For the rest of the day as they headed  deeper into the forest, Seoyeon stuck as close as she possibly could to Captain Park.  She would have denied it until she was blue in the face if he’d commented on it, but it seemed that he’d chosen to ignore it if he’d noticed it, and that suited Seoyeon just fine.  Keeping that close on his heels was hard when she was still limping and being mocked for it would just have made matters worse.

His presence and proximity didn’t stop Seoyeon from jumping violently at every snapped twig or swish of foliage.  Seoyeon could see very little in the dark, so she didn’t know how big or dangerous or near or numerous the creatures in the forest around them were, and it was very unnerving.  More than once, Captain Park stopped, listening intently or sometimes reaching for a weapon, but after a while he always deemed it safe enough to continue on.  Seoyeon was very glad for that.  The idea of another fight terrified her.  She supposed she ought to feel better because of the knife that Captain Park had given her, but she had absolutely no idea how to use it properly and she didn’t trust herself with it at all.  What was worse was that Captain Park apparently did.

Even though the walk since lunch had been relatively flat as it was along a large ridge, Seoyeon felt even more exhausted than she had done at the end of the previous days in the Neuma.  After the biddiyaras, and with constant sounds attracting her attention from all sides, she had been so anxious about another attack that her body had been overly filled with adrenaline, much longer than she had been used to in any other situation.  Worse, the chance to sit down and switch off when Captain Park announced they should stop for the night felt like a trap.

“C-can I come with you?” she stuttered out when Captain Park moved off to find wood to make them a shelter once again.

“Why?” he demanded.

Seoyeon shrank back, drawing the silk skirt cloak tighter around her shoulders.  He took one look at her and became noticeably exasperated.

“Miss Han, you’re seventeen.  You shouldn’t need babysitting anymore.”

“But I don’t want to be here!  What if there are more biddiyaras?”

“Scream,” he told her.  “I’m not going far.  You need to look after your ankle.”

Seoyeon was both annoyed and grateful that absolutely nothing happened while he was busy collecting wood for a fire and to build them a shelter.  It would have vindicated her if she had been attacked by some other Neuma monster, but it was also a relief that none of the movement she could hear in the forest around her turned into an actual threat.  Captain Park lit a fire with the first armful of wood that he brought back, and Seoyeon sat as close to it as she could without burning herself, warming her hands and feet before turning to her injuries.  Captain Park came and went, and the shelter quickly started to take shape.

As Seoyeon was struggling to tie a new bandage around her wrist and hand, though, he stopped and came over.  Without a word, he crouched beside her and knocked her left hand away, grabbing hold of the ends of the bandage before she could get the loose one between her teeth to start tying the knot.  Before Seoyeon could object, or even say anything, he’d tightened the bandage around her wrist and started to knot it.  She gritted her teeth and winced as he jostled her injured wrist the wrong way, which he appeared not to notice, and he checked that it wasn’t too tight before straightening up again and going back to the shelter.  Astonished, Seoyeon gaped at him.  Her wrist felt much better supported than she’d been able to do in spite of her best efforts.  She could feel her cheeks heating up, and she wanted to ask him why he’d done that, her voice wouldn’t work.  By the time she had managed to croak out a cough, she realised that she probably ought to thank him instead, and also that she ought to have done so immediately rather than staring at him for a good couple of minutes, which meant that the window of opportunity was now lost and that she was going to make things awkward if she said anything.

Feeling embarrassed and self-conscious, Seoyeon cast about for something to do.  They weren’t in a clearing like the previous night, but there was significant space between some of the trees, and in the firelight she could see plants growing here and there.  A few of them looked like they might belong to carrots, and so Seoyeon scooted over, pulling out Captain Park’s knife, in order to dig them up.

When she was close enough to inspect the first one thoroughly, she was disappointed to see that it wasn’t food, but the plant looked familiar to her and so she cut several sprigs of it.  She sniffed at it to see if the smell would jog her memory, and nibbled the leaves when it didn’t.  It had a bitter taste and she hastily spat it out.  The taste lingered enough for her to reach for her water, and she was still trying to wash it out when Captain Park returned with the last of the materials he needed to finish the shelter.  He threw her a quizzical look as she spluttered and spat and eventually reached for some mint to refresh her sense of taste, but he said nothing, merely shaking his head before getting on with what he needed to do.

Out of things to occupy her now that all her aches and pains had been looked at and she’d discovered the odd herb wasn’t food, Seoyeon ended up watching Captain Park as he placed the last of the stripped-down branches, making sure that everything was secure with twine, and proceeded to stopper the gaps with mud and leaves.  There was something therapeutic about watching him work — the same kind of hypnotising therapeutic that came from watching flames flicker or listening to a running stream.  It reminded her a bit of how Minseok always was in the kitchen — calm no matter the chaos — or her mother when she sewed.

That brought a sudden, very uncomfortable lump to Seoyeon’s throat, and she hastily looked away.

Before she was quite ready for it, Captain Park sat down a couple of feet away from her, hauling a large pouch he had into his lap and beginning to rummage through it.  Wordlessly, he handed her a couple of root vegetables and began preparing some wooden skewers.  Seoyeon looked at the vegetables for a good couple of minutes before realising he probably wanted her to cut them up, possibly peel them too, so that they could roast them over the fire.  She grimaced.  Another meal of nuts, cold fruit and roasted root vegetables didn’t sound t