“Dry out your clothes before you get hypothermia, pup.” she instructed with a yawn, gaze scanning the stars above them. “how long you think we have until its like, shroom city? Great suggestion, by the way, ” she drawled wryly, as if the other could ever possibly have guessed huge evil spiders would launch in thousands from the bushes.
"Well, if they're after us screaming is just going to attract attention. They can hear...kind of." Jongin explained, voice pitched a little lower as he dragged his eyes across the ground near their feet trying to spot anything crawling through the weeds. If he were alone he could just take off in flight, but he wasn't about to ditch Seulgi, especially after he had suggested taking shrooms. So that meant trying to figure out a plan B. Plan B also involved Seulgi keeping a level head and being able to keep the spiders off of them both while he booked it out of the forest. It was a knee jerk reaction though, the predators of the world tended to jump when they sensed fear, and he knew this well. It seemed hardwired into his DNA, something animalistic that had a tendency to rise if he lost his temper, let things get pushed too far. Jongin had done a decent job of keeping himself in check thus far, however. He wasn't about to break his streak when Seulgi was depending on him, either. He could handle spiders.
It all happened in rapid succession, bones expanding, neck lengthening and face morphing too fast for the human eyes to track, bowed one second and taking off the next with Seulgi clinging to him, could feel her bounce whenever he took a stumble, jumped over a log barring his path. He tried to move careful though, dirt spraying out behind him as he ran, the spiders deflected with Seulgi's makeshift shield. It wasn't too far to go though, had stopped maybe halfway along the path toward the beach, felt the ground change underneath him into something more giving. Seulgi threw him off as she got off of his back, but he compensated, met her in the water as a dolphin to ferry her toward the strip of land visible above the water line. Everything would probably clear up by the time low tide came, and it wasn't like wet sand was a spiders ideal home anyway. It was their best bet at the moment.
Jongin helped haul Seulgi out of the water, both of them dripping wet, water running in rivulets down his neck, salt clinging to his lashes and he tried to blink the sting away as the waded out of the shallows. He finally collapsed with a groan, his muscles sore, and one leg felt close to cramping, but at least both of them looked mostly unscathed – could feel a few shallow cuts littering his own body slowly starting to heal, a small scratch across Seulgi's cheek, but it at least didn't look to be bleeding much. "M'fine." Jongin assured her, reached over to tuck Seulgi’s hair behind her ear, thumb tracing just underneath the cut to make sure it wasn't too deep – it didn't look too bad though, probably wouldn't even leave a scar.
Jongin dissolved into laughter as soon as the fear of danger started to ebb, misplaced adrenaline and his heart was still racing rapid in his chest as he buried his face in against Seulgi's shoulder. Seulgi followed suit, and he found himself laughing until he was breathless, the corners of his eyes tearing up, his sweatshirt sticking uncomfortable against his skin as Seulgi tugged at it. It prompted Jongin to push himself up, yanked it over his head along with his tank, attempted to wring the water out as best as he could. "You think they did it on purpose?" Jongin asked her as he dropped his sweatshirt down next to him, was already coated in sand anyway, so it wasn't like it made much more of a difference.
He hummed in agreement as Seulgi mentioned heat, helped haul himself up to find some sticks of his own to add to the mix before she sparked fire from her fingertips and left them both in a warm glow that slowly chased away the chills biting their way across his shoulders. Jongin's eyes strayed to Seulgi as she started to peel off her own clothes (and could you really blame him?), bit down unconsciously on his bottom lip as she dragged down to her shorts to reveal the extra length of her thighs. Which was a little ridiculous, considering she was basically in a bathing suit. But Jongin had also definitely beat it to girls wearing bikinis in his life before, so maybe not that ridiculous.
"Yeah, yeah." Jongin agreed, leaned back to yank open the button of his own jeans and peeled them away from his legs, layered his clothes haphazardly near the fire and wondered if there would be enough time for them to dry. There was really nothing worse than wet denim. "Soon-ish? I'm not sure how long that took." Jongin admitted as he attempted to shake the water out of his hair, had an extreme likening to the dog he'd been masquerading as earlier. "I'm sorry okay? At least I got us out, I didn't know this school was that fucked." Jongin admitted with a groan, flopped onto his back once more and inhaled in deep.
The fire flickered vibrant and captivating in front of him when he pried his eyes open, and it took a hazy couple of minutes for him to focus back in on Seulgi again, but he became entranced with the way her hair seemed to be glowing soon after, light bouncing across her features, maybe even out of her skin. He reached over to settle his hand against her leg, thumb dragging a slow circle against the soft expanse of her inner thigh as he met Seulgi’s eyes, at least before his attention deviated down to stare at her chest, remembered himself soon after and made the slow migration back up to Seulgi's face, a half assed excuse of "I like your bra," even though it didn't even matter on top of how incredibly transparent he was. "Feel anything yet?" he asked her as a follow up, like he could gloss over his own vocalized blunders.
