Echoes In The Woods

The prelude to dusk

I should have realized that all hope was lost when Taehyung refused to eat his donuts. There were holiday traditions that we looked forward to every year. The first was always the horror themed lumberjack, which of course was just a regular lumberjack statue, but it was so creepy for summer. That marked the beginning of our yearly Kim-Jeon holiday.

Next to then creepy lumberjack was blue sign touting the diner's special, it was usually walleye which our parents loved, but honestly it sounded too gross to eat. The Airbnb camp breakfast served from seven am till noon which was our favorite because we did not have to wake up super early for breakfast.

Funny thing was that the breakfast was why we left Madison so early because the drive to Minocqua usually took about three to four hours, depending on how many times we had to stop for Jimin's tiny bladder. Jimin is my cousin, he joined our family trip five years ago, his father owned the Airbnb we always used. The flapjacks and the freshly glazed chocolate donut would disappear from the blue and white checked tables at eleven ante meridiem on dot. One year in particular, we got a late start because Jimin could not find his charger, and then the traffic was slow along highway 47, and we did not pull into a lot until 12:15pm. It was too late; they had already moved on to lunch.... they were out of donuts and Taehyung was upset about it. We had to settle for donut with holes from Kwik trip gas station, and that was not a proper way to start our week at the house.

The Jeon's and Kim's took this vacation together at the end of every summer. It was tradition. We have spent a week here every summer of my life, and after Taehyung and I became best friends in kindergarten, the Kim's family- Mr. Kim (Min Ho), Mrs. Kim (Ji Won), Hyun woo, Taehyung and Seokjin --- started coming along. The double a-frame house had space, with a lot of places to sleep, so all nine of us had places to sleep, Jimin and Hyung woo always for some unknown reason chose the room right behind the living room.

My favorite thing about our week up north was...... everything. I loved jumping off the sizzling hot pier into the cold lake for a swim, stargazing from the backyard at night, listening to the loons' hoot, and hiking around the woods to collect pinecones.

This year, however, everything about the trip was slightly wrong, they were tiny details that piled up. Like we began singing a note off-key and as the song went on it got significantly worse. The car arrangements were ruined, it took two jam-packed cars to get all of us and our stuff on the road, but we did not always drive as separate families. Usually, Taehyung and I begged to be in the same car, so we could play our preplanned playlist for the trip and sing to our hearts content, while eating the sandwiches' Seokjin hyung made us.

Except this time, Taehyung sat in his parent's brand-new car and announced, "I am beyond tired, so I am just going to sleep the whole way, then he puts on his headphones and pulled out some mysteriously posh sunglasses and wore them. I did not want to ask seokjin hyung to move so i could sit beside taehyung, so I rode with my parents and jimin. Jimin and hyung woo slept the whole car ride, the car was silent with my parents chatting up front quietly.

I felt vaguely carsick, possibly because i was not used to being alone on our roads trip, possible because of jimins feet on my head, possibly just how far taehyung was from me right now that made me sick, the signs, it could have been anything right now.

It's going to be okay when we arrive, I told myself. It will be like hitting a reset button. We will finally have a discussion on what ever it was that happened. Then everything will go back to normal. I tried not to think of how far from us we'd already veered.

I finally spotted the blue Ox at eleven thirty, which meant we had plenty of time. The others cheered as we pulled into the parking lot. Even though my legs were stiff from the drive and I still had the headache, I hoped out of the car. Donuts! Donuts! Jimin and hyung woo cheered as they raced inside.

"Ice cream", seokjin said with a dramatic sigh as he chased after them.

Taehyung lingered in his seat, his fingers typing away on his phone. 𝑆𝑜 𝑚𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑠𝑙𝑒𝑒𝑝𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑦. I lingered near the open door, using my feet to draw out shapeless creatures on the ground.

"Are you coming? " I finally asked. "They're going to stop serving breakfast soon". Everyone else had gone inside but us. My stomach growled.

" Sure, in a bit", taehyung mumbled, still typing. The he clicks his phone screen off. Before he even shut the car door, it buzzed and lit up again with a stream of text overflowing on the screen. " Ugh, I haven't had decent service for the last hour, I'm dying "

" I'm dying to eat something and you're worried about service? " I muttered, moving slowly enough to keep pace with him as he walked while texting into the restaurant.

The servers had already brought platters of family style food to our long picnic table, and everybody was already eating. My dad stared at his biscuits and gravy with the same loving expression he has in the framed weddings photo of him and my mom. My mom always jokes about how he was looking at food in the picture as well , which always made seokjin snort and reply, yeah you're probably the food ma.

The two empty seats at the table for tae and I were next to each other, like always. I sat down and grabbed a plate, " pass the donuts jimin" I made grabby hands in anticipation. He handed them to me, I immediately dropped two into my plate. The first one you inhale because you're starving after the long drive, the second one is to savor the flavor , because it will be a year before we're back here again

I placed the firT of his donuts on taehyung's plays ." no, thanks ", I had just grabbed his second donut when he repeated himself, a little louder and sounding slightly annoyed. " I said, no".

I froze, " you're kidding, right-"
" I don't want a donut, jungkook! "

Everyone at the table quieted, seokjin frowned, I could tell Jimin was sneaking glances at us.

"We have them every year tho, " I said in a very quiet voice. My fave flushed, and I moved my hand --- and the donut away from taehyung.

" well, things change. " taehyung grabbed his fork and scratched at his nearly empty plate, causing my ears to ring, he knew I hated that. I could not understand why he was so angry, I'm the one who should be mad.

His mom cleared his throat. " taehyung, honey, are you feeling okay? Aren't you going to eat anything? "
He nodded and took a bagel from the other end. I stared at my plate, with two staring back at me like wide open eyesb, I suddenly had no appetite either.

After a while , everyone slowly went back to talking and eating, I couldn't eat anymore so I just spaced out, wondering where it all went wrong.

While everyone else went back for seconds, I sat there thinking, taehyung mumbled something about looking for a signal and wandered off in the direction of the gift shop.

" somebody woke up on the wrong side of the car, huh? " his dad said shaking his head.
Nobody was looking at me, which made me think they were embarrassed on my behalf.
I picked at my donuts, it didn't feel right anymore, nothing did honestly. When it was time to leave, though, I wrapped up two donuts in a big paper napkin. Maybe we would eat them later, sitting under the stars. After the stars worked it's magic and turned my best friend back to himself.

I felt stranded in the wildness without him.

❣𝐻𝒶𝓇𝓉𝓁𝑒𝓎 ❣

Okay I apologize for disappearing after promising June 30th, here it is 15 days later ᥫ᭡, it's just been really stressful lately, but I had my final paper today for this semester and I'm done! Second year starts in a month and some days... So I'll try to write a lot during the break "fingers crossed "

This is the beginning of Echoes in the woods ᜊ

𝚆𝚑𝚘 𝚒𝚜 𝚖𝚢 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚏𝚘𝚛? ଓ