diff --git a/lfs.c b/lfs.c
index 22d6c683..f2996219 100644
--- a/lfs.c
+++ b/lfs.c
@@ -1273,14 +1273,25 @@ static int lfsr_data_readleb128(lfs_t *lfs, lfsr_data_t *data,
 // resulting leb128 encoding fits nicely in 4-bytes
 static inline int lfsr_data_readlleb128(lfs_t *lfs, lfsr_data_t *data,
         uint32_t *word_) {
-    // just call readleb128 here
-    int err = lfsr_data_readleb128(lfs, data, word_);
-    if (err) {
-        return err;
+    // note we make sure not to update our data offset until after leb128
+    // decoding
+    lfsr_data_t data_ = *data;
+
+    // for 28-bits we can assume worst-case leb128 size is 4-bytes
+    uint8_t buf[4];
+    lfs_ssize_t d = lfsr_data_read(lfs, &data_, buf, 4);
+    if (d < 0) {
+        return d;
     }
 
+    d = lfs_fromleb128(word_, buf, d);
+    if (d < 0) {
+        return d;
+    }
     // little-leb128s should be limited to 28-bits
     LFS_ASSERT(*word_ <= 0x0fffffff);
+
+    *data = lfsr_data_slice(*data, d, -1);
     return 0;
 }