Kaldalis waited until Heluna wasn’t actively hammering another plank of wood into the growing frame of the watchtower before he approached. She had managed not to startle him in such a way as to cause him to hurt himself while he was gathering the wood, but he didn’t want to press their luck on greetings while tools were involved.

He watched her work from the sidelines until she turned around to grab another plank.

“The fuck are you doing here?” she said, mumbling out the words around a quartet of nails hanging from her silvery lips.

“We finished all the quests,” Kaldalis said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder towards the growing mob of adventurers delivering literal tons of materials to the quest givers. “And there’s not a second round ready for us yet. So I’m kinda floating in limbo until then.”

“Well, shit,” Heluna said, reaching up to grab the nails from her mouth. She ran the back of her hand across her lips as if to wipe the taste of metal from them, which obviously didn’t work, as when her gray tongue darted across them she gave an uncomfortable grimace. “That fuckin’ sucks, man.”

Kaldalis shrugged. “It does mean we might be able to catch up now, if you like. I was hoping to talk to you before the next calamity in my life, you know?”

“I’d prefer you not have a calamity at all,” Heluna grumbled. She tossed the nails into the bucket next to the pile of wooden planks. “But sure, we can chat.”

“You don’t have to stop working,” Kaldalis said, pointing up at the skeletal wooden scaffold behind her. “I mean, unless you’ve had enough of it.”

“Given what’s been going on with you lately,” Heluna said, crossing her arms over her chest, “I’d think you might want some more privacy than shouting up at me while I’m working.” She pointed off towards the beach. “Didn’t you need to make a trip back to Cotanaku, anyway?”

“Oh, you want to go now?” Kaldalis looked around the text elements of his UI, expecting to find a clock somewhere. “I thought you weren’t due back until the afternoon.”

“Yeah, but if we head back now, I can get a real meal in the mess, instead of having to eat whatever shit I can hold in one hand on the trip.” Heluna clapped a hand down on his shoulder, turning him and giving him a gentle push to get moving. “It’s a long fucking boat ride, right? It might be a good idea to get you over there sooner to speed up your own return trip, too.”

Kaldalis chuckled at that. “You’re right. When you’re right, you’re right, and you? You’re always right.”

“You give me too much fuckin’ credit,” Heluna laughed, thumping him twice on the back. “That said, we should hang out more often. And I deserve more free time to lay on the beach.”

“You’re still right,” Kaldalis said with a smirk, “but that doesn’t mean it’s gonna happen.”

“Damn,” she said with a mischievous grin. “Can’t blame a girl for tryin’, though?”

When they got to the beach, there was a freshly unloaded boat already preparing to head back to Cotanaku. Kaldalis managed to flag down the suyon sailor before the boat pushed off and the pair were able to get aboard to ride back with him.

Unloaded, the longboat rode high in the water, and their every movement caused it to wobble. At the direction of the sailor with the paddle, they moved to the opposite end of the boat, sitting side-by-side where the narrowing front end of the boat barely gave them room to be anything but shoulder-to-shoulder.

It wasn’t until the prow was cutting through the water that Kaldalis realized they were basically acting as ballast.

“So what did you want to chat about?” Heluna asked, once they were underway.

“Honestly,” Kaldalis said with a sigh, running a hand over his close-cropped hair. “I was hoping you’d have something to talk about.”

“Why the fuck’s that?” Heluna asked. She tried to plant her hands on her hips, but seated as they were, she didn’t really have room. Instead, she settled for a faux glare. “You hoping something bad happened to me?”

“No, not at all,” Kaldalis laughed, “but you’re not far off.” He took a deep breath, trying to figure out how to word what he had to say so that he wouldn’t get bodily hurled from the boat.

Sitting this close to her, he could see the understated muscles in her biceps and shoulders would make it easy for her to heave him into the water.

“I want to apologize. I’ve only been looking for you to talk to when I have a problem and I need a-” He rolled his hand in the air, trying to find an appropriate fantasy occupation instead of the real-world equivalent. Finding no answer, he just said what he was thinking. “A fucking therapist or something. It’s not fair to you. You’re my friend, not my life coach.”

“Shit, man,” Heluna laughed, though there was confusion in her eyes even as she socked him playfully in the shoulder. “I don’t feel that way at all. We’re friends, right? If you can’t be vulnerable and talk about your fuckin’ problems with your friends, are you really friends at all?”

He laughed at that, but his body stiffened when he felt her arm settle around his shoulders after having socked him. His mind presented him with a sudden image of an eight-armed snake woman grabbing him. He shook the image away quickly, but not before Heluna picked up on his discomfort, pulling her hand away.

Kaldalis remembered he hadn’t told her about what he’d faced. He didn’t feel ready to talk about it now - especially not after he just apologized for not talking to her except when he had something going on.

But it still sucked some of the friendly mood out of the air.

Luckily, Heluna didn’t let the silence drag too long. “It’s a good thing you don’t have any bullshit going on right now, anyway. Because I owe you an apology.”

“What?” Kaldalis asked, blinking at her in confusion.

“I was wrong about you,” Heluna said with a grimace. “I know you just fuckin’ said I’m always right, but you shouldn’t get to give advice unless you own up when you’re wrong.”

Kaldalis tried to cast his mind back over all the things she’d said about him she could have been wrong about.

The only thing that immediately came to mind was when they’d had to escape the captain’s room on the Persimmon and she’d said he wasn’t her type.

At that thought, he hoped his indigo skin would hide the flush he felt in his cheeks.

“I said you’d be a shitty leader,” Heluna said, clearing up the confusion, “or, at least, I said leadership would be shitty for you. I thought responsibility would chafe your ass off, and here you are in charge of another town and thriving.”

“I’m- I’m not really in charge,” Kaldalis stammered, surprised by the unexpected compliment.

“Bullshit,” Heluna said, smirking at him, “you’ve got every fuckin’ adventurer in that town following you around like loyal hounds. You may not be the official leader, but all the power in Panbu is behind you right now, not the council.” She gave him a genuine smile. “And you’re in the best mood I’ve ever seen you in. I was way off the fuckin’ mark. Leadership looks good on you.”

“That’s-” Kaldalis started, but then stopped and tried to push down the defensive urge to object.

He needed to be honest, and not just for her, but for himself. Looking inward, he wasn’t happy by what he found, but he had to give voice to it.

Heluna was just a bunch of pixels and AI code, right? What kind of loser lies to an AI?

“You were right,” Kaldalis said at last. “The first time, not now. This is working for me for exactly the reasons that being an expedition leader would not have.” He gestured at the coast, encompassing the jungle beyond the beach as it flew past. “Doing this, I’m out there doing shit, not stuck in the room holding down a chair for a bunch of other people to talk around me. I’m working towards a goal here, doing exactly the things you said leadership would take away from me.”

“Doesn’t change that you’re making it work now.”

“That’s the situation,” Kaldalis said. “I have a goal and I’m not tied down. That’s not applicable to the expedition leader position, right? Think about where Garyung is right now. He needs Panbu to succeed, but all he could do was throw me at it and then put out the word to go help. He’s not out there in the trenches doing the work.”

Heluna tapped her chin with a finger thoughtfully. “I didn’t think about that.”

“So yeah, at the end of the day, you were right,” Kaldalis said, patting her on the shoulder. “If I’d gotten the expedition leader position, I’d have been miserable. Now that I’ve had leadership thrust upon me, the only way I’ve made it work was by listening to what you said.” He tentatively put his arm around her shoulder as she had his a moment ago, pulling her into a side hug. “I’m running around in the wilderness being a big damn hero. You said I’d miss that, and you were right.”

“Well, if you want to tell me I’m right, I’m not gonna fuckin’ argue,” Heluna said, grinning as she leaned into his side. “I’m not a dumbass, after all.”

They rode together in amiable silence for a while after that. It was surprisingly serene, and Kaldalis felt as comfortable here as he did fishing. The water slid by at surprising speed considering all that was propelling them was one man with an oar, especially a Suyon who wouldn’t come up to Kaldalis’s waist if they were standing side by side.

But the lapping of the water against the sides of the longboat, and the splash-and-swish of the oar in the water was calming.

So calming that he didn’t realize he was still holding Heluna to his side until the dock at Cotanaku came properly into view.

Before he could get flustered, he saw why the Suyon sailor was pushing to get the boat back there so fast. There were piles of materials on the dock, and almost a dozen adventurers standing alongside the supplies, anxiously waiting with no longboat on the dock to take them to Panbu. One of them pointed to the boat, and the whole group started to move forward, lining up along the edge of the pier.

“Better get ready to hop out,” Kaldalis warned, gesturing with his chin at the line. “Those guys don’t look like they want to wait.”

“No shit,” Heluna scoffed, finally leaning away from him to make ready to disembark. “No offense, but you adventurers are fuckin’ assholes.”

“Hard to be offended when you’re right,” Kaldalis laughed, doing his best to guess at how they could best get out of the way.

The longboat pulled up alongside the dock, and as soon as it was there, Heluna’s confident sea legs let her hop up onto the planks before it had even come to a full stop. She reached down and grabbed Kaldalis’s hand to help him up.

Heluna didn’t let go immediately, using her grip on his hand to pull him well out of the way of the adventurers who hopped down immediately, and the handful of sailors who passed down sacks and bins of supplies to join them.

Kaldalis was impressed with the speed of their work. In under a minute, the boat was riding low on the water, and the boat was rowing back already, the Suyon joined by another sailor to help push the heavy load back towards Panbu.

“I should do something about that,” Kaldalis said, as there was still a sizable pile of materials on the dock waiting for the next boat. “Maybe I can ask Big Mike to get some more of his boys in gear on this.”

“Name dropper,” Heluna said with a smirk as she led him by the hand back down towards Cotanaku’s gate. “And so fuckin’ casual. Big Mike instead of Captain Michael.”

Kaldalis found himself suddenly defensive. “He’s been very adamant about the name. I was just trying to respect his wishes.”

“I’m giving you a hard time for no fuckin’ reason,” she said, dropping his hand to sock him in the shoulder again. “Don’t be so serious.”

“Alright, alright,” Kaldalus laughed, running a hand across his close-cropped hair again. “Well, I’ve got errands to run before I get back to work on Panbu. And since there’s a wait for the boats, I oughtta make it fast.”

“Get back to work, slacker,” Heluna said with a big grin. She paused for a moment before adding: “you know, It’d be great to have you for dinner again. If you have time.”

He felt a chill at the word choice, suddenly haunted by memories of Ara again. But he shook it off, trying not to let it show on his face. “I’d love to, but I’m not going to have time for a while. I’ve got to get a whole town upgraded in three days. I only got this break by happenstance, and it’s earmarked for this quest,” he said, vaguely gesturing towards Sivima’s quest on the right side of his vision. “Raincheck?”

“What the fuck is a raincheck?” Heluna asked, brow suddenly furrowed.

“It’s, uh,” Kaldalis blinked, shocked and confused. “It means the next time I have a break, you have dibs.”

“You’re just making shit up now,” Heluna said, arching an eyebrow at him. “Dibs?”

Kaldalis’s confusion redoubled. “Therapist” was apparently a perfectly acceptable word to use, but “raincheck” and "dibs" were too far?

What a weird choice of worldbuilding.

“What I mean is that the next time I have a chance,” he said, pattering her on the shoulder. “I’m all yours, okay? But I don’t know when that’s going to be, so I can’t really make any promises.”

“Oh,” Heluna said, her expression brightening, “Alright then. Reigncheck.”

He had the sudden impression that she misunderstood, but wasn’t entirely sure how. She seemed happy, though, so he wasn’t going to waste time asking her to explain it back to him.

“I hope I see you again before then,” Kaldalis said, “but if I don’t get moving, the whole day will get away from me.”

“I hope so, too.”

Before he could do more than smile, she put a hand on his shoulder and leaned in, giving him a quick peck on the cheek.

She was gone before he even realized what had happened.

Kaldalis’s brain felt like it physically lurched in his skull as it downshifted from trying to plan out the next hour of his day to processing that Heluna had just kissed him on the cheek.

Was it a Finnian thing? Was she making fun of him for the hug earlier? Was it more than that? Did it mean something?

Had she just asked him out on a fucking date?

He couldn’t adequately put any of his concerns to the test. Heluna had already disappeared into the town. It was Future!Kaldalis’ problem. He did his best to push the concern aside to deal with later.

Considering his experiences in college with casual affection from female friends, he knew he’d have plenty of time to painfully overanalyze his every interaction with her while laying in bed staring at the ceiling slipping slowly into madness.

With that mental acknowledgement that this emotional turmoil would be dealt with later, he pushed past it and made his way through the town to Sivima’s shop.