Hak smells like ginger, like warmth, like home, like a fire crackling gently in a fireplace. It leaves such a warm feeling that Yona feels she can't help but draw near to him.
How can she describe this feeling? Like homeliness, like a gentle escape, like warm water surrounding her until she melts into his embrace.
No words describe emotion or do it justice, just as no words describe love and do it justice. Yona doesn't know whether this is love or whether the high of adventure is love.
With Soo-Won, there was comfort and a spark. With Hak, there is home and comfort and the kind of spark that makes her face turn red despite her best efforts.
With Hak, there is laughter and teasing and danger, not caused by him or her or by their relationship, but caused by having to fight to stay alive and having to fight to protect and strengthen her kingdom.
It is gentle and slow, gradual, how she falls. It is too much all at once and yet like a promise whispered in the wind. Life is so dangerous, that it is hard to be confident that they will live tomorrow.
And so, it feels like a chance taken and not enough time and yet a gentle promise for a future that they both want to have.
And of course, she loves him, but how is not quite the answer she has. She has always loved Hak, from playmate to guard to annoyance to the only one keeping her alive to stronger friendship to complete trust to this budding relationship.
And how is impossible to put into words. She just hopes that they get many years to figure it out.