“Henry!” Hangeng yelled from across a smoking pan, “Can you hand me a pair of tongs?”

The Canadian blinked blankly at him. “’Scuse me?”

“Tongs,” the older one emphasized. “Tooooooooongs~”

Shindong’s face was scandalized. “What do you need with that?”

“No, tongs. You know, the claw-things?” Yesung supplied helpfully, opening and closing his hands in demonstration.

Kibum turned to face the others. “I believe Heechul’s using them right now to terrorize Donghae. Should I ask to borrow them?”

“Nah, it’s okay,” Hangeng decided. “I’ll just use chopsticks. Hey, Zhou Mi! Where are the chopsticks?”

Zhou Mi frowned. “I think Gui Xian used them as supplemental firewood.” He glanced over to the fire-starting group. Now that they had finished their work, they sat in front one of the tents, lazily drawing stick figures in the dirt. “Guys!” Zhou Mi called, “Did any of the chopsticks survive the fire?”

“Nope,” Kangin grunted. He clambered to his feet and walked over to the cooking team. “But these might work,” he offered, holding out a set of mud-coated twigs. “If you get the dirt off, that is,” he amended.

Sungmin wrinkled his nose. “No,” he said firmly. “There is no way I’m eating with anything that a bear might have wiped its on.”

Leeteuk eyed the twigs apprehensively. “Well…” he said a bit uncertainly, “Desperate times… desperate measures…”

“But the germs!” Ryeowook gasped. “We could get really sick, you know!”

Out of nowhere, Siwon appeared with a flourish of his overly expressive hands. “Never fear!” he called. “The Great Shisus will purify these wooden appliances with the Lord’s Prayer!” He bent over the sticks and began muttering softly. “…and deliver us from evil…” He paused and looked up at the sky in reverence. “Amen!” he concluded joyfully. There was a long, reflective silence.

“They still look pretty dirty to me,” Henry commented.

Siwon shot him a glare. “Yes, but now they’re spiritually purified,” he emphasized.

“Oh, that’ll be very comforting when we all get tapeworms,” Heechul scoffed.

Donghae blinked at the members. “Couldn’t we just wash them?”

“Ohhh…”

“Okay!” Hangeng called happily. “The fish is ready!” He indicated the blackened, fish-shaped lump in the pan.

Ryeowook started in alarm. “You want us to eat that? All the burnt edges are going to cause liver problems! Pancreatic cancer! Elevated blood pressure! And who knows what else!”

“Indigestion?” Yesung suggested.

Wookie grabbed a knife and began viciously hacking away the black crust. “If we ate this, we’d be coming down with all sorts of horrible illnesses within the next fifty years!” he continued lecturing.

“So if I ever go bald, I’m coming back to blame you, Hangeng,” Kangin threatened jokingly.

Eunhyuk feigned surprise, “Really? But I think you wear the Balding-Old-Man look rather well, don’t you th—eek! I didn’t mean it! Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!”

Leeteuk looked around the camp. “Zhou Mi, are you busy? Can you help me with the salad?”

“Sure,” the Chinese man shrugged. He looked down at the ingredients, and his brow furrowed a bit. “Isn’t this… moss?” he asked suspiciously.

“NO, IT IS NOT MOSS,” Hangeng refuted, laughing a little too hysterically.

“I’d still eat it,” Shindong offered.

“There you go,” Leeteuk said. “Obviously, it is not moss.”

Kyuhyun looked up at the others. “Well, Shindong also thought the Jolokia was survivable.”

“One more problem,” Kibum mentioned. “Where are you going to put the salad? You can’t make it in the plastic baggie.”

“True…” the leader mused. His eyes roamed the campsite, looking for an aswer. His eyes finally came to rest on something. A perfect something. A silver, perfect something. “Hangeng~” he began sweetly.

The younger member looked up innocently. “Huh?”

“Hangeng~” The leader began again. “You know you’re my favorite dongsaeng, right?” At these words, the camp exploded.

“WHAT?”

“I’m the favorite! Me!”

“Are you kidding? I’m the best!”

“Let’s get real now. Kangteuk is the OTP, guys. None of you stand a chance against me—“

“Teuk-hyung~ I’m the best, right? Don’t you say so?”

“SiTeuk?”

“NO, SIWON.”

“I’m the favorite!” Kyuhyun’s voice carried over the crowd. “Leeteuk promised me that he thought of me as the favorite dongsaeng two weeks ago,” he added smugly.

“That person…” Kangin trailed off, shaking his head. “Listen, you can’t trust a word he says. Look! At this very moment, there he is, lying to another dongsaeng.” He pointed at Leeteuk and Hangeng, who had carried on their conversation through the outburst.

“Ehh?! Really?!” The leader exclaimed. Hangeng nodded seriously. Leeteuk turned with a shocked face to look at the pot. In a sudden motion, he did a full-on, ninety degree bow.

“HUH?!” The camp stared, slack-jawed, as their leader addressed the pot formally.

“What is going on?” Donghae blinked helplessly. “I’m so confused…”

“Not the only one,” Eunhyuk assured him.

The leader ignored the members’ obvious confusion and continued to address the object. “Pot-sunbaenim, I’m sorry for speaking so rudely to you before,” Leeteuk said mournfully. “I will do better in the future, Pot-sunbaenim~”

“S-SUNBAENIM?!”

“Yep,” Hangeng smiled brightly at the other members. “You didn’t know?”

“You’re crazy,” Heechul declared. “It’s official. Even I think you’re crazy.”

“No, not really,” Kibum disagreed. Somehow, he had managed to get to the other side of camp and examine the pot carefully.

“How do you keep doing that?” Donghae yelped. “You’re here, the poof! You evaporate and turn up over there! It’s a bit creepy, you know?”

“Sublimate,” Yesung interrupted.

“Gesundheit,” Zhou Mi smiled.

“No, I mean that the word Hae is supposed to be using is sublimate, not evaporate.” He looked around at everyone’s blank faces and rushed to explain. “Evaporate means to go from a liquid phase to a gas phase. Since Kibum is a solid, then unless he has melted first, we assume that he has gone directly from solid to gas. That is, he has sublimated, without passing through a liquid pha—“

“Yesung,” Heechul said loudly. “SHUT UP.”

“Okay.”

“And added carcinogens and increased risk of cancer and occasional hangnails…”

“Is Wookie still going on about the burnt meat?” Siwon wondered.

“Yep,” Henry affirmed.

“It’s not burned,” Hangeng protested. “It’s well-done.”

“In other words, thoroughly burnt,” Shindong affirmed.

Sungmin cocked his head to the side. “But going back to the main topic, why is Leeteuk calling the pot ‘Sunbaenim?’”

The members’ heads swiveled to stare at the leader.

“Well,” Leeteuk cleared his throat, “For one thing, it’s older than me.”

“Wha…?”

Kibum read the bottom of the pot, “Product of Korea, 1980.”

The members exchanged impressed looks.

“Wow, that’s so cool!”

“Pot-sunbaenim~”

“Does this mean we have to start speaking formally?”

“Duh! Who says ‘YAH!’ to their sunbaes?”

“Sunbae?” Shindong frowned. “Isn’t the pot another member? Why are we so distant?”

“Pot-hyung~”

“YAH!” Heechul stared at his other members. “Are you crazy? Pot-hyung?! IT’S NOT HUMAN, YOU IDIOTS!”

Hangeng frowned at him. “Show some respect,” he chided. “Or there’ll be no food for you.”

“DONE!” Ryeowook’s triumphant voice carried across the camp as he proudly presented the no-longer-blackened fish. “The head was too burnt, so I had to cut it all off…”

“You WHAT?!” Zhou Mi looked devastated. “And you threw it away? Everything?”

“What’s good about the head?” Donghae asked him, confused.

“What’s good? What’s good?! The eyeballs! The brains! Delicacies of the world!” Zhou Mi ranted, waving his arms in the air.

Kyuhyun leaned in to whisper to Donghae. “Remember, he’s Chinese. He grew up eating turtles.”

“He ate what?” Yesung asked, horror written clearly across his features. He glared accusingly at the Chinese members. “You ate Ddangkoma’s cousins?! How could you?” Since he was getting no response from either Hangeng or Zhou Mi, the main offenders, he changed targets and the youngest. “Henry! You heartless monster! Think of all those turtle lives, brutally cut off by you!”

“What are you attacking him for?” Kangin defended. “He’s Canadian, remember? He grew up eating beaver!”

“And moose!” Eunhyuk chimed in.

Donghae shook his head. “Poor Rudolph…”

Heechul stared at the Fishy. “Are you an idiot? Rudolph is a reindeer!”

“Is not!”
“YES HE IS!”

“No, he’s not!”

Leeteuk cleared his throat to put an end to the dispute. “Rudolph, the red-nosed moose~” he sang. He paused and tried again. “Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer~”

“Sorry, Hae, but the princess wins this round,” Siwon confirmed.

Heechul raised his chin arrogantly. “As usual,” he said smugly.

“Okay, who want to be the first to taste our dinner?” Chef Ryeowook interrupted. His glance fell on the quiet one who had once again magically reappeared on the other side of camp. “Kibum?” The member in question shrugged in assent. Wookie delicately cut off a slice and popped in Kibum’s mouth. “How does it taste?”

Kibum chewed.

“How is it?”

Kibum chewed.

“Too much salt, right?”

Kibum chewed.

“Too much pepper? Is that it?’

Kibum chewed.

“YAH! ARE YOU A COW? STOP CHEWING AND JUST TELL US HOW IT IS!” Heechul yelled.

Kibum paused. “It’s not cooked.”

Ryeowook put his face in his palms. “I’ll start cooking it again,” he sighed.

“But I’m hungry~” Eunhyuk whined. “I wanna eat now~”

“We have enough salad… Should we just start with that while the fish re-cooks?” Siwon suggested.

The others nodded happily as they noted their growling stomachs. They scrambled into their seats around the fire and held out their plates expectantly.

“Here.” Hangeng began doling out portions of salad from the beloved pot.

“Thank you, hyung!”

“Thanks.”

“Looks good~”

Hangeng paused when he reached Heechul’s plate. “Well?” he prodded. “What do you say?”

Heechul looked up blankly. “I’m hungry?” he guessed.

“Nope.”

“Hurry up?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Hand it over, fool?”

“No~”

“Um…”

Finally, Kangin couldn’t stand it anymore. “PLEASE!” he bellowed. “Just say PLEASE. Are you an idiot?!”

“What Kangin in means to say,” Teukie-umma intervened, “Is that you should always remember your manners.” He clucked his tongue disapprovingly.

“Yeah,” Kyuhyun chimed in. “Were you raised by wolves?” He flashed an evil smile. “No offense, Henry.”

The youngest member threw his hands into the air in exasperation. “I’m from CANADA,” he stressed. “Not The Jungle Book!”

“I see no difference,” Shindong shrugged.

“Heechul~” Hangeng wheedled again. “What do you say?”

The Korean let out a mighty sigh. “Please?”

“Ding ding ding ding! CORRECT!” Hangeng happily dumped an oozing lump of salad on his friend’s plate. “Now what do you say?” he sang.

Heechul let out a long breath loudly through his nose. “Thank you,” he grunted unwillingly.

“Thank you, who?”

“Thank you, Hangeng.”

“Nope~”

“WHAT ELSE AM I SUPPOSED TO CALL YOU?! GENG? HANNIE? HANNIE-BOO? SWEETHEART?!”

“I didn’t know you called him ‘Hannie-Boo,’” Sungmin mused.

“HanChul,” Kibum explained. “It’s the eternal OTP.”

“SiHan?”

“NO, SIWON.”

Hangeng shook his head. “Since I didn’t make the salad, it’s not me you should thank,” he explained.

Heechul rolled his eyes. “Thank you, Leeteuk. Thanks, Mi.” The two chefs nodded in acknowledgement. “Happy now, Geng?”

“You forgot someone,” the Chinese member pouted. “You haven’t thanked Pot-hyung yet.”

“No.”

“Heechul…”

“NO! I am not thanking a pot for my dinner!”

“Then I guess I’ll just be taking your dinner back.”

“Fine!” Heechul huffed. “See if I care!”

Hangeng shrugged and continued distributing food, ignoring the obvious growling of the older member’s stomach. Eventually, it got so loud as to drown out the crackling of the fire.

“That’s impressive,” Kyuhyun whistled. “Heechul’s stomach is starting to sound exactly like Kangin’s snores.”

“YOU—!”

“Okay, okay,” Heechul sighed. “Thanks… Pot-hyung.”

There was a collective intake of breath.

“Did he just…?”

“I’M SO PROUD OF YOU!” Hangeng beamed, launching into his friend’s arms.

“Yeah, yeah. Now hurry up with my food.” Heechul grumbled.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

“Who is that?” Henry asked, seeking the source of the noise.

Sungmin pointed. “I think it’s Eunhyuk.”

The rapper looked up. “Huh? Oh, yeah. Looks like I just found one of the nuts in the salad. It’s a bit spicy…”

Leeteuk and Zhou Mi exchanged a confused glance. “Hyukkie… We didn’t put any nuts in the salad,” the leader said slowly.

“Then what is it?”

Kyuhyun glanced around shiftily. “Well… do you remember the beetle Yesung found this afternoon?”

Yesung choked on his food. “YOU ATE MR. SNOOTLES?!”

Eunhyuk gagged in reply and began spitting furiously into the bushes.

Siwon sniffed the air. “Do you guys smell something?”

Donghae inhaled deeply. “Yeah, I smell it. It smells like something’s burning, right?”

“I smell it too,” Kibum intoned.

Ryeowook’s eyes went wide. “The fish~!” he wailed.

...I don't even know what to say here. THANK YOU SO FREAKING MUCH, my amazing subbies <3 Sorry I've been AWOL, but school and debate have pretty much killed my soul. T^T Debate. Oh. My. God. Any LD'ers reading this? No? No? Okay. But just letting y'all know, I'm definitely not going to be faithfully updating until at least the end of February because I'm prepping for a big tournament at Berkeley. Kill me now, please. Anywho, thanks again for staying with me <3 Hope I don't disappoint any of you with this chappie... >.< 

Rock on, guys. 

-Jasmine