𝙳𝚒𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚍

2

  everyone except for hongjoong, who was staying behind, walked through the forest.
  "..i can't believe that midget thinks he can just boss us around like this." mingi said. he was at the front of the crowd, walking next to yunho and seonghwa.
  nobody responded to what mingi said, so he kept talking.

"aren't you guys tired of letting him step all over you?"
  "he knows what's best for us, mingi. if he didn't tell us what to do last night, we wouldn't even have shelter." wooyoung replied.
  "no, he doesn't! that's what he wants you to think!" mingi raised his voice slightly, but wasn't yelling.

  mingi stopped walking, causing everyone else to stop walking. he turned around to face everyone else. yunho raised an eyebrow at him, but didn't say anything to him.
  "don't you all realize that this man is just building his own empire? he's planning to turn us into his slaves! we're all stranded out here with no technology so we can't call for help, and he's taking advantage of that!"

  nobody seemed phased by mingi's speech, but yeosang stepped forward to put in his 2 cents.
  "you guys may be thinking that mingi sounds stupid right now, but i think he's onto something. don't you remember when he put mingi and i down when we tried standing up for ourselves earlier?"
  still, everyone was silent. seonghwa had a visible frown on his face.

  "everyone look at seonghwa." mingi pointed out. everyone listened to mingi, and seonghwa's face turned red from embarrassment.
  "the midget is brainwashing him! he can't even speak, so the midget has more power over him than the rest of us!"
  seonghwa was going to say something, but decided not to. he thought it was best if he stayed quiet. he wanted to defend his friend, but he knew he wouldn't be able to finish what he started if he did. and plus, he didn't want to start any more drama. there was enough of it already.

  everyone else ignored mingi and yeosang and walked past them, leaving them behind.
  "i say we make a plan to overthrow his authority." yeosang told him.
  "good idea." mingi said, agreeing with the idea.
  "but first, we need more people on our side." yeosang quickly added.
  mingi looked at jongho while holding up an apple.
  "if you want it, then you have to help us."
  jongho tried to resist, but he couldn't help it. "i'll do it." he said while taking the apple.

   san witnessed the whole thing and made the mistake of speaking.
"i'm just going to act like i didn't see that.." he mumbled before walking away. mingi grabbed him by the back of his shirt.
  "where do you think you're going?"
  "please don't hurt me.. i'll do anything." san said, whimpering.
  "alright then. help us if you want to be spared."
  "i will." he said with no hesitation.

  everyone all worked to get as many leaves as possible, and after doing so, they left the forest. by the time they were back, the sun was about to set. hongjoong was sitting down in front of the pot and it was over the fire. he was cooking something.
  "oh great, he's probably going to poison us." mingi said under his breath. seonghwa was tired of him being so rude to hongjoong and talking about him behind his back, so he harshly nudged him with his elbow. mingi nearly fell over, and he ended up dropping some of his leaves.
  the sound of the leaves made hongjoong look up. he didn't speak to them though. he was still a bit tense from earlier.

  everyone went into the shelter and placed their leaves so that they could lay on them, then they came back outside, grabbed a plate, and sat down around the pot.
  more fish was being cooked, but it was one big fish instead of multiple fish. everyone ate well, but the whole entire time, nobody said a single word because of how tense the atmosphere was.
  yunho was the first to finish eating. "i'm going to sleep now." he said before walking away.
  "me too." yeosang said while staring at hongjoong like he wanted to kill him. he was second to finish eating. he walked away, following yunho.