You

“Chae-bisou, are you all right?” Sajangnim asks.

“I’m alive,” you mutter. “Just - give me a moment.”

“We should get back to camp,” Sajangnim says. “Come on.” And he picks you up.

“Sajangnim!” you protest, but he keeps walking.

“You can put me down. If I just lean on you -” you begin, but he shakes his head.

“This is faster.”

“I’m getting you all muddy.”

“I told you, I’m not afraid of getting a little dirty.”

Your ankle is seriously irritating you, and also you now notice how nice he smells. “Please, Sajangnim -”

And it starts to rain.

“There - a shelter up ahead.” He tightens his hold on you and speeds up.

Because you are camping in a national park, there are little rest shelters all through the forest for hikers to use. The one Sajangnim spotted is in good repair, dark wood, benches on three sides, space for a little fire pit in the middle. He sets you down on one of the benches gently.

“Let me see your ankle.”

“I’d rather get the mud off.”

“Take off your shoe,” he says, and you obey, because you always obey.

But then Sajangnim strips off his t-shirt, which isn’t nearly as muddy as yours, and goes to hold it out in the rain. He wrings it out a few times, and then he lets it soak some more. He returns to you, uses the t-shirt to wipe the mud off your clothes as best as he can.

“No, Sajangnim, your t-shirt is expensive -”

“I can buy another. Hold still.”

You submit, tense beneath Sajangnim’s gentle hands. Sajangnim goes to rinse his shirt out again, and then he wraps it around your right ankle.

“Does that help?”

“Yes,” you admit, trying to be polite. Before today, you have been sure that Sajangnim is incapable of tending to anyone with an ailment or being this gentle, because Sajangnim is brilliant and hardworking and doesn’t tend to have much patience for those who aren’t on his level, though occasionally he manages a dose of condescension.<

“Thank you,” you add, because Sajangnim looks terribly anxious.

At that, Sajangnim sits back. “I’m sorry I made you fall.”

“It wasn’t you. It’s muddy out there. It’s even muddier now, I’m sure.”

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