romaniranch fic dump 4 [sticker books 2/2]
sticker books and firewood [part 2/2]
“Mash, or beans?”
The stoicism in which one can serve such mundane foods is all but blindsided by Sehun. His hair is still impeccably styled, tucked neatly beneath a hairnet. Tao stands to his side, looking equally miserable, and equally as overdone.
Jongin leans discretely over the serving station, whispers a small, “I’m sorry.”
Sehun shrugs and waves him off, leaving Tao to angrily slap down an ice cream scoop full of potatoes onto his tray.
The thing is, Jongin’s had a shitty day too, but he can’t really complain about it. Not when the only reason he isn’t slopping mush into kid’s trays along with the Vidal Sassoon Twins is also the reason that one of his own zone’s cadets didn’t drown under his watch earlier. It’s kind of a miserable feeling, actually. Useless, not very well liked, rather insignificant. A blip on the otherwise colorful radar of this summer camp. Everyone has at leastsome kind of story to tell - all Jongin has are his observant reports on Chanyeol.
Despite this, Chanyeol doesn’t seem any less enthused than usual. He still waves Jongin over to him at their table, pats the space next to him like he’d been saving it for him, which maybe he had.
“I’m sorry I didn’t help you more,” Jongin mumbles quietly, halfway through dinner. “The cadets could have been seriously hurt and I lost my focus.”
Chanyeol shrugs, mouth full of a collective assortment of mush. Mush seems to be the theme for the night. “You didn’t know what to do. We haven’t gone over CPR yet, and you aren’t trained for it anyway so I didn’t expect you to do anything.”
Jongin nods, though his shoulders are still slumped, and Chanyeol still gives him that look he gets whenever he catches Jongin sulking over star stickers. The stop being a baby eyeroll.
“If you really want, I can train you for CPR, I’m certified,” Chanyeol says, palm warm on the center of Jongin’s back.
Jongin’s mind betrays his already flimsy focus, and he thinks of Chanyeol’s mouth on his, wet and cool from the water of the river, and promptly turns the shade of a beet. He nearly chokes, then, when Jongdae’s hand smacks over Chanyeol’s on his back.
“Have you worn your pup out yet?” Jongdae asks Chanyeol, obnoxiously (and when has anyone except for Chanyeol been obnoxious?).
“I see yours is obviously doing well,” Chanyeol bites back, head jerking towards the teenage dinner lady duo up at the front.
“Ahah!” Jongdae points at him, walking backwards, “Your pup isn’t all that innocent either, from what I’ve heard!”
Jongin shrinks down into his seat, his face burning, miserable. Chanyeol ‘tsk’s and turns back to his food, but stops when he catches Jongin looking indeed like a puppy - one that’s been kicked.
“Hey, don’t listen to Jongdae,” Chanyeol says.
If it were at all possible for Jongin’s ribs to collapse so he could sink further into his seat, he would be joining the slop on his food tray.
“He knows, I knew Tao would rat me out,” Jongin mutters.
“So? Jongdae won’t say anything, you’re fine. He just teases everyone.”
Jongin is the kind of person that needs either an elemental shift of tectonic plates to pick him back up from a sullen mood, or perhaps just a good nap. Neither of which are things that are currently happening, so he stays in his acutely physical moping state.
“Here,” Chanyeol says suddenly, and then he presses his thumb to the center of Jongin’s forehead, which finally gets Jongin to look up, “You deserve it.”
Jongin runs his fingers across the point of pressure Chanyeol’s thumb imprinted. He traces the outline of what seems to be a star, and then turns and gapes at him.
“But… Joonmyun has the stars,” he says, voice quiet but laced with shock.
“I have my own,” Chanyeol says, and then he tugs the corner of a sheet of glimmering gold from one of the pockets of his vest, brandishing it like contraband. He leans in close enough that Jongin can feel his breath against his ear, “And my stickers are way better.”
Not quite an earth shifting occurrence, but it’s enough to make Jongin smile like an idiot.
-
Jongin still likes to think himself an optimistic person, but he’s starting to think he really isn’t cut out for this line of work.
It’s getting closer to bonfire night, and Chanyeol is currently crouched over a small pair of logs piled up with leaves on the ground. Jongin stars at the lump of nature like it’s offended him.
“It’s just the friction you create, it builds heat and then the splinters from the wood have a chance to spark.
Jongin blinks at Chanyeol. “I’m pretty sure Sehun has a lighter. In fact, I know the kitchen does.”
Chanyeol sighs, straightening his arms so that he’s kneeling over the unlit fire, glaring up at Jongin. “That isn’t the point. The point is to immerse yourself, use the tools that you have around you.”
“Isn’t a lighter a tool?”
Chanyeol groans, and then pushes himself away from the sticks and leaves, sitting back on his heels and then gesturing to the offended fireless wood.
“You try it.”
Jongin sighs, but he gets on his knees and takes one of the sticks in his hand. There’s a small groove in the wider log, where Chanyeol had aggressively etched into before, and Jongin copies him, scraping back and forth, back and forth, as quickly as he can. By the time he’s done there is the faintest wisp of smoke, and his wrist aches. Chanyeol laughs at him when he leans back, cradling his hand against his chest.
“I know I’m useless, you don’t have to point it out.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Chanyeol says, laughing a little and leaning back over the wood to resume where Jongin left off.
Smoke starts to billow from the logs, and Chanyeol leans right into it, blowing at the wood with his lips merely inches away from pending flames.
“Don’t!” Jongin yelps impulsively, “You’ll burn yourself.”
Chanyeol tilts his head upwards, grinning at Jongin.
“Why? Worried I’ll mess up my gorgeous face?”
“Ugh,” Jongin groans, though the quirked mouth and suggestive brows made him flush a little, despite himself. “Fine, burn to death for all I care.”
He chucks a weak handful of leaves at Chanyeol, which somehow ends up sparking, and the tiniest of fires reflects in Chanyeol’s eyes, as he grins and claps like some sort of wild sea mammal at his creation.
After a minor improvised aboriginal dance around the weak flames, Chanyeol smirks at Jongin and says, “I’ll take that as a resounding ‘Yes, I would miss your face horribly’, then.”
Jongin wouldn’t say he’s learned something, other than the fact that his body still refuses to stay unresponsive to Chanyeol’s teasing. His cheeks are burning the way he thinks Chanyeol’s should be, sitting so close to the fire like that.
Still, he knows where to get a lighter if he needs one.
-
Bonfire night is one of the last big events the camp holds. There’s this, and then the Friday before everyone leaves is ‘Starnight, Starbright’, which is a night where curfews are waived, and everyone drags their sleeping bags from their tents or dormers and sleeps under the night sky. Zones can mingle and you can stay up all night if you want. Bonfire night just seems like an excuse to send Sehun down the road to the grocery store to pick up more ingredients for smores.
Except, the sun is starting to set, and Sehun’s truck is still in the driveway by the offices. Jongin rounds his way towards the bathrooms, and well - Sehun is up on the gallows again, this time alone. Joonmyun stands at his side, looking wildly perturbed by the whole thing.
“One spin for sneaking in illicit beauty supplies against Camp Rules and Regulations!” he shouts, and then spins the wheel behind Sehun, who is currently staring again at the soles of his own shoes.
The wheel begins to slow, and as it stops, there is a resounding flinch from the small crowd, along with a few sympathetic groans.
“One cup of jalapeno juice, to be consumed by Oh Sehun, Junior Counselor!”
The thing about pure, undiluted jalapeno juice, Jongin has heard, is that it’s not like the shit you get in stores. Not like many people go out buying blended chilli peppers for oral consumption regularly, but still. These peppers come from the farm next door, right off the vine. They store the juice in old gallon water jugs, and Jongin is pretty sure it is solely for the purpose of punishment.
Jongin’s stomach clenches on Sehun’s behalf as he lifts the cup to his lips.
“All in one,” Joonmyun says to Sehun, softer, “Just don't breathe through your nose.”
Sehun gulps the liquid down, and the violent twist to his face is only seen in the tight wrinkles his forehead gets when it happens. His throat makes an odd dry heaving noise, despite it being flooded with fiery pepper water, and Jongin only stares because he’s waiting for something horrible to happen. Like a car wreck, the kind people come out in their slippers for - you don’t want to look, but you can’t look away.
He’s nearly done with the poisonous juice, but then on one of his last gulps the wrecked heaving noise his throat makes catches him off guard, and he chokes on it, dropping the cup and sputtering. With the cup now away from his face, Jongin can see his eyes watering relentlessy, his face sploty and pink.
What’s even more fascinating than Sehun’s car wreck, is the way Joonmyun jumps to his aid. His passively pissed attitude drops from his face like someone flipping the blinds open, and he’s pulling the cup away from Sehun, forcing a bottle of water against the boy’s lips. He looks… guilty? afraid? Perhaps even entirely human, and Jongin leaves. Nobody sticks around after the impact of car wrecks, nobody wants to see the lasting damage.
-
Bonfire night is exactly how it sounds - a night with a big fire, and then lots of smores. Jongin is apparently the king of the perfect mallow-roast, which he takes in his stride - finally something he’s good at. He even has a line of cadets waiting for him to roast theirs for them. He’s got it down to a science, a small rotation on the blue flame to heat the inside, and then crisp the outer shell by hovering about an inch from the tip of the flames.
It’s cool enough at night that the fire is actually kind of nice to be huddled around. Jongdae has been knee-tapping along with one of Yixing’s guitar songs, singing, and occasionally humming when Yixing drops into a song nobody has ever heard of before, probably a random composition of his own.
Chanyeol is a mess. There’s chocolate on his lips, and cracker crumbs all over his lap, and he laughs at Jongdae’s horrible lyrical improvisations, and just the sound of it makes Jongin laugh too. Even Joonmyun looks like he’s having a good time. He sits on the biggest log, one standing on end, with Sehun sitting on the ground between his knees. The fire is somewhat in the way, but it seems like he’s even playing with Sehun’s hair, braiding it or possibly even messing it up, which Jongin thinks is a brave move for both parties involved.
By the end of the night Jongin feels warm right the way through to his core. These people are all idiots, yes, but not the bad kind of idiots. Everyone has their reasons for being the way that they are, and it’s not really anything that has to make sense. Yixing can sit out alone and talk to trees in the afternoon, and nobody has to know why. It’s just… what he likes to do, apparently.
And Sehun. Sehun might be the world’s biggest brat, but he’s weaseled his way into the heart of the seemingly heartless, and there has to be a reason for it, but Jongin doesn’t need to know what it is. Even Tao has his head resting on Jongdae’s shoulder, drifting back and forth from sleep, despite the fact that Jongdae is still singing along to everything and nothing.
If all he wanted was a resume boost, then he got it. Everything else, including Chanyeol’s hand rubbing circles into his lower back in time with the music, is just a bonus.
-
By way of sheer, inconsequential luck Jongin has somehow miraculously managed to survive his first solo nature walk.
Chanyeol had asked him to do it earlier, and before Jongin could panic and refuse, Chanyeol forced his way through it by saying, “It’s either nature walk or you help Joonmyun set up for the parent meeting, which I wouldn’t subject even my worst enemy to.”
Jongin paled initially. The idea of spending an afternoon with Joonmyun would usually bring forth a nauseating pulse of anxiety on its own, but then handling an entire troop of cadets by himself didn’t really seem like a much better alternative.
But then Chanyeol clutched at Jongin’s shoulders, leaned in real close, and said, “I know you can do it,” and Jongin turned to putty in his grip and made some kind of human-like gesture that meant ‘yes, okay’.
He took Chanyeol’s notebook, too, but found that he didn’t need it. He would ask the kids what things were, and they all had answers - answers Chanyeol had given them before. It was like the kids were walking him, and he didn’t mind it one bit. He even managed to avoid all minor cliffs and any potentially deadly floating barrels, and by the time he returned Chanyeol was grinning and jumping from foot to foot, like he was proud of Jongin, which felt… good.
And Jongin is still reeling from it, dizzy with a heady feeling of accomplishment, but it’s funny how quick and easy it is to have that feeling shattered, ruptured from right beneath you, like someone cutting the very branch you stand and proclaim your victory on.
Spending an afternoon with Joonmyun seems like a vacation in comparison to being so firmly scrutinized by him.
“Did you do a head check for the cadets before and after the walk?” Joonmyun asks, brisk with something like nerves himself, possibly from the prospect of meeting with all of the kid’s parents.
“Um,” Jongin glances briefly at Chanyeol, who rolls his eyes at Joonmyun, “I didn’t know I was supposed to.”
“You always do a head check, Jongin. We are responsible for these kids.”
Joonmyun brushes past Jongin, and quickly counts out the children under his breath. He frowns.
Jongin’s stomach plummets...
Joonmyun counts them once more.
“Zone Foxtrot has fourteen cadets,” he says, voice low, “Why do you only have thirteen here?”
...and plummets, and plummets.
“Who’s missing?” Chanyeol asks one of the older boys, kneeling down to his level.
There’s a murmur of voices, and then someone pipes up a soft, “Luna!”
Jongin frowns pitifully, and he feels the strongest urge to break down into tears. “Fish poop,” he whispers quietly, and then Chanyeol is running like a bullet into the woods.
Joonmyun grunts in Jongin’s general direction, and then sprints off to follow him.
Jongin doesn’t even bother trying. He would hinder more than help, but that doesn’t make the guilt eating away at his gut any less stomach roiling.
And, of course, it is Joonmyun who finds her a mere handful of minutes later.
“Punishment wheel for you,” he says, walking brisk with his hand cradling the little girl’s nape, pointing at Jongin the way that some people scold their housepets.
Chanyeol isn’t far behind him, and he doesn’t seem too keen on Joonmyun’s decision.
“Lay off it, man, she was barely out of camp boundaries, she was probably two steps behind them when you jumped on him earlier,” Chanyeol says.
“I should give you a spin as well for letting him do this, right before the parent meeting, Chanyeol, for pete’s sake-”
“He made a mistake,” Chanyeol groans, “People do that, remember?”
“Mistakes need to be punished!” Joonmyun yells, and the silence that settles over the camp at his startling tone makes Jongin’s skin crawl. He bites on his thumb nail for fear of chewing off his own tongue otherwise. “How are you supposed to learn from them?”
“You learn from the mistake, not the punishme-”
“I’ll do it,” Jongin butts in, head dizzy with guilt, and tired of the sound of them yelling at each other. “I’ll spin the wheel, it isn’t a big deal.”
Chanyeol sighs, but he seems more put out by Joonmyun than Jongin. Still, Jongin feels like a complete and utter failure, which Joonmyun’s expression only insistently confirms for him.
-
Jongin’s punishment ends up being kitchen cleanup, which leaves Tao a somewhat happy camper when he gets to leave early, watching Jongin on his hands and knees scrubbing floors. Sehun, at least, looks a little sympathetic.
After his first night of duty Chanyeol is standing waiting outside of the canteen to walk him back to their zone. Jongin tries to smile when he sees him, but it must not be very convincing, because Chanyeol only looks concerned. The thing about cleaning duty is it is a menial kind of labor - the type that leaves room for pondering deep thoughts and plenty of self-loathing.
By the time they get to Jongin’s bunk, Chanyeol doesn’t seem like he’s ready to leave him all upset like this, and it’s Chanyeol’s concerned expression that makes him break down.
He isn’t crying because he feels sorry for himself, not really. Kitchen cleanup isn’t that horrible, considering, but rather he feels guilty about forgetting a child - the one child he should have remembered, too.
It’s dark enough in the dormer that Chanyeol doesn’t see it at first, but at Jongin’s first weak hearted sniffle, Chanyeol is scuffling into the dormer, sitting beside Jongin and holding his face in callused hands, inspecting for tears in the dark.
“Why are you crying?” Chanyeol asks quietly, worriedly, which only makes Jongin cry harder.
“Because… Because I almost lost a kid, out in the woods, and then I’d have to tell her parents I lost her and I didn’t even want to do this, really, I just wanted something to put on my resume, I’ve never even been camping before, and I thought it would be easy but it’s so, so not easy, it’s just you, you make it look easy, you make it look fun, even, but I’m not fun, I’m not cut out for this-”
“Hey,” Chanyeol says, that same soothing tone he uses with sobbing children that have scraped their knees, and Jongin pouts and then groans at himself for responding to being treated like a kid by acting like even moreof a kid. “Stop beating yourself up over this, you made a mistake. Mistakes are what you learn from, that’s thefirst thing they teach you here as a cadet, and Joonmyun knows it, he’s just a dick sometimes.”
Jongin sniffles loudly, “Sometimes?”
Chanyeol snorts, and wipes away a trail of tears on Jongin’s cheek with his thumb, “Alright, most times, but he has his reasons.”
Jongin inhales a pitifully shaky breath to steady himself.
“Luna doesn’t hate you,” Chanyeol says, dipping his head to catch Jongin’s eyes. “I think that’s more important, isn’t it?”
Jongin’s eyes flicker up to meet Chanyeol’s, and it’s dark in the dormers, but he can see the color in Chanyeol’s irises, somehow.
“Do you?” Jongin asks quietly, without intending to. Chanyeol’s hands linger on his face, and they feel comfortable there.
“Hate you?” Chanyeol asks, looking somewhat appalled by the mere thought, “Of course not.”
Chanyeol’s voice is pitched low, delicate, something Jongin didn’t think a voice like Chanyeol’s was capable of doing. He can hear Chanyeol breathing, can hear crickets outside the dormer, and he can hear his own heart beating in his ears. Chanyeol’s eyes are there, and his lips are there, and Jongin wants to kiss the soothing voice right from Chanyeol’s mouth. This isn’t the first time he’s thought about it, either - about what Chanyeol’s lips would taste like, what it would feel like to have Chanyeol smile into his skin.
When Chanyeol shifts away from Jongin, Jongin feels the absence like the loss of a limb. It’s unsteadying, to say the least.
Chanyeol crawls backwards, undoes the clasp on his vest, and then pulls out his secret sheet of star stickers. He sticks two, one high on each of Jongin’s cheeks, just below his eyes.
Chanyeol grins, and then says, “You can’t cry now, or you’ll lose your stars.”
Jongin huffs quietly, wipes at his disgustingly bunged up nose. “I don’t deserve the stars anyway, my report book is going to be empty.
“Fuck the report book,” Chanyeol says, with enough heat to pull Jongin back from another mope, “It doesn’t mean anything anyway.”
Jongin relents, because arguing the validity of your own self pity always feels more pathetic than accepting your failures, and then he burrows down into his sleeping bag. Chanyeol takes this as an unofficial goodnight, and crawls out of Jongin’s dormer, leaving with a quietly reassuring pat on his sleeping bag covered feet, before making his way to his own dormer for the night.
When Jongin wakes up, the stars are still adhered to his cheeks. He peels them both off and sticks them to the roof of his dormer, right above his head, so he can remember what they mean later.
-
Setting up for Starnight, Starbright leaves way for calm in repetition. Zone Foxtrot has been given the task of chopping wood, while other zones are doing things like twig clearing and food prep. Watching Chanyeol’s arm muscles tense on every drop of the axe is only moderately distracting, considering.
In fact, Jongin really isn’t doing much to help, and the way Chanyeol keeps grinning at him makes him think he’s really just showing off, but the illusion of it all breaks the minute Jongin gets a bag of leaves dumped on his head from an unknown source behind him. The shrill giggle tells him it’s Tao and Jongdae.
“Chanyeol if you keep this up you’re gonna end up in jail, my friend,” Jongdae sing-songs, while Jongin grumpily picks bits of leaves and twigs from his hair.
Chanyeol flexes his arm obnoxiously (yes, he is still obnoxious), and says, “Why, because these guns are criminal?”
Even Jongin flinches at that one.
“Nope, because I’m pretty sure being romantically involved with your pet is illegal in most countries.”
Now Jongin just turns an angry shade of red, which probably compliments the crown of leaves sitting atop his head in a cherubic sense, he presumes.
Chanyeol seems entirely unfazed. “Hey, a guy married his dog in Australia, maybe I’ll relocate there.”
Jongdae actually pauses at this, saying, “It’s sick that you know that,” before skipping off in the general direction Tao went.
Chanyeol turns to wink at Jongin once he leaves, and Jongin mock-vomits in response.
Later, when it begins to get dark out, Jongin helps Chanyeol start up the fire, and then goes to help some of the cadets pull their sleeping bags from their dormers to set up under the various clearings that have been made.
Joonmyun is conducting most of it, and Jongin has managed to steer clear of him the past few days, but he doesn’t seem particularly hostile tonight. It’s their last night here, maybe he’s even a little bit relieved himself, despite all evidence saying otherwise.
Back at the fire, much like bonfire night, Sehun sits on the ground between Joonmyun’s knees, and if Jongin doesn’t ask now, he never will.
“What is with them?” he leans into Chanyeol and tips his chin in their general direction, whispering the question so nobody else around them hears.
Chanyeol grunts, swallows whatever food had been in his mouth, and then shifts excitedly, like he’d been waiting for Jongin to ask this very question.
“Sehun was a cadet when Joonmyun was a Junior Counselor. And his mentor at the time was one of the best leaders, everyone will tell you. Joonmyun really looked up to him too, but remember I said he had his reasons for overreacting over what happened with Luna?”
Jongin vaguely recalls the conversation, and can somehow only bring to memory the way Chanyeol’s eyes stood out in the dark, but he decides to lie and nod.
“Right, well, that happened with him and Sehun.”
Jongin pulls back to look at him curiously. “What do you mean ‘that happened’?”
“Joonmyun lost Sehun out in the woods. He was 11 years old, and it was way worse than Luna… He was out there for hours.”
Jongin stares at Chanyeol, mouth agape, then and flickers his gaze to Joonmyun, his fingers threaded through Sehun’s hair.
“And Sehun wasn’t even mad at him,” Chanyeol continues, leaning into Jongin while Jongin watches Joonmyun, “He told me that was the most important part, you know, that the kid he failed didn’t hate him, in fact, I think Sehun thought he was his hero for finding him - even called him his guardian.”
Jongin nods vaguely, and then suddenly feels a deep pang of guilt at not running after Luna, despite his own debilitating shame at the time.
“So when Joonmyun got head counselor, he always said he would train Sehun to be the best, the next in line for the throne, so to speak. Sehun still thinks the sun shines out of his ass, god knows why.”
“Mm,” Jongin hums, and he watches the way Sehun tips his head back, grins up at Joonmyun behind him, and how young he looks. It makes sense, in a way, to want to impress the ones who impress you. “I think I get it now.”
Jongin isn’t that old and worldly yet, but he thinks he can understand the basics of it - wanting to feel like you haven’t been forgotten, it seems only human.
-
Later that night, when some of the cadets and counselors have dispersed, weak to the routine of curfew, Sehun pulls both Tao and Jongin aside, handing them both paper cups filled with what smells like an obscene amount of alcohol.
Tao smirks, and Jongin sighs.
“It’s only a shot and a half each, and it’s all I had left,” Sehun placates, and then lifts his glass as if in toast.
Jongin tosses the paper cup back, the dark liquor burning a trail down the back of his throat. The resulting fuzzy warmth in his gut is nice, at least.
“For making it through the camp alive,” Sehun grins.
“Barely,” Tao chokes out, smacking his lips in distaste.
They get to talking, and half-tipsy conversation is better than drunken conversation, Jongin has decided. At least with only one and a half shots, you’re loose enough to let the words flow, but not enough that you lose all control of what it is you’re saying. If he’d had another Jongin worries he might have said something he shouldn’t about Joonmyun.
“I like Jongdae a lot,” Tao says, exaggeratedly, and this serves as a reminder to Jongin that he is, indeed, a total lightweight. “Like, we got close, you know? He talks to you like you deserve his attention all the time, he even does it with Yixing. Which - by the way - I can confirm Yixing does not smoke pot. He just talks to plants, and possibly eats them when no ones looking.”
“Well,” Jongin says, “Plants do carry fungi, that would explain some things.”
“I think I can improve on myself a lot,” Sehun says suddenly, an unprovoked set of determination to his brow, “And I know I need to. My therapist at home says I do these things to get attention and, I dunno, maybe she’s right.”
Tao looks about ready to curl up and sleep again, and Jongin licks the remnants of the alcohol from his lips, staring at Sehun’s barely lit face from the fire.
“You know, you should ask Joonmyun to hang out with you after camp ends,” he says to Sehun, and Sehun narrows his eyes at him. “I just… think he might like that, you know?”
Sehun’s face remains tense, and Jongin is just about ready to write it off, until Sehun shrugs a little and says, “Yeah, I might.”
-
By the time Chanyeol pulls Jongin aside to their sleeping spot for the night, it is much later than Jongin had anticipated. The warmth from his shot is now fading, but he still feels kind of floaty and serene, the quiet murmur of childish whispers, all the novelty of staying up as late as they like.
And Jongin had expected to be laid out smack dab in the middle of their cadets, so when Chanyeol pulls him way out to the side into a completely empty clearing, Jongin is a little more than surprised.
It’s just two sleeping bags there, lit by a stream of moonlight cutting through the trees, surrounded by branches and nothing else.
Jongin snuggles into his sleeping bag without questioning it, his heart fluttering and feeling weak, anticipation pulsing through his blood. This was all done with intent, Jongin realizes, as he gazes up at the open clearing to the stars, because Chanyeol is shifted awfully close to him.
“This is my spot,” Chanyeol says quietly, “I always come here on the last night, usually alone, if I can manage. You can always see the sky, but never this clearly, you know? There’s always branches in the way.”
Jongin nods, brushing away the hair from his eyes so he can see it better, his head resting flat against the ground beneath their sleeping bags.
“It’s really nice,” he agrees shyly.
“I dunno,” Chanyeol says, and he adjusts himself in a way that draws his head and shoulders closer to Jongin’s, “I wanted you to see it. If anyone needs to be reminded that there are things bigger than this camp, it’s you.”
Jongin rolls his shoulder and punches Chanyeol playfully on the arm. “Shut up, I’m not that bad.”
Chanyeol shifts suddenly, an aborted, impulsive movement that has him leaning over Jongin on his elbow, blocking his view of the sky.
“You’re really not,” Chanyeol says, and then clarifies, “That bad, I mean. Not as bad as you seem to think you are.”
Jongin stares at Chanyeol, his face in shadow, but his eyes bright, and he thinks of the stars stuck to the roof of his dormer.
Chanyeol’s stars are the most important, he remembers.
Jongin’s hand shakes when it lifts to cup Chanyeol’s cheek. Chanyeol pushes his face into it, and Jongin forgets how to breathe.
With not knowing how to breathe comes not knowing how to move, so they sit there, frozen in a blip of a moment, stuck beneath stars and gazing at each other like they’re made from them. And maybe they are, Jongin was never really good at science. After about a minute, though, Chanyeol laughs at something entirely inside his own head, and then dips down and kisses Jongin.
Chanyeol’s lips are soft, and they tremble slightly when Jongin kisses back. He hears the sound of the kiss much the same way he hears the rustle of their sleeping bags, and Jongin’s toes curl in the warmth of it all, consumed by nothing but this moment.
When Chanyeol pulls back, his lips soft, and a little swollen, he gently nuzzles his nose against the side of Jongin’s, kisses the apple of his cheek.
“I can’t even look at the sky when you’re here,” Chanyeol murmurs quietly, voice blissed out and eyes hazy, at least until Jongin’s barked out laugh snaps him out of it.
“You’re so corny,” Jongin says, slapping weakly at Chanyeol’s chest, and then desperately tugging it back when Chanyeol tries to pull away.
“What did you honestly expect?” Chanyeol asks, and then he nips playfully at Jongin’s nose.
Jongin sighs, deep and contented.
“Not… this.”
Chanyeol seems to take this the wrong way, leans away slightly, and says, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pressure you-”
But he doesn’t finish the sentence, because Jongin tugs him back down on top of him.
“Shut up,” Jongin mumbles against his mouth, and then kisses him two, three, four times. “I just meant the sappy part, please keep kissing me.”
“Okay,” Chanyeol breathes, five, six, seven, “Okay.”
-
The last day of camp means it’s time for everyone to hand in their report books, including the kids. Joonmyun holds an awards ceremony in the canteen, with a makeshift stage set up at the back. Sehun trudges in with a box full of ribbons, the kind they give out at science fairs, and it seems like there’s an award category for just about everything.
Cleanest dormer, best purple backpack, bravest cadet (which goes to Luna), loudest snorer, best hair (Sehun), etc.
Sehun actually gets a couple awards, which Jongin figures isn’t all that surprising considering who’s handing them out. He even gets the award for best all-round Junior Counselor, which Tao looks absolutely scandalized by, and Jongin even scoffs a little at.
Chanyeol catches this, of course, and then pokes him in the ribs to tease him.
Jongin swats his prying hands away, and whines that, “he was punished the most.”
Chanyeol rolls his eyes. “Surely by now you realize that Joonmyun is extremely biased. I always told you my stickers were better.”
Jongin bites his lips, remembers the way Chanyeol did last night, soft, teasing little nips. Jongin’s heart flutters a little, and he says, “Yeah, I remember.”
Later, when the canteen is mostly cleared out, and almost all of the kids have been picked up by their parents, Chanyeol pulls Jongin aside and sticks one of the ribbons from Sehun’s box to his sweater. Jongin peers oddly at Chanyeol, to which Chanyeol’s response is a brief pet on the top of his head.
“Since you like positive affirmations of your performance,” he says, and then Jongin snarls playfully at him.
Tao finds him before he hops in a cab, and they exchange phone numbers and Tao forces Jongin to take a selca with him to put on his profile in his phone. Jongin can barely remember how petulant Tao seemed when he first arrived here.
Even Sehun won’t stop grinning. In fact, he’s smiling the most Jongin has ever seen, and the sight of it kind of pisses him off, because he actually kind of wanted to win the Junior Counselor award, and Sehun really doesn’t deserve it, even if Jongin doesn’t quite deserve it either.
“Jeez, Sehun, it’s just a ribbon,” he says, sounding far more bitter than playful.
Sehun bites his lip, the smile nearly splitting his damn face in two, and looks down at his phone.
“That isn’t why,” he says, and then he turns his phone to show Jongin what’s on the screen.
It appears to be a text from Joonmyun, one that says ‘this is my number, save it xx’.
Jongin gapes, and then sends Sehun and vaguely misguided bro-fist to the shoulder.
“Two X’s, Jongin,” Sehun grins, and Jongin is laughing, “Two.”
Jongin says goodbye to Chanyeol last, because Chanyeol is the one he doesn’t want to say goodbye to. It feels like being back in high school, standing with hands shoved into pockets, looking expectantly at Chanyeol, waiting to be kissed.
“Well,” Chanyeol claps his hands together, “If you need a professional reference for your resume,” he says, and then Jongin shoves him playfully, leaving Chanyeol to collapse in a fit of nervous laughter.
“I’ll consider it,” Jongin mumbles.
“You know,” Chanyeol says, looking up at the sky as if deep in thought, “Everyone here got someone else’s phone number except for me.”
“Oh, do you want Joonmyun’s phone number too?” Jongin asks. “Because I saw it on Sehun’s phone, and I’ve been told I have a near photographic memory-oompf.”
Jongin kind of likes that Chanyeol is strong enough to pull him around, melting into him when Chanyeol tugs Jongin to kiss him with a hand curled around the nape of his neck. Jongin loses himself in it, parts his lips and sighs into Chanyeol’s mouth.
“I would really like to go out with you sometime,” Chanyeol mumbles seriously, officially, faces still so close together.
“As long as it’s somewhere indoors with air conditioning, and no kids,” Jongin mutters, and then kisses him. Letting go doesn’t feel so daunting now.
“Alright,” Chanyeol smiles.
~end