They reach at the camp site precisely 3 hours later, and Soojung couldn’t help but to feel excited out of a sudden. She takes a deep breath, grabs her bags and walks down the bus. The summer air lingers in the air, trees are everywhere, and she could see a lake, and they’re going to live in cabins. She looks around, looking for Jinri and she’s a few steps in front of her with Myungsoo, and the thought of approaching her dies just like that.

She stands still on the spot and all of them later are divided into few groups—she’s in white team, Myungsoo is too, and Jinri’s in yellow—she acknowledges because she cares, but she wishes she’s the one in yellow instead. There’re a few other groups of blue, green and red. After receiving a tag of groups they’re in, they are asked to move into the cabins—two person a cabin, and Soojung shares her room with a senior named Victoria. Jinri’s with Luna, if she’s not mistaken and she’s grateful because Jinri’s cabin is across hers.

They settle down—Soojung has the bed beside the window and she helps Victoria to clean up the room a bit, and Victoria treats her very nicely. Soojung thinks Victoria really has a beautiful smile, and she’s not scary like what people say—Victoria says people say that just because she once showed her flexibility, and she thinks that people say that because they can’t do what she can do. She says it’s ridiculous how people call her names just because she can do ‘abnormal’ things and they can’t. Soojung thinks she’s just great, and she likes her.

“Soojung, please,” Victoria says, smiling. “Drop the formality. Just call me unnie.”

Soojung’s more than glad, and she hopes this summer would turn out pretty good.

It’s already 7.30 in the evening when she gets out from the bathroom and changes her clothes into an oversize T with a short. After tying her hair into a ponytail, she walks out from her cabin and goes to the dining hall for dinner. Almost everyone’s there and she lines up to get her food, and when it’s her turn, she grabs the tray that’s handed to her and she looks up.

She doesn’t say what she wants, because she feels like her tongue is tied and her saliva feels like sand, and so she remains silent and looks at the food that’s put on her plate—rice, fried chicken, salad, and she waits for the cucumbers to be put on, but instead, she heard a ‘next’, and so she looks up again, raising her eyebrows, and he copies what she does.

“Do you want anything else?” he asks. “I don’t think you like cucumbers.”

With that, she grabs a drink and walks away. She then spots Jinri—she’s sitting with Luna, and Victoria’s there too, and she joins them.

“Why didn’t he give you cucumbers too?” Jinri asks when she looks at Soojung’s plate.

Soojung stares at Jinri for a while, feeling like laughing and sobbing at the same time, because they’ve been friends for years, and yet Jinri doesn’t know or even notices? She smiles instead.

“No, Jinri.” She says. “I don’t like cucumbers. I don’t eat cucumbers.”

She eats, suppressing herself from crying even though she really feels like doing that, her eyes feeling hot and she feels like a horrible person because is offended by little thing like that. It’s funny how Jinri that has been with her for a very long time doesn’t even notice that she hates cucumbers.

She looks at the food counter, and he’s still giving food to people, and she wonders, out of everyone, why does it have to be him that knows her like he knows her since forever? It might probably be easy if it isn’t him, if he isn’t the same person that Jinri loves—if he’s not a guy named Kim Myungsoo.

And even though they’re standing on the same ground and under the same roof, she’s still missing him like she has never seen him for ages.

She misses him—Myungsoo, and it’s not a very pleasant feeling at all.

+++

After having dinner, they gather around the campfires—there’re like five campfires and they divide themselves, forming a big circle each and Soojung sits on the logs with Victoria, Jinri and Luna. Across her are Myungsoo’s friends, but she sees no hint of him, and she thinks that maybe he’s still inside the dining hall, and she wishes he’s there instead because she has the feeling that he likes all of these.

Soojung stares at the fire, and she kinda likes it how it lights up everyone’s face, and they’re all laughing like they have no problem at all—very light-heartedly, and it seems like they left all the troubles just before they ascended the buses. Soojung takes a glance on everyone, and when she sees how happy they are, she thinks that maybe they aren’t that bad. They’re just like her, dealing with s and if they can be that happy, then she believes she can too. She just has to open her heart, and maybe when it’s time, she’ll be like them—hopefully.

They