“This is painkiller.
We don’t have any fever reducer on us at the moment, but most painkillers on the market come with anti-inflammatory and fever-reducing effects bundled in, so it shouldn’t be a problem.” Isac said.
“Just being given any medication at all — I can’t thank you enough.” Hayasaka Ai answered with understanding.
She knew this wasn’t the time to be picky.
Back at the Shinomiya family estate, even a minor cold would get her a treatment plan tailor-made by a dedicated professional medical team.
But out here in the middle of nowhere, never mind a medical team — finding another human being at all took serious effort.
Under conditions like these, someone willing to crack open their precious stock of medical supplies for you — honestly, that was already going well above and beyond.
As for the Shinomiya family’s rescue team… two full days in and still not a peep.
The truth was, Hayasaka Ai had stopped holding out hope for them a while ago.
It was entirely possible that this plane crash itself had been engineered by certain people inside the Shinomiya family.
Of course, none of that was anything Hayasaka Ai was going to say out loud to Isac and Yukinoshita Yukino.
The reason these two were willing to help her in the first place was, in large part, out of respect for the Shinomiya family name.
If she turned around and told them, “oh, by the way, this crash was actually the Shinomiya family fighting amongst themselves,” then far from earning their goodwill, she might actually drag them into a feud with other members of the Shinomiya family.
That would just be asking for trouble.
What Hayasaka Ai didn’t realize, though, was that Isac wasn’t helping them for the Shinomiya family’s sake at all.
The real reason was much simpler: the two of them had once been his 2D waifus, back in the day.
Call it finally paying his tab for all those doujinshi he’d burned through over the years.
And likewise — those were absolutely not words Isac was ever going to say out loud to Hayasaka Ai and Yukinoshita Yukino.
“So — you’re heading back next, then?” Isac asked.
Hayasaka Ai nodded.
“Yes.
Lady Kaguya is still waiting for me.
The two of you—”
At that point, Hayasaka Ai seemed to realize she still didn’t know either of her hosts’ names.
She quickly added: “Please forgive my rudeness — with everything being so urgent earlier, I completely forgot to ask my two benefactors for their names.”
“My name is Yukinoshita Yukino.” Yukinoshita Yukino offered her name.
“Isac.” Isac followed right after.
“Ms.
Yukinoshita, Mr.
Isac — I’ve committed your names to memory.
Once Lady Kaguya wakes up, I will be sure to relay everything you have done for us, exactly as it happened.”
“With that, if you’ll permit me — I must take my leave.”
And with that, Hayasaka Ai prepared to say her goodbyes.
She needed to get back to the mine shaft as fast as possible and get the medication into Shinomiya Kaguya.
“Hold on.
I’ll come with you.” Isac’s voice stopped Hayasaka Ai in her tracks.
“You—” Hayasaka Ai was caught off guard.
She hadn’t expected Isac to volunteer to come along on his own initiative.
Yukinoshita Yukino was also puzzled.
The way she saw it, she and Isac had already done everything that could reasonably be asked of them simply by handing over the medication.
There was zero need to take on additional risk by escorting Hayasaka Ai on the trip.
Even if it was for the sake of some reward from the Shinomiya family — surely it didn’t warrant going this far.
It wasn’t even clear whether they were still in their original world at all!
Still, if Isac was making this call, he had to have his reasons.
The past few days of living together had taught Yukinoshita Yukino that Isac was not the reckless type.
Quite the opposite — every move he made carried a steadiness well beyond what you’d expect from someone his age.
So instead of voicing her doubts on the spot, she chose to trust him first.
“Yukinoshita and I are crash survivors too.
We’re all in the same boat out here — helping each other out is just what people should do.” Isac explained.
“And — Miss Hayasaka, it looks to me like there’s something going on with your eyes…”
From the moment she’d walked through the door until now, Hayasaka Ai had been blinking at an absurdly rapid rate.
The whites of her eyes were threaded through with red veins, leaving them as red as a rabbit’s.
Isac had pegged it at a glance as a textbook case of snow blindness.
If he just let her head back on her own in this condition, and something went sideways out there along the way, that would be enough to cost two lives at once.
Better safe than sorry — he’d tag along.
Hayasaka Ai went silent and held Isac in her stare for a long beat, but she couldn’t pick up the slightest trace of malice from him.
It really did seem like the guy just sincerely wanted to help.
That kind of pure, no-strings-attached goodwill caught Hayasaka Ai — accustomed as she was to a world of constant scheming and backstabbing — completely off-balance.
For a beat, she genuinely had no idea how to respond.
“…Thank you.”
In the end, Hayasaka Ai accepted Isac’s offer of help, and thanked him in a quiet voice.
She obviously understood, perfectly well, just how terrifying it was to lose your vision out in snow country — never mind that snow was actively falling outside on top of it.
Now that she’d accepted Isac’s company for the trip, there were certain things Hayasaka Ai needed to make absolutely clear to the two of them upfront.
“It’s about three kilometers of mountain trail from here to where we’re going.
The path isn’t an easy one.
There’s a strong chance it’ll already be dark by the time we get there.”
What Hayasaka Ai was getting at was this: if Isac came along, he probably wasn’t going to make it back tonight.
Isac glanced over at Yukinoshita Yukino beside him, and found her in the middle of pouring the water out of the thermos and refilling it with freshly boiled hot water.
“Hot water for the road.” Yukinoshita Yukino screwed the lid back on the thermos and handed it over to Isac.
Clearly, Yukinoshita Yukino had already made her position perfectly clear through action alone.
Hayasaka Ai looked at Yukinoshita Yukino, then looked back at Isac. Get faster updates on g.com.
There was a strange glint in her eyes, and she couldn’t keep the question down: “Are the two of you… a couple?”
“No.” Isac shook his head in denial.
Yukinoshita Yukino chimed in right after: “We’re still just friends.”
Oh — so it was “still,” was it?
Hayasaka Ai turned Yukinoshita Yukino’s wording over in her head, and the more she chewed on it, the more she felt that single word “still” really nailed the essence of the situation.
“Relax.
I’ll keep him safe.” Hayasaka Ai offered her guarantee.
A weird look crossed Isac’s face.
Wasn’t that the kind of line that should’ve been coming from him, given he was the guy here?
But the second he remembered the item in her right-hand pocket, his concerns just… dissolved.
No issue there.
Hayasaka Ai really could keep him safe.
Before they left, Isac handed off the flare gun he’d been carrying to Yukinoshita Yukino.
That way, if anything came at her while she was alone in the cabin, she wouldn’t be completely defenseless.
Though, realistically — as long as Yukinoshita Yukino kept the door shut, there weren’t many wild animals capable of breaking through it anyway.
…
“That thing you’re—” Hayasaka Ai looked at how Isac had outfitted himself, and trailed off, like she wanted to ask but couldn’t quite bring herself to.
“Snow blindness prevention.
The more overcast the sky is, the more you need the precaution.
I’d think you of all people would already know that.”
Isac’s expression remained perfectly level — apparently he saw absolutely no problem with using a bra as an eye-shield.
It was survival, after all.
Stay alive first; worry about saving face later.
He sized up Hayasaka Ai’s bark eye-shield, dug another small piece of fabric out of his pocket, and asked: “You want one too?
This thing works a whole lot better than tree bark.”
Hayasaka Ai’s mouth opened, then closed.
What she really wanted to ask was how, exactly, he’d come into possession of so many of these, uh… personal items.
As if reading the question right off her face, Isac volunteered an explanation: “Dug them out of a suitcase.
Out in the wild, every single thing has its use.”
“You’re right about that.” Hayasaka Ai took off the bark eye-shield, accepted the special eye-shield Isac was holding out, and put it on.
“Let’s go.
While there’s still daylight, let’s pick up the pace.”
____
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