Face The Truth - Han Jisung x Reader (Fae AU)

Chapter 13

You had no idea how long you spent in that lake. Long enough that by the time you came out your fingers were pruned, skin terribly soft from such long exposure to water. As terribly lovely as the kisses had been, it didn't move beyond that. After a while, you and Jisung finished washing yourselves, giving your dirty clothes a good soak as well. The relief you felt after having fully cleaned yourself was insurmountable. You now had on a pair of clean clothes, and though you hadn't had proper rest yet, you were filled with a new energy.

It was nearing three or four in the afternoon, so you and Jisung were trying to move quickly through the forest and back into the small town before it got fully dark again. According to the map, the next challenge wasn't too far away, and you wanted to get as close as you could before it got dark. You would have preferred to head straight from the lake to the next destination, but you were out of food and water, and you weren't sure when another chance to come back into town would arise.

The whole walk back seemed to fly by you though. Neither you nor Jisung could seem to stop talking. Perhaps the kiss from before had led you both to wanting to know everything about each other, but you thought it was much more likely that silence had become scary to you both. Being alone with nothing but your own guilty, fear driven thoughts was becoming harder to manage.

Jisung was the only support you had right now, and you for him, and as such the two of you had learned to depend on each other in all ways that mattered. Even if it meant talking about your favourite flavour of cake just so you didn't have to think about the fact that you might not live to see the next week.

You had reached the edge of town sooner than you thought you would have. You had taken a different route out of the forest than the one you had taken into it, so you weren't quite sure where you had emerged. With nothing but houses in the surrounding area, you had to settle for walking around until you ran into a store by chance.

"How many sandwiches should we buy?" You asked Jisung when you had finally ambled into a convenience store. He was pacing through the aisle adjacent yours, and popped around to your side to have a look himself. You laughed at him. Like it was a baby, Jisung was cradling about six or seven packets of different snacks and sweets.

"Jisung, what the heck, we don't need any of that." You chuckled at him, but instantly felt bad at the pouty face he made. "I'm sorry, but we're already low on cash, and we need to be buying stuff that's going to sustain us properly."

He frowned but slumped his shoulders in defeat anyway. "Fine, but I am getting the gummy worms because they taste good and I think it's funny eating worms and sleeping in the dirt like we're caveman." He pouted as he walked away to put back the other snacks. You laughed at him.

You did end up letting him get the gummy worms, mostly because you didn't want to make him sad. But also because his caveman comment amused you as well. You also got a few more bottles of water, a few sandwiches and granola bars, some fresh bandages for your hands and some ramen that you made with the hot water at the convenience store and ate on the pavement out the front. When you were finished, you chucked away your rubbish and started off again into the tree line.

You were beginning to exhaust of the sight of more trees. There was no time for complaining though. It was going to start getting dark at any moment, and you still had a ways to get before the next destination.

Jisung had pulled out Gula's map again, and the two of you were trying to weave your way through the forest. Though the map had been drawn quite simply, it was harder making sense of it than you had initially thought it would be. It was difficult trying to relate the landmarks of the forest depicted in the map to what they were in real life. Being in the forest itself was disorienting, and it was hard making out where you were and what direction you were meant to be headed. You were even heading in circles for a few minutes before you finally figured out what the hell you were supposed to be doing.