The siblings reached that camp just as the sun was beginning to set and the trainees were filing into the largest cabin for their evening meal.

“I’m going to wash up first,” Sunghee said. The short walk had tired him a little but he didn’t want Sungmi to see that so he wanted a moment to regain his composure.

“Ok, I’ll wait out here for you,” Sungmi smiled, sitting herself down on the top step.

Today hadn’t been so bad in her opinion, and perhaps the rest of the examinations would go a similar way. Maybe Sunghee would be able to get through them unharmed. And just maybe, everything would be fine.

This was one of her most short-lived thoughts though, and died almost as soon as she saw Kyungsoo and Chanyeol returning with a look on their faces that said they could barely walk, let alone speed up to see her when their eyes met hers.

“What happened?” she asked, practically throwing herself down the stairs and towards them. “Are you ok?”

The pair shook their heads simultaneously, Chanyeol stretching his arms behind his back with a pained expression.

Sungmi stretched out her hands towards Kyungsoo, ending up holding his lower arm almost protectively.

“What did you have to do?” she asked quietly.

Chanyeol shook his head almost helplessly. “They asked us to drag a log as far as possible.”

Feeling her face screwing up, Sungmi looked back to Kyungsoo. “What’s the point in that?”

“Measuring our strength,” Chanyeol replied before Kyungsoo could. “There’s a chance we’ll have to fight hand-to-hand, and if that happens we need to be strong enough to overpower any enemies.”

“How did you both get on?”

“We’re given ten minutes each to do it,” Chanyeol explained, seemingly beginning to perk up again. “I moved mine just under two metres.”

Sungmi wasn’t sure what that meant in terms of scoring, so she looked to Kyungsoo for his score.

Although looking a little uncomfortable, or perhaps even embarrassed, Kyungsoo told her that he managed to move his just over one metre.

“Surely they should take your height into consideration,” Sungmi quickly tried to make him feel better.

“Hey! Are you saying it was easier for me because I’m taller?” Chanyeol asked, looking very offended.

Sungmi shot him an almost warning look and luckily he was able to pick up on what she meant almost straight away.

“Actually now that I think about it, Sungmi is right. Height must play an important part of it,” he reassured the boy throwing a very obvious wink Sungmi’s way which – rather unbelievably – went unnoticed by Kyungsoo.

“I’m worried about my score,” Kyungsoo quietly said, peeking at the girl.

She gave him a small smile and a gentle squeeze on his arm. “This is only one of the tests. There will be so many more for you to scorn well on.”

Although not looking overly convinced, Kyungsoo nodded gently. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

It was Chanyeol who first put forward his concern about Sunghee. “Will Sunghee be fine doing that?”

Both Sungmi and Kyungsoo snapped their heads to the taller boy at the question, their minds going into overdrive about whether the boy in question would be able to move the log at all.

“Is it really hard?” Sungmi asked quietly.

Nodding once, Kyungsoo flashed her a look of panic. “And it’s really muddy, too. That’s one of the worst parts about it.”

“If he gets plenty of rest tonight he might be fine,” Chanyeol said, trying to sound optimistic.

Sungmi appreciated his optimism, after all she always tried to stay optimistic about Sunghee. “You’re right,” she told him with a little nod. “If he gets plenty of rest then he’ll be just fine.”

And that’s exactly what she tried to do for him that evening after the five of them ate together. Bundling Sunghee off to bed, the boy didn’t really have much choice but to listen to his sister who always had his best intentions at heart – not to mention that he was pretty tired as well.

Just as she was about to leave the cabin that night, Sehun approached her, looking rather bashful. About what, she didn’t know.

“Can I talk to you for a sec?” he asked in a murmur, averting his eyes somewhat.

Sungmi almost didn’t realise that he was speaking to her. “Me?”

Sehun gave an awkward nod, motioning to the door for her to follow him out. She moved after him, but not before shrugging once at a very confused looking Kyungsoo.

Outside the camp was very quiet at this time of night, since curfew had almost come. Sehun didn’t venture far from the camp but turned around quickly, somewhat startling Sungmi who was forced to retreat a step because of the sudden closeness.

“Listen I–” Sehun’s words cut off and he his lip agitatedly, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “I just wanted to say I didn’t mean to be a little, you know, off with you.”

Sungmi just stared at him, unsure what he was trying to do or say with this.

When she didn’t say anything, he went on, looking somewhat frustrated. “I didn’t realise you were here officially. I thought you’d paid your way in... I thought you ”

Beginning to understand, Sungmi gave a little nod. People like her - females or men from upper-class families usually used a lot of money to cheat the system, leaving everyone else to be thrown under the bus a little. “Well, I can see why you might think that.”

Sehun gave a hangdog nod. “Sorry.”

Sungmi appreciated his apology, but was a little surprised that he thought to give her one at all. She guessed that this must have been important to him. She nodded again, then imagined that the two of them must have looked pretty strange to any observers because they were just standing there nodding to one another now.

“Well,” Sehun said, backing up a little despite it being in the wrong direction. He lightly tossed a small rustling thing for her to catch. “I’m going to get going now.”

“Yeah,” Sungmi replied, also backing away with the object. “Night.”

“Night.”

She looked down into her hands and saw a small bag of honeycomb bites. Although looking up at Sehun's retreating back with confusion, she smiled a little. These had always been Sunghee's favourite.

Sungmi was far less than impressed the next day when she was told that she would be staying at the main camp today instead of attending the tests. That meant that she wouldn’t be able to watch over Sunghee which made her feel very uneasy. Instead of attending with the rest of her medic team, she was left behind with six other trainees and four trained medics to tend to the injured.

With a rather foul mood and a tattered clipboard, Sungmi followed one of the medics around for the day, making notes here and there and answering his questions as best she could. It wasn’t until the end of the day that she realised that this day had been a testing day for her as much as it was for Sunghee, and when she was handed a feedback sheet with an above average score on it, she was pretty happy, especially since her mind had been pretty much anywhere other than the ward that day.

Kyungsoo was hovering near the entrance to the medical cabin when she exited. He was pacing the dirt beneath his feet, occasionally kicking up enough dust to submerge his feet.

“Are you ok?” she called to him as she descended the stairway.

When he heard her voice, his feet ceased their repetitive pattern and he turned towards her. “It’s Sunghee,” he told her, bounding towards her and scooping her hand up in his own. “He’s in a pretty critical state right now.”

Her heart faltered. “What? Where is he?” she asked, allowing him to drag her through the camp at speed.

“He’s in the emergency tent. He collapsed when he was taking the test today and didn’t get up for his whole ten minutes.”

“Why didn’t any of the medical staff do anything?” she demanded, feeling anger brewing within her.

“They’re not allowed to. Lots of people collapse, but they can’t intervene until the time is over in case they get up again.”

Sungmi couldn’t believe what she was hearing. How could they do nothing to help her brother? It was utter madness to her.

“They’ve contacted your parents,” Kyungsoo told her, glancing at her to gauge her reaction.