make way // jjk

22

In the end, you all took a swim in the river. What river?

One that was two and a half kilometres away from camp, meaning that by the time you got back you would have gotten sweaty again. How nice.

And because girls and boys had to "shower" separately, the boys went first at around 9, bringing their phones and a few torches that thoughtful people had thought to bring. The girls waited at camp, just sitting around their fires and awaiting their men to return.

Your only comfort was knowing full well that there would be complaints about this to the school, because nobody's parents would want their children to attend what was becoming a survival camp, especially under the illusion that the camp was to be for bird-watching. These thoughts, however, did not provide you any protection from the icy water of the river.

At least none of you slept hot that night.

---

If yesterday's physical training was some form of physical torture, then bird-watching was a whole new level of mental torture.

Waking up, you shrugged off the jacket that Jungkook had borrowed you last night after you complained that it had been too cold after the "shower" even though you were as close as you could be to the fire without burning yourself. At least today won't be another round of hard sweating, drying up in the sun, then dousing yourself with ice in the evening again, you thought to yourself. But you were definitely wrong about the first two parts.

Bird-watching was done without any equipment except your own eyes, and if you were lucky, a set of binoculars. There weren't even that many birds. Ah, except for that one bald eagle who never flew closer than a couple hundred feet from the bush line you were all hid in and swooped around in circles. The worst part was having to lie belly-down on the hard earth, looking under and between clumps of bushes with branches digging into your back and scratching your face and arms, while Ms Jung and Ms Lee sat a long way away having a nice chat over some tea.

Not that Ms Lee wasn't nice. On the contrary, she was the one that let you all have breaks every two hours of staring at mountainous nothingness, in spite of Ms Jung's insistence that being patient was the key to this exercise, and therefore everyone should stay unmoving to train their patience. That woman was evil.

Lunch was a small respite, as all four classes confided their troubles in each other. You finally understood why the group yesterday had came back with their elbows and fronts of their shirts dirty and their eyes glazed over from focusing too long on the same bunch of barren trees. And they now experienced the reason why all of you were bone-tired and could barely lift a finger to wolf down food as you longed to.

The day passed much like it did in the morning, except the sun got hotter and everyone's joints ached a little more.  The only few highlights were chatting with Minah and Eunha whilst lying there until your boobs were flat, at least until your mouths went dry from the scorching sun, and the small kiss (cue blush from both of you) Jungkook gave you at a break when the two of you walked off to a slightly more secluded area in the trees. It had been so slight you had barely felt it, but that didn't affect your huge shit-eating grin afterwards as Jungkook rushed away back to the main group, embarrassed.

---

The next and last day was the competition between the four classes to see who had learnt the most during the last two days. A few people had half-hoped that there would be an event to test their bird-watching skills, as that really just involved staying very, very still for a very long time.

Unfortunately, as expected of Mr Kim, there was not. His idea of a good competition was contests of the exercises from before (which meant Jungkook would be seen again almost always lasting into the top 3 of every male contest doing so many cheer-inducing push-ups that all the girls went crazy, except that may also have been because of Yugyeom and Jimin, who were also top athletes of the year), including a relay on the obstacle course, where people were grouped by their ability, meaning you (with Minah and Eunha again), had to compete with the best of your grade. This meant hard-paced sprints and adding onto everyone's existing muscles from a full day of planks, push-ups and whatnot. It was fun because like on sports days, everyone cheered for their own class, and tried to win to the best of their ability. Minah complained the whole time, although you knew that as competitive as she was the day was fun for her. She had won just as many first places as you had, even through all her grumbling about sore knees and aching muscles.

And the last day of camp ended with the now close-knit bunch of you sharing your day's achievements with everyone around the last campfire (the group was now you and the girls in your tent, Jimin, Jungkook, and surprisingly, Yugyeom and Junhoe), with the boys debating about whether or not they would have won if this person hadn't cheated or that person in their team had been just a little faster. Junhoe was also near the top of the league for the boys, maybe top 10 if the rest were in top 3.

The next morning you would be leaving camp. To be honest, you wouldn't miss the two days of excruciating "training" and "bird-watching", which really had hardened your muscles a lot and trained your patience, apparently. But you would miss the fun you had with your close circle of friends with the campfires.

---

"Hey." Jiho woke you up from her sleeping bag mext to you in the small tent. "We'll still be friends when we get back, right?"

"Of course we will," Sujeong answered, trying to wake up Minah in the process.

You nodded and yawned wide, "Yeah, we will, definitely. You guys stay in contact, alright?"

Minah bolted upright with her hair in a mess. "It's not like we're never seeing each other again, you know. For god's sake, we go to the same school!" Then she added a little jibe at you, "Not everyone leaves in the middle of their education to go have some fun in the capital."

You let out a weak smile. "Yeah, I guess. Let's stay friends, y'all."

And so camp adjourned with the bus ride back to Busan High, you sitting with Minah and the girls, although this time Minah was happy for you to sit with Jungkook, which you decided against since you wanted this last chance to converse with your new friends before everything returned to normal back at school. Jungkook was still there though, also at the back of the bus next to Jimin. The two of you texted the whole time, snapping pictures of each other falling fast asleep (he was in front of you and you were in the back row) and generally having a good time joking with your friends.