Love, bites. - BTS OT7

Level: 1

Home.

It's been a while since he had a place he could call that. Being on the move constantly for months on end made it practically impossible to feel that way anywhere he went. Perhaps, it was because he associates the word 'home' with a feeling rather than a place itself. At least, he does this now.

Home was different before the apocalypse. Home to him was physical. He had his father and his house, with friendly neighbors and a suburban lifestyle. He had full meals three times a day and clothing on his back. Though he never had the motivation to, he could shower any time that he needed and never worried about the water running cold. He had safety. Security. He didn't have the constant throb in the back of his mind that told him he was in danger.

If you ask Jeongguk now where his home is, he'd say with them.

Home to him now isn't a place, but a feeling. When he's with them, whether they're all sitting and playing with an old deck of cards they found or if they're sleeping in the same room, he feels safe. Not completely safe as he still has that cloud of inevitable fear in the back of his mind, but safe enough to relax. With their presence, he can relax. He can allow himself to feel. And as of recently, he allows himself to love them. He used to be afraid to because of the overwhelming fear that he might lose them one day. But it was harder to not love them than it was to love them.

As he sits with them now at a riverbank somewhere far from where they used to reside, he feels love for them. For all of them. He sits on the damp ground, not a blade on grass in sight but he doesn't mind. There's the gentle rush of the river just a few feet away from him and the cicadas are getting louder as the sun sets. He watches in admiration as Seokjin pulls another fish from the water. This one is bigger than the last one he caught and the sight of it makes Jeongguk's stomach grumble.

Seokjin had constructed a fishing rob out of a stick, rope, and a few safety-pins to serve as hooks. With his luck, he caught four fish, albeit four small ones but it was still dinner for tonight. Even the thought of eating has Jeongguk anticipating it. He hasn't eaten in four days. No one's eaten in four days. Yeontan is so scrawny now, it's sad.

To his left, Jimin and Taehyung construct a fire pit. They need something to keep them warm tonight since they'll be sleeping outside. If they hadn't traveled so far into the forest before sundown, they may have found a house or cabin to stay in. But the forest isn't too bad. Jimin told Jeongguk to think of it as a camping trip. Only that it's not bears that they should be away of, but zombies. They just hope that they're far enough so that the mutants won't find them. No one wants to run into them again.

Jimin doesn't seem well these days. Physically, he's as well as everyone else who barely eats and showers. However, he's mentally unstable. Some of the others are tol, but Jimin just seems more off. And it's worrying him but Jimin insists that he's fine. The other day, Jimin was so far into a daze that it took ten minutes to get him out of it. It was quite scary.

Earlier, when they first decided to set up camp, Namjoon and Jiwoo set up a perimeter around the area. They poked holes through empty cans, tied metal utensils and small bells to string and wrapped it around trees until the surrounding area was roped off. Jeongguk has seen this technique in an apocalypse movie before. It was so that if any zombie approaches their camp, they'd hear them. Namjoon is still recovering from his injuries, but he can walk around now and tries to help out in any way that he can.

Yoongi is asleep. He often is due to the high amount of pain medication he's on. In a way, Jeongguk's grateful for it. When he was up, he wouldn't stop asking about Hoseok or trying to go see him. Sometimes, he'd get too worked up and the only thing that would make him calm down was either Jimin or more pain meds. Namjoon had mentioned that Yoongi might develop an addiction to them if he keeps taking so much but Jimin keeps giving them to him. He can't bare to see Yoongi in pain and honestly, Jeongguk can't either.