Starry Night

seven

The monotonous fruit fields change to rugged foothills covered in lodgepole pine trees as we head north. When turn off the highway, gray granite cliffs flank the twisting uphill road toward the national forest. Carved wooden signs with painted white letters point the way to a variety of sights, each marked with distance and pertinent details:

A, 6KM. 3.5 HOUR RETURN.

LOOK, 4KM. WEAPONS PROHIBITED.

NEVER EVER, 10K. NO PETS. NO FIRES. NO OVERNIGHT STAY REQUIRES WILDERNESS PERMIT.

And then finally, our destination:

JUST RIGHT CAMPING COMPOUND: 2K. 1 HOUR RETURN. WHEELED VEHICLES PROHIBITED PAST PARKING AREA.

Wait, what?

"This is us," Seolhyun reports, turning. I make a mental note of a Queen's bus stop here and wonder if this is the route I'll need to use to get to the star party on Apsan Park.

A small paved parking area sits at the end of a rocky driveway. A dozen or so cars are parked here, most of them are luxury vehicles. We find an open space near some wooden steps that lead into thick forest. Another sign sits near the steps, starting the trail is private property and only for guests of the compound. People using the trail must fill out a form and deposit it inside a locked box.

There is no road past the parking lot.

"Get everything you'll need," Seolhyun reports. "Unless you want to spend all your time hiking back and forth to the car. The walk back in fine, but it'll all uphill to the compound."

"We're hiking to the compound?" I say, staring at the sign."Two kilometers?"

Seolhyun gives me a labored look. "Don't start, Bae. I warned you about hiking."

I'm not even that upset about the hike. It's just unexpected, is all. "I didn't -"

"How long is two kilometer?" Bogum asks.

"It's nothing," she tells him brightly.

"A little over a mile," I elaborate.

"Oh, cool," he answers, but he's smiling at Seolhyun.

And Seolhyun is smiling back at him. "Easy-peasy."

Why are they smiling so big? Did I miss a joke? And now they're high-fiving each other - hard enough to hear the smack of palm-on-palm. It's so . . . goofy. Jungkook's head turns toward mine, and even though his fringe is covering one eye, a single dark brow rises in shared judgment  of the stupid high five.

Or maybe he's judging me.

We all fill out the trail registration cards at the information sign - in case anyone goes missing or gets murdered along the way, they'll know your name and next of kin. And after Bogum and Jungkook haul down everyone's stuff from the rooftop travel carrier, I'm soon reminded that I'm human toy, barely able to stand under the misaligned weight of my backpack. But it's not as if I repack everything in the middle of the parking lot. So I do my best to strap it on and adjust my stance.

"Saddle up, team," Seolhyun says loudly to the group. "Luxury awaits us at the end of the trail."

It's just two kilometers, I tell myself. And the woods are pretty amazing, all shady and smelling of pine needles. Birds are chirping, and it's not too warm. I can do this. About five minutes up the first steep hill, I begin to have doubts. Ten minutes up an even steeper incline, I'm picturing Seolhyun with one of those prospector axes from the general store lodged in her skull. By the time we reach the final stretch toward the compound, I'm just wishing I could drop into fetal position.