At first, Leeteuk didn’t really want to open his eyes. The piercing light behind his eyelids and the incessant twittering of birds clearly told him that it was morning, yet he couldn’t find the will to get up. His bones ached at the thought of the hiking that he had promised the boys they would do today. All of a sudden, that mountain seemed to be an unreachable number of miles away…

“Psst! Kyuhyun! Are you up yet?”

“No. I’m fast asleep, Canadian.”

“Oh.”

“Idiot.”

“Huh?”

“Of course I’m awake, stupid!”

“And now so are the rest of us!” Zhou Mi’s irritated voice joined the two maknaes’. “I swear, Gui Xian, if you don’t shut up and let us sleep, I’ll mismatch all the socks in your closet! You too, Henli!”

Leeteuk buried his head further into the blankets, trying to drown out the fashionista’s ranting about the horror of wearing one plaid and one plain sock. From somewhere to his right, the leader heard another groan.

“Whazzuh…?”

“Morning, Donghae!”

“What time is it?”

“Time to get up~!” Wookie’s cheerful voice reached Leeteuk’s ears about the same time the smell of roasted chestnuts wafted over.

“Ah! Food!” Shindong bolted straight out of his sleeping bag and dashed across the camp, accidentally planting one heavy foot directly onto the leader’s crotch.

“AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGHHH!!!”

The leader’s screech of agony ripped through the camp in an unstoppable wave as birds all across Asia took flight in alarm. The other members jolted out of their sleep in a panic.

“The apocalypse!” Yesung wailed. Leeteuk nodded his head furiously in agreement.

“WHO IS MAKING ALL THIS NOISE SO EARLY IN THE MORNING?!” Heechul screamed, his hair sticking up in utter disarray. Hangeng reached over to smooth out a few lone strands.

“You look like a Troll doll,” The Chinese man commented airily.

“I—YAH!”

“What… planet is this?” Eunhyuk blinked his eyes dreamily. He reached out a cautious hand and poked Kangin firmly in the nostril.

“YAH!” The older member struggled to retaliate, but found that he was still cocooned in his sleeping bag

“Just checking…” The monkey muttered sleepily.

“I don’t understand you people,” Kibum mused.

Shindong, meanwhile, was bowing repeatedly to the leader. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” he cried. “Are you okay?”

Leeteuk could only manage a light whimper and rotten smile in response.  He hoped that maybe his overflowing tears might convey his physical wellbeing, since his brain had now stopped functioning.

Sungmin patted the leader comfortingly on the back. “Does it hurt a lot?” he asked sympathetically.

“No, I’m sure those are just tears of happiness,” Kangin snorted.

“And what are you patting his back for?” Donghae wondered aloud.

Sungmin shot the fish a look. “Where do you suggest I pat him?”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

“This is all your fault, Gui Xian.”
“Me? It was Wookie who—“

“Maybe not like a Troll Doll… Maybe more like a Barbie that’s gone through the washer and dryer.”

“WHY AM I A—“

“The apocalypse!” Yesung wailed.

“I’m sorry!”

Ryeowook looked around timidly at the others. “Does anyone want breakfast…?”

Henry immediately brightened. “Yeah, totally! What are we gonna eat?”

“Nuts!”

Eunhyuk sniggered. “Wookie loves those nuts, huh?”

Zhou Mi flicked the rapper on the forehead. “Grow up. You know what kind of nuts he means.”

“Can everyone please stop talking about nuts?” Leeteuk whimpered pitifully. He curled up in a tighter ball in his sleeping bag and rocked back and forth. “Pain,” he whispered. “So much pain…”

“Sorry!”

“Is anyone else hungry?” Hangeng interrupted. “Because I’m starving.”

“Me too!”

“Me three!”

“Me four!”

“Me—“

“Kibum, what are you writing?” Kyuhyun asked. Everyone’s heads swiveled around to stare at the quietest member, who had been scribbling furiously into a small journal.

Heechul reached over and snagged the book from the younger’s hands and read the title aloud to the group. “My Hyungs Are Immature Idiots: An Autobiography of the Genius, Kim Ki—YAH! DO YOU WANT TO DIE?!”

“I’m gathering critical material,” the evil one stated simply. “So far, chapter twelve is coming along beautifully.”

“Does anyone want breakfast?” Ryeowook repeated, a bit more impatiently now.

“Alright, let’s go!” Zhou Mi decided.

Donghae glanced down at the lump at his feet uncertainly. “What about Teukkie-hyung?”

“Go on… without me!” The leader choked. “I can’t… I can’t… go with you!”

Tears began to pool in the corners of Ryeowook’s eyes. “I suddenly feel sad,” he sniffled.

“We’re going ten feet away,” Kangin said testily. “It’s not like we’re using him as a human sacrifice.” He struggled visibly for a few more seconds to free himself from his sleeping bag. “Okay, can someone PLEASE get this stupid thing off of me?” he growled.

All this, however, was not deterring Leeteuk. Despite his agony, he sensed that he had stumbled upon a critical melodrama role, and was determined to milk it for all it’s worth.

“The light…” he murmured softly. “It’s so… beautiful.” He let out a mighty sigh. “My wonderful members,” he began solemnly, “my wings have returned. It’s time for me to rejoin the sky…” Leftover tears from his ordeal trickled slowly from the corners of his eyes. “But you must carry on… without me! Even if Super Junior will always be fifteen, each of you is strong enough to—“

“Sixteen.”

“WE ARE NOT COUNTING THE POT, HANGENG.”

“—To carry on without—“ Leeteuk struggled.

“We only have fourteen at the moment,” Yesung interjected.

“Eh?”

“There’s fourteen people here.”

“Huh? Really?”

“CAN YOU LET ME FINISH MY DEATH SPEECH?” the leader exploded.

Kangin cleared his throat loudly. “Can someone please me now?” The two suffering members went ignored.

“What do you mean by fourteen?” Sungmin asked.

“I mean we have two less than sixteen.”

“You don’t say?” Kyuhyun deadpanned.

Eunhyuk looked around, counting faces. “Huh? Where’s Siwon?”

“Probably off praying again,” Shindong noted.

“I think he said something about going out for a jog,” Sungmin corrected.

“CAN SOMEONE MY SLEEPING BAG?! YAH! OBEY ME! OBEY M—!”

“Forget them. Let’s go,” Eunhyuk announced. With a sweep of his hand, he guided the others over to the breakfast area.

Leeteuk turned to Kangin with an incredulous look. “And he wonders why we say he has no loyalty…”

Meanwhile, the others were noisily enjoying their breakfast.

“Hey! You took more than me!”

“Then what are you whining for? Just get more!”

“Can you pass the plate, please?”

“Here, Sungmin.”

“We’re not going to have enough…”

“No, no, Pot-hyung is holding the extras for us.”

“No, that’s his breakfast.”

“Oh, never mind then.”

“IT’S A POT, YOU IDIOTS. WHAT KIND OF POT EATS CHESTNUTS?!”

“I had a dream once about carnivorous kitchen utensils,” Yesung murmured, thoughtfully scratching his chin.

Ryeowook glanced over at his friend, did a double take, and began to shriek. “Yesung! Don’t scratch!” he commanded. “You’ll make it worse!”

“Huh?” The other members leaned in closely.

“Yah, what did you do?” Hangeng exclaimed.

“You look like you put your face in a beehive!” Donghae added.

“What? What?” Yesung began to panic as well. “Does someone have a mirror?”

Kyuhyun lifted an eyebrow. “Do we look like we carry around spare mirrors?”

“Here,” Zhou Mi interrupted, pulling a collapsible mirror from thin air. He noticed the member’s stares and shrugged defensively. “You never know when a fashion emergency will arise,” he warned them sagely.

Henry pointed suddenly at the Chinese man’s face. “Gege, your face is also starting to look weird…”

“What?!” The fashionista screeched, snatching the mirror back from a horrified Yesung.

“My face… my face…” the Korean was whispering.

“Kyuhyun, look at your face!”

“What? Me too?”

“Donghae! Wookie! You guys too!”

“Ack! My face is getting itchy!” Shindong complained, rubbing a hand across his cheek.

“Do we all have it?”

“Ah, it itches!” Eunhyuk whined.

Ryeowook began flitting from person to person, slapping their hands away from their stinging faces. “Don’t scratch!” he warned them. “Your faces will swell up more!”

Sungmin poked cautiously at the side of his nose. “Do you think it’s poison oak?”

“Do you think we all fell face-first on poison oak in our sleep?” Heechul shot back. He reached one hand behind his neck to claw furiously at another invisible itch. “Aiish, why is this EVERYWHERE?”

Kibum traced a finger pensively around the curve of his chin. “I think it’s more likely to be the mosquitoes that we saw last night.”

“It’s a sign…” Shindong muttered darkly. “The human’s natural habitat is not a forest.”

“Stop scratching!” Ryeowook pleaded again. “I’ll go get some lotion from the first aid kit, okay?” He hurried off in the direction of the van.

Kyuhyun rubbed a bug bite on his forehead in irritation. “Hey, Heechul-hyung,” he called out.

“What?”

“Heechul-hyung~”

“What?”

“Heechul-hyung~~”

“WHAT?!”

“Your face looks terrible,” the maknae smirked.

“YAH! YOU THINK YOURS LOOKS ANY MORE ATTRACTIVE?!”

Leaves crunched behind the members, and they all turned to see Kangin and Leeteuk walking towards the group. The leader was still weak-kneed from his early-morning ordeal, and was leaning heavily on Kangin. Both of their faces were beginning to show the bright red splotches that decorated everyone’s face.

“You guys too, huh?”

“Yup.”

“I guess mosquitoes just love our group,” Hangeng noted.

“ELMs,” Yesung interjected.

“What?”

“ELMs,” he repeated. “Ever Lasting Mosquitoes.”

The others stared at him.

“It’s times like this, Yesung, when I begin to wonder what kind of traumatic childhood you must have had,” Zhou Mi mused.

“I found the lotion!” Ryeowook’s triumphant voice sounded from behind the van, and his reappeared swiftly, holding a large green tube aloft. He began to dispense a generous glob of lotion to each member. “Apply it in a counterclockwise motion,” he told them seriously.

“Ah, thank God,” Donghae breathed out a sigh of relief.

“These bites won’t leave marks on our skin, will they?” Henry fussed.

Eunhyuk shook his head. “You guys worry too much,” he criticized.

“Well, if you think about it, many of us do make a living off our faces, as well as our talent,” Kibum observed. “You’re lucky, Eunhyuk, that your talent is enough to make up for your face.”

The rapper stared suspiciously at the younger member. “I feel like that was a very backhanded compliment,” he noted. “Thank you…?”

“Hey guys, what’s up?” Siwon’s voice, combined with the crunching of twigs underfoot, heralded the return of the Shisus. The others turned to look at him slowly.

“Have you already started breakf—OH DEAR LORD!” Siwon yelped and sprang backwards upon seeing the red-and-white splotched faces of s. “What happened to you?”

“What happened to you?” Kangin demanded. He scrutinized the new arrival’s baby-smooth, pale face. “Why aren’t you suffering?”

Siwon gestured innocently. The other members cast him burning glances as they continued applying the lotion.

“Okay, settle down everyone!” Leeteuk, finally regaining his strength, called the meeting to order. “So I know we’ve had a bit of a hectic morning, but we’ve got a long day ahead of us!” he announced brightly. “Last night, I came up with an idea—“

Groans greeted his words.

“Please… not again,” Hangeng begged.

“It’s a good idea!” Leeteuk protested.

Kyuhyun let out a snort. “Oh, like all your ideas have had such great results on this trip, right?” There were mutters of agreement.

Siwon cleared his throat. “Teukkie-hyung already told me yester day what it was, and believe it or not, this idea actually sounds good,” he argued. He flashed the leader a smile. “SiTeuk!”

“NO, SIWON.”

“May I continue?” The leader snapped. “Thank you. Now, do any of you remember our original plan for today?”

Yesung raised his hand. “Hiking?”

“Yes,” Leeteuk affirmed. “So my idea was—Yesung, you can put your hand down now—that we add another aspect to it…” he paused dramatically. “Hunting!”

“Hunting?”

“Like Pocahontas?”

“You are NOT taking your shoes off, Hyukkie.”

“Fine, fine…”

“But… hunting?”

“Hunting?” Ryeowook’s lip trembled slightly and his voice rose an octave. “We have to kill bunnies?”

“No, no, no!” Leeteuk waved his hands around reassuringly. “Not actual hunting. But before we left on this trip, a friend of mine gave me these.” He turned around and pulled a bow and quiver from a duffel bag. The members leaned in for a better view.

“The arrows look strange,” Henry stated.

Kibum studied them carefully. “Have they been tipped with rubber?”

“Correct!” the leader exclaimed happily. “This way, we can have fun without maiming anyone.”

Kyuhyun pouted. “But that all the fun out of it…”

Shindong picked up a bow and threaded one of the arrows through cautiously. “I remember these from Explorers of the Human Body,” he mused. Unconsciously, he began to draw the arrow back on the bowstring. “These were dangerous,” he added. “One slip of your fingers and—“

In a moment of great irony, the arrow chose to slip from his fingers and go speeding straight across the camp, directly into the poor Leeteuk’s—

“AAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!”

...I'm sorry!!! T^T I feel like I'm taking too long to update, but... :I 

Anywhooo, here's an important question for you guys-- 

why would I need to know? well, I've written out a scene and I'm not sure if I should put it in here or the sequel. :P

thanks for supporting! ^^