You Can Count On Me // Andreas Wellinger

Part 5 ~ I Needed A Bath Anyway

A/N: Huge thank you for over 200 views, you guys are the best! This is the longest part I have written so far, but I hope it doesn't bore you too much! Please leave comments. I really appreciate it if you let me know what you think of the story in general and the characters so far. Enjoy! 💜

The group got back to the kayaking eventually. They only had just over an hour left of the way to the end point of their trip, but little did they know that it would be the most difficult part.

It started off just fine. Richi and Maja were way ahead of everyone since they were clearly the only ones knowing what they were doing. It got to the point where they couldn't even see the others behind them, so they stopped paddling and just laid back, relaxing in the last rays of sun for the day.

"Wait, don't move." She heard Richard speak up. Maja opened her eyes instantly and her body tensed as the boy reached forward, his hand touching her hair. "You had a bug in your hair," he finally informed her once he withdrew his hand with a small smile.

"Thank you." She smiled gratefully. They stayed silent for a moment, surprisingly it wasn't the awkward kind, just a peaceful one. "How much do you bet they got stuck in some seaweed and the other two are trying to get them out?" The girl laughed, holding out a packet of chewing gum to Richard which he took.

"How much do you bet they flipped the kayaks over?" Richi laughed, before thanking her and handing back the packet of gum.

"That's a bit more of a dark scenario, but also very possible." She shrugged, trying to blow a bubble from her chewing gum.

"I'm hungry," the boy whined and threw his head back with a groan.

"Not to be dramatic, but at this pace you might starve," Maja spoke casually. "Unless you want to drink all this water, then you might live some more." She rambled on to kill time.

"Hey Maja," Richard spoke up again to get her attention after a while. "What do you call bees that produce milk?" He asked, already grinning to himself.

"Oh no.." She shook her head, laughing. She felt like this joke would be terrific. "Bees don't produce milk as far as I am aware, but go one, what do you call bees that produce milk Richi?" She asked.

"Boo-bees!" He beamed at her, showing off his teeth as he laughed. The girl stared at him blankly for a moment, trying to decide whether to laugh at how bad the joke was or at how amused Richi was at the joked, either way she finally burst out into giggles.

"You didn't disappoint, it was just as bad as I thought it would be," she sighed, composing herself. She spotted two kayaks in the distance, but they were still pretty far away. "Well about damn time," she huffed while sitting up.

It had turned out that Andi and Stephan got stuck once again and the couple tried to help them keep moving, but instead they managed to flip their kayak over. So as a matter of fact, both Maya and Richi were correct about what happened, in their own way.

Lena and Markus in particular felt done with kayaking at this point, it was visible that they were annoyed and tired. This wasn't new though. They all knew what was coming because the same exhaustion came every year when they did this. None of them really appreciate it until it was over.

To their dismay, they had to swim through a river, but this was not the worst part. The worst part was the really strong river current that made them lose control and go at a fast speed. This time there were many more of knocked down trees and some were the whole width of the river. Therefore, the only way to get past was to lay down flat inside the kayak and swim through underneath the trees. It was extremely hard for them not to crash into some of the trees, especially when they were going at such a fast speed with the current and it surely took a lot of their energy to keep safe.