Chaeyoung plopped down on her bed in the Parks’ lake-house, stretching her sore limbs after a long and uncomfortable car ride. She welcomed the familiar earthy scent of the lake-house as she closed her eyes and tried to relax.

The family lake-house was one of her favourite places in the world, which was quite a feat considering the amount of travelling she did. Their family used to visit it every summer when she was a child, staying for months at a time and dragging Taehyung along with them every single time. It was a place filled with precious memories that invoked bittersweet nostalgia in Chaeyoung every time she came back. As the years progressed, they grew older, and life became busier, the Parks visited the house less and less, so Chaeyoung appreciated any opportunity to return.

A dreadful feeling started to crawl in the pit of her stomach as the sound of yelling from the main floor of the house travelled all the way up to her room. It hadn’t even been 5 minutes since their arrival and the Griffins and Phoenixes were already at each other’s throats. Surprise, surprise. With a distressed groan, she buried her face in her pillow and tried to ignore the sounds, hoping she was just hallucinating. However, when the sound of glass shattering assaulted her ears, she got up in panic and dashed downstairs.

When she reached the main floor, she wasn’t surprised to see two bodies tangled in a brawl on the floor, the coffee table toppled over nearby and the flower vases scattered into a hundred broken pieces. Fists were flying as 12 others stood by, some watching in amusement and cheering, others looking ready to jump in at any moment to join the ‘fun’. Chaeyoung was certain she was the only sane person present.

When she got closer and caught sight of Jimin’s figure as a participant in the fight, she groaned in frustration.

“What the hell is going on here?” she demanded, pulling Jimin’s sweaty body off the other man whom she recognized as a Phoenix member.

“This grabbed Jennie’s ,” Jimin growled and lunged towards him again, but Chaeyoung jumped in front of him and blocked his path.

“For the last ing time,” the other man hissed as he wiped the blood oozing from his battered lip, “it. Was. A. ing. Accident.”

“How the do you grab someone’s on accident?” Jimin demanded, his eyes filled with rage.

The other man rolled his eyes, “my hands barely touched it. I didn’t even realize it was an at first with how flat it was.”

That earned him amused chuckles and shocked gasps from the other Phoenix members but also a sharp slap in the face from Jennie. Even Chaeyoung’s jaw dropped at the deep-red imprint Jennie’s hand had left on his cheek and the echoing sound that practically filled the room.

After a couple seconds of silence, the man chuckled lowly, “okay, I admit, I deserved that one.”

Chaeyoung narrowed her eyes at him, “apologize. Now.”

The man turned to her with a bewildered expression, “are you ing serious? I didn’t do anything. I didn’t mean to touch her.”

“Mark,” Jungkook interjected sternly, “just apologize. It doesn’t matter how it happened, you shouldn’t be talking to women like that.”

The man shifted his bewildered expression towards Jungkook and locked eyes with him for a second before sighing in defeat.

“I’m sorry for accidentally touching you,” he mumbled, turning towards Jennie.

“You think a ing apology is going to solve-“ she began, her eyes narrowed into fierce slits, only to be interrupted by Chaeyoung.

“Jennie,” she said, throwing her a stern look that communicated ‘accept the ing apology because we need each other to protect our families and save the whole damn country’.

Jennie blew out a sharp breath in exasperation before, reluctantly, saying, “whatever, I’ll let it go this time but if it happens again, I will ing kill you.”

“After I tear your limbs apart,” Jimin added, his fists still clenched in anger.

Chaeyoung plastered on a smile, attempting to lighten up the mood, “great! It looks like we have an understanding. Now, I need everyone to gather outside for our first group activity.”

Somehow, Chaeyoung had been given the responsibility of leading the group activities on the group trip with the goals of facilitating bonding and improving their ‘teamwork’. Normally, she would be excited to lead fun, group activities but the tension between the Phoenixes and Griffins was very discouraging. Forget bonding, she would be lucky if everyone survived. But, even that goal seemed unattainable considering the fight that had just occurred.

Nevertheless, she attempted to remain cheerful as she gathered the entire group outside, on the campground. She had arranged 16 large logs in a circle around the firepit, and encouraged everyone to sit down. When every ne was seated, she stood up tall and cleared .

“I just wanted to start by welcoming all of you to the Park family’s lake-house,” Chaeyoung began with a wide smile, earning eye rolls and amused chuckles from everyone, “I know the Phoenixes probably don’t feel welcome, but I really hope we can change that by the end of this trip. That’s probably an impossible wish, but I’m going to try my hardest to make it a reality. Always keep in mind the reason we’re all here in the first place: to maintain our comfortable, peaceful lives and help save our beloved country. We have to put away the spite and hatred we feel for one another and work together towards our mutual goal. It’ll probably be very difficult and unpleasant, but it’ll only be a couple weeks of working together and then we can either go back to the way things were or maintain peaceful relations-“

“How long is this speech?” Jackson muttered under his breath to Hoseok.

“Personally, I would love it if we could all find peace with each other and am an advocate for no violence-“ she continued to ramble.

“Does she ever stop talking?” Yugyeom whispered in fascination, “I feel like I’m listening to a TED talk. Why in the world is she speaking so passionately?”

“Anyways, to conclude – sorry, I kind of went off on a tangent – I’m really glad we’re all working together and hope this trip will bring the two groups closer. In order to do that, I’ve planned many group activities. The first thing we’re going to do is introduce ourselves. So, please go around the circle, stating your name, your role in your group, and an interesting fact about you,” Chaeyoung said with an encouraging smile.

“Why do I feel like I’m in high school again?” one of the Phoenixes whined, loud enough for everyone to hear.

“What was that?” Chaeyoung asked tilting her head thoughtfully, “did you just volunteer to go first? How brave!”

The man glared at her while she grinned at him victoriously, “please stand up and introduce yourself.”

After a frustrated sigh, he obliged, “I’m Jackson, I possess superior fighting skills and am arguably the strongest man in Korea. An interesting fact about me is that I can bench press 400 pounds with one arm.”

“Thanks, Jackson,” Chaeyoung said, her brows furrowed together in slight confusion. That wasn’t really what Chaeyoung had antic