“What are you thinking about?” Kisa asks quietly.

His heart practically stops in his chest.

The trickster is so thoroughly shocked that Kisa has just used banmal, the informal (inwardly, he is screaming in victory and pumping a fist in the air), that he entirely fails to realize what she’s actually said until she repeats herself. In banmal. Banmal.

“Seokga,” she prompts again.

“Uh,” says Seokga, physically unable to use any semblance of eloquent language at the moment. His heart has begun to beat again, so violently that he wonders if he could possibly be going into cardiac arrest. “Um.”

Kisa’s concern spirals down their bond.

—because—used—banmal?—should I—not?—thought—because—we’re—naked—after—all—

“No,” Seokga gasps out, struggling to tread water without resembling a dying fish. “Please use banmal. Please.”

So much for her “squashing.” He attempts to withhold a shout of triumph.

“None of…this”—a vague gesture at the thread, her slender arm lifting from the water and causing Seokga’s mouth to dry out rather pathetically—“means that we can’t be—friends. Would you, I mean, can we do that? Just friends?”

Friends. His heart shatters and mends itself all at once. “Just friends,” he repeats, voice little more than a croak.

“I’d like that. To be your friend.” Her smile is like a shy crescent moon barely peeking out of the clouds. “Now will you tell me what you were thinking? The way you were staring up at the stalactites made me curious.”

Compose yourself, Seokga tells himself, although he’s becoming certain that he is in the middle of a heart attack. “The red thread is keeping my secrets now, is it?” he croaks, his attempt to sound suave and nonchalant failing miserably.

Kisa shrugs and smirks. “Apparently.”

“I was just…I was remembering my father.” Seokga straightens in the water and shakes his head, spraying drops all over Kisa—a quick way to change the topic.

A knowing glint in her eyes tells Seokga that Kisa knows precisely what he’s doing, but she humors him all the same. She tips her head back and, with gusto, jerks it up again and shakes water from her long, waterlogged curls. Hands raising to protect himself from the onslaught, Seokga finds himself chuckling.

“Fine,” he begrudgingly admits, “you and your mane have won.” He despises losing, but with Kisa, he doesn’t mind.

She smirks, but a moment later, she shivers. When she raises an arm from the water once more, he sees that delicate bumps have raised all over her skin.