Seulgi and Irene wandered aimlessly around campgrounds. Seulgi was having fun taking pictures of Irene and the scenery around them and retelling old camp stories whenever they passed by the spot where it happened in camps gone by. Irene, on the other hand, was more than happy to spend their rest time with Seulgi and listening to her stories. She found the girl’s love for the great outdoors to be absolutely adorable and she was enjoying how animated Seulgi got as she gestured back and forth in the middle of her stories.

“Hey, Seulgi..”

“Yeah?” Seulgi replied while trying to get a good angle of the gym hall.

“Tell me about yourself.”

Seulgi put her camera down and smiled at Irene. “Hi, my name is Seulgi. I like to run around a lot. In school I’m part of the tennis team with Seungwan, we play doubles together.”

“Yes, I’ve heard. You two are quite the combination - the best pair the school has seen in years.”

Seulgi looked at Irene curiously. How on earth did she know that? What did the two satans tell Irene behind her back? “When did Yerim even tell you all this? That sneaky spawn of Satan..” Seulgi grumbled.

Irene merely smiled and raised an eyebrow cheekily at her while turning to walk back towards the boathouse.

“Come on, it’s almost time to meet up with Taeyeon and Yoona.”

Seulgi shook her head and trailed behind Irene, still trying to figure out when did Yerim tell Irene stories from school. But then again, it wasn’t exactly a terrible thing anyway. At least, that was what Seulgi was hoping - that Yerim had not told her any embarrassing stories yet. Seulgi gave herself a shake and went to catch up with Irene after falling behind while being lost in her own head.

“Only you two?” Yoona asked while looking for the rest of their watch when Irene and Seulgi reached the boathouse. “Where’s everybody else?”

“Probably on their way down.” Irene looked up towards their dorm and squinted to spot any movements.

“We were walking around taking pictures earlier.” Seulgi brought up her camera and showed it to Yoona before she thought of something. “Do we still have time for pictures?”

Taeyeon nodded after checking the time and Seulgi beamed. Turning on her camera, she took pictures of Irene together with their instructor and CA. Taeyeon suggested that they try posing like models in high fashion and they cracked up at the pose she did. It didn’t take long for Yoona and Irene to join in while Seulgi tried her best to keep the camera steady - a huge effort considering how much she was laughing. The pictures turned out well and Taeyeon nodded with much satisfaction.

“Yaaah! These pictures are good! Seulgi, e-mail us those pictures when you get back home, okay?”

“Sure thing!”

“I’ll give you my e-mail address later, Seulgi.”

“Send them to me, too. Along with the others we took just now.” Irene added in that same tiny voice from the night before and Seulgi inhaled sharply. Irene had no business sounding so adorable while they were just standing around looking at pictures on her camera.

“Yah! What are you guys looking at?!” Joy bellowed and the four of them looked up from the camera at the same time to see that the rest of the watch had arrived, right on time.

“Seulgi, put the camera away please. It’s time for rafting.”

Seulgi set her camera in a waterproof bag that Taeyeon had brought with her and passed it around for the others to keep their wristwatches. Once everybody was ready, Taeyeon started the briefing for their activity that afternoon.

The K2 looked puzzled at the items set out in front of them after Taeyeon explained their mission for the activity - which was to build a simple raft using whatever was provided. They looked at the items curiously and Taeyeon could almost hear the gears in their brains moving as they tried to picture how would the raft would look like. They were given some rope, huge plastic pipes and four drums.

Byul nudged Seulgi while the rest tried to sort out their supplies and pitched ideas. “How long did it take for your watch to figure it out the first time you did this?”

“Uhm..ten minutes? Our instructor gave us some hints since we were only eleven at that time.”

“Wow. Eleven-year olds building their own raft. That’s awesome!” Byul raised her hand and they high fived.

Yongsun noticed the two standing idly while the rest work and called them. “Guys? A little help?”

Byul and Seulgi laughed awkwardly and went over to assess the situation. Seulgi saw that they had the right idea - they had already formed a square using the pipes and placed the drums at each corner. It was the most basic raft design and the one Seulgi saw most frequently during camp.

“Seulgi, are we going it right?”

“Yeah. No worries.” Seulgi patted Seungwan’s back and pointed to the other unused pipes. “We can use two pipes for each side to make them stronger.”

Once they had the square frame ready, they lifted it and placed them onto the four drums. The frame was adjusted and ropes were looped around the drums to secure them against the frame. When they were done, each member was already huffing and panting from hauling the big objects from one spot to another. Taeyeon gave them her seal of approval and they lined up by their raft. Putting on their life jackets, they took a deep breath before lifting the raft and marched towards the beach.

“Alright! Ready?” Taeyeon appraised their raft one last time. “Seungwan. Irene. You two good to go?”

They gave Taeyeon a not-so-convincing nod and the instructor decided to take what she could get and told them to push their raft a little further into the water before climbing on. It was quite the education watching them trying to climb on the wobbly raft without losing their balance. So far, Wheein had already fallen back into the water twice and the others were not doing any better, either.

It took some time but all of them manage to get on their makeshift raft. Irene was the last to climb aboard since the raft would be at its most stable when everybody else was already sitting on it. With some help from Seulgi, Irene managed to pull herself up onto the floating piece of plastic and Yoona waded over to pass them some oars.

“Guys, your mission is to reach that same buoy over there and come back.”

“Okay!!”

Yoona was about to blow the air horn but Taeyeon suddenly stopped her and pointed to the group that was making their way to the beach their raft. It was Mont Blanc and Taeyeon had an idea. She told them to sit tight and jogged towards Jessica. She seemed to have told Jessica something and the latter looked at Taeyeon smugly while crossing her arms.

“My watch is not going to lose. Right, team?”

“Yeah!” Mont Blanc chorused as they fist pumped and Taeyeon jumped at the sudden noise.

“Well mine isn’t either.” She made a face at Jessica and went back to her watch. “Okay. So. We’re having a race with Mont Blanc.”

“Why?” Hyejin asked.

“Because it’s always good to have some friendly competition.” Taeyeon explained. “Aaaand because my watch from the previous camp lost to Sica’s so I want to get even. Can you guys help me?”

“Hell yes!”

Both teams got into position and Yoona counted down to zero before blowing the air horn.

And off they went, each watch trying their best to defend their instructors’ pride and apparently the losing team would be doing the winning team’s dishes later after dinner. Both watches hustled as neither one felt like doing extra chores after a tiring day.

***

Seulgi handed Krystal a stack of dirty food trays after dinner with an apologetic smile. The latter waved it off and told Seulgi to just leave them by the sink.

“Amber will take care of those later. You go ahead.”

“Okay.” Seulgi stood awkwardly and rocked on the balls of her feet while she watched Krystal and the other Mont Blanc members wash their dirty dishes. “I feel bad about this.”

“Nah, it’s all good fun. I’ll beat your team next year. Just you wait.” Krystal confidently challenged.

Seulgi gave Krystal two thumbs up before running off to catch up with her watch who were already making their way to the gym hall. Taeyeon had told them to gather there earlier for their solo camp briefing. It was finally time for solo camp, Seulgi thought to herself excitedly.

The briefing was short and sweet since there was not going to be any group activities during solo camp. Taeyeon dismissed them early that night for them to rest and pack for the much anticipated solo camping trip, or at least, that was the case for Seulgi. She was pretty sure that Joy and Yerim were silently dreading it, Seungwan and Byul seemed quite interested while the others were reserving judgement until the activity had passed.

Irene was surprisingly calm about their upcoming camping trip, much to Seulgi’s delight, probably because Taeyeon mentioned that there wouldn’t be an obscenely huge distant between their tents - they would only be a few metres apart, five perhaps. While they would be able to see each other, they were still not allowed to talk to each other. It was a rule that few followed, Seulgi knew that from experience. Though their instructors might threaten to cut down their tents, they almost never did, the hassle of pitching the tent again was more than enough to keep some participants from interacting with others.

The watch set out for their solo camp campsites after lunch the next day. Unlike their previous expeditions where heavy and bulky equipment like their tent sheets and water containers were transported to the site, they had to carry everything with them for solo camp. Seulgi chuckled when her friends all sighed in relief when Taeyeon told them the campsite was only a 15-minute walk away from base camp.

The K2 formed a single line at the base of a little hill where the campsites were located. Site allocation went by quickly and smoothly as they trekked into the jungle and Taeyeon dropped them off one by one at marked locations along the way. Wheein was the first, followed by Hyejin and it ended with Seulgi near the top of the hill because Taeyeon felt that she could handle being in the last campsite, with nothing but vegetation behind her.

Seulgi got to work immediately after Taeyeon and Yoona said their goodbyes - taking out the rope they were given and pitched her tent as quickly as she could because it looked like it was going to rain. Irene’s campsite was within her peripheral vision, she could see that the latter was also hard at work, racing against the weather. Seulgi heard a squeak when the first telltale sign of lightning appeared and laughed.

“S-shut up, Seulgi!”

Seulgi turned to face Irene who was busy anchoring one of the tent’s flaps to the ground while biting her lips. Seulgi saw in her eyes that Irene, while she was slightly terrified of the thought of sitting through a thunderstorm alone in her tent, was not going to let some lightning slow her down. Smiling proudly at her, Seulgi went back to work in securing her own tent.

When the first droplets of rain fell, Seulgi gathered her things and scurried into her tent, patting herself on the back when she saw that everything was still dry. Arranging them in a corner, she sat in the middle of her tent and listened to rhythm of the falling rain. It was soothing and she found herself slowly getting sleepy. Seulgi finally understood why was it that some people looked up the sound clips of the rain to help them fall asleep. After assessing the wind’s direction and making sure that her tent would not be drenched like while on the island, Seulgi lied down and took a well deserved nap.

All was calm and peaceful that afternoon in the jungle until Seulgi woke up from her nap a couple of hours later and screamed.