"It really is you!" Exclaimed a tall but scrawny man in the back of the crowd, his face filled with a sparse amount of small scars. What really brought attention to this man however, was his high-pitched voice. It was soft and sweet, sounding a little coy as well. 

Shi had heard many different voices before, however this one truly did a number on him. The discrepancy between him and his voice really was just too much.

As you can tell, for Shi to have been thinking about his voice and not paying attention to how suspicious and dangerous they are and could be, it must have been really too much.

Just as Shi was finally managing to bring himself out from his thoughts, he finally took notice of the rowdy bunch in front of him. Of course, if Shi had detected any murderous intent towards him, he wouldn't be this relaxed. However strangely enough, he couldn't detect even the slightest of ill will towards himself. 

But this only made Shi more sceptical. Even more so that he didn't hear any struggle or the like from Kui. From what he had seen, Kui was definitely not so weak as to immediately die, or to be so easily knocked ou-...

So that's why. 

From what Shi had seen, these people aren't soldiers of his own country. Hell, they didn't look like soldiers at all. They look more like bandits or a bunch of rogues. So Shi knew they weren't here for him, and from the silence of the outside, they were not here to cause trouble for the village either. 

This thought become even more pronounced when Shi had seen a glimpse of Kui's smiling eyes in the back of the crowd, standing right beside the scrawny man. 

Seeing that Shi had noticed him, Kui couldn't help but wink playfully at him. Just as he did so, a loud eruption of voices immediately claimed both Kui and Shi's attention.

The group of rowdy folk jeered and whistled, laughter escaping between breaths. One even patted Kui's shoulder with a loud slap. The fact that Kui didn't even so much as blink from that had Shi's immense respect. 

"So it's the little general!" The scrawny man laughed boisterously as he continued to pat Kui's shoulder, only when he spoke did Kui's eye twitch. 

Before the group could continue noisily, Kui lifted his foot and stomped on the scrawny man's foot, his loud yelp silencing all. His voice was truly a one-hit kill.

"Too noisy." Kui said simply, his tone normal as if he was just talking about the weather. However, from the silence of the group around him one could tell that it wasn't as simple as his tone makes it too be.

Shi glanced at Kui, his suspicion and doubt blantly shown in his eyes. Kui was taken aback by such a bold show of suspicion, although he was confused as to why Shi didn't try to hide it at all, he was still happy. 

Shi's response if he could read minds: "..." Idiot.

***

Auhtor dearest: "Don't be such a tsuntsun Shi."

Shi who wasn't a tsundere: "...??"