You Two Look Close
"Over here!"
A rescuer's shout rang through the cave.
"Survivors found!"
Flashlight beams cut through the dark and lit up the interior. It was less a proper cave than a natural rock shelter formed beneath a massive boulder.
They've been living in a place like this?
The thought barely had time to settle before the rescuers who stepped inside fell silent.
"..."
The interior looked nothing like what they had expected. When they first entered, they had braced themselves for the worst. Days of record-breaking rain. No signal, no contact with the outside world. The odds of ordinary people lasting this long in conditions like these were not high. At best, they had imagined the pair finding somewhere dry, curling up in a panic, and waiting for rescue.
What they found instead was something else entirely.
"Impressive," one of the rescuers murmured, slowly taking in the space.
On one side, firewood was stacked in neat piles. On another, a sheltered area had been arranged to stay out of the rain. Around the campfire, there were clear signs that someone had carefully tended the embers so the flame would never go out. Everywhere they looked, the evidence of days of actual living remained intact.
"This is a genuinely excellent base camp." The rescuer meant it. "You kept a fire going through rain like that, and you secured a proper living space." For a moment he almost forgot why he had come. "Most civilians who get stranded never manage this level of judgment."
He looked at Kang Taeseong — the massive frame, the remarkably steady eyes even now.
"Are you by any chance..." the rescuer asked carefully, "...former special forces?"
Kang Taeseong's eyes went wide.
"Excuse me?"
The rescuer smiled. "We run into people like that from time to time. They're different. They don't panic under pressure — prioritizing and moving on instinct is just built into them. President, if you happen to be—"
Kang Taeseong waved both hands in flustered denial.
"No, no. Nothing like that. We just... got lucky."
The rescuer did not look convinced.
"Luck alone doesn't explain a lot of what I'm seeing here."
Kang Taeseong scratched his head, looking sheepish. He knew the truth himself. None of this had been his own ability. Without the skill, he never would have found a safe place this quickly, never would have known what was edible and what wasn't. There was no way to explain any of that, so he brushed it off the way he always did.
"Anyway." The rescuer nodded with a bright expression. "You held out remarkably well. Both of you."
Kang Taeseong was still smiling awkwardly when a frantic voice came from the cave mouth.
"President! Yuri!"
A familiar voice. Company employees must have followed the rescue team up. Moments later, a woman stumbled in, breathing hard. It was the Management Support Team Leader. She looked every bit like someone who had been wandering the mountain for days — clothes soaked through with sweat and rain, face lined with exhaustion. None of that seemed to matter now.
"President! Yuri! Are you all right?!"
The moment she spotted the two of them, her face lit up. They were alive. They were really alive. She took a few more steps forward on pure relief — then stopped cold.
"Oh..."
What she saw in front of her was more than a little disorienting.
By the campfire, under the warm glow of the flames, Kang Taeseong and Choi Yuri stood very close together. Choi Yuri was tucked demurely behind his solid frame, one hand still gripping the edge of his clothes. Around them, the cave still held every trace of days spent living side by side. Nothing about the two of them looked awkward. They looked comfortable. Settled.
The Team Leader blinked.
"..."
This had been a crisis. The fact that they had survived at all was a miracle. And yet, somehow, she felt as if she were interrupting something she had no business interrupting. Three years of dating, followed by married life — that kind of experience left a person with instincts.
Oh my. Oh my. Those two are...
She marveled quietly to herself. Of course she knew this was hardly the time to be thinking about that sort of thing.
"Ahem!" She cleared her throat, deliberately breaking the mood. "I'm just glad you both look healthy! Everyone was so worried about you."
Only then did Choi Yuri realize how the two of them must look.
"...Ah." Her eyes went wide as she scrambled for an explanation. "Th-that's not—! I mean, this really isn't what it looks like—" The words tangled in her panic. "W-we were just... I get cold really easily, so—"
She fidgeted with her hands. The more she talked, the more she could hear herself rambling, and her face only grew redder.
"Yuri! I didn't say a word! I wasn't even misunderstanding anything — you don't have to explain yourself like that!"
"Anyone can see that look on your face!"
As the Team Leader beamed at them with a thoroughly pleased smile, Kang Taeseong stepped in to explain.
"We needed to conserve body heat because of the cold. Yuri had already been soaked through for a long time, and there was a real risk of hypothermia."
The rescuer standing behind them nodded.
"You did the right thing."
Both of them turned to look at him at once.
"Plenty of people get embarrassed, keep their distance, and end up in much worse shape from hypothermia. You both made the right call."
Choi Yuri closed her mouth. Saying anything more would only make it worse.
"We'll move out now," the rescuer said. "You can get a proper checkup once you're back at the resort."
It was time to leave the cave that had been theirs alone for days. The warm campfire. The base camp they had grown attached to. It was really over.
...Ah.
The hours spent building fires with Kang Taeseong, sharing meals, laughing over nothing in particular — the fact that those hours were ending left her feeling more wistful than she had expected. But it was time to go. Choi Yuri looked one last time at the place where the campfire had been, then slowly turned away.
"Hah... hah..."
Park Soyeong's breath burned in her throat. The moment she heard the news, she had raced back to the resort, and she was already cutting across toward the parking lot without giving herself time to recover. The ambulance doors opened. Kang Taeseong stepped out, Choi Yuri right behind him.
"...!"
They were alive. Really alive. Only then did Park Soyeong let out the breath she had been holding.
"Ah!" Choi Yuri spotted her. "Soyeong unnie!"
She ran over with a bright cry and threw her arms around Park Soyeong.
"I missed you."
Park Soyeong's body stiffened slightly.
"...Yeah." The answer barely made it out. "Me too."
She was glad. Of course she was glad Choi Yuri had come back alive. She had genuinely been worried about her. How many times had her heart seized up after hearing they had been swept away in the landslide?
And yet, strangely, even as she patted Choi Yuri's back, her eyes were looking somewhere else. At Kang Taeseong — the President, surrounded by employees. A face she was so relieved to see again.
"President."
Before she knew it, Park Soyeong was walking toward him.
"Assistant Manager Park."
Kang Taeseong noticed her and lifted his head. In that instant, her eyes stung red. For days she had run through every anxious scenario imaginable. What if something had gone wrong. What if the last time she saw him had truly been the last.
"......"
Her lips trembled.
"...I missed you."
Kang Taeseong's eyes widened a fraction.
"Really."
The words drew every nearby gaze. Saying you were worried, saying you were glad someone was safe — that was one thing. What Park Soyeong had just said carried a slightly different weight. Kang Taeseong felt that subtle difference too, and smiled awkwardly.
"I must have put everyone through a lot of worry. I'm sorry."
Park Soyeong shook her head.
"Never mind that — what about you, President?"
"I'm fine."
"Shouldn't you go to the hospital?"
He smiled in a way meant to put her at ease.
"I'm perfectly all right."
That was when Choi Yuri cut in, raising her voice.
"Opp— President! Your knee is scraped! You need to go to the hospital right now!"
"...!"
Park Soyeong doubted her own ears. The other employees might have missed it, but she had heard it clearly.
...Did she just say Oppa?
Had she misheard? No. Impossible. She had heard it distinctly. Choi Yuri had almost called Kang Taeseong Oppa. It could have been a simple slip of the tongue — but even a slip of the tongue was strange. People unconsciously reach for the words they are used to. Somewhere in her mind, Kang Taeseong must already have settled into the image of "Oppa" for that word to come out. Or she had been calling him that the whole time they were stranded together.
What shocked her even more was Kang Taeseong's response.
"It's just a little scrape. Spit on it and it'll be fine."
"Tsk. Go get that treated first. Now."
Park Soyeong's gaze wavered hard.
"...Why."
"Hm?"
"Why are you speaking casually to her?"
Kang Taeseong always used formal speech. Older or younger, every employee received the same treatment. Gentle and easygoing with everyone — and at the same time, always drawing an invisible line. That was what his formal speech meant.
And yet here he was, tearing that wall down for Choi Yuri alone. By speaking to her casually.
"Ah..." Kang Taeseong froze, only then seeming to catch his own slip. "I guess it became a habit. After spending so much time that way up on the mountain." He scratched his head.
Until just a few days ago, Park Soyeong had thought that distance was only natural. A good boss. A superior she could trust. Nothing more, nothing less. Or so she had believed.
So when, exactly, had that changed?
"..."
The fact that the person who had stepped inside that wall was not her — she had never expected that to hurt this much.
"I should go back to formal speech now."
"If casual speech is more comfortable, you can keep using it," Choi Yuri said quietly, smiling, with no idea what was going on in Park Soyeong's chest.
"Still, formal speech is more appropriate at the company, right?"
"That's true." Kang Taeseong nodded. "I'll be more careful again."
"Then when it's just the two of us...?"
"Then I'll switch back to casual."
The exchange between them was far too natural, as if the days they had spent together were simply continuing without interruption. Park Soyeong watched the two of them in silence.
"You two..." She smiled faintly as she spoke. "Look close."
But her eyes were not smiling at all.