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“Three cans of meat, two cans of soybeans, one hunting knife, one piece of flint, one bottle of salt, one flare gun plus three rounds of ammo, and one beat-up old cotton blanket.”
“That’s the entire haul we pulled out of this cabin.”
Isac laid the items out one by one on the table as he spoke to Yukinoshita Yukino.
“Don’t forget the half-burnt candle and the books beside it.
The hide blanket I’m sitting on counts too.” Yukinoshita Yukino reminded him.
“Looked at that way, we’re actually pretty loaded, aren’t we?” Isac broke into the most relaxed grin he’d cracked in days; he even had the spare bandwidth to throw in a wisecrack: “Even the weapons we were shortest on before are restocked.
Hunting knife for melee, flare gun for ranged — Mom doesn’t have to worry about us surviving the wilderness anymore.”
Those three cans of meat also patched the single biggest gap in his and Yukinoshita Yukino’s current diet — fats and oils.
In the short term, at least, it really did look like they wouldn’t have to worry about survival anymore.
“Yeah.”
A smile surfaced on Yukinoshita Yukino’s pretty face too.
After two days of wilderness survival, a smudge of dirt or two had inevitably ended up on the girl’s once-fair cheeks, but even that couldn’t hide her natural beauty — when she smiled, it still tugged at the heart.
At the sight, an idea flickered through Isac’s head, and he blurted out without thinking: “It’s still a ways off from bedtime — want me to boil some more water so we can clean up a bit?”
The moment the words were out, he realized this wasn’t quite right, and quickly tacked on: “Just, you know, wipe down face and body real quick — we were on the road all day after all… uh.”
That… didn’t sound right either.
For a moment Isac was at a loss for words.
Alone in a single room with a girl, no matter how he phrased it, it was always going to come out sounding like he was ‘up to something.’
Wipe down the body?
More like ogling hers, you mean.
Disgraceful!
“…”
The scene sank into an inexplicable awkwardness.
Just as Isac was about to crack and say “Forget it,” Yukinoshita Yukino spoke up.
“All right.”
The girl’s voice wasn’t loud, but in a room of less than two hundred square feet, it came through crystal clear.
We can’t exactly take a proper bath under these conditions, but wiping ourselves down with a damp cloth is still doable.
That’s also good for hygiene, helps prevent illness…”
As if to break the awkward mood, or maybe to walk something back, Yukinoshita Yukino went on listing reason after reason on Isac’s behalf.
In the end, perhaps even she herself couldn’t keep going, and she clamped her mouth shut again.
The two of them looked at each other in silence for a moment, until Isac couldn’t take it anymore and stood up:
“I’ll go boil the water.”
With that, he opened the door, grabbed an empty container from inside the cabin, scooped up some snow, brought it back, and set it on the wood stove to wait for the snow inside to melt and come to a boil.
Partway through, he tossed some more firewood into the stove, so it’d burn hotter and the water would come to a boil faster.
“Bloop, bloop…”
A swarm of bubbles rose fast from the bottom of the pan, swelling in size, popping the instant they reached the surface.
With curls of steam rising up alongside them, the water was already at a rolling boil.
Isac wasn’t in any rush to take the pan off the stove, though — he picked out a clean piece of cloth and dropped it into the pan to sterilize in the boiling water.
After roughly fifteen minutes of boiling, Isac finally moved the pan over to the table — but the stove couldn’t be left idle either, so he set two tinfoil trays packed with snow on top, keeping up an uninterrupted supply of hot water.
The downside was that it burned through firewood, but no big deal — the wood left inside the cabin was plenty for tonight, and first thing in the morning he’d head out to the woods nearby and gather some more.
There hadn’t been any trace of human activity around here in a long time, so naturally none of the fallen, dead branches in the surrounding woods would have been picked up either — making it a natural firewood pile.
Isac wouldn’t even need to chop anything; he’d just have to bend down and he could lug the wood home.
Couldn’t have asked for an easier setup.
Calling this cabin in the woods nothing short of a heaven-sent jackpot for Isac and Yukinoshita Yukino wouldn’t have been overstating it.
The one thing left to worry about was that old wolf roaming somewhere nearby.
But with the flare gun in hand, Isac wasn’t sweating it nearly as much.
“You go first.”
Isac tested the water temperature, then carried the pan over to set it in front of Yukinoshita Yukino as he spoke.
“You should go first.” Yukinoshita Yukino shook her head.
In the wild there was no such thing as ‘ladies first’ — whoever put in the most work earned first dibs.
“Don’t push it back and forth — you sweat less, Yukinoshita; your body’s cleaner to start with, so you’ll be faster.
And besides — you’d rather not use a cloth I’ve already wiped down with, right?” Once Isac finished speaking, he turned around and put his back to Yukinoshita Yukino.
“Call me once you’re done.”
The picture of perfect, above-board honesty.
Seeing Isac turn his back to her, Yukinoshita Yukino hesitated for a beat, reached out to test the water, found the temperature just right, and used the dampened cloth to wash her face. This chapter was copied from NovelPing without permission.
Once her face was dry, Yukinoshita Yukino glanced over toward Isac once more.
Confirming his back was still turned, the girl bit her pearly teeth into her lower lip and slowly loosened the top of her collar…
What Isac heard first was the soft drip-and-trickle of water behind him; then the water sounds faded, and the rustle of fabric started up — like someone undressing — baring the blow-on-it-and-it-might-break skin hidden under her clothes, the exquisitely sculpted collarbones, the smooth, straight ridge of her back, the milky-white, exquisitely soft snowy twin…
Whoa — damn brain of mine, since when does your imagination work this well?
Stop thinking!
Cut it out, now!
Isac’s body went stiff.
Even with his back still turned to Yukinoshita Yukino, he didn’t dare open his eyes — but the tighter he squeezed them shut, the more vivid the scene playing in his head got.
His upright posture gradually started to hunch over, and without meaning to, he’d ended up crossing one leg over the other.
Who knew how much time had passed when a voice came from behind him.
“All done.
You can… turn back around.”
Only then did Isac let out a long breath, like a weight had been lifted off him, and turn back around.
His gaze, as if it had a mind of its own, drifted over to Yukinoshita Yukino without his say-so.
Now that her face was washed, Yukinoshita Yukino’s features were clean and finely cut — like an artwork with the dust wiped off, putting its peerless beauty back on display for the world.
As it happened, the moment Isac glanced over at Yukinoshita Yukino, Yukinoshita was also looking right at him.
Their eyes met — and without a word between them, both of them quickly looked away.
Isac cleared his throat lightly: “Ahem — I’ll go dump the water.”
“Mm.” Yukinoshita Yukino made a small sound of acknowledgement.
A very faint flush had surfaced on her fair little face — though the tips of her ears, half-hidden under her hair, had gone solidly red.
Pity Isac had already carried the pan over to the door — and didn’t get to catch that lovely sight.
Once he was back, Isac followed the same procedure — poured the boiling water from the tinfoil tray into the pan, then scooped up another panful of snow and set it back on to boil.
He tested the water temperature, then shot another glance at Yukinoshita Yukino, who was sitting on the bed staring fixedly at him.
Hey, sis — your turn to turn around now.
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👻🔥P- Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Samsara Game: Starting in The Long Dark with My Waifus
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