He was shaking all over and sweating profusely again, but Giroro was desperate to get Kululu back aboveground so he persevered.
After a while, Giroro saw that Kululu was starting to come around again. The sergeant major groaned, then raised his hand up and weakly smacked Giroro's face.
"What?" the corporal asked sharply. When he looked down at Kululu he was surprised to be met with such a cold glare.
"What is it with you, huh?" the sergeant major spat.
"I'm just trying to save your life, idiot," Giroro retorted.
"I," Kululu panted, "told you-"
"Yeah, you told me to just let the Rurlough kill you!" the corporal said, feeling a pang of anger. "If I did that, it would destroy the whole purpose of this mission!" He took a left turn at a fork in the path and added, "Not to mention, if I had left you then you'd be dead."
Kululu ignored Giroro's last statement and, drawing strength from his frustration, continued, "If the rest of you used your heads a little maybe you could fix your problems on your own. But instead you come here and almost get yourself killed just to bother me and drag me back there to fix everything for you." He took a painful breath. "How pathetic."
"If you used your head a little maybe you'd realize that obviously that's not why we're trying so hard." Giroro didn't want to stop walking, but he had to, if only just for a few minutes. He set Kululu down propped up against the wall, and then sat across from him. "Maybe you'd realize that we all just want you to live."
Kululu scoffed and rolled his eyes. "What for? You don't care about me. None of you do. The four of you only want me back so I can fix your little problems." He coughed quietly and went on. "Think about it, corporal. How many times have you people called me 'insidious' and said my personality was 'dark'?"
Giroro listened unflinchingly to all of this with no change of expression and no reply. Kululu slid a little further down the wall and looked down before adding, "Especially you. You always expressed an extreme distaste for me, and if I ever had the audacity to speak to you, all you ever did was try to get as far away from me as possible. And now you expect me to believe you actually care about me? Face it, you're just acting on orders." He shook his head. "What a joke." He was starting to lose steam so he fell silent, closing his eyes and resting his head against the wall.
Giroro stretched out and struck him hard across the face, shouting, "Screw you!" Kululu gasped with pain when he twisted, but Giroro didn't even take notice. "You've known me for over ten years now and you aren't stupid, so you should be able to figure out for yourself that I'm not going to risk my life for someone if I don't care about them!" He knew that he shouldn't have hit the sergeant major, who was already in such a critical condition, but for the moment he didn't care.
The force of the impact had made Kululu turn to the side. There was an incredibly sharp pain in his chest that burned and immediately started feeling swollen.
He slowly turned to face Giroro again. A whining ring, related either to his injuries or to his anger, sung in his ears. Then, inexplicably, a peculiar grim smile began to sneak across his gaunt features.
Without warning he leaned forward, took Giroro's face in his hands, and kissed him harshly on the mouth.
Shock was the first thing that registered in the corporal's mind. Of course, Kululu had teased and flirted with him for years, but he had never made a move like this.
Giroro's next feeling was anger, and his reaction was to want to hit the sergeant major again. But he couldn't. That would just cause further damage to Kululu's brain. So instead, he roughly pushed him away and broke eye contact, his face burning.
A little bit of blood spilled out of the sergeant major's mouth. Internal bleeding, he thought dully.
"You're the idiot," Kululu muttered snidely through his teeth before settling back against the wall.
:')