ice ; nct luwoo

05

It was the morning of the camping trip. The day before, Jungwoo had packed some clothes and snacks in a backpack to bring with him.

Taeyong drove himself and Jungwoo to their crowd's meeting spot. There was a parking lot at the foot of Soyosan mountain, the one they would climb a ways up to settle down.

Yuta and Sicheng were already there, sitting on the hood of their car. Lucas was sitting in the backseat of their convertible alone, resting his chin on his palm. He perked up upon seeing Jungwoo.

"Hey Jungwoo!" Lucas shouted, waving his hand high.

Jungwoo smiled and waved back politely.

Taeyong pouted. "Where's my Jaehyunie?"

"He went across the street to get bottles of water since he forgot the ones he was going to bring- oh look, there he is!" Yuta pointed to Jaehyun, who was running across the parking lot with a case of water bottles.

"Bad move on your part, Jae. Now you gotta carry it all up the mountain."

Jaehyun sighed and nodded, picking it back up from the ground where he had set it down to rest his arms and started up the trail. Everyone else noticed and rushed to grab their things before following him.

It took around an hour and a half to get up to the landing that they'd be camping on. It wasn't a campsite, but it was a nice, level area where they could set things up.

First, they gathered around in a circle and relaxed their muscles, as they had all been so tense from walking uphill.

Jungwoo rolled his neck and laid back. Everything was still so sore from what Seojun had done to him. All of the consecutive damage had built up and worsened his stamina. He was out of breath and had to take a good ten minutes to heal his burning lungs.

It was bitterly cold outside, as they had expected it would be. At ground level, it wasn't so bad, but all the way up where they were staying was down 40 or so degrees.

Taeyong made an excessively loud noise. "So Yuta only brought three tents but there are six of us, that means two per tent." He turned to Yuta and Sicheng who were already grabbing onto each other defensively. He knew there wouldn't be room for negotiation with those two. "Okay...Zeus, who do you wanna stay with? Will you be fine with Lucas?"

Jungwoo looked up attentively and turned back down, ashamed with his preference. He shook his head, as he was too unfamiliar and uncomfortable with Lucas to be very close to him, let alone sleep in the same tent.

He prayed that Lucas didn't take offense to it.

Taeyong nodded and said, "Okay then, how about I stay with Zeus and Lucas stays with Jaehyun?"

Lucas looked over at Jaehyun and shrugged. "That's alright with me."

"It's settled then. Now let's put these tents up. It'll get dark soon."

They all nodded and got to work, helping each other with setting things up, getting firewood, etc.

By the time they had finished, it was almost sunset. They all sat around the fire that Lucas had produced and cooked fish and rice in pots. Everyone had cans of beer and were drunkenly rambling about nonsense.

"You know...once Jaehyun kissed me. It was so amazing! I wish he would do it again...maybe he doesn't love me..."

Jungwoo looked over. He was only slightly tipsy himself. "Yong, Jaehyun kisses you all the time! Ask him now and he'll probably do it."

Taeyong looked up at Jaehyun with a goofy grin. "Kiss me right now, mister."

Jaehyun smiled and leaned down to kiss him. It was such a pathetic sight. The couple was already a little unique as it was, but their drunk antics just made it worse.

Neither Yuta nor Lucas were very drunk either, and Sicheng was fast asleep on the bench with his head in Yuta's lap.

The remaining three just sat there in silence for a while.

"It's pretty isn't it?" Lucas asked, looking up at the sky.

Jungwoo did the same and was in utter shock. Back in Seoul, it was really difficult to see the stars because of all the city lights, but this...this was unfiltered. This was real. This was gorgeous.

His eyes lit up and never left the sky for another few minutes.

Lucas chuckled at him.

"What is it..?" He asked anxiously.

"Oh, it's nothing. You should stop looking up there now. You're going to strain your neck."

Jungwoo nodded and did as he said. Isn't that all he was good for?

Yuta looked over at the two and raised an eyebrow before sighing. "I'm tapping out for the night. I'll get them to their tents. Have a nice night, you two."

They nodded at him as he softly woke Sicheng up and walked him over to their tent.

In the midst of this, Lucas looked over to Jungwoo. "Wanna go for a walk?" He asked, tilting his head.

Jungwoo smiled slightly. "Sure."

They walked across the flat surface of the mountain that they had found and stumbled upon many prett sights. They could see the very last tip of the sun under the horizon, beautiful flowers and shrubbery, and even a river that ran down the entire mountain.

For them to continue their walk, they'd need to cross the river. It was no rapid, but it did look a little deep. It was fairly large, but luckily had some firm rocks scattered that they could jump on to get over.

Lucas went over first, pretending to almost lose his balance on one and startling Jungwoo.

Lucas waited for him on the other side and urged him to come over quickly. Jungwoo carefully eyed each rock as he jumped on them. Finally, he got excited upon reaching the second to last rock, which was in relative reach of the other side. As he went to go jump, he felt his leg give out and the solid surface under him disappear.

And before he knew it, he was surround by freezing, icy water.

————————

woah double update

Idk I've just been feeling kinda inspired lately.

I feel like I'm rushing some of my recent stories which is why I haven't been feeling very connected to them. I'm probably just too emotional and sympathetic when it comes to this stuff tho but idk

I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Have a nice day/night!💓❤️💗