Wonwoo ended up in Junhui's team along with Chan, and Seungcheol. Hansol took Soonyoung, Minghao, and Mingyu. Seokmin was spectating towards the side, bouncing around as the self-proclaimed cheerleader.

The team captains were in the center, Jeonghan was in between them and held the ball up high. Junhui and Chan eyed the ball in anticipation and so did Soonyoung and Hansol.

"On the count of three!" Jeonghan alerted the forward players, "One, two, three!" He tosses the ball up in the air and jogged to the side where Joshua sat and watched.

Junhui was able to nab the ball, both him and Chan immediately heading to make their way to the opposing team's net. "Alright, let's go!" Seungcheol cheered from his goal post, sitting flat on his bottom as he waved his arms around. Wonwoo felt nervous seeing him comfortable. Did he trust him to defend well for him? Wonwoo wasn't so sure how good he was at this yet. 

Minghao was watchful over the approaching opponents, careful to predict the next move they were going to make. The boys seemed to know the other's tactics enough to be able to play well together and play on par, both sides of the team taking the ball from each other. They seemed to be putting amounts of energy into the game already. "You can relax for a while," Seungcheol noticed Wonwoo's wary stance, "They're just warming up. Save your energy."

Wonwoo suddenly felt tired just hearing that.

The day passed again. All the boys did was play, sit around, and eat. Wonwoo would be lying if he said he didn't have any fun, but at the same time, he felt a sense of oddity in not having to be productive at all. But what could they do? There was nothing to accomplish.

He was in the bedroom again, changing out of his outdoor clothes with his pyjamas right beside him on the bed. Mingyu was across him, waiting for him to change into his sleeping attire so they could both head out to the river to wash up. "You know you could just go ahead of me, right? I'll be fine." Wonwoo told Mingyu, but he shook his head. "No, it's alright. I like hanging around when I can." He remained seated on his own bed. Wonwoo shrugged and took off his shirt, turning to reach for his pyjama top placed within an arm's reach behind him.

"Woah, what-?" Mingyu said out loud. Wonwoo quickly turned to him, eyebrows shot up as he heard the tone of his voice, "What?" He swirled his point finger in a circular motion, "Turn your back to me again." Hesitantly, Wonwoo complied, turning his back at the same angle he previously did. "Dude," Mingyu's stare bore into his back, "You have a scar near your shoulder."

Wonwoo nearly twisted his head once he heard the comment, "What? Where?" Mingyu pointed to the right side of his own back as an example, "At the right side of your back, it's just above the shoulder blade."

He twisted his neck more, looking down and struggling to see the back of his shoulder. But just at the side of his vision, he saw small, brown splotches forming a certain shape. "What does it look like?" Wonwoo inquired of Mingyu. He was about to speak, but he shut his mouth and reached for the plastic crate under his bed. Sliding it out, he took out a hand mirror and held it up in an angle for Wonwoo to see.

Reflected on the mirror, he indeed saw a scar marked between his shoulder and the shoulder blade. Punctured, distorted spots lined up to an almost circular formation. It was a scar from a bite, almost like Seungcheol's. "Weird," Wonwoo could only manage to say about it.

He ran his left hand on the scar, letting his fingertips glide over. The scar was darker than Seungcheol's, meaning that it was much more recent than his. "You might've noticed already, but I have scars too," Mingyu raised his left arm. "They were darker when I first came here, the scars faded after some months," he commented on his own scar while Wonwoo continued to change into his pyjamas.

The two headed out to the river, joining a few of the others as they hung out by the edge of the river. Soonyoung was first to notice their arrival, turning to them while he sat at the edge with his feet dipped in the water, "Hey, Wonwoo!" Everybody else followed, greeting him while they were washing themselves up. Wonwoo smiled warmly at the gesture and greeted everyone back, "Hey, guys." Mingyu gaped at the boys in front of him, "What? Nobody's going to acknowledge me?"

Within a beat, everybody refocused their attention to Wonwoo. "Wonwoo, sit here, the water's nice and cool as usual." Jeonghan motioned with his hand, nodding his head to the free space on his right. He took up on the offer and walked to his side, slipping out of his flip flops and sitting next to Jeonghan. Mingyu quickly followed despite not being the one who was offered to sit with the others, gently kicking off his flip flops and dipping his feet into the river with Wonwoo.

"This feels unfair, I'm Wonwoo's first friend, you can't steal him away like this!" Mingyu pestered in vain as they continued to talk among themselves. Wonwoo couldn't help but chuckle at his statement, though he was slightly flattered to be called somebody's friend within days of meeting each other. "Ah, I think it's laundry day tomorrow." Mingyu recalled before dunking his toothbrush into the water, squeezing out toothpaste onto the top of the bristles and brushing his teeth. Wonwoo took out his own toothbrush, wetting it, putting toothpaste on, and beginning to brush his teeth.

"Yeah, it is," Joshua confirmed, pressing a small towel against his face to dry off. Jihoon spat the toothpaste foam into the river and spoke as he was reminded, "I forgot to tell one of you guys to take out the trash." Seokmin whipped his head, his words barely audible with the toothbrush in his mouth, "Huh? If you knew about it, why couldn't you just do it yourself?" Jihoon's gaze trailed off, continuing to brush his teeth and pretending to have never heard Seokmin. Minghao chimed in, "It's because he doesn't want to, he just bullies us until one of us takes the job." He hit bullseye, "Honestly, Jihoon, it isn't hard to throw the bags into the river."

That alarmed Wonwoo. Throwing garbage into the river couldn't be any good for the surrounding wildlife. He was told that they put their bodily waste into the river, that was already enough. Yet when he looked past the surface of the river, there wasn't any fish that swam through it. He tried recalling any aquatic life in the water body, but he failed to do so. Wonwoo tried remembering if he had heard any birds chirping in the distance in the past days he had experienced. He failed again. Even now, he couldn't seem to hear any possible wildlife in the forest. There weren't any cricketing insects nor any hooting nocturnal birds.

Wonwoo spat out the foam into the river to ask a question, but he couldn't find the right timing to speak up. The conversation seemed to have been developed while he was thinking to himself. "Oh, so all those times when you've tried to push me into the river, you were taking out the trash?" Mingyu realized as he looked at Minghao, who only snickered as his response. Mingyu put a hand over his heart, faking a choked up voice, "I am hurt." Wonwoo amusingly grinned at their antics as he quietly watched, cupping his hands together and bringing the water up to his face.

He dried up with his towel and decided that he would leave his question to ask for later. Picking his belongings up, he took his feet out of the water and slipped into his flip flops, "I'll be going first. Good night!" The boys bid him a good night as he walked back to his shack. 

Wonwoo tossed his toiletries into the plastic crate, shortly glancing down on the brown notebook he put at the side of the box. Kicking the crate back under the bed, he plopped onto it and spread his blanket on top of him, shutting his eyes. He opened them again and looked to the side, remembering the small flame burning the candle on the side table. Lifting his head, he gave it a short but strong blow, leaving only smoke to wisp in the air from the burning tip of the candle wick.

He shut his eyes, breathing in the faint fumes of the candle. Fatigue put its weight on his eyelids and wrapped him up, lulling him to sleep.

Heart pounding against his chest, feet hitting on the ground, sweat on his skin being blown by the breeze.

He felt himself fall and crash into the ground, but as quick as he fell, arms lifted him up and pushed him to run further.

Determination. Desperation. Panic.

He made a sharp left, nearly colliding against something as he scraped it by.

A flash of fright went through his heart.

He shoved a figure to the side, refusing to let it slow his pace down.

He could feel it. The feeling of longing building up inside him.

He was almost there.

Seungcheol jolted awake, heaving himself up and taking a breath in before sighing it out.

It was in the middle of the night, everything was still and quiet.

"You alright?" A hushed voice spoke to his left, it was Jihoon. "Yeah, I'm fine," Seungcheol could only say. He brushed his hands against the fabric of his blanket, feeling the soft fuzz against his skin.

Jihoon was sitting up in his own bed, too. He had a book stuck up his nose, the dim clip-on book light illuminating the pages. He could faintly see Jihoon's mouth form an unintentional frown as he delved into the novel with a visible restlessness pulling his expression down. Jihoon knew Seungcheol had something in his mind. Just moments before, his roommate was stirring around in his bed prior to waking up. As he sat and stared down on his blanket more, Jihoon thought he was going to decide to keep it to himself.

"Have we ever fought before?" Seungcheol quietly asked, glancing over to his friend. Jihoon was taken aback over the subject, but he answered nonetheless. "No, I don't think we had any serious fights," he voiced out clear but quietly. "Not that I remember." Seungcheol turned away from him, seeming to have received a sense of reassurance as his shoulders relaxed.

"Yeah, you're right," Seungcheol said as if to reassure himself more. Jihoon was concerned over him, but before he could think upon it any further, Seungcheol went back to bed. "You should go to sleep soon, Jihoon," he said, "Good night."

Jihoon hummed in agreement and watched as his friend lie back down, clicking his book light off and putting his book aside, "Good night."