Chapter 52

The raft was severely damaged... like a bunch of dry noodles scattered, each floating on the water's surface. Many sticks had completely snapped due to Titus's excessive force.

Titus felt very guilty about this. He attempted to swim over to salvage those sticks and reassemble his beloved raft. Cloudy sat by the fire, watching Titus flounder on the shore. Several times he waded knee-deep into the water, only to nervously run back to the fire to dry off the water droplets.

After several back-and-forths, Cloudy finally had enough: "Alright, stop fussing. I'll help you retrieve them once I've rested." Unexpectedly, Titus vehemently refused.

He looked sullen, "I'm... no good."

How did it go from the raft to self-doubt? Cloudy had just intended to comfort the wild man's unknown emotions, but he had already begun to talk incessantly. Titus stood in front of the fire, looking very excited. He was so tall that standing up like this to deliver a fiery speech seemed a bit overwhelming to Cloudy: "Do you want to sit down and talk?"

Titus chattered away while squatting next to Cloudy, gesturing wildly. Because he was so excited, his speech gradually returned to a normal pace without him realizing it. Cloudy found it a bit challenging to follow, as she couldn't understand most of it, but in essence... it was the same old story.

As a hunter, Titus had always been in the "active role" within the settlement. He was strong, powerful, and one of the best in the settlement. He was always the one taking the initiative to help others - moving materials for houses, replenishing food supplies, or eliminating invaders and dangerous predators outside the settlement.

Since shedding his "newborn" identity, he had never experienced being taken care of. Although he had a playful and somewhat quirky temperament, in Titus's worldview, many things were his responsibility.

Repairing the damaged raft, dealing with all the troubles Cloudy faced during the rainy season... to him, as a "hunter," anything that required physical effort should be his task. As they spent this rainy season together, Titus began to struggle with his perception. Firstly, he fell ill, and secondly, he often found that Cloudy could manage just fine on her own. He felt he didn't contribute much value in Cloudy's small "settlement of one."

"..."

Cloudy watched the wild man squatting beside her, muttering softly. How could she comfort him? She had told him not to worry several times before... After a moment of contemplation, Cloudy raised her hand and lightly tapped Titus on the head.
In Titus' eyes, a deep sense of confusion emerged. "Cloudy, hit me?"

"Yes," Cloudy replied, landing another slap on his forehead, causing Titus to squint and grimace, "It's getting more painful when you hit me!"

"Don't talk about useless things," after hitting Titus, Cloudy began to caress his hair, "We should just be happy together. If you're not happy, then I won't be either. Is that what you want?"

"No..."

"Exactly!"

Titus still felt something was unclear, but Cloudy kept raising her hand as a threat. Although the hits weren't too painful... he was mainly afraid of Cloudy losing patience, so he stayed silent and left the task of repairing the raft to Cloudy.

After a good rest, Cloudy went into the water to help Titus retrieve some wooden sticks. They spent the whole day working on the raft, which might have made her a bit impatient before, but now she felt no particular rush.

While repairing the raft with Titus, Cloudy was planning their life after the rainy season. First, they needed to visit the settlement... but did she really want to go? She had promised Matriarch to go to the settlement for medicine, but they didn't even know where she lived. As long as Titus didn't betray her, she could skip going to the settlement after the rainy season.

It seemed a bit unfair... no, why start doubting now, the settlement was unfair from the beginning! They had abandoned her, and now they wanted to study her ability to run around in the rain... "Can I not go to the settlement after the rainy season?"

Titus, tying the raft in front of her without much thought, agreed, "It's better not to go. They don't know where you live, and I won't tell them."

They quickly reached an agreement, which was great. She could continue hiding in the cave and enjoy her leisurely life. When the rainy season ended, and the swamp water receded... it would be the "spring" of the rainforest, and there would surely be many new things outside waiting for her to explore. With luck, she might even find new spices to enrich her recipes.

At the same time, due to the long rainy season, the cave was extremely damp. Although the wooden house seemed fine at first glance... the walls and bed felt damp and soft to the touch. The whole house needed renovation, which was a significant project. If possible, Cloudy wanted to replace the wooden house with a stone one, but she wasn't sure how to build a stone house... or maybe she should just look for a more suitable place to live?

This was a big decision, and she would discuss it with Titus after careful consideration.

It took the two of them about two hours of teamwork to repair the raft. This time, Cloudy used more wooden sticks and improved the oar to fit Titus' size better, with a longer handle and a larger paddle face.

"Don't row too hard anymore," Cloudy stood up and stretched lazily, "If you need to turn, just move the oar."
"On the side, the stick."

Unfortunately, because they had spent too much time repairing the raft, the cave had become completely dark. Titus had to return to the shore after playing for just a few minutes, getting ready to go inside to sleep.

The two of them quickly wiped themselves with water outside the house, rinsed their mouths, and then lay down in bed together. "This is so much fun, right?" Cloudy lay beside Titus, resting her head on her hand. "Sometimes you don't need to do anything, and that's okay. You can make requests to me; we are friends. It's not about being useful in the settlement."

Titus twitched his nose, as if thinking. "I'm afraid you might think I'm useless."

Cloudy felt that Titus at this moment was like a student who always scored 100 points in school, suddenly getting 95 points one day and feeling uneasy. "Titus doesn't need to be useful to me. I've said before, we can be happy together."

“Why? If I can't provide food for Cloudy or protect Cloudy, why does Cloudy still need me?”

It made sense. If she had decided not to care about Titus when he was sick, letting him fend for himself in the wooden house, she wouldn't have to endure that suffering. The problem was she wasn't that kind of person; even in such a harsh environment, Cloudy couldn't become a bad person. "There's no reason, I just need you. Whether you are useful or not."

Cloudy grabbed Titus's nose and shook it hard several times. "Do you understand? I'm not useful to you either. So why do you want to live with me during the rainy season?"

Titus, being shaken by the nose, made a muffled sound, "I just... want to be with Cloudy..."

"So do I." Cloudy rubbed against Titus, leaning on him. Without Titus during the rainy season, she couldn't imagine how bad her mental state would be. "Living alone would be very boring. Thank you for coming over during the rainy season to stay with me."

Outside, the rain tapped on the water surface, occasionally accompanied by the dull sound of branches falling. The light from the fire pit was gradually fading, and the night quietly slipped into the embrace of the two.

Titus buried his face in Cloudy's hair, his ears flapping. "Cloudy is really nice."

Before falling asleep, the two whispered to each other, but their voices were enveloped by the rain, softly sinking into the depths of the pool. Not long after, the only sound in the wooden house was their gentle breathing.

...

"Stop coming closer." Cloudy uncomfortably shifted on the bed, trying to avoid Titus's arm behind her. It was morning now... the warm atmosphere from last night had vanished under the rising temperature. Titus's arm and body felt like scorching lava to Cloudy.

Cloudy never expected the temperature to suddenly become so high today. Even with the rain, the entire cave was oppressively hot, Ti...
After waking up in the morning, Tus suddenly threw off the animal hide covering her body, not wearing any clothes, and lay spread-eagled on the bed, taking up all the sleeping space.

"Let me catch you," Titus, with his arms like pincers, grabbed Cloudy and dragged her towards him. "Cloudy's body is getting harder," he said, pinching her all over, especially her arms.

"Titus, where we're from, a hard body means someone's dead."

"..." Titus smacked his lips a few times. "Something's strange about Cloudy."

Strange is you!

She swung her arms, freeing herself from Titus' embrace. "It's so hot, don't come closer." Just lying in bed all night without moving, she felt sticky all over. This sensation was quite nostalgic; the temperature inside the cave was probably around 30 degrees Celsius. It would be even hotter near the fire... maybe they wouldn't light it today.

Honestly, she felt strangely lethargic now. In the past, as soon as she woke up, she would jump out of the wooden hut and find things to do outside.

"What should we do today?" Titus propped himself up, yawning. He also felt the rise in temperature. "The temperature is coming back, the rainy season will end soon. Next, we wait for the water to disappear..." Titus' eyes lit up. "There's a boat! We don't have to wait for the pool water to disappear to go out and play!"

Boat was the pronunciation of the word Cloudy taught Titus in his native language, as there seemed to be no equivalent word in the local language for "boat."

"That's true..." Cloudy lay lazily on the bed, feeling relaxed. "But when will the rain stop?" Reflecting on the whole rainy season, apart from Titus falling ill, which was a major event, everything else seemed ordinary. There was a sense of retiring to the countryside for retirement, and she hadn't come up with anything new at the workbench during the entire rainy season.

It feels like hitting a bottleneck. Cloudy stretched lazily, accepting the bottleneck; she didn't care at the moment. Titus lay beside her, food and basic construction were all in good order, as long as they didn't fall ill, everything was fine.

"Cloudy." Titus poked her arm with his finger. "Aren't we getting up yet?" Cloudy was acting unusually today; usually, as soon as she woke up, she would get out of bed and tinker with things outside, but today she just lay in bed with a distracted look, yawning continuously.

"I don't want to get up." Cloudy scratched her belly. "Are you hungry? If you are, go out and eat something, I don't want to get out of bed."

Seeing that he couldn't move Cloudy, Titus had to go out and find something to eat himself, and after eating, he peeled a few tubers to bring in for Cloudy. But even after eating, Cloudy still didn't get out of bed.

"I don't want to get up." She lay on the bed kicking her legs, then tossing and turning. For some reason, she just didn't want to get out of bed today.

"Do you want to sleep the whole day?"
Unable to sleep all day, Cloudy sighed and got up. She went outside with Titus to have some water, but then... lost her purpose again. She couldn't think of what to do!

"What's wrong?" Seeing Cloudy looking down, Titus squatted halfway to look at her face. "Feeling unwell?"

"If you put on some clothes now, I might feel a bit better," Cloudy said, trying to avoid looking at Titus's chest muscles swaying in front of her.

Knowing this guy was only 19, she felt like even a second glance might lead to immediate arrest. "I'm not uncomfortable... I'm just thinking about what to do today."

Doing nothing perfectly described life at the end of the rainy season when temperatures were warming up. After noon, Cloudy left the cave and wandered around a bit. The temperature outside the rainforest was rising, the marsh water was getting clearer, and she could see trees starting to bud, bringing back the fresh green color to the rainforest.

However, she couldn't find much around the cave. She casually collected some edible shoots and returned to the wooden house. Titus was paddling his beloved little raft in the pond, and when he saw Cloudy resurface, he quickly rowed over to pull her out. "How is it outside? Any luck?"

Cloudy shook her head, sitting on the raft and wringing out her wet hair. "The rainforest is recovering, but there are no animals near the cave." Just as she finished speaking, she saw Titus frowning as if smelling something in the air. "Cloudy, are you hurt?"

"No, I'm not. I didn't encounter anything outside... oh." Cloudy looked down between her legs in disbelief. Could it be...?! So, the reason she woke up feeling low this morning was because of this?

Cloudy urged Titus to row back to shore quickly. She got off the raft and ran back to the wooden house. Taking off her severely faded underwear, she checked the situation.

It had arrived, her period.

She looked at the large bloodstain on her underwear, partially washed away by water. It seemed like a heavy flow.

"Cloudy, Cloudy! I can still smell blood. Are you injured outside?" Titus rushed into the wooden house a moment later, anxiously squatting in front of Cloudy, snatching her underwear to examine carefully.

"Give it back to me!" Cloudy exclaimed, taking back her underwear. "I'm not injured, this is normal."

She didn't have time to explain to Titus, quickly put on her underwear, and rushed to the tool table to look at the calendar. It was hard to pinpoint the exact time she had her first period when she arrived here, but it was roughly three months ago.

How to describe her current mood... a bit relieved? It proved her body was functioning normally, and judging by the flow this time, it was more than the last time. Last time it only lasted a day or two.

"Are you sure everything's okay? I don't understand..." Titus, looking worried, walked behind Cloudy. "It smells strong."
"Bloody smell, doesn't it hurt?"

"For me, it's normal. Do you remember when we just left Green Slope?" Cloudy began helping Titus recall. "Back then, I also had a bloody smell on me, and you saw my... wound, but that place wasn't a wound."

Perhaps due to spending a long time in the rainforest or seeing Titus now so open and unashamed, Cloudy started explaining in detail what the bloody smell was all about.

"Do you understand?" Titus shook his head.

Cloudy felt frustrated but held back, "You and I are different. Our bodies are different, not just you, but me and everyone in the settlement are different because I... am abnormal." She had to explain it this way, after trying to explain in vain for a long time, she had to use 'abnormal' to settle it!

Ironically, Titus surprisingly immediately understood, "Ah... is that so..."

Thanks to her period arriving, Cloudy suddenly knew what she needed to do. She needed to make a few new pairs of underwear, as the one she was wearing had many holes at the back, the fabric was as thin as a cicada's wing, it would probably be retired in a few months.

She couldn't stand going commando, so besides new underwear, she also needed to figure out what to use for her period. The only thing resembling fabric in the cave was animal skin.

"Titus, can you help me tear a corner of this?" She took out the softest pieces of animal skin from the hut, leftovers from those large gray rats. Each piece was about half a meter. Without scissors, she had to rely on Titus' strength to roughly handle the animal skin.

"Like this?" Titus picked up the animal skin and tore it into small pieces. After handing it to Cloudy, she spread the animal skin on the work table and started cutting with a small bone knife.

The front and back pieces needed to be triangular, with longer sides on the sides for tying since there were no needles and thread. Like a tied bikini, of course not as aesthetically pleasing... Also, because there were no needles and thread, the crotch part of the underwear had to be complete, meaning she had to use a whole piece for it.

Cloudy spread out the animal skin and, using a bone spear, marked out an hourglass shape based on her measurements. "Tear it along the line I marked."

Following the instructions, Titus immediately got to work, effortlessly tearing the flexible animal skin as if it were tissue paper. Once Titus finished processing it, Cloudy tied up the sides of the hourglass-shaped animal skin and tried it on... It was a bit loose without elastic bands, but it could be worn! Just needed to tie the sides a bit tighter.

The invention of animal skin underwear inspired Cloudy, and she set her sights on Titus. This wild man... also needed something to cover up what was too exposed to the air.

...

...
"Cloudy, I don't want to wear this..." Titus awkwardly wore the fur bikini, pacing restlessly in front of the wooden hut. "It's so uncomfortable!"

"It looks great!" Cloudy looked satisfied as her creation was worn on Titus's behind. "It provides protection."

"Protect me...?"

"Yes, protect my eyes."