One Time at Bandcamp
ONE TIME AT BANDCAMP;; PG
crossposted
It might have been Seungkwan's idea to force the company to give them a getaway vacation at Jeju Island because hey! free homemade food, but it's Mingyu's idea to have them climb up a rickety twelve story ladder held by the frailest of nails, rust chipping away at the corrosion on every single one of them.
Seungcheol bends down halfway up, easily picking up one of the nails holding up two of the creaking poles above him. The nail, just as expected is a creamy sheen of yellow over the rust and mildew and he tears the step away, clunking it to the floor below like chump change.
"Yeah, we're just going to have skip that one as a step." he says casually, moving forward and continuing to lead the way.
Mingyu hangs somewhere in the middle of the group, going up the ladder in succession of age. Three feet above the ground and center of all the resentful faces surrounding him, he sheepishly continues to look past the ladder and out into the lake below. The payoff is going to be so rewarding, finally getting to the top of the man-made hell shaped machinery and diving into the water below, cool drops of summer enticing to bask in.
Some of them of course, are wise enough not to partake. He hears chiding and looks below. Woozi, Jeonghan, and Seungkwan are on the ground below in a bundle of comfort, sundeck chairs spread out, the reflection of their pasty white sunblock blinding him from above.
"What did you say?" he fights back, defending his honor. Mingyu might have been an idiot all things considered, but he isn't going to go down in history for being a wimp.
"We're just about done writing your eulogy," Woozi taunts, his mischievous look hiding beneath the frame of his cotton candy colored hair. "it's a short one."
Mingyu doesn't retort back, DK patting his butt from behind, motioning for him to continue to climb. It's not long before he reaches the missing step that Seungcheol had ripped off, and he has a bit of an issue getting his long limbs to move past it to the next level but when he does it's a small victory.
Until he looks up and realizes he has several more feet to go.
When they finally reach the landing it creaks under the pressure of ten youthful boys' combined weight. Figures.
Mingyu takes a calculated breather and props himself down on all fours, feeling safer this way, until on closer inspection he realizes it is the same rusty nails holding up the top diving surface as well. A culmination of old floor boards and leftover forest woods and forgotten metal scraps, it's any wonder this thing is staying put, and suddenly he feels like he's riding a wave, from side to side. He's reached a certain amount of vertigo he wouldn't care to admit.
A wimp-like amount.
"It's the wind," a comforting hand grips his wrist and stabilizes his position so he's not teetering on one knee and elbow more than the other. Surprisingly, it's Joshua, one of the members he thought for sure would chicken out and stay back on land, and even more surprisingly - or maybe not so much has been able to stay a reassured amount of calm from such a height above, well into the sky.
"We had this thing called band camp back in America," Joshua explains without prompting, still gripping at Mingyu's wrist with that gentle ease, "Kids built things entirely more dangerous than this. And we'd have no choice but to join."
Strangely that comforts Mingyu less, but he positions himself so he's sitting with his legs crossed, angling himself closer to Joshua and to get a better view of the others. The others, half standing, half bending over, too scared to straighten their backs all remain with their mouths agape, absolutely in awe of the view.
"I wish I had my damn camera," Wonwoo mutters under his breath, winking back at Mingyu and then taking in the view of the lake expanding miles and miles beyond the limits of their eyesight, the mountain view from across only hindered by the limitless sequoia and pines trees surrounding them in every possible direction.
Mingyu feels his own mouth drop a bit, consciously wiping the side of it when Joshua snickers at a sliver of drool hanging. He collectively tries to gather his cool again when the other guys start howling and clapping, forcing the entire platform to shake heavily from side to side, like an antiquated earthquake of sorts. Mingyu feels his stomach turn.
This is the worst idea he's ever had.
It's The8 who is the first to take the plunge and without a drop of hesitation. Minghao, the kid with nine lives and not an ounce of fear to counter it. Joshua stands up slowly as to not to startle Mingyu, and then grabs his wrist again, helping him up. Mingyu slowly stands on his feet, towering over Joshua, the rush of fresh air immediately hitting him and filling his nostrils. Okay, there might be some collective peace in this place yet.
Mingyu closes his eyes and inhales, just as Junhui takes a dive, showing off the most artistic cannonball a human could form. Mingyu opens his eyes in pure envy. He wants to go sooner rather than later, fear of being the last one up there on his own almost detestable.
"Don't let me be last, hyung. please," he whispers and silently begs to Joshua. Joshua nods, always the silent guy, still gripping at Mingyu's wrist for reassurance. Mingyu feels the fine hairs on his arms stand from the static at the high altitude meeting with the friction of Joshua's palm.
"Relax," Joshua reminds, and before Mingyu can counter with something insisting that he's not that afraid, Joshua hurdles past Vernon and Dino who were fighting over who'd go next, and then he plummets below, in a solid linear fashion, nothing fancy, not even a last minute warrior yell.
Instinctively, Mingyu clamors on all fours again, peeking past the edge of the wooden floor-boarded corner, eagerly desperate to see if Joshua had made it alive.
But of course he has. There he is with Hoshi, Junhui, Minghao, and Wonwoo heads dangling above the water, a serious game of splash attack occurring in the crystal clear expanse of the lake.
"Water's fine," Wonwoo teases, looking up at Mingyu's stricken face, able to read his terrified expression despite the distance, "what are you waiting for, you bunch of sissies?"
And like that, the rest of them dived into the water below, not wanting to delay the process much further.
Somehow alone up there, the wind seems more devious, more ominous as it whistles from ear to ear. Mingyu pokes his index fingers in them, hoping it would deter the wind in a different direction, but it just picks up on the metal frame instead, tossing it an ugly sound side to side. Mingyu peeks below again, wondering how many minutes had passed since he'd been isolated, been left for dead at the top of nowhere.
Woozi was staring up at him, his face now in a twisted pain of concern. Great. Now even Woozi was feeling sorry for him.
"The sooner you jump, the sooner we can eat some fucking meat." Woozi tries to placate, but his words mean nothing, not when the wind drowns them out and Mingyu barely listening as is. Mingyu looks down to the water side. Most of the boys had stopped the water wars and were looking up curiously. Perhaps it has been five minutes, or maybe it's been an hour he wasn't sure. Joshua looks up, his arms around the bare back of Vernon, the flatness of his expression still calm and situated.
"Traitor!" Mingyu shouts below and then over and over again into the air, the word echoing as it bounces off the lake and then back at him. The boys remain mildly confused, looking at each other in deflection as to who was the betrayer among them. Joshua says nothing to deter the blame onto himself, Mingyu notices. Mingyu scoffs.
There was a reason that Joshua-hyung was the best at Mafia.
Mingyu sits in the middle of the plank cross-legged, contemplating. Three reasons he shouldn't jump to his possible death and commit suicide:
One - his parents. His poor, lovely parents.
Two - his members. The ones making fun of him right now.
Three - his idea. It is his own terrible idea that gets him in this predicament in the first place. There's no more room for hesitation. Visual tree Kim Mingyu.
So he jumps.
Like all good things do, time stands frozen in the short second it takes him to plummet from point A to point B. His life doesn't flash between his eyes, deep memories being stricken forward, repressed ones and then highlights. It's nothing like that. Just a blinding flash of light, the sun permeating between two pine trees hidden behind the mountains striking him, the rebel yells of the others shouting his name in an excited mantra, "Mingyu! Mingyu! Mingyu!", the feel of his chest unwinding itself, his insides going upward and in a loop when he hits the water. It's nothing like hitting cement, it envelopes him, sweet, invigorating, the concept of summer waves coming to fruition. He snorts a bunch of water accidentally when he rises above surface, but he tries to play it cool, putting a cheeky thumbs up in the air as a signal to the guys, "Everything's okay."
The old Mingyu is back up and running.
He's more or less like himself by the time the sun disappears and they settle themselves into campfire time. The boys are a little off the handle because the managers decide to check in to a hotel for eight hours of the night, figuring the boys can handle themselves, handle a tiny bit of responsibility. Bad idea.
Seungcheol finds a hidden bottle of moonshine beneath some pine cones after taking a piss in the forest and shares it around the circle. Woozi frowns, and berates Seungcheol, not particularly because he's a goody-two shoes and there are under-aged members you know, but more or less because he'd had this image of them all getting respectively plastered in a rented out bar after their very first win. Dreams and all that. Mingyu laughs when Woozi caves and takes a swig, immediately jumping over the fire once the diabolical liquor hits him.
"The alcohol is your body weight alone," Wonwoo counters somewhere on the other side of the tents helping the others prep the meat. It's not long before Woozi tackles Wonwoo and the first tent goes down, a sleeping Hoshi in it. It's chaos and Mingyu revels in it, howling into the crisp night air, like the werewolf he's always envisioned himself to be.
"Mating call?" Vernon chuckles from a lawn chair where he and Joshua squabble over the campfire on how to make American style s'mores. Mingyu snuggles himself into his new warm clothes that he stole from Jeonghan earlier, forgetting most of his traveling supplies back at home. Typical.
Joshua's face remains obstructed by the flames reflecting the smoke in Mingyu's direction. There's not one bit of remorse from what Mingyu can see. The blackened ashes flying wisp-like in the air make Joshua look evil almost, the shadows casting a crease from the lobe of his pierced crossed ear down to where his defined chin falls.
"You should be feeling guilty right about now, hyung," Mingyu ignites, his words sounding more like a rap than he means it to. Joshua merely shrugs, ignoring Mingyu in favor of pushing Vernon's elbow when he puts the graham cracker over the fire.
"No, Vernon. The marshmallow goes there first. Idiot." it sounds bizarre whenever Joshua insults someone, unnatural for him to be even slightly spiteful. But Vernon takes it in stride, taking the chocolate and poking it on a wire hanger over the fire, pushing Joshua back into the dirt before he can retaliate. Mingyu laughs. Loud. When Joshua stands up and wipes the sand off himself, specks of it fly over the ash and hit Mingyu square in the eye.
"Stop insulting my pride, hyung!" Mingyu bellows, dramatic. Joshua makes his way over to the other side of the fire and takes the empty lawn chair besides Mingyu. Joshua only lasts a moment there before he swats the smoke away from Mingyu's face immediately, pushing Mingyu's chair where he's dug himself into a place over halfway to the other side of the circle. They're closer to Vernon now this way, and no ash flickers from this angle.
"It's the wind," Joshua explains for the second time in twenty four hours. Mingyu opens his eyes up wider in amazement from the new smoke free clarity. Sure, Joshua has ruined his shoes by dragging them into the dirt and mud alongside his lawn chair but there's no faint markings of an evil shadow around him now. Shamefully and like an apology, Mingyu lets a free foot fly into the air and kicks Vernon on his side, making his piece of chocolate tank into the center of the fire.
"Jisoo hyung said marshmallows first, Hansol." Mingyu beams at his reprimand, even as Vernon pointedly ignores it. Joshua chuckles, a mouth to his hand. He's sitting on the ground now, alongside the dirt and sand and mud and everything unclean. Mingyu thinks of offering his lawn chair, but one step ahead, Joshua declines, shaking his head lazily.
"I like it here. Reminds me of the beaches at home."
"Why'd you ditch me up there today?" sometimes Mingyu could sound so childlike, be so small in this world. Joshua reaches up, grips his wrist again in comfort. It feels different this time, on balanced land. Somehow, more estranged and less intimate than before.
"Sometimes, you just gotta do things on your own Mingyu."
Mingyu kicks a victimized rock into the flames. He's never thought about it much before. How brave Joshua was for flying across the world all on his own, ditching his family in another country to do the same thing Mingyu was doing. Following an idealized lifestyle, a blurry goal with no certain prospect.
Mingyu finds himself throwing the lawn chair backwards, to where it vaguely hits someone in the dark. (Dino - a soft "Ow" back can be heard.)
He scoots closer to Joshua on the bare ground, practically forcing himself onto his lap. Joshua doesn't mind, he tells himself. He's older anyway - it's what he should expect of the younger ones - no concept of personal space.
"You're awesome, hyung. You know that?" he says the last bit in English, as if that's going to impress Joshua more, feeling his puff chest out with pride when he does it. Joshua just laughs it off, inching forward so that Mingyu can now lay down in his lap and view the stars above. North star, Orion's belt, the star/planet formally named as Pluto.
Joshua ruffles the crown of Mingyu's hair softly, absent minded, sometimes tugging at chunks of it, stirring something in Mingyu's core, other times letting the tresses fall between his fingers, slow with no direction. Mingyu feels his nerves being all tingly but he does nothing to counter it, sort of enjoying the weird tension of Joshua's touch. It's his own trademark in the group to take care of hair, he contemplates.
Roles reversed.
Mingyu looks up, the smell of wood and sugar and meat all coming together. Woozi, Wonwoo and Jeonghan have brought the meat over, now bickering with Vernon over cooking dessert first before dinner.
"We should have just had beans." Joshua concludes.
"Vernon should have listened to you, hyung." Mingyu agrees, closing his eyes, suddenly sleepy. "Marshmallows first."
It's not so bad laying in Joshua's arms. It kind of feels like the plank above, poles swaying, a restless wind picking up from side to side. But it's also entirely reassuring as well, comforting and wholesome, the fabric of Joshua's linen pants spreading warmth through Mingyu's body like an insulated blanket. He falls fast asleep before dinner is even served, and in true nature Joshua doesn't wake him up until the ghost stories are over, everything put away and tents finally redone again. When Mingyu wakes up with a grumbling stomach he pushes Joshua something fierce. "Traitor!"
"There are other words in the dictionary, Mingyu."
Joshua walks forward, hands hanging peacefully in his pockets as he ditches a trailing Mingyu behind, the last one at the fireside, forced to put the burning wood out, smoke embalming him one last time. Mingyu finds his way to his tent late, trying to think of several adventures they can have the next day where he can instill some revenge.
The good-hearted hero kind of revenge, of course.
crossposted
It might have been Seungkwan's idea to force the company to give them a getaway vacation at Jeju Island because hey! free homemade food, but it's Mingyu's idea to have them climb up a rickety twelve story ladder held by the frailest of nails, rust chipping away at the corrosion on every single one of them.
Seungcheol bends down halfway up, easily picking up one of the nails holding up two of the creaking poles above him. The nail, just as expected is a creamy sheen of yellow over the rust and mildew and he tears the step away, clunking it to the floor below like chump change.
"Yeah, we're just going to have skip that one as a step." he says casually, moving forward and continuing to lead the way.
Mingyu hangs somewhere in the middle of the group, going up the ladder in succession of age. Three feet above the ground and center of all the resentful faces surrounding him, he sheepishly continues to look past the ladder and out into the lake below. The payoff is going to be so rewarding, finally getting to the top of the man-made hell shaped machinery and diving into the water below, cool drops of summer enticing to bask in.
Some of them of course, are wise enough not to partake. He hears chiding and looks below. Woozi, Jeonghan, and Seungkwan are on the ground below in a bundle of comfort, sundeck chairs spread out, the reflection of their pasty white sunblock blinding him from above.
"What did you say?" he fights back, defending his honor. Mingyu might have been an idiot all things considered, but he isn't going to go down in history for being a wimp.
"We're just about done writing your eulogy," Woozi taunts, his mischievous look hiding beneath the frame of his cotton candy colored hair. "it's a short one."
Mingyu doesn't retort back, DK patting his butt from behind, motioning for him to continue to climb. It's not long before he reaches the missing step that Seungcheol had ripped off, and he has a bit of an issue getting his long limbs to move past it to the next level but when he does it's a small victory.
Until he looks up and realizes he has several more feet to go.
When they finally reach the landing it creaks under the pressure of ten youthful boys' combined weight. Figures.
Mingyu takes a calculated breather and props himself down on all fours, feeling safer this way, until on closer inspection he realizes it is the same rusty nails holding up the top diving surface as well. A culmination of old floor boards and leftover forest woods and forgotten metal scraps, it's any wonder this thing is staying put, and suddenly he feels like he's riding a wave, from side to side. He's reached a certain amount of vertigo he wouldn't care to admit.
A wimp-like amount.
"It's the wind," a comforting hand grips his wrist and stabilizes his position so he's not teetering on one knee and elbow more than the other. Surprisingly, it's Joshua, one of the members he thought for sure would chicken out and stay back on land, and even more surprisingly - or maybe not so much has been able to stay a reassured amount of calm from such a height above, well into the sky.
"We had this thing called band camp back in America," Joshua explains without prompting, still gripping at Mingyu's wrist with that gentle ease, "Kids built things entirely more dangerous than this. And we'd have no choice but to join."
Strangely that comforts Mingyu less, but he positions himself so he's sitting with his legs crossed, angling himself closer to Joshua and to get a better view of the others. The others, half standing, half bending over, too scared to straighten their backs all remain with their mouths agape, absolutely in awe of the view.
"I wish I had my damn camera," Wonwoo mutters under his breath, winking back at Mingyu and then taking in the view of the lake expanding miles and miles beyond the limits of their eyesight, the mountain view from across only hindered by the limitless sequoia and pines trees surrounding them in every possible direction.
Mingyu feels his own mouth drop a bit, consciously wiping the side of it when Joshua snickers at a sliver of drool hanging. He collectively tries to gather his cool again when the other guys start howling and clapping, forcing the entire platform to shake heavily from side to side, like an antiquated earthquake of sorts. Mingyu feels his stomach turn.
This is the worst idea he's ever had.
It's The8 who is the first to take the plunge and without a drop of hesitation. Minghao, the kid with nine lives and not an ounce of fear to counter it. Joshua stands up slowly as to not to startle Mingyu, and then grabs his wrist again, helping him up. Mingyu slowly stands on his feet, towering over Joshua, the rush of fresh air immediately hitting him and filling his nostrils. Okay, there might be some collective peace in this place yet.
Mingyu closes his eyes and inhales, just as Junhui takes a dive, showing off the most artistic cannonball a human could form. Mingyu opens his eyes in pure envy. He wants to go sooner rather than later, fear of being the last one up there on his own almost detestable.
"Don't let me be last, hyung. please," he whispers and silently begs to Joshua. Joshua nods, always the silent guy, still gripping at Mingyu's wrist for reassurance. Mingyu feels the fine hairs on his arms stand from the static at the high altitude meeting with the friction of Joshua's palm.
"Relax," Joshua reminds, and before Mingyu can counter with something insisting that he's not that afraid, Joshua hurdles past Vernon and Dino who were fighting over who'd go next, and then he plummets below, in a solid linear fashion, nothing fancy, not even a last minute warrior yell.
Instinctively, Mingyu clamors on all fours again, peeking past the edge of the wooden floor-boarded corner, eagerly desperate to see if Joshua had made it alive.
But of course he has. There he is with Hoshi, Junhui, Minghao, and Wonwoo heads dangling above the water, a serious game of splash attack occurring in the crystal clear expanse of the lake.
"Water's fine," Wonwoo teases, looking up at Mingyu's stricken face, able to read his terrified expression despite the distance, "what are you waiting for, you bunch of sissies?"
And like that, the rest of them dived into the water below, not wanting to delay the process much further.
Somehow alone up there, the wind seems more devious, more ominous as it whistles from ear to ear. Mingyu pokes his index fingers in them, hoping it would deter the wind in a different direction, but it just picks up on the metal frame instead, tossing it an ugly sound side to side. Mingyu peeks below again, wondering how many minutes had passed since he'd been isolated, been left for dead at the top of nowhere.
Woozi was staring up at him, his face now in a twisted pain of concern. Great. Now even Woozi was feeling sorry for him.
"The sooner you jump, the sooner we can eat some fucking meat." Woozi tries to placate, but his words mean nothing, not when the wind drowns them out and Mingyu barely listening as is. Mingyu looks down to the water side. Most of the boys had stopped the water wars and were looking up curiously. Perhaps it has been five minutes, or maybe it's been an hour he wasn't sure. Joshua looks up, his arms around the bare back of Vernon, the flatness of his expression still calm and situated.
"Traitor!" Mingyu shouts below and then over and over again into the air, the word echoing as it bounces off the lake and then back at him. The boys remain mildly confused, looking at each other in deflection as to who was the betrayer among them. Joshua says nothing to deter the blame onto himself, Mingyu notices. Mingyu scoffs.
There was a reason that Joshua-hyung was the best at Mafia.
Mingyu sits in the middle of the plank cross-legged, contemplating. Three reasons he shouldn't jump to his possible death and commit suicide:
One - his parents. His poor, lovely parents.
Two - his members. The ones making fun of him right now.
Three - his idea. It is his own terrible idea that gets him in this predicament in the first place. There's no more room for hesitation. Visual tree Kim Mingyu.
So he jumps.
Like all good things do, time stands frozen in the short second it takes him to plummet from point A to point B. His life doesn't flash between his eyes, deep memories being stricken forward, repressed ones and then highlights. It's nothing like that. Just a blinding flash of light, the sun permeating between two pine trees hidden behind the mountains striking him, the rebel yells of the others shouting his name in an excited mantra, "Mingyu! Mingyu! Mingyu!", the feel of his chest unwinding itself, his insides going upward and in a loop when he hits the water. It's nothing like hitting cement, it envelopes him, sweet, invigorating, the concept of summer waves coming to fruition. He snorts a bunch of water accidentally when he rises above surface, but he tries to play it cool, putting a cheeky thumbs up in the air as a signal to the guys, "Everything's okay."
The old Mingyu is back up and running.
He's more or less like himself by the time the sun disappears and they settle themselves into campfire time. The boys are a little off the handle because the managers decide to check in to a hotel for eight hours of the night, figuring the boys can handle themselves, handle a tiny bit of responsibility. Bad idea.
Seungcheol finds a hidden bottle of moonshine beneath some pine cones after taking a piss in the forest and shares it around the circle. Woozi frowns, and berates Seungcheol, not particularly because he's a goody-two shoes and there are under-aged members you know, but more or less because he'd had this image of them all getting respectively plastered in a rented out bar after their very first win. Dreams and all that. Mingyu laughs when Woozi caves and takes a swig, immediately jumping over the fire once the diabolical liquor hits him.
"The alcohol is your body weight alone," Wonwoo counters somewhere on the other side of the tents helping the others prep the meat. It's not long before Woozi tackles Wonwoo and the first tent goes down, a sleeping Hoshi in it. It's chaos and Mingyu revels in it, howling into the crisp night air, like the werewolf he's always envisioned himself to be.
"Mating call?" Vernon chuckles from a lawn chair where he and Joshua squabble over the campfire on how to make American style s'mores. Mingyu snuggles himself into his new warm clothes that he stole from Jeonghan earlier, forgetting most of his traveling supplies back at home. Typical.
Joshua's face remains obstructed by the flames reflecting the smoke in Mingyu's direction. There's not one bit of remorse from what Mingyu can see. The blackened ashes flying wisp-like in the air make Joshua look evil almost, the shadows casting a crease from the lobe of his pierced crossed ear down to where his defined chin falls.
"You should be feeling guilty right about now, hyung," Mingyu ignites, his words sounding more like a rap than he means it to. Joshua merely shrugs, ignoring Mingyu in favor of pushing Vernon's elbow when he puts the graham cracker over the fire.
"No, Vernon. The marshmallow goes there first. Idiot." it sounds bizarre whenever Joshua insults someone, unnatural for him to be even slightly spiteful. But Vernon takes it in stride, taking the chocolate and poking it on a wire hanger over the fire, pushing Joshua back into the dirt before he can retaliate. Mingyu laughs. Loud. When Joshua stands up and wipes the sand off himself, specks of it fly over the ash and hit Mingyu square in the eye.
"Stop insulting my pride, hyung!" Mingyu bellows, dramatic. Joshua makes his way over to the other side of the fire and takes the empty lawn chair besides Mingyu. Joshua only lasts a moment there before he swats the smoke away from Mingyu's face immediately, pushing Mingyu's chair where he's dug himself into a place over halfway to the other side of the circle. They're closer to Vernon now this way, and no ash flickers from this angle.
"It's the wind," Joshua explains for the second time in twenty four hours. Mingyu opens his eyes up wider in amazement from the new smoke free clarity. Sure, Joshua has ruined his shoes by dragging them into the dirt and mud alongside his lawn chair but there's no faint markings of an evil shadow around him now. Shamefully and like an apology, Mingyu lets a free foot fly into the air and kicks Vernon on his side, making his piece of chocolate tank into the center of the fire.
"Jisoo hyung said marshmallows first, Hansol." Mingyu beams at his reprimand, even as Vernon pointedly ignores it. Joshua chuckles, a mouth to his hand. He's sitting on the ground now, alongside the dirt and sand and mud and everything unclean. Mingyu thinks of offering his lawn chair, but one step ahead, Joshua declines, shaking his head lazily.
"I like it here. Reminds me of the beaches at home."
"Why'd you ditch me up there today?" sometimes Mingyu could sound so childlike, be so small in this world. Joshua reaches up, grips his wrist again in comfort. It feels different this time, on balanced land. Somehow, more estranged and less intimate than before.
"Sometimes, you just gotta do things on your own Mingyu."
Mingyu kicks a victimized rock into the flames. He's never thought about it much before. How brave Joshua was for flying across the world all on his own, ditching his family in another country to do the same thing Mingyu was doing. Following an idealized lifestyle, a blurry goal with no certain prospect.
Mingyu finds himself throwing the lawn chair backwards, to where it vaguely hits someone in the dark. (Dino - a soft "Ow" back can be heard.)
He scoots closer to Joshua on the bare ground, practically forcing himself onto his lap. Joshua doesn't mind, he tells himself. He's older anyway - it's what he should expect of the younger ones - no concept of personal space.
"You're awesome, hyung. You know that?" he says the last bit in English, as if that's going to impress Joshua more, feeling his puff chest out with pride when he does it. Joshua just laughs it off, inching forward so that Mingyu can now lay down in his lap and view the stars above. North star, Orion's belt, the star/planet formally named as Pluto.
Joshua ruffles the crown of Mingyu's hair softly, absent minded, sometimes tugging at chunks of it, stirring something in Mingyu's core, other times letting the tresses fall between his fingers, slow with no direction. Mingyu feels his nerves being all tingly but he does nothing to counter it, sort of enjoying the weird tension of Joshua's touch. It's his own trademark in the group to take care of hair, he contemplates.
Roles reversed.
Mingyu looks up, the smell of wood and sugar and meat all coming together. Woozi, Wonwoo and Jeonghan have brought the meat over, now bickering with Vernon over cooking dessert first before dinner.
"We should have just had beans." Joshua concludes.
"Vernon should have listened to you, hyung." Mingyu agrees, closing his eyes, suddenly sleepy. "Marshmallows first."
It's not so bad laying in Joshua's arms. It kind of feels like the plank above, poles swaying, a restless wind picking up from side to side. But it's also entirely reassuring as well, comforting and wholesome, the fabric of Joshua's linen pants spreading warmth through Mingyu's body like an insulated blanket. He falls fast asleep before dinner is even served, and in true nature Joshua doesn't wake him up until the ghost stories are over, everything put away and tents finally redone again. When Mingyu wakes up with a grumbling stomach he pushes Joshua something fierce. "Traitor!"
"There are other words in the dictionary, Mingyu."
Joshua walks forward, hands hanging peacefully in his pockets as he ditches a trailing Mingyu behind, the last one at the fireside, forced to put the burning wood out, smoke embalming him one last time. Mingyu finds his way to his tent late, trying to think of several adventures they can have the next day where he can instill some revenge.
The good-hearted hero kind of revenge, of course.