Maddy stopped abruptly, the word scared sticking in her throat, replaced by a raw frustration. Her chest heaved, her heart hammering against her ribs. Her hands, usually so steady were trembling as she lunged forward, grabbing his heavy shoulder plates and shaking him with a strength that shouldn’t have been possible for a "simple" adventurer.

"Don’t you ever disappear like that again, you stubborn, reckless idiot! You are my partner, and you will stay where I can see you! Or at least stay close to me! Got it?!"

Johnn looked up at her, completely stunned. He was used to the icy, efficient Maddy, not this raging, maternal force of nature. He blinked, rubbing his bruised shoulder, his face flushing a deep, embarrassed red.

Maddy’s grip on his shoulder plates remained iron tight, her knuckles white, before Johnn finally found his voice. He looked down at the mud, his expression crumpling into genuine contrition.

"I’m sorry," he mumbled, his voice uncharacteristically small. "I didn’t mean to worry you. You were sleeping so soundly after all that work... I didn’t want to wake you up just for that."

Maddy’s breath hitched, her eyes widening slightly as the raw, protective fire in her chest flickered. She hadn’t expected him to be thinking of her comfort while he was out there in the dark.

"I just needed to take a leak. I stepped just past the clearing, and as I was... you know, finishing up, the forest started shifting. It didn’t make a sound. One second the path back to the tent was clear, and the next, the trees just... folded in on themselves. I turned around to head back, but the ground had already rearranged. I didn’t know where I was going. I was just trying to find a landmark, but everything kept moving."

The sheer normalcy of his explanation, the mundane reality of a man just trying to answer nature’s call, drained the remaining adrenaline from Maddy’s veins. The image of the legendary hero, the SSS rank powerhouse, being outmaneuvered by his own bladder and a shifting forest, silenced the last of her rage.

She let go of his shoulder plates as if they had suddenly turned to hot coals. She took a step back, her arms falling limply to her sides. The heat of her anger evaporated, leaving her feeling exposed and suddenly, painfully embarrassed by her own outburst. She wiped a stray lock of hair from her face, refusing to meet his eyes.

"I see, I... I overreacted."

She paced a small circle in the dirt, her heels crunching on the dead leaves.

"It’s just...," she began, struggling to find the words without revealing too much of the shadow that lived in her heart. "I’ve lost people before, Johnn. I don’t want... I don’t need to watch someone else go missing. Or die."

She finally looked at him, her gaze guarded, the icy, efficient Maddy struggling to reassert herself over the vulnerability she had just laid bare.

"It’s inefficient. Don’t do it again."

Johnn wiped the dirt from his leggings and stood up, his posture relaxing. He looked at her, his expression turning serious or as serious as he ever got when he was trying to needle her.

"I hear you, Maddy. And for the record, you weren’t overreacting. If the roles were reversed and you went missing in this maze, I’d probably be tearing the trees out by the roots myself. You’d have every right to expect me to lose my head over it."

He paused, then that familiar, devil may care smirk crept onto his face. It was the same look that always made Maddy’s blood pressure spike—the one that suggested he was entirely too comfortable with the danger they were in.

"Since you brought it up, though," he continued, leaning in with a playful glint in his eye, "how about we make this official? From now on, whenever we need to... ’leak,’ we do it together. That way, no one wanders off, right? Safety in numbers."

The silence lasted for a heartbeat. Maddy’s eyes narrowed into slits.

"You absolute, insufferable moron," she hissed.

Without a second thought, she pivoted and delivered a swift, perfectly placed kick to his chest. The force was enough to send Johnn flying backward, his back hitting the forest floor with a dull, heavy thud that rattled the nearby brush.

"I am not going to the bathroom with you, you idiot!"

Johnn didn’t even try to stand up immediately. He just lay there in the dirt, gasping for air, but a moment later, a loud, genuine laugh erupted from him. He clutched his stomach, his shoulders shaking with the sheer humor of her reaction.

Maddy stood over him, her chest heaving, her hands balled into fists, but as she watched him laugh, the genuine, unburdened sound of it started to chip away at her own lingering annoyance.

Johnn looked up at her from the ground, his eyes bright and filled with a warmth that was entirely disarming. He was thinking about how she’d just displayed both crushing strength and a terrifying, desperate kind of concern—the kind of concern only someone who truly cared would feel.

"So, I guess that makes us official, doesn’t it? Real partners."

He sat up, brushing dust off his armor, looking at her with an expression of pure, unfiltered contentment.

"I’ll tell you what. Getting lost and having you hunt me down? That was worth it. I haven’t felt this alive in a long, long time."

Johnn stood up, his movements slow as the adrenaline faded, leaving only a quiet, grounded stillness in his posture. He looked at Maddy, his expression devoid of his usual mocking shield, his eyes searching hers with a vulnerability that felt heavier than any armor.

"You know... Getting lost out there... and the way you reacted, it stripped something away. I realized why I’ve been so drawn to you since the moment we met. It wasn’t because of what I saw when the hood slipped, or because you’re the most capable partner I’ve ever had."

He took a deep breath.

"It’s you. You remind me so much of her. My... mother."