Group 2, meanwhile, had spent their morning trudging through the dreary forest. Surrounding them was the tranquil sounds of bird song and the crunching of leaves underfoot. And, of course, Yesung’s unstoppable babbling.

“Oh, and this tree is a sugar pine! You can tell because it had five needles per cluster instead of three. See, Wookie? See? Five needles, right? Oh this one only has four… But I think it—Aha! A blue jay! Do you guys hear that sound? That squawk? It’s a very distinctive—“

“SHUT UP!” Kangin bellowed, finally unable to take it any longer. “JEEZ! No wonder all your parts in shows keep getting cut out! Who can stand this sort of useless crap?!”

“At least it’s only his words that get cut,” Eunhyuk pouted. “Do you know how many times they’ve cut out my abs?” He shook his head sadly as he ducked under a low-hanging branch. “And they let Siwon show his abs all the time! How unfair is that?”

“Well, maybe they don’t think yours are as appealing to the fans as his are,” Hangeng said, carefully avoiding the branch as well.

“Yeah!” Shindong fired up. “Yours look a bit like a Grandfather’s fa—OW!” He walked head first into the branch.

Eunhyuk looked at the others defiantly. “Mine are just as luscious and y as his!” He protested. He looked around at the others. “Right?”

“Do you really want us to answer that?” Hangeng asked uncomfortably.

The Korean huffed. “Fine. I’ll just ask Donghae later.”

“AH!” Yesung excitedly pointed up the path. “Look!” Up ahead, the trail split into two smaller paths: the right trail leading up toward the top of the mountain and the left plunging further into the dark forest.

“I’m going on the right,” Ryeowook quickly emphasized.

Hangeng spoke up, “Then how about we split up into the teams we had before? Me, Kangin, and Wookie versus Eunhyuk, Shindong, and Yesung?”

“Great!” Kangin said. “Then we can just leave Henry here.”

“Hey!” The Canadian yelped.

“We’ll take him,” Eunhyuk offered kindly. “Just in case we meet any bears.”

“This is maknae abuse,” Henry muttered mutinously.

Shindong rummaged in his backpack. “Here.” He tossed a walkie-talkie to Hangeng. “When you hear screams, come find us,” he told the Chinese man seriously.

Hangeng shook the devices experimentally. “Did you put batteries in these?”

“Umm…”

“Aiish… How is it possible for you to be so unprepared? Here you go.” Ryeowook pulled a few batteries out of his own bag and popped them into the walkie-talkies.

“Yah, yah, yah!” Kangin immediately protested. “Did you just say “aish” to your hyungs?!”

“I was talking to Henry!” The younger one quickly covered.

“How is the battery thing my fault?!” Henry protested.

“Wookie? How old are these batteries?” Yesung asked. “The meter is already flashing LOW at me…” The other member merely shrugged in reply.

“I guess we just can’t talk too much on these then,” Hangeng rationalized. “Eunhyuk! You are forbidden to use these!”

“Hey! I don’t talk that much…!”
“Let’s GO~!” Hangeng sang, brutally dragging away Kangin and Ryeowook.

The remaining four blinked at each other.

“So…” Shindong began gesturing to the dark path. “After you.”

The members marched off into the forest.

Henry glanced from side to side. “What kind of food are we looking for?”

“Just the normal kind,” Yesung guessed. “Nuts, berries, mushrooms, hamburgers—“

“Hamburgers?” Shindong salivated.

“I don’t think those are very common in the wild,” Henry commented dryly.

“Do you think we should try catching some sort of animal to eat?” Eunhyuk said. “For protein?”

“Oh, like a rabbit or something?” Yesung chimed in excitedly.

“Yeah, it’d be really impressive if we did, right?”

“LET’S DO IT!” Shindong cheered.

Henry, who had apparently become the voice of reason within this group, quickly dashed their hopes. “How?”

There was a brief moment of silence as they all though of a solution.

“Maybe if we ask really, really nicely?” Shindong suggested hopefully.

The others shook their heads.

Yesung jumped up. “What if we sang it a song?”

“Hey,” Henry cut in, “Are we Disney princesses?”

Yesung, ignoring this, cleared his throat impressively. “Can you SIIIIIIIING with all the voices of the moun-TUUUUUN~ Can you PAAAAAAINT with all the colors of the wiiii—HUK!” He retched violently as a bug flew into his mouth.

“Is that Baby?” Eunhyuk asked, leaning forward.

Shindong shook his head. “No, no, Baby had bigger claw-things, remember?”

“They’re called pincers,” Yesung corrected with watering eyes.

“Ah! I got it!” Eunhyuk exclaimed suddenly. “What if we do some sort of dance?”

“Dance?” Henry asked incredulously.

The Korean nodded. “You know how we can attract millions of fangirls with our dancing, right? Do you think it would work with animals?”

“It’s worth a shot,” Shindong agreed.

Yesung perked up. “Come to think of it, we have the four best dancers of Super Junior here!”

There was a long, obvious silence.

“Maybe we shouldn’t dance,” Henry suggested hastily.

“Nope,” The other two chorused.

“Should we check in with Kangin’s group?” Shindong asked.

Eunhyuk nodded. “Let’s see if they’ve had any more luck finding food.”

Yesung hastily grabbed the walkie-talkies. “I’ll call them!” He pressed the device and began shouting into it.

“HELLO? HELLO? ANYONE? IT’S YESUNG. OVER.” He waited patiently, but was met with radio silence.

“Try again,” Eunhyuk urged.

“And maybe a little more quietly,” Shindong suggested.

“HELLO? PLEASE RESPOND. OVER.” Another empty silence. Yesung’s forehead scrunched up in frustration.

“Why isn’t this working?! YAH! Henry! This is all your fault! Fix it!”

“My fault?! You’re the idiot who’s pressing the antenna instead of the call button!”

“…Oh.”

About a mile or so away, Kangin, Hangeng, and Ryeowook were having a much better time.

“Wow, we’ve really gotten a lot of berries!” Ryeowook smiled. He put a few more of the small fruits into his backpack.

“And we haven’t even reached the base of the mountain yet,” Hangeng added.

“At this rate, we might not even have to climb it,” Kangin said, a note of disappointment in his voice.

The Chinese man patted his back consolingly. “I’m sure we’ll have more time to do it tomorrow.” He opened his mouth again to add something about scenery, but stopped when he heard a small crackle. “What’s that?”

“—LO! THIS I— UNG. OVER.”

“Is that coming from your backpack?”

Kangin rifled through his backpack before pulling out the walkie-talkie.

“Is that the other team?” Ryeowook asked.

Kangin gave him a look. “No. It’s the voice of the Easter Bunny.” He pressed down on the call button and replied, “It’s Kangin. What do you want?”

“KANGIN! IT’S YESUNG! AND YOU FORGOT TO SAY OVER! OVER.”

Kangin jerked the device back from his ear hastily as Yesung’s voice, accompanied by a choir of feedback, came screeching through.

“YAH! DO YOU WANT TO MAKE ME DEAF?! LOWER YOUR VOICE, YOU IDIOT!” He bellowed.

Hangeng quickly reached over and pressed the call button. “Over!” He added brightly.

There was a brief pause, and then Yesung’s voice, now lowered to a normal level, could be heard again. “Are you far from where we are?”

Kangin frowned at the walkie-talkie. “I don’t like your tone,” he declared. “Put Shindong on.”

“Are you far~ from where we are~?”

“Put Shindong on.”

“STOP IGNORING ME!” Yesung screeched. “HEY! STOP IGNOR—“

Click. Kangin turned the device off and carelessly tossed it to the giggling Ryeowook.

“Annoying.” The older one huffed.

A mile away, a dumbstruck Yesung stared at the walkie-talkie in his hands. “He hung up on me,” he said faintly.

“No one wants the talk to you,” Shindong commented.

Meanwhile, the KangGengWook team kept advancing through the trees.

“Hey! Do you think this is edible?” Hangeng called. The other two leaned over.

Ryeowook looked uncertainly at the vegetation. “Is that… moss?”

The Chinese man nodded happily. “Put enough sauce on it, and we can call it salad!”

The other members took one large step back. “You don’t want it?” Hangeng asked.

“Now I’m wondering what you put in our fried rice…” Kangin muttered.

Ryeowook tentatively suggested, “Do you think we should call the other team again? To see if they’ve found enough food for all of us?”

Hangeng nodded. “If not, we can always go with the moss…?”

Kangin snatched the walkie-talkie out of his bag and turned it on. As soon as it crackled to life, the three of them could hear Yesung again. “—lo? Hello? Anyone there? Anyooooooooone theeeeeeere? Over?”

“Yah, is Yesung the only one there?” Kangin asked.

“Oh! Hi, guys!” Yesung said cheerfully.

“If you’re the only one talking, I’m hanging up again,” the other member threatened.

Yesung seemed to panic, and quickly switched to English. “Calm down!” He said. “Calm down! Don’t get me wrong!”

“Pfffft…” Hangeng started laughing. “Idiots.”

“My intentions were good!” Eunhyuk chimed in from the other side.

Henry’s faint voice could be heard. “What the heck are you saying?”

Ryeowook leaned over the walkie-talkie. “Hi guys! Did you find any food?” He paused to listen. In response, there was only a garbled noise issuing from the device as it kept cutting off the other team’s words.

“Ke—upt. Wha—umph. Ech—bit. Over.”

Hangeng looked at the others. “Okay, I know I’m a foreigner, but that was definitely NOT Korean,” he declared.

Kangin pressed the call button again. “Say that again.”

“I –ek. Cha—a—at. Eh—oot. And then sh—bit.. Ov—“ Phsssssshhhh…. The walkie-talkie fizzled into silece.

“Ah.” Yesung said, staring down at the device. “The batteries ran out.”

On the other end, the three members looked blankly at the hissing mechanism.

Hangeng tentatively spoke up. “Are they dead?”

Hi :) Just updating so you know I’m alive. Barely, but I am. Jeez, the holidays were crazy! My family came over and my brother was terrorizing us all with his new lightsabers and my uncle got us kicked out of a hamburger place and… T^T I… I can’t even describe it. TOTAL INSANITY. Our house was so crowded, I was sleeping outside! In a tent! IN DECEMBER. Granted, we’re in California, but still… **sniff** I am unloved. EVEN THE DOG GOT TO SLEEP INSIDE. =__= How were your guys’ vacations?

Hugs all around!

WouldYouBelieve <3