creature at any spot that he could find.

But what he didn't expect is the dragon to get yelled at as soon as the distance between it and Sori narrows down.

"Shadow, sit!", Sori commands and the dragon immediately plops down in front of her innocently.

His jaw dropped for real this time. What is the world is happening?

Sori crossed her arms and frowns at Shadow when the dragon is still growling at the man standing behind her a few metres away, "Stop that. Put the teeth away"

Shadow lets out a sound of protest and she sigh, "He's a friend, put it away. Right now"

The dragon whimpered and finally hid its teeth away, it is now in its usualy form-- toothless and cute. Sori nods and sigh, patting its head softly before trailing her hands towards the spikes behind its spine.

"When did this happen? I've never seen this before", Sori asks the dragon and it replied with an excited huff; showing her it's toothless smile and big eyes as it makes the spikes appear and dissapear into its back.

"It's also retractable? Sweet!", Sori said in amazement and smiled proudly. She raised this dragon quite well didn't she?

A forced cough suddenly made her remember that Kai is still there, feeling quite lost.

"Oh, sorry", she quickly apologized and introduced him to her friend. "This is Shadow, my friend", she then turns to the dragon and whispers, "Be nice okay?"

Shadow gave her a wary stare in which she replied with a look as a warning. The dragon then turns its head towards Kai and gave him an awkward smile-- toothless and all.

Kai gave a slow wave to the dragon and a half smile before turnin