"We should go camping."

At the elder's abrupt suggestion, Kangin looked down at his boyfriend, who was laying on his chest and had not once looked away from the television screen.

"Why would you feel like camping, Chullie?" Kangin asked, somewhat taken aback by the odd thought. Despite being physically fit, he knew that he would be terrible at anything involving "the great outdoors". And he didn't have to be Heechul's significant-other to know that the older man would be even worse.

"Because they just showed an advertisement for tents on the television and it made camping seem really fun," Heechul answered, playing with Kangin's fingers.

Kangin didn't feel like admitting that he had been so busy toying with Heechul's silky hair that he hadn't even been paying attention to the television. But, upon discovering the source of inspiration for Heechul's impulsive request, Kangin was further convinced that the two of them on a camping trip was an awful idea.

"Sweetheart, that was a commercial," Kangin explained, kindly. "That's not real camping. Some people might find it fun, but I don't think that you would enjoy yourself, on a great, empty lot, with no electricity, no shops, no showers-"

"Oh, gross!" Heechul exclaimed, sitting up. "No showers! That's disgusting! I'd rather not shop or not eat than not wash!" He continued, clearly repulsed by the idea. "But there must be camp grounds with showers," he reasoned, after a moment's thought, eyeing Kangin with new found hope.

"I bet that there would be extremely long lineups to use them, though," Kangin answered, a part of him becoming somewhat alarmed that Heechul was actually serious about camping. It wasn't the idea of them spending some time together that bothered him; rather, it was the thought of his delicate little boyfriend sleeping on the rocky floor of a poorly-pitched tent, in the cold, with only a thin layer of synthetic material separating him from the open wilderness.

Kangin was horrified at the words that came out of Heechul's mouth, next.

"I can wait."

The younger man searched his elder's features for any signs of uncertainty or, that (hopefully) he was joking. But the pretty face that stared back at him held no sign of doubt.

Heechul wanted to go camping.

Kangin sighed.

"How about this," he began, hoping to strike a compromise. "Tonight, we'll go out and buy camping supplies and tomorrow, we'll pretend that we're camping...here-" Kangin gestured around the sitting room. "And if it goes smoothly-if we can set up a tent and if you can survive with limited commodities...I'll take you camping," he finished, feeling as if he was signing his own death-warrant.

"YAY!!" Heechul smiled, giving Kangin a quick kiss, before leaping off of the sofa and seizing the younger's hand, in excitement.

"Let's go shopping!"

-----

The two-hour-long shopping trip that followed left the two men with a heavy load to bring back to the apartment (of which Kangin carried the most) and significantly lighter wallets. Camping gear was expensive.

"You two boys seem to be quite the adventurers," the elderly gentleman working at the check-out station remarked, with a smile. "Which camp ground are you heading to? With all of this gear, you would be set for the mountains!"

Kangin was about to answer, but, to his horror, Heechul, who was often too honest for his own-good, beat him to it.

"We're going to camp in our apartment," he informed, proud of the suggestion that his caring boyfriend had made.

Kangin wanted to clap his hand over Heechul's mouth, but, given the public situation, such an action would not have been appropriate. And when he noticed the bewildered look on the cashier's face, who was so taken aback that he scanned the same item three times, Kangin felt that it would have been better if he had not even accompanied Heechul on the shopping trip.

"It's an experiment," Kangin tried to explain, hoping to salvage a bit of dignity, but he feared that he had in fact made the matter worse.

-----

The young couple had spent nearly two thousand dollars on camping equipment. There were, of course, basic necessities, such as the tent, flashlights (they were going all-out by forgoing even the use of their electric lights) basic hygiene supplies, food and drink.

But Heechul had insisted on a designer tent that was meant for four people, even though there was only two of them ("I like a spacious living area.") and was several hundred dollars more expensive than a reguar tent.

The flashlights were equivalent to several tens of thousands of candles, according to the packaging, and Heechul had bought enough spare batteries to last every appliance in their flat for several months. ("They're on sale!" Heechul had justified, pointing to the large, bulk cartons. Kangin didn't bother to mention that the regular packs of batteries, which contained a far more realistic number, were still cheaper.)

Thankfully, Heechul had saved some money on personal hygiene, by saying that he probably would just bring his own supplies, anyways. Still, that didn't stop him from purchasing an electric toothbrush that had solar-rechageable batteries. It was significantly more costly than a regular, plastic manual brush.

The food and drink, however, was where Kangin felt that they, or rather, Heechul, had severely over-estimated their needs and taken extremely unnecessary pre-cautions.

"We can't buy any meat!" Heechul had said, when they were at the grocery store.

"Why not?" Kangin asked, already headed toward the poultry section.

"With no stove, there's no way that we can be sure we cooked it thoroughly. And we can't spare any of our drinking water to rinse it off!"

Kangin tried to point out that Heechul's logic made absolutely no sense. They would likely have access to a fire-pit, or something of the sort, and they could simply use a meat-thermometer to make sure, if they felt so inclined. And if Heechul was really so adamant on rinsing off the raw poultry, Kangin was sure that they could spare a few cap-fulls.

"No, no, no," Heechul brushed aside all off Kangin's arguments. "You never know, with meat."

They had bought, instead, several non-perishable items, including granola bars and children's fruit snacks. Heechul had also felt it necessary to purchase a few "just add water" meals that were probably meant for mountain-climbers or even astronauts, rather than two men that were camping for fun.

"I'm so excited!" Heechul smiled, snuggling up to Kangin, as they lay in bed that night, their equipment waiting for them in the living room.

"...Me, too," he supplied, in a half-hearted tone, as he petted his lover's hair.

In truth, he was somewhat indifferent to the impending "excursion"- he was still reeling from the heavy blow that his bank account had taken only a few hours before.

-----

"We should probably set up the tent, first," Kangin said, reasonably, as they started their day of camping, the following morning.

"But I'm hungry. Shouldn't we have breakfast, first?" Heechul suggested.

"Well, if we were actually camping, it would be kind of awkward if we started cooking before we even had our things in place," Kangin explained.

"Oh," Heechul said, his stomach prompty giving a grumble of protest.

Kangin had to laugh, before kissing his lover's nose, lightly.

"Why don't you have something to eat and I'll start on the tent," he offered.

"But you can't do that all by yourself!" Heechul exclaimed.

Kangin thought for a moment, before finding a solution.

"How about you read out the directions for me, while you have breakfast, and I'll put the tent together?"

Heechul agreed, happily, taking the instructions manual and searching through the groceries for a vanilla granola bar.

-----

Half an hour later had Heechul completely confused with the instructions, Kangin fumbling with ill-fitting pieces, and the tent as assembled as it had been when Kangin had first taken the parts out of the box.

"You're supposed to put piece number five together with piece number six and then attach the whole thing to already-assembled pieces number four, seven and eight," Heechul read aloud.

"But which one is piece five?" Kangin asked, feeling terribly useless.

"I don't know," Heechul answered, unhelpfully.

They switched roles, with Kangin reading the instructions to Heechul and, when that yielded even more unproductive results, they attempted to build it together. 

"We could check how to do this on the internet," Heechul said, after another hour with only about a quarter of the flimsy structure ready to go.

"We wouldn't have the internet if we were actually camping," Kangin reminded.

It took the young men another forty-five minutes, for a near total of two and a half hours, but finally, the designer tent was up and occupying over half of their living room. In temporary exemption of the "campers" roleplay, Kangin moved the sofa a little farther to the left wall of the room, to make more space for the massive tent. The younger man was instantly reminded of the "house-sized tents" that J.K. Rowling had written about in her fourth Harry Potter novel.

After their adventure with the tent, they shared a lunch of packaged soda crackers, canned fish and raisins. (Those were some of the only types of food that Heechul was comfortable eating, without proper kitchen preparations.) When Kangin thought of camping food, he had imagined some fresh berries with breakfast, fire-roasted sausages and various other meats and maybe some convenience junk-food, like crisps, but he realized, as he picked off an unremoved stem from a very dry raisin, camping with Heechul wasn't a typical out-of-doors' adventure.

"What do we do now?" Heechul asked, when, after putting all their rubbish in a plastic grocery bag, they had finished their meal.

"If we were really camping, we probably could go for a hike,"  Kangin reflected. "But since we can't really do that..."

Having only the most stereotypical Hollywood camping films to reference, Heechul and Kangin spent the rest of the afternoon telling each other ghost stories, in broad day light. Heechul couldn't remember any by heart, so he had gone to their bedroom to get a book of horror stories that he had been reading. He allowed himself to step out of role for a moment, to get the book, since Kangin had done the same to move the couch.

By the time they had run out of stories, it was nearly supper time, and they busied themselves by preparing the ready meals that Heechul had purchased, and laid out a few packets of the children's fruit snacks.

"I think we added a bit too much water," Kangin said, as he swallowed down a bite of formerly freeze-dried peas and what was supposed to be gravy.

"We didn't add enough to the mashed potatoes," Heechul observed, trying to pry his fork out of the semi-solid white mass sitting on the side of his black, plastic tray.

They attempted to roast smores, as the North American tradition went, but ended up just eating the graham biscuits, slivers of chocolate and balls of marshmallow separately, as they couldn't heat the small camping stove that they had bought to a high enough temperature for the three ingredients to melt together.

Both men cheated by using their shower, but to keep to a more authentic experience, they made themselves stand outside of the bathroom door for twenty minutes, to simulate a situation of having to wait in line for their turn.

"You know... all we really did today was sleep, read, eat and put up the tent," Heechul remarked, as they laid in the same sleeping bag that night, in the tent.

"We would've done more if we were actually outside, though," Kangin answered, combing his fingers through Heechul's hair.

"So...are you going to take me camping?"

Kangin looked up. He had truly enjoyed spending the whole day with Heechul, but did the older man actually want to camp, even after this? Every thing that they had done hadn't really had much success, and Kangin didn't think that either of them would have much fun, eating raisins for a week.

"Do you still want to go?" Kangin ventured.

"Not really," Heechul admitted, settling back against his boyfriend's chest. "I mean, if we took that long to put up the tent, someone would probably steal our lot. But I like spending time with you," he added, smiling up at his lover.

Kangin smiled back, leaning down to kiss Heechul's lips, softly.

"I like spending time with you, too," Kangin said, over Heechul's knuckles with his thumb. "But there are other ways we could spend time together, you know... We could take a wine tour in France."

"Ooo! That would be so much fun!" Heechul got excited again, wilder ideas forming in his mind. "Or we could go skiing in the Swiss Alps..."

"Honey, you can't even ice-skate."

"And then we could go para-gliding!"

"Chullie, you're afraid of heights," Kangin reminded him. "Why don't we plan something a little less adventurous, first?" He suggested, not at all comfortable with the thought of Heechul attempting to ski down the side of a mountain, or suspend himself several hundred feet in the air.

"Okay," Heechul smiled, yawning softly. "As long as it's with you."

Note: 

Please excuse the odd idea...I'm not even sure where it came from ^^'

I don't really know much about camping, and I've never eaten a smore, so I'm not sure if I described the preparation process correctly. Sorry if I haven't ^_^' and I apologize for the rather abrupt ending

Thanks for reading and thank you, JoonieMoon for being the first to respond to the idea :)

I hope you enjoy reading!!

x Angela