Immediately, Kota snapped his hand away from his neck despite the urge to rub the hickey away like a stain. If only it worked that way! But before he could whine at her about it some more, she shoved him along, and he grunted and stumbled before he caught his footing.
"Yeesh! Be a little nicer, won'tcha? Geeentle! If I decided to run off and ditch you here, you'd be in trouble, you know," Kota groused, but he didn't disagree. Truth be told, for all his reluctance, he was hungry and tired and done with the jungle--and his clothes were getting all stiff and itchy from salt as they dried.
And he could only put off the inevitable for so long...
With a slow breath in, he squared his shoulders. "Alright. Let's do this," he said, and turned to lead them in the opposite direction. "And in the meantime, you better help me figure out how I'm gonna explain this!" he added, gesturing at the hickey.