You flinch as a small branch scratches your arm during your unsteady trek throughout the city trails. The path you are travelling through is unpaved, but manmade waste has found its way there anyway. You utter a disgruntled noise, rubbing the stinging line on your arm as you walk toward a pile of crushed soda cans lying on the grass. 

You position your steel trash grabber over one of the cans to grasp the item, holding open trash a bag to deposit the can inside it. The stinging lessens into a dull pain as you take care of the rest of the aluminum cans. 

Pausing for moment to yawn tiredly, you cover your mouth to preserve your dignity, despite being almost completely alone. Although you had accompanied the environmental science club on this clean-up project, you hardly knew anybody well enough to join their group.

As if on cue, raucous laughter interrupts your thoughts, making your chest tighten in an ugly way. You breathe out slowly and glance toward the source, watching Taehyung and Jimin attempting to prod each other with their trash grabbers. The rest of their fraternity brothers from Beta Theta Sigma gathered around them, cheering their antics on. 

Sighing in exasperation, you place your trash grabber and modestly filled trash bag against a tree. If the BTS boys could catch a breather, then you suppose you could as well. You wander even farther from the paved trail and trudge toward the lake, twigs and dead leaves crunching under your feet none too quietly.

As you reach the edge of the lake, you back into a large tree and slump to the ground, resting your back against the rough bark. You gaze thoughtlessly at the glistening lake, admiring the illuminating blanket provided by the morning sun. The tension leaves your breath as you observe the minute ripples on the lake’s surface. Their concentric radiation lulls you into a calm hypnosis.

Closing your eyelids, you rest your head against the bark of your welcoming host. The cool warmth of its shade envelopes your body reassuringly. Seconds become drawn out as you surrender to the lulling calm of nature.

“[Y/N]? Is that you over here?” a deep voice calls out, breaking your hypnosis.  
You jerk upright, turning quickly to face the stranger. The sunlight obscures a majority of his features, but the curve of his lips seems familiar. The brightness makes the soft peach fuzz on his cheeks prominent and illuminates the glowing tawny hair on his head. His eyes squint as he examines you as well.

“What are you doing over here? The group was moving on, but we noticed you weren’t around,” he voices with concern, stepping closer to your shade.

Realizing the stranger is Taehyung, you can’t help but lower your eyes before shaking away the strange hollow feeling away. 

Taehyung crouches down at your side. “Are you alright? You seem disoriented,” he murmurs softly, placing the back of his hand against your forehead. 
You open your mouth to respond but are unable to think of any coherent responses before he moves on to scan the rest of your body. 

He quickly grasps your elbow, pulling it up to examine your arm more closely. “You’re bleeding! Or you were… it seems dry now. What happened?”

Your eyes widen in surprise. Had the scratch really been that deep? You incline your head to examine the wound for yourself. An angry red gash surrounded by a dark red crust stares back at you accusingly. 

“A tree back there scratched me. I hadn’t realized it was that bad. And I just needed a breather, I was a bit tired,” you mumble, dropping your gaze to your lap. 

“You should be more careful, [Y/N],” Taehyung frowns, lowering your arm gently. “Nobody saw you leaving you either.”

You give him a weak smile. “Ah, I would have been fine.”

He drops his gaze to dig into his canvas shoulder bag and you look back down at your arm, absentmindedly brushing the dried blood crust from the wound. “Ah here it is!”

You look up, slightly startled, to see him holding up a small bottle of hand sanitizer and a band-aid. Your face breaks out into a smile you can’t help, ‘Of course he carries that kind of stuff around.’

“Let me clean that up for you!” Taehyung urges, leaning forward to grasp your arm again. You bite down on your lip silently, anticipating the sting before feeling it. He smiles at you apologetically as he unwraps the band-aid from its wrapper. Your heart flutters in a strange way as he carefully lies the bandage down to cover your wound. 

“Looks like we’re going to need a few more,” he declares after examining that the lateral edges of the wound were still exposed. As he dips his hand back into his shoulder bag, you stare in amusement at the cartoon Pomeranians decorating the band-aid. 

“Hey Taehyung, have you found her?” a low voice calls out, before a lanky figure comes barreling into your sight from the cover of the trees. You turn to see Namjoon bending over, his hands resting on his knees for a moment before he turns to face the two of you. His face appears to brighten when you make eye contact. “There you are, [Y/N].”

Your breath hitches at the sight of him and you turn away, raising your free hand to partially cover your mouth as you listen to loud footsteps and yelling signaling the arrival of the rest of their friends. ‘Had they sent a whole search party?’ you squirm uncomfortably as Taehyung lays down the last of the bandages.

Dead leaves crunch under Namjoon’s feet as he walks toward you with better composure. You lower your hand and reluctantly turn to look at him. When he reaches your side, he leans on his knee while extending his other hand for you. The sunlight reflects from his blond hair, framing his face like a delicate golden halo. With a dimpled smile, he encourages you, “Come on, [Y/N]. We’re all waiting for you.”

Normally you would snub his offering and rise on your own. You were tempted to but something about the several pairs of eyes around you, including Namjoon’s crescent moon eyes, forced you to grasp his hand reluctantly. His hand was uncharacteristically smooth as he pulled you up to your feet. You release his hand as soon as you’re steady on your feet, feeling uneasy about the physical contact with your one-sided arch-nemesis. 

Much to your surprise, Taehyung easily loops his arm around yours, breaking the soon-to-be-awkward silence. “Come on, let’s go before they leave us behind!” he exclaims, pulling you toward the main trail, where the rest of the environmental science organization were located. 

“Thank you, Taehyung,” you blurt out, suddenly remembering your manners. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he flashes you a boxy smile, patting the uninjured part of your arm.

As you walk by his side, you turn to look at the rest of his six friends, who are laughing amongst each other, happily in their own bubbles of happiness. Your eyes leave their energetic forms to capture the sight of the form of Namjoon still standing beside the tree, his eyes turned toward the lake as he basks in the serene glow of the morning sun.

-------------------

“Are we almost there yet?”

“V, we just left the city,” Jin exclaims with exasperation, his fist swinging and narrowly missing V’s shoulder when the younger boy side-steps the attack.

“Why are you grumpy, hyung? Who took away your dinner?” V protests indignantly. 

“I’m grumpy because I had to wake up early on a Saturday because of you, you brat!” Jin yells as he aims a kick at the boy’s legs. 

V jumps to narrowly avoid their impact. “It was for a good cause!”

“For the love of God, can both of you ever shut up during an excursion for once?” growls Suga, charging his staff with mana.

“Seriously, you guys keep scaring away all of the prey! How else am I supposed to collect hides for crafting?” Kookie interjects, swinging his Warhammer haphazardly around him. 

You look on with amusement as the boys stop in their tracks and begin to argue about whether or not yelling actually scares away the creatures in the forest. A nudge at your side makes you turn to acknowledge Eunhye, who is glancing from you to the quarrelling boys repeatedly. “Are they always like this? And you say I’m exhausting,” she asks not so quietly. 

“I heard that!” shout Jin and Kookie simultaneously.

“That’s it,” Suga cuts in, swinging his charged staff downward. Black and purple flames erupt in the middle of the forest clearing, clearing away to reveal a dread zombie with strips of flesh hanging from its leathery body. It emits a low moan as it staggers forward in the direction of Jimin and J-Hope.

J-Hope screams upon catching sight of the rotting corpse and deftly scales a tree to avoid it. Your mouth drops as his movement on the branches causes loose leaves to fall to the ground. It had never occurred to you that it was possible to climb trees in this game. 

Before you can ask about it, Jimin breaks the silence while fidgeting with the pommel of his sword and backing away from the zombie nervously. “H-hyung, can you get rid of that?” 

Suga rolls his eyes, holding his staff loosely in his grip as he crosses his arms. “We’ve been playing for how long and you guys still think that thing will attack you?”

“It’s ugly!” Jin interrupts indignantly, glaring at the aimlessly wandering creature, as though its very existence were an insult to him.

“Some may even say that about you, but we all still allow you to exist anyway,” Suga drawls, waving his hand to dispel the zombie in a short blaze of dark purple flames. 

Jin sputters in response, reaching behind his shoulder to lift his lute, wielding it by its neck as if it were a sword, “How dare you! Take that back immediately, or I will bash you with this lute, even if it gets blood all over my clothes!”

Before Suga can turn and response, a loud explosion from a gunshot startles all of you except Namjoon, who stands calmly with a smoking gun pointed at the base of a tree ahead of your group. The splintering of bark surrounds the encased bullet and sawdust circles the impact area for a few seconds before dissipating. 

“While this has been… amusing… we should really hurry to get to the next town,” Namjoon smiles slyly as he holsters his gun. 

Before you can fully admire his effectiveness, your attention is diverted by the thud of J-Hope’s feet hitting the forest ground with a thud. “Seaside, here we come!” he declares happily and take off into a run toward your destination, the port town Ostia Antica. The rest of your group follows him with equal fervor. 

------------------- 

After a long trek throughout the forest made short by the antics of Bangtan (Boy, do those guys love to trip each other, you thought with amusement), your party found itself on the shoreline of the Ostia Antica beach. Hardly a word was spoken before Kookie and J-Hope ran off into the water, their hands flashing in front of their bodies as they switched out their questing gear for swim trunks. The rest of the guys wander off in different directions.

“Did ancient Romans even have swim trunks?” you muse, eyes crinkling with a smile as you watch them splashing each other with water. 

“Actually,” a deep baritone voice thrums beside you and you turn to see V leaning toward you. “Ancient Greeks and Romans preferred to swim in the ,” he winks salaciously before running off toward an NPC. You gape after him, watching him kick up sand. 

“I get why you’re stuck like glue to these guys,” Eunhye jabs your side with her elbow, voice laced with provocation. “They’re very fun.”

You snort in response, opening up your player menu to look for swimming gear. “You’re just happy you have new people to flirt with without the need for commitment.”

“Hey, a girl’s gotta eat somehow,” she murmurs with a smirk, finger jabbing into the air in front of her. Her heavy armor questing gear is instantly replaced with a low cut two-piece bikini. 

You roll your eyes at her admission. “You do realize they could look like hideous trolls in real life, right?” 

“Hey, we start off with a template that looks like us in real life, and guys are lazy,” Eunhye grins. She twirls ostentatiously, “I mean, my own body looks close to the real deal.”

You quickly scan her body and grin in agreement. “Whatever you say. Some of them are a handful, if you ask me.” With a quick flash, your questing gear changes into a one-piece bikini. You look down in interest at a body that’s not quite yours, the swell of your s peeking out from behind the bandeau.

Eunhye whistles. “Oh, I love that on you. Come on, let’s go tease them and see if they blush,” she whispers mischievously, wrapping her hand around your arm to tug you forward.

You match her pace toward the sea and turn to raise your eyebrow. “I thought we were here to do quests, but alright.” 

She leans into you, “I already have a quest, and it has to do with that smoking gun over there.”

You follow her gaze to see RM strolling down the beach with a small pile of seashells in his hand, the warm glow of sunlight illuminating his form. Your gut wrenches inexplicably. 

“O-oh yeah, he’s pretty attractive,” you admit, feigning a noncommittal tone. 

You see Eunhye pause for a second, before leaning her head toward you. “[Y/N]? It’s okay, right? Or were you eyeing him already. I’ll back off,” she says with a serious expression. Her thumb grazes over your forearm soothingly.

“What?” you choke out. “N-no, don’t worry about it. Honestly, I don’t really have my eye on anyone. I just came here to escape from the world a bit, and I think they’re easy-going people,” you blurt out quickly. 

Eunhye eyes you for a moment, looking hesitant. You squeeze her hand gently and she finally nods slowly. She grins widely, “Alright, then! What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

As she tugs you hurriedly across the beach, you stifle an uncertain smile. You had barely spoken to RM, but something about the sight of him leisurely collecting seashells and admiring nature made you perk up with longing nostalgia. Still, it was no reason to bar your close friend from pursuing him.
As you and Eunhye begin wading into the lively waves, you are smacked in the shoulder by a large object. 

“Hey!” you blurt out, indignantly rubbing your shoulder even though the sensation faded away quickly. You see a red beach ball floating on the water and quickly pick it up before it can be carried away by the waves. Then, you look toward the source of the throw, seeing the remaining members of the Bangtan Guild laughing. You quickly scan their faces and find the odd one out, V, looking sheepish and rubbing the back of his neck guiltily. 

“Let’s destroy them,” Eunhye whispers maliciously, eyeing the ball in your grasp with a covetous gaze. 

You bite your lip, holding back a smirk as her energy sways you. Taking a second to morph your expression into a vulnerable pout, you turn to look at V. 
“I’m so sorry, [Y/N], rea-“ his panicked apology is cut off by the slap of rubber against into his bare chest. With an exaggerated flail of his arms, he falls over backward into the water with a big splash. 

If the boys were laughing before, they were absolutely howling now. “He absolutely deserved that,” Hoseok asserted between fits of laughter. “He’s been initiating us all into this game by hitting us with that ball.”

You and Eunhye exchange amused looks and nod, deciding to wade closer to the group of guys. "You guys are going down!"

-------------------   

Eunhye manages to knock V into the water for the fifth time, much to the delight of the rest of Bangtan. You watch in amusement as V resurfaces and spits out water before launching into yet another tirade about feeling targeted. 

“Hey everyone,” a deep baritone voice calls out enthusiastically from the shore. You tune out V's rant and turn around to see Namjoon wading in slowly, holding up a perfectly formed sand dollar. A huge grin is plastered on his face, highlighting his deep dimples. “I just found a bunch of these and an NPC paid me quite a pretty penny for them. Kind of wanted to keep one though, since they look so nice. You guys are such a sight, causing all this ruckus.”

Your heart clenched in a strange way at his casual admission of sentimentality. Before you can think of replying to the silver-haired leader with anything, Eunhye boldly swims up to him. 

“Took you long enough! Say, do you want partner up for a chicken fight?” Eunhye asks in a coquettish tone, tucking her hair slowly behind her ears so that her s rise above water ostentatiously. RM notices the effect of her movement and you notice his ears quickly turning red.

“O-oh, I don’t know,” RM stutters out, his eyes snapping back up to her face quickly. “I’m not that strong, maybe you should ask Kookie.”

“Ahh… you should go ahead, RM-hyung,” Jungkook gives him a sheepish smile, flashing his bunny teeth. “I have absolute confidence in you.”

RM’s eyes flash with a dark look at the maknae before he quickly shakes it off, turning to give Eunhye a polite smile. “Alright, I’ll try my best.”

Eunhye’s expression morphs into that resembling the cat that swallowed the canary. RM seems to notice her smugness and seems to shrink back hesitantly, swallowing nervously. If Eunhye notices, it only emboldens her further. She turns to face you. “[Y/N]! Pick a victim! I’m challenging you!”

“Victim? Yeah right,” Suga scoffs. 

“I heard that!” RM grumbles, crossing his arms defensively. He turns to look at you, likely determined to look at Eunhye as less as possible. 

You feel like shrinking back at the sudden attention for some reason, your arms crossing over your chest in a similar gesture. “I, uh,” you mutter with uncertainty, biting your lip. 

You turn to scan the faces of the guys, who are displaying varying degrees of enthusiasm.  You notice Kookie shrinks back behind his older friends, despite his apparent superiority at the game. J-Hope looks at you with an eager and friendly smile. Jin wears a pleasant, confident grin as he watches you. Suga looks between the three of you with a neutral expression. Jimin and V step forward, both looking eager to jump into the fray. Between the two of them, you decide V intimidates you the least. 

“I want V,” you blurt out, catching the surprise of everyone else. As the guys turn to comment to each other, you feel like burying your face in your palms from your unfortunate wording. 

“No fair, why reward him for hitting you with the ball?” Jimin grumbles as V walks past him with a smug smile. 

“Don’t mind his jealousy, [Y/N]. I’m perfectly capable of leading us to victory, even if I’m not a strength-focused player,” V asserts confidently. “I’ll make up for earlier, too.”

You smile hesitantly at your first friend from Bangtan Guild as he flashes you with a familiar boxy smile. You turn to gauge the reactions of Eunhye and RM. A speculative look crosses RM’s face before it is replaced with a flustered expression as Eunhye narrows the distance between them even more.

“Let’s go, then! Winners treat the losers with sweets at tomorrow’s opening festival!” Eunhye exclaims, bouncing on her toes impatiently.

“You heard her,” V grins, patting his shoulder. “Come on, get behind me and I’ll squat so you can climb on.” 

“W-wait!” you interrupt in a panic, making no move toward him. “I’ll be the bottom!”

“Uh, are you sure?” he asks in confusion. “I’m sure I’m heavier than you.”
“Y-yes! Girls can take that role, too!” you assert with sudden boldness, puffing your chest up in challenge. 

V backs down, waving his hands in jovial surrender. “Okay, just making sure it’s what you want!” 

You nod insistently and turn your body with your back facing him. He approaches and places his palms on your bare shoulders. You note that the sensation is dulled, unlike that which you would experience in real life. When you crouch down into the water, the pressure of V’s hands on your shoulders increases as he leaps in the water to wrap his legs around your neck. Once you feel that he has stabilized himself on your shoulders, you turn to face Eunhye and RM, pointedly ignoring the jeering catcalls from the rest of the guild. He is heavy, but surprisingly lighter than you had expected, although this was likely due to the game. 

You turn around with V in tow, immediately catching sight of the reddening face of the group leader, who is trying his hardest to ignore the fact that Eunhye has been leaning forward, letting her s rest against his head. He shoots a nasty glare at the rest of the guys, who have been snickering at his predicament with no ounce of subtlety. 

"Eunhye, go easy," you call out warningly, with double meaning. Your best friend pouts for a second before straightening her posture to relieve RM of his humiliation. You shoot RM an encouraging smile, which he reciprocates sheepishly.

You approach the pair until there is only a foot between you. 

"Ready? On three," Jimin calls out, stepping forward to moderate. Your grip on V's legs tightens as you stare at Eunhye's feral grin. V ruffles your hair gently. "One, two… THREE!"

There's a flash of limbs above you as both Eunhye and V lunge to grab each other. As the two wrestle you struggle under the constant pushing, swaying your own body in an attempt to keep V on your shoulders. You hear an outcry of pain from RM as Eunhye hooks her thigh across his neck to stabilize herself and uses the other leg to wrap it around V's waist. Her action causes you and RM to stumble forward until your faces meet close enough for you to feel his breath on your face. 

Your rowdy friend begins to tickle V under his armpits, causing him to flail uncontrollably with laughter. "V! Get yourself together!" you scream as his movements force your face to smash against RM's. 

Your left hand releases V's leg so you can push against RM to keep his face from yours, but this proves to be a mistake when Eunhye suddenly shoves V backward. As you begin to tip over, you grab onto the nearest object for stability, which happens to be RM's T-shirt. As a result, both he and Eunhye fall forward into the water with you. 

As a large body slams into you, you feel a hard kick to your head from V as he flails in the water. The force of the kick knocks your head into the other person's, and you groan pitifully, feeling a stream of bubbles escaping from your mouth. You blink past the subsiding pain while reaching to rest your hands on the body in front you to push them away. 

As your vision begins to clear under the water, you feel a pair of hands over your chest. Your eyes widen in bewilderment to find that it's none other than RM, whose eyes are still screwed tightly shut from the blow. With little forethought your hands begin to charge with ice magic. His eyes open to meet yours in response to the cold for a split second before he is launched backward out of the water with an icicle impaled through his chest.

Without the extra weight, you are finally able to swim to the surface. You take a breath before the game can start to deduct health points from you for being underwater for too long. As you relax and float in the water, you take in the raucous scene before you. 

"I can't believe you just got speared in the chest!" J-Hope was shouting, clutching his chest as he doubled over in laughter. The rest of the guys and Eunhye were crowding around a disgruntled RM, whose chest was still impaled by an glassy ice spear. 

As you swim toward the group, you notice the health bar above his head had barely decreased. You note with disappointment that there was no continuous damage, at least that you could notice from his health bar. Unable to help yourself, you complain, "Hey, that icicle should have been way more effective!" 

RM's eyes widen and meet yours as he sputters indignantly, "Are you kidding? Is that all you have to say?" The rest of the group burst into even louder laughter. 

"O-oh, right! I'm sorry!" you exclaim, face flushing with warmth and you reach above water to tuck in your hair.

RM paddles forward aggressively. " 'Sorry'?! You attacked me and launched me right out of the water for no reason!" He exclaims with a beet-red face as Jin places a hand on his shoulder in warning.

You visibly deflate under his accusation. It figures that you would somehow get under the skin of the gentle, rational leader. 

"Hyung! Please don't be mad at her," V calls out, deflecting everyone's attention from your vulnerable figure. "It was my fault that everyone fell over and I think I also kicked her head on the way down."

You nod weakly in response. "I-I felt hands on my chest and I was so disoriented that I just acted. I'm sorry!"

A chorus of 'Ooh's breaks out and now it is RM's turn to become flustered. His stance loses its aggression and he seems to shrink within himself. "I-I thought I felt something s-" he pauses midsentence, before shaking his head vigorously. "I apologize deeply for touching you that way. It was a complete accident, I'm so sorry!" he bows as deeply as he can, his face nearly sinking fully into the water.

"A-ah, don't worry! Let's just forget all of it and put it behind us," you stutter out nervously, wringing your fingers through your wet hair strands. As RM straightens up from his bow, you notice his flustered grimace. He nods slowly. 

You smile weakly in a pathetic attempt to re-establish rapport with the silver-haired gunman. His face twists into a pained smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. 

The awkward exchange is interrupted by V swimming forward toward you. "Now that that's out of the way, do you want to go see to that thing I promised to show you?" he asks you with an easygoing smile. Your eyebrows furrow in brief confusion. Your eyes glance from his friendly smile to the awkward smiles of the rest of the group. V leans forward, his eyebrows twitching upward as if signaling something.

"O-oh yeah! That thing! I remember. Let's go!" you exclaim as you realize his intentions. You reach forward to grab his arm and pull him away from the group before remembering your manners. You turn quickly toward the guys and Eunhye, "We'll be back in a little bit, see you guys!" 

As you turn back around and swim away with V, he leans over and whispers into your ear. "You could really work on that subtlety, [Y/N]."

You flush under his words. "I don't really function normally under weird social situations."

He laughs gently in response, ruffling your hair again. "Neither does RM, despite how cool and collected he usually seems. Once a pretty girl enters the picture, he doesn't really know how to behave," he says, glancing at you slyly.

"Oh my god, stop it," you exhale through an awkward smile, turning away from him. He laughs in response and smacks your shoulder.

"Come on! I need to go show you how to shoot!" he insists, repeatedly splashing the water in front of him. 

When you process his words, you turn around to face him in confusion. "Umm," you murmur, "V, I don't know if you've realized this but we're in the middle of an ocean and pretty far from the shore."

"Perfect time to learn how to use a bow, I'd say," he asserts cheerfully. As he waves his hand to summon his menu, you stare at him.

"Are we going to shoot the arrows into the ocean?" you ask and look down in to the water, trying to see if there are any fish below you.

V snorts beside you as a bow materializes into his hand, as well as his quiver containing his arrows. A player menu appears in your vision prompting you that he is requesting a trade. You hesitantly press on "ACCEPT". An additional screen appears listing a bow and set of arrows. You glance at V questioningly before dipping into your inventory to slip a cookie into your offer and quickly concluding the trade. 

He whistles excitedly. "Sweet! I was about to say that you could just accept without offering anything, but no take-backs now!"

You roll your eyes before allowing a smile to slip onto your face. V was so uncomplicated even when he was being confusing, and it was something you appreciated deeply. 

"Go on," he encouraged while munching on his cookie, "equip them."

Your hands wave across you as you quickly equip the weapon. You had no idea what this guy was up to, but he seemed to have an idea of what he was going to show you, so you were happy to allow him the reigns. He had equipped a bow on himself and was now nocking an arrow, scanning the air carefully. 

"Normally," he starts as his arrow scans the sky, "I would have problems with hunting animals. But since this is just a game, I can dissociate from the idea."

Your eyes widen as you consider his words. It was true that it was much easier to dissociate from many of the things that would normally bother you if they were to happen in real life. It was much easier to let go of your shy nature and embarrassment of being in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. You could impale people you didn't know well with an icicle spear without worrying about it really affecting your relationship. Not that it would ever happen in real life in the first place, but it was an amusing thought. 

"Ah!" V interrupts your thoughts with a loud whisper. "Watch this." You take a glance at his target, a soaring seagull with blue feathers. Not a second later, his arrow shoots into the sky. Its path takes a slight arc before it makes contact with the bird's body, halting its flight. The creature pivots downward, creating a small splash as its body lands in the ocean.

"Let me guess," you interject after a brief moment of silence, "a piece of cake, right?"

He brightens at your words, either not recognizing your sarcasm or not acknowledging it. "You've got the right idea! Go ahead then."

Smiling wryly, you lift the weapon into a similar position as his. Hesitantly, you reach toward your quiver to retrieve an arrow. 

"Wait a second," V stops you, swimming closer. You look down as you feel the warmth of his hands adjusting your shoulder and arm placement. "Now you can shoot. Wait for the seagull to land on the water, though."

After watching him retreat with a smile, your gaze returns to the sky. Spotting another seagull, you chuckle. "I guess the realism doesn't extend far enough to make them fearful of us even when we hunt their friends down right in front of them," you explain after V utters a small noise of confusion. He giggles and you smile at the sound’s baritone quality. 

It takes another few moments for the seagull to land in the water for rest. Nocking your arrow, you aim at the creature and look toward V for approval. He scans your posture quickly and nods silently. You look back toward your target, taking a moment to adjust your aim to account for the arcing caused by gravity. After a few beats, you release the arrow. It whizzes over the bird's head, frightening it into taking flight.

You sigh, relaxing your arms. "Don't worry, that was great! Most newbies would forget to account for gravity, so their arrows would end up in the ocean before even reaching the bird. So it's good that you have the right idea before having me tell you," V assures you with a lilt of excitement in his voice. 

You brighten considerably upon hearing you had passed an unspoken test by the archer. "You mean I can quit my day job soon?" you ask with an exaggerated smirk. 

"You bet! Just an hour, and a class change may be in order, all thanks to the great tutelage of V," he smirks back. 

You roll your eyes with a playful smile before turning back toward the sky. Several attempts and only one stricken bird later, you are preening over your kill regardless. V manages to shoot down a handful of seagulls, collecting several blue feathers that you knew would be useful for alchemy. 

The two of you call it a day, unequipping your weapons and beginning the swim back to the shore. As you pad alongside him, you take a second to look at his side profile, illuminated with the luminous flow of the sun. 

"You know," you muse out loud, surprising yourself momentarily before deciding to continue. "You really are a good tutor. Thank you."

V's eyes widen slightly as he turns to face you. He seems to scan your face for a second with a thoughtful expression on his face before grinning. "I may or may not be one, you know?" he offers teasingly, before turning back to face the nearing shore. 

Your eyes become fixated on the back of his head, a strange tug of familiarity overcoming you as you examine the chestnut locks subtly streaked with green. A moment later, noticing that the distance between you was increasing, you shake away the thought before increasing your pace, your toes finally grazing against soft sand.