The sudden sound of a thunder startled Ara and Sehun, who had just been about to pull away from each other, causing them to jerkily let go of the other one. Both looked up and noticed the dark clouds in the already dark sky, having the feeling that it'd rain soon. 

“Should we go back?” Ara asked, unsure what to do, as she looked up at Sehun, still not quite believing that they had just both confessed their love. Had it really happened? To her, it felt surreal – like a fantasy. However, it was indeed real.

“Yeah, we should hurry up,” Sehun replied as he crouched in front of Ara again. “Get on.”

Ara shook her head. “No, it's tiring you out. I'll just walk.” She pressed her lips together as she took the first step. It hurt much, but at the same time she knew that she couldn’t let Sehun carry her until they were out of the forest; the male was already exhausted enough.

Sehun, having already stood up, immediately noticed her pain, his gaze continuously resting on her, and he reached out to get a hold of her arm to support her. As the girl felt a familiar touch around her arm and shoulder, she glanced up. Met with the male's worried expression, she only shook her head, signaling him she was alright. A smile tugged at her lips at the worry in his eyes and his gentle touch. She … she had indeed missed that a lot.

Then hey began walking, hoping that it would only be a little rain and not a storm. A few minutes passed, and they soon realized that this wasn’t getting them anywhere, as, right now, they had no sense of direction and with Ara's injured ankle their pace was quite slow as well.

“It's starting to rain,” Ara mumbled as the first few raindrops fell from the sky, landing on her hair. She held out her hand and so did Sehun. More and more drops were falling. “I don’t think we should continue. This isn’t going anywhere and I don’t want your injury to worsen,” Sehun said as he halted.

“But we should get back as soon as–” “ –No, we'll just rest until it's day again, so we will have a better sight when finding our way out,” Sehun interrupted her as he gingerly grabbed her wrist to pull her to him a bit. “And I can see you're in pain,” he added softly.

Under his gaze, Ara felt so … so unlike her usual self. She just literally felt weak. It was as if he could simply look past the mask of rationality and immediately see if she was in pain or having other difficulties. In a way, she felt like an open book. And the worst – or rather most unusual – was that she didn’t even mind. She, who was normally striving to be as strong as possible, didn’t mind feeling weak. It was wondrous.

But then again, she didn’t even realize that she was also able to notice such small things about him. She would notice trivial things, such as him closing his eyes for a little too long or a silent sigh or just a certain look in the eyes, and would know what those indicated. Maybe, she didn’t exactly know it; but she could feel it.

Unknowingly, the two of them had begun to pick up some of the other one's usual behavior or little gestures without having ever been told about. They had just noticed them, even though they hadn't spent as much time together as certain other people might have. That was a kind of attentiveness that came along with love.

Ara agreed to make a halt first and continue the walk tomorrow, albeit rather unwillingly. The rain, that was becoming stronger, urged them to quickly build the tent – Ara's tent as Sehun didn’t have his backpack with him – and so, before she even had time to argue on that, they had already begun setting up the tent.

Sehun could feel an almost dreamy smile spread across his lips as they set up the tent. Ara had insisted on helping him with the tent despite her injury. And even if he wanted her to rest, she wouldn’t let him argue on that with her. As much as he wished she was less stubborn at times, he also knew that this was one of the things that he loved so much about her. The fact that she wasn’t just leaning back and leaving work to him. The fact that she always insisted to be of use as well. It was such a contrast to Miyoung or the other female students, of whom almost all had asked either the intern or other male students to help them. He adored her independence, although, he had to admit, at some point he would like her to depend on him a little more. However, that was just his one and only Ara, so he had no choice but to accept that.

When the tent was finished, they immediately entered it as, by now, the rain was quite strong. Fortunately, despite being an one-person-tent, it was fairly spacy in comparison to most tents, which was a given though as the equipment was the school's which was known to be first-class. The tent also contained a little LED in an upper corner, which the two of them of course immediately . The light was quite dim, but still illuminated things enough; it was ideal.

“You should rest a bit,” Sehun said after they sat down in the tent, both making themselves small. He grabbed after her bag and took out the bedroll, setting it up for her. “Okay?”

Immediately shaking her head, Ara pushed the bedroll more toward Sehun. “You're the tired one, not me, Sehun. Take the bedroll and sleep,” she said, her soft tone contrasting with the look she was giving him. A kind of gaze that would force people to agree with her.

However, Sehun wasn’t that easily swayed. “Ara, you're injured,” he said firmly and pushed the bedroll back to her.

Instead of answering, Ara just continued to give him that look, as she pushed the bedroll to him again. This time he, as well, remained quiet as he pulled the bedroll away from her hands and half lied it onto her. Taking a deep breath, Ara grabbed the bedroll and threw it at him.

The male's “yah!” got muffled by the fabric and as the bedroll fell off him, it left his hair in a very disheveled state back. Not even thinking twice about it, he already threw it back at Ara, who was too slow to catch it. Ara blew some hair-strands out of her face after she pushed away the bedroll, but other than that she didn’t bother with adjusting her rumpled up hair.

It went on like this for one minute or so before both of them halted and stared at each other for a moment, finally noticing how ridiculous their hairs looked like and how childishly belligerent they smiled. They broke into half snorts and half chuckles upon that. “This is childish,” Ara mumbled, not able to hide the grin her lips were forming. Having an equally wide grin grace his lips, Sehun said, “I know.”

Even though the rain was constantly evident to hear as it splashed against the tent from outside, the two of them didn’t perceive it one bit. Their minds were just focused on the other one's grinning face, their childish bedroll battle, and the thought of wanting the other person to rest. The caring towards the one they loved. Towards the person they were looking at right now.

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