Further down the path, Yuka and Kaira chatted as they walked side by side.
"Hey, Kaira! You used up almost all of my precious hair product stash!" Yuka scolded, slightly annoyed. "It's REALLY hard to get all that, and you didn't even ask my permission first!"
"Oh..."
Kaira said in a completely nonchalant tone.
"Later you can make it simpler like this... make it for both of us, okay?"
"It's not that simple to do!"
Yuka protested.
"And why are you suddenly so focused on taking care of your hair now? I've never seen you like this!"
"You know perfectly well that I like nice smells!"
Kaira defended herself; well, there was a lot of truth to that, she genuinely loved the pleasant smells of the products, and she loved Yuka's natural scent too. But this time it went far beyond that, it wasn't just the alluring smell. Suddenly, without quite understanding why, she also had an inexplicable desire to have well-hydrated and beautiful hair like Yuka's always was.
"I can even get all the specific ingredients for you if you want! I'll even give you food if you prefer, I'll give you my whole share later, and hunt extra for you too, okay? So stop being such a complainer!"
"Speaking of food..." Yuka said shyly, her voice coming out lower than usual.
"What? Don't seriously tell me you're hungry again?!"
Kaira turned accusingly.
"Our agreement doesn't apply right now , I'm not going to hunt for food in the middle of the trip!"
Yuka glanced quickly behind her, checking if Hawke was close enough to hear. Realizing he was quite far away marking trees, she continued carefully:
"N-no, it's not that... it's just... Hawke, has he ever tried to do something strange to you?"
"Like what exactly?"
"I don't know... passing food from one mouth to another, as birds do with their chicks?"
"What kind of normal person would do that?!"
Kaira gave a genuine laugh.
"He's not a wild animal..."
She paused, processing that scene.
Kaira vividly imagined the scene , Hawke carefully feeding Yuka by mouth, and shook her head forcefully, trying to push away the disturbing image.
"Why? Did he happen to try that with you?"
"N-no... but if he tried it with YOU, would you let him?"
"No! Never!"
Kaira replied categorically.
"I'm not some fragile little cub needing special care and pre-chewed food! I know perfectly well how to chew on my own and manage; I have all my strong teeth! The one who needs that kind of thing is Grandma, who barely has any teeth left!"
"And what if the food is... really good? Like baked goods?" Yuka insisted softly.
Kaira stared intently at Yuka, completely bewildered by the extremely unusual and specific questions.
"And YOU, Yuka? Would you accept if he did that?"
"Ah! And also give my aching feet a thorough massage, and then I'll let you use my products as much as you like!" Yuka said quickly, staring at the floor, changing the subject.
"Why did you completely change the subject now?!"
Kaira asked, confused, but without any success in getting honest answers, she resignedly continued:
"That's fine, then... I'll take care of your feet with care."
Kaira looked up, her hands nervously clutching her back.
"Yuka..."
"Huh?"
"M-my hair... w-what do you honestly think of it?"
Kaira stammered.
Yuka remained completely silent, without an immediate reaction; this was exactly the kind of question she would NEVER imagine Kaira asking in her entire life.
"It's... beautiful. Very beautiful indeed."
Kaira showed a pleased reaction to the validation, delicately taking one of her own long strands and feeling it with her fingers, smelling it.
Suddenly, they heard extremely fast footsteps approaching from behind, breaking dry leaves and branches in their path; it was Hawke approaching running. The makeshift water bag in the leaf had been left behind with Kuggi and Duggi and the old woman, who at the absurd rate she was drinking, wouldn't make that water last long.
Hawke extended his hand, and in it he held the leather waterskin.
"Kaira! Take back your waterskin; I filled it completely with fresh water I found! It's very good, try it!" "Carry it for me then," Kaira ordered casually. "It's not that heavy, is it? Besides, I'm not even thirsty right now. Kuggi or Duggi would carry it for me easily, even though they'd drink it all along the way. Why don't you carry it?"
She deliberately wanted to leave a concrete reason to talk to him later, since she definitely wasn't very good at initiating conversations naturally.
'Of course! Where's my basic chivalry?'
Hawke noticed something interesting at that moment; after the relaxing bath in the lagoon, Kaira and Yuka's glances back to check him had become MUCH more frequent than before, almost constant, and they talked quite a bit along the way. He worriedly wondered if there was something visibly wrong with his own face; like painful bumps, stuck-on dirt, tangled branches stuck in his hair.
He nervously ran his hand all over his head to check.
Or maybe he was acting strangely without realizing it?
Thinking about it, he was looking considerably less at their mesmerizing, dancing behinds now during the walk, trying to be more discreet. He seriously considered that this might be exactly it, and they had noticed that he was staring too much.
But it was extremely difficult to be sure since they were constantly walking in front of him, impossible to know what they were worried about.
Maybe they were simply talking about him amongst themselves; what specific kinds of things would they be commenting on about him?
Hawke let his imagination run wild with this, creating scenarios as he walked carrying the leather wineskin.
Kaira suddenly quickened her pace, approaching the front of the line --Tairo -- quickly as if she had some urgently important message to deliver.
In the distance, Hawke was trying to understand, confused, what the hell was happening up ahead.
'She noticed I was looking too much at the... where I shouldn't look, and now I'm going to be publicly exposed to the leader! I'll be shamefully banished from the group for inappropriate behavior! That's what happens when you don't have absolute control over your own eyes!'
He was visibly apprehensive about the possibilities.
After Kaira whispered something directly in Tairo's ear for a few seconds, he made an extremely clear signal with a raised hand for everyone to stop immediately where they were. The line obediently gathered.
"Guys..."
Tairo began, almost whispering very softly.
"We'll have to be VERY careful from now on, there's something extremely dangerous near us right now... We can't make unnecessary noise, and we need to be very careful where we step, understood?"