Morning greeted her with a dry throat, mild headache and loud noises from outside. Her sides had been emptied out except for several bags including her own.

When Chorong exited the tent, she found Doojoon and Minhyuk buzzing about cleaning and packing things up into the van. Groggily she approached the smaller guy who was picking up trashes around the area and asked about the others’ whereabouts.

“Hmm, Joohee was complaining about her hair being sticky so I told her to go shower at the public restroom, Doojoon sent Hoya to the grocer to buy food and some other things, and Joohee made Bomi tag along with him, and Woohyun…” Minhyuk scowled at the last bit. “I don’t know where that guy is. He’s totally no help at all.” He shrugged before continuing on with what he was doing.

Frowning, she scanned around the place and wandered off for a bit. Then she felt a strong hand on the crown of her head ruffling her already messy hair gently. “Go take a shower. You stink.”

“Hey!” She glared, while Doojoon just chuckled amusedly at her and walked away. She then looked around once again, unknowingly searching for that one figure that she can still recognize from a distance, but failed to find it. Kicking the soft sand with the tip of her shoe, she exhaled a heavy sigh and made her way back to the tent.

--

“Are you sure this is the one Doojoon oppa asked for?” Bomi asked while checking the labels on the sachet of mint candies, a frown drawn all over her face.

Hoya looked over from his shoulder and nodded briefly. “Yeah, that one’s right. I saw him eating that all the time.”

“How come you know more about him than his own sister does?”

“I just pay more attention, I guess?” He chuckled a bit before moving away to another aisle.

“You don’t.” Her reply came too late, her voice barely a whisper. When his attention once again drifted to his phone where he kept the list of things they needed to buy, she looked at him and bit her lip. Cracking jokes as both an ice breaker and time filler has always been her specialty, but when it comes to him it never was easy. She’d find herself talking gibberish and repeating the same old jokes that aren’t even funny.

Honestly she hated Joohee a bit for pushing her to tag along with this little shopping trip when Hoya obviously didn’t really need her and was fine by himself. She couldn’t come up with a good excuse to reject the offer, and when he said he was alright with her coming along, she was too dumbfounded to respond because she had expected him to say no.

It took slightly less than ten minutes walking from where they camped out to the nearest supermarket. The walk turned out to be pretty awkward, in her perspective, with them asking each other the most basic questions like the progress of his job hunt and her plans for the future. Although it was not bad, she could tell that he was being polite, which also translated to him not being that comfortable with her just yet. Even the way he laughed at her jokes explained enough.

She pouted a little and sauntered off elsewhere to a different aisle, browsing the neatly arranged kimbaps disinterestedly. Just then, she heard footsteps approaching, so she glanced to her side and found Hoya next to her.

“Want any?” asked him.

“N-no, um, I was just looking.” Bomi shook her head almost too quickly.

“You can have one if you want. You didn’t eat yet, right?”

Blushing a little, she nodded and picked out a tuna flavoured. When he went off without taking one for himself, she called out for him. “You don’t want any?”

“Nah, I can’t eat those,” he simply replied.

She couldn’t really explain it, but somehow, she could feel that his answer weighed more than just that. However in that moment, she only brushed the thought away.

--

Joohee spotted him right away when he exited the convenience shop, so she raised a hand and waved for his attention while calling his name. He heard his name being called before he noticed her there, and with a simple raise of hand, he made his way over to her.

“Yo,” she greeted him with a grin that reveals almost all of her teeth. “What’re you doing here instead of helping them loading our stuff?” she questioned right after he took a seat across her.

“What are you doing here instead of helping them?” Woohyun countered.

She giggled a bit before taking a last bite of the ice lolly she was eating. “Still the same Woohyun.”

“What does that suppose to mean?”

“It means you always return a question with another question, the same one, more often than not, and almost never answer any.”

“I do that?” he raised a brow, seemingly amused by the newly attained information, and produced a stick out of the box of cigarettes she didn’t realize he had in his hand before putting it in between his lips.

“I thought you quit,” she commented as he nursed a flame from his lighter, took a drag and let the smoke escape his mouth. “Wasn’t it during your second year? When you were so stressed out by this one project you had, and you swore you would stop smoking if you pass the subject.”

He looked at her when she said that, as if he just remembered something, but the corners of his lips stretched into a smile. “I did. Or tried, more like.”

“When did you start again?”

“Let’s see… last semester, I think? I don’t do it as much now, maybe that’s why you didn’t notice it.” He shrugged. “You’re not going to give me one of those “smoking is bad for you” lectures, are you?”

Woohyun heard her laughing then. “I’m someone who adds four spoons of sugar into my drink, so I have no right to talk about being healthy,” she stated. “But you should spray some perfume afterwards, or cologne, or deodorant, whatever, as long as you can get rid of the smell. It’s not cool to be trapped in the same small space with barely enough oxygen for everyone when there’s that smell, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know that,” he chuckled.

Silence loomed over the two of them for a moment. She twirled the stick between her fingers, while he let his mind wander off. It was still far too early in the morning, but Joohee couldn’t think of a better time so she started to speak. “I wasn’t going to bring this up, but she’s my friend, and you’re my friend, too. I really think you two should solve whatever issue you have between you before this trip turns awkward.”

He watched the smoke floating up into the air and turned to her. “There’s nothing to solve because there’s no issue to begin with,” he muttered.

“Right,” she nodded, smirking a little because somehow she expected it from him.

“Speaking of this topic, what about you, though?”

“What about me?”

“How long are you going to keep Minhyuk waiting?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Are you really going to act like this, Joohee?”

Her face contorted into a smile as she laughed at the younger boy. “Nam Woohyun’s quite knowledgeable regarding the current gossips, who would have thought?”

“You guys should give me some more credit.” He smirked.

“Better be careful from now on,” she remarked. “Well, to answer your question, until he says something about it. I’m not an easy girl, you know.”

Her answer earned a small laugh from him. They stayed to chat a little more, until Joohee received a call from the angry Minhyuk, and Woohyun from angrier Doojoon, to hurry up and go back to the van.

--

It was nearly midday when they finally made a move. Doojoon, being on a strike, passed the driving task to Woohyun and sat at the far back instead, trying his best to make the most out of the small space to nestle in for a nap. Meanwhile Chorong managed to dodge Joohee’s plan and successfully escaped to the back seat next to the oldest boy.

The ride this time was rather quiet, mostly because half of them fell asleep almost as soon as Woohyun hit the road, and after a while everyone did, so he played one of the CDs they brought along to keep himself entertained. He was half glad that at least it wasn’t noisy, but gradually the quietness made the drive rather dull.

“Bored?” A voice streamed from behind. He darted his eyes at the rear mirror and saw Minhyuk leaning over.

“I thought you were asleep.” He raised his brows quizzically.

Minhyuk, who was sandwiched between the oldest and youngest girls, gave a slight shrug. “I was, but the road is too bumpy.”

“Is that a criticism on my driving skills in disguise?”

“Depends on how you take it.”

The younger of the two scoffed. Silence fell and they let the song that was playing to fill the gaps between them. “You’ll hurt your neck if you sleep like that,” Woohyun said when he noticed that Minhyuk had his head leaned against the headrest in front of him.

“Nah, I can’t fall back asleep.” The latter shook his head. “How old is this song? I haven’t heard it in a long time.”

“It’s not that ancient.” Another voice cut in, and the two immediately recognized it as Chorong’s.

Startled Minhyuk turned to her who still had her eyes closed and arms folded while Woohyun only stole a quick glance of her through the mirror. “You weren’t sleeping?”

“I was listening to the song,” came as her reply.

“You know this song?”

A nod. “Of course, it’s my CD.”

Once again silence loomed over the vehicle. Minhyuk sent her a rather pained smile although she wouldn’t see it, then turned away, leaned back into his seat and darted his gaze outside. It didn’t take long for him to fall back into dreamland. Woohyun continued to keep his eyes on the road without saying anything and let the CD play on.

--

Joohee was the first to jump out of the van when Woohyun pulled over at the parking lot of a rest area, dragging the half-awake Minhyuk with her while Bomi alighted from the other side. Hoya stretched a bit as he yawned, barely opening his eyes even when Joohee patted him hard on the back so he’d wake up.

“Look at these two!” Bomi’s exclaimed before her amused giggle filled the air.

Woohyun’s gaze followed the direction where her finger was pointing at. In the backseats he saw Doojoon and Chorong still deep in their sleep. Her head was rested on his shoulder and his on her head, looking like one of those romantic scenes in dramas. He said nothing about it, nor did he lend a hand when the younger girl was trying to wake them up. Instead he shoved his hands into his pockets and mumbled something about going to the gents before walking off.

■ A short update because I just wanted this chapter to be up although I initially wanted it to be longer. Most of you may have noticed that this fic is a bit too focused on Woohyun/Chorong, and I'm sorry that it appears very biased of me! I promise there will be more of the other characters in the future :) Also surprise surprise I didn't take four months this time