Chapter Text
She was lost.
Lost and cold and hurt in the middle of the forest.
Brilliant.
She had no idea how she got this far into the forest or even what she was doing here in the first place.
There was a sign that said CURSED and like something else but there WAS A SIGN.
In all of the comics and movies she had consumed in her life, that is obviously a sign of danger and knowing that her life was one gigantic comic at this point SHE SHOULD HAVE TURNED BACK.
Yet she walked right by it and now however many hours later she has sprained her ankle, her phone is dead and her flashlight is flickering like it is from some sort of horror movie.
She was an idiot.
She had been out in this forest for a while and the sun had set. It was pitch black except for the few rays of moonlight that would shine through when the leaves of the trees would rustle in the wind.
She could only hope that the main love story would venture out of the woods or that Sae Mi realized she was missing because otherwise she was stuck.
This was not in the script.
All she could do was wait right now until either the next day when sunlight would help her somehow and maybe her ankle would feel better, or until the scene changed and she was transported back to school safe and sound.
She should have paid more attention in Biology class so she would know her plants and trees or taken an Outdoor Wilderness class so she could navigate by the moon or something.
But how could she have known that she would be lost in the woods someday?!
She was Eun Dan Oh, not some wilderness park ranger!
Her fingers were crossed that whatever lived in these woods thought she was too cute to eat because she didn’t even want to think about what would happen if they didn’t.
No thank you. Her life was confusing enough right now without adding getting-eaten-by-an-animal to the list.
She shivered and rubbed her hands together before running them down her arms in the hopes of stimulating her blood vessels and warming her up.
Ugh, nothing about her current outfit was sleeping-the-night-in-the-forest appropriate especially as it started to get colder.
She wasn’t a main character but she was an extra so the story couldn’t go on without her, right? They needed her alive, right??????
She put her head into her arms in the hopes of falling asleep sooner so she could wake up sooner someplace other than here.
Her hopes of falling asleep were dashed when she heard the snap of branches nearby.
Oh noooo, she wasn’t ready to be eaten or maimed! She had so much more to do! She hadn’t changed her fate yet!!!
She could hear more branches snapping as something moved towards her.
Scrambling to her feet and wincing at putting any pressure on that ankle, she wielded her flashlight (which was by now very much dead. You would think the batteries would last longer but by the state of this flashlight, both the flashlight and the batteries came from the year 2005) like a weapon and started shouting, “Don’t come any closer! I have a weapon and I’m not afraid to use it! I assure you that it would be a bad idea to try and eat me! Don’t—“
“YA EUN DAN OH!”
She would recognize that voice anywhere.
Her arms dropped and she squinted in the darkness to see his outline.
It really was him.
Adrenaline coming over her, her ankle pain not even registering, she rushed at him and wrapped her arms tightly around him.
“Baek Kyung!”
Her relief was palpable as she tried to calm her breathing down and focus on his steady heartbeat.
She wasn’t alone.
Someone came for her.
Her breathing turned to hiccups turned to sobs as she finally acknowledged how scared she felt.
“What are you doing out here?! Everybody’s worried!”
The mixture of anger and worry in his voice had her burst into a whole new set of tears.
“I…I…was looking for… I got.. lost… and my phone died… and it got dark and… and..”
“You idiot.”
She felt his hand stroke her hair for a moment and the murmur so faint she would have missed it, “Thankfully you’re alright.”
He stepped back right before a large shiver overtook her body.
Back Kyung, while being a jerk most of the time, also was very warm and that loss of body heat made her absorb all the cold in the air.
Curse this short sleeve shirt she was wearing.
Her shiver apparently didn’t go unnoticed, “Did you seriously come out here with only that t-shirt on?! Are you crazy?”
She looked at the forest floor sheepishly not wanting to admit that she wished she was wearing more than a short sleeve t-shirt but it’s not like it’s her fault this was all the scene had her wearing!
Suddenly she felt something get thrown at her. Reaching her arms out to catch it, she realized it was Kyung’s overshirt.
“Put that on and let’s go. Everybody’s waiting.”
She slipped into it and sighed as the cold air no longer hit her arms.
Walking though….
She looked to the sky, hoping it could give her the strength she needed to break the news that she could not in fact go. Normally she could deliver this news no problem but she was in fact exhausted and didn’t want to bear any more of Kyung’s wrath at the moment.
“Um… About that…” Her words stopped him in his tracks.
“What.”
“I sprained my ankle. I must have tripped on a tree root or something. That’s mostly why I was stuck here. I can’t walk out of here.”
Watching the look on his face grow stormier, she waved him away with her hands, “So you can head back alone. I’ll be better now with your shirt. Can you ask Sae Mi or Soo Cheol or maybe even Do Hwa to come and help me?”
The silence was broken by a loud drawn out “Aishhhhhh”
Then she had to blink because Kyung (Mr. Ice Prince Baek Kyung) bent down and offered her his back, “Hurry. Get on.”
She limped over and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
As he lifted them both up and grabbed her legs, her brain couldn’t stop marveling at how strong he is and what a nice back he has.
Guess a part of her still really likes him somehow.
They silently made their way back out of the forest but Dan Oh never really liked silence. She hated it ever since she spent more time in the hospital and her mother passed away. To her silence means death and loss and absence of life.
So she took a deep breath and gathered her courage to break the silence, “Thank you.”
At first she didn’t think he heard her but moments later he replied, “For what?”
“For coming to find me. For helping me even though you hate me. I would have been there all night if you hadn’t found me.”
He hummed in response but tightened his grip on her. A small part of her mind knew that he wouldn’t let her fall.
She resigned herself to silence after that, glad she got her thank you’s out of the way.
“I don’t hate you.”
Wait…what?!
Her mind short-circuited because he couldn’t possibly be saying…
“I hate how my father’s using us for a business deal but I don’t hate you.”
“I don’t hate you either.”
She smiled knowing that her story just changed even if slightly.
On this new friendlier ground, the chatty person in her came out.
“Wow. I didn’t know this forest was so large.”
“Yah, it’s your fault paboya for getting lost this far into the woods. You still possess no sense of direction.”
“Hey! It happened once. I mixed up houses once. And I was four so like it wasn’t my fault.”
“If you say so.”
She pouted at him before realizing he couldn’t see her.
She made funny faces at his neck and then he suddenly stopped walking, “What are you doing?”
“Nothing…..”
“Nothing my foot. You are making the hairs at the back of my neck stand up. Quit it. Your weird faces also need work.”
“So says the human who has only two faces. Moody and then more moody. You would do well in one of those dramatic Shakespeare plays we have to read during English class.”
“To be or not to be.” She said in a deep voice before bursting out laughing.
“You’re a real joker Eun Dan Oh.”
“Kyung what should that tree be called?”
“I thought you stopped doing that ages ago.”
“You remember?”
“Of course I remember! You named one of the trees Bunny. It was a TREE.”
“Hey, don’t diss my naming skills. Bunny was a perfect name for that tree because it had a bunch of moss on one side just like a bunny tail and then some of the tallest branches curved into a loop. It was a bunny. So, what do you think we should name that tree?”
She felt him sigh and smirked triumphantly as he gave in, “Which tree?”
She pointed with one arm, leaving the other arm wrapped around his neck, “That one.”
“Tteokbokki”
“What? Like the food? It doesn’t look like Tteokbokki at all.”
“Hah. I wasn’t thinking about the food.”
“Wait… do you mean my pet hamster Mr. Tteokbokki?!”
His head nodded.
“Ya! Pabo! That tree looks nothing like my hamster.”
“Tsch. It is fat on the bottom and then has really tiny branches. And it is also probably the same color but I wouldn’t know since it is dark.”
“Hmph. Mr. Tteokbokki is the handsomest hamster there ever was and you can’t tell me otherwise.”
‘Whatever. I’m now thinking about the food. I’m hungry. Talk less so we can get there faster.”
“Alright. I’ll give you some of my barbecue to make up for it.”
“Don’t. You need to eat properly to give your heart energy.”
“I will treat you to a meal then later, okay?”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
She held out her pinky and eventually he freed one hand to link pinkies with her (something they first did when they were little).
“It’s a deal.”
Suddenly the clearing they walked into lit up with many fireflies.
"Oh! Daebak! Look at all the fireflies! It's so pretty!"
She reached out one of her hands to see if a firefly would land in the palm of her hand.
"What are you doing?"
"Catching a firefly. They are supposed to bring good luck."
However, instead of one landing on her hand, one rogue firefly rested its wings on Baek Kyung's head.
She couldn't help the snort that came out.
"Yah. Why are you laughing?!"
"There is a .... There is a... firefly on your head! Pffthahahhaha."
"I guess you are lucky after all Kyung-ah. I wonder how many more will land in your hair? I can picture you walking back with your hair blinking like a lightbulb. What a look."
"Stop laughing and get it off of me."
"Don't be so grumpy. They like you so that's a good thing. Better to bring good luck than bad luck! Look. They are showing us a path out of here!"
The fireflies had lined up and were blinking as if to show the way.
"I can't believe we are following fireflies."
"Lighten up and give in to the adventure. Plus, if they are right you can eat sooner."
They successfully got back to camp where he let her down and her friends crowded around her worried.
“What happened?!”
“We turned around and suddenly you were gone!”
As Sae Mi handed her some ice and helped her elevate her foot (because her ankle was killing her), she added, “Everybody was so worried but I’ve never seen Baek Kyung like that. He ran off to find you before anybody else could even volunteer.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
And as she thought about it, surrounded by the warmth of her friends after wandering around cold and lost in the forest, her heart beat a little faster and butterflies formed in her stomach.
Maybe before she could change her fate in large ways, she could change it in small ways.
And if this was one of the changes, she didn’t mind strangely.
Not at all.