Prompt: “They go camping and end up sharing a tent”

Pairing: Baekhyun/Kyungsoo

Words: 1900

Baekhyun hated nature. He hated the smell of it, hated the sheer monotony of tree after tree after tree. Nature meant less people to talk to (and out of those left, a bunch were awful at keeping up funny conversations, like Joonmyun and Jongin) and more and more strange screeching sounds in the middle of the night (perhaps animal predators or something else equally disconcerting). Baekhyun hated that in nine times out of ten, nature equaled bugs and mosquitoes crawling up his arms and eating him alive. Not to mention, having to pretend that canned kimchi and baked beans made an excellent combination so that Minseok didn’t cry over his (admittedly) ty cooking.

OK, so ‘hate’ wasn’t a strong enough word. Maybe ‘loathing’ or ‘abhorrence’ better expressed Baekhyun’s feelings towards nature.

He couldn’t do anything exciting because there simply was nothing exciting to do. No technology meant no internet, and no internet meant he couldn’t read all the comments about how flawless his face and voice were. Baekhyun wasn’t particularly narcissistic, but he did enjoy reading these comments aloud with pissing Kyungsoo off being his main intent.

Baekhyun slams the car door and walks boredly to the boot of the car, where Joonmyun is distributing their ‘supplies’ for the group’s annual camping trip (which looks more like a survival kit for a zombie apocalypse with its distinct lack of makeup supplies). His skin is definitely going to suffer. Baekhyun slings a bag over his shoulder and hisses as a metal pole sticks out the bottom and whips him across the leg.

“!” he yells.

Sehun rolls his eyes at him as Minseok’s concerned face zones in on his leg. The former asks if he’s OK and receives a disinterested grunt from Baekhyun, who in turn receives a scowl from Joonmyun, and a ‘be nice to my boyfriend’ hissed at him from Jongdae.

“We’ll put the tents here,” Chanyeol calls, running in almost circles around the camping site.

“If we pitch the tents here,” a point, “here,” another point, “and over there,” final point, “then if it get super windy we won't have any stray branches falling and scaring the out of us at midnight.”

Ever since his time on ‘Law of the Jungle’, Chanyeol’s been acting like a slightly stupider version of Bear Grylls.

“Are there any bears in Korea?” Yixing coincidentally asks from his place by Joonmyun’s side, which receives a smirk from Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo grabs a flashlight out of his duffel bag and switches it on, raising it to his face ominously. Oh great, Baekhyun thinks to himself, he’s going start with the creepy early.

Baekhyun tunes out the conversation and dumps his bag in a grassy area far from the others, letting out an exasperated sigh as he flumps to the ground. He rubs his leg gingerly and lays down flat on the ground, staring up at the sky. So boring. He sits like this for a good five minutes before scowling, fishing his phone out of his bag, and realizing that his phone (depressingly) has no signal this far out in the wilderness. He tap-tap-taps away at nothing, rips out the grass, tosses, turns and grunts before settling again for another two minutes. The process repeats itself.

Several hours later after they’ve all eaten dinner (which was quite horrific), Baekhyun hears a twig snap somewhere to his left and turns, remnants of a glare evident on his face. This glare turns into an outright scowl as Kyungsoo dumps himself next to Baekhyun, picking up Baekhyun’s bag and tossing it to the side. Baekhyun is about to ask him what the that was for before Kyungsoo delivers the worst news imaginable.

“Joonmyun says we need to engage in ‘family bonding’ by sharing the tent.”

Baekhyun is seething as Joonmyun comes over and explains to him how to put up a tent for the millionth time. After half an hour of Baekhyun’s struggle with little to show but several too-large holes in the ground for the tent pegs, Joonmyun finally relents his long-winded mansplaining and decides he’ll do it himself. Baekhyun stands and stares at him angrily, and Joonmyun finally gets the passive-aggressive message and shuffles away.

“Do we really have to share a tent?” Baekhyun hollers at him, to which Joonmyun responds with a nervous shrug. Brilliant.

“We might as well make the most of it,” Kyungsoo says through clenched teeth. He enters the tent quietly and Baekhyun has nothing left to do but follow him inside.

Kyungsoo has a line of masking tape (tape!) down the middle of the tent as Baekhyun makes his way inside. Kyungsoo squats and rolls out his sleeping bag on one side, making a point of demonstrating that it is ‘his space’ and Baekhyun ‘SHALL NOT PASS’ the tape line through a mix of verbal and non-verbal cues. Kyungsoo lies flat on his sleeping bag and pulls out a book, flicking on his torch and holding it inches from his face. Baekhyun grumbles to himself and does the same, only he doesn’t have a book and his extremities just won’t. stop. twitching.

“Baekhyun, do you even ing know how to sit still?” Kyungsoo shoots a glare at him from his half of the tent. Baekhyun turns over and stares at the flimsy fabric, pissed beyond belief. ‘Family bonding’ indeed.

It’s wasn’t like Baekhyun hated Kyungsoo or anything; in fact, it was quite the opposite. Baekhyun admired Kyungsoo a lot, but he just never really had the opportunity to ‘click’ with the other vocalist. Anything he said to Kyungsoo either came out the wrong way or was interpreted as sarcastic, even if he was telling the cold, hard truth about how he felt. Little compliments Baekhyun offered to Kyungsoo often became contemptible criticisms, which led to arguments and verbal combat.

Kyungsoo was a stoic and hostile person towards a lot of people, but especially so towards Baekhyun.

Baekhyun slowly learnt to keep his mouth shut around Kyungsoo and decided that this was probably the best course of action for now. He can’t help but let out a small sniffle as tears start to pool in his eyes. He shifts slightly, and Kyungsoo groans once again.

“Can’t you sit still for five minutes?” Kyungsoo drawls, finally putting his book down and turning around to face Baekhyun.

Baekhyun feels a hand on his shoulder and winces slightly, pulling himself away. He hides his face in his sleeping bag and feigns sleep, but Kyungsoo pulls him all the way around so they are facing each other, the torch light illuminating his tear-streaked face, the line of tape quite forgotten.

“Holy , are you actually crying?” Kyungsoo asks incredulously, as Baekhyun attempts to pull away. Kyungsoo cups Baekhyun’s chin with his fingers and tilts his head up, examining his puffy eyes and grossly runny nose. Baekhyun grumbles something incoherent and pushes Kyungsoo away, returning to his half of the tent.

“Look, I didn’t mean it to come out so harsh,” Kyungsoo says. “I was just trying to read my book and your shuffling is really distracting.” Kyungsoo turns Baekhyun over again, before a guilty look flashes in his eyes as Baekhyun ignores him.

“Don’t hold your breath,” Baekhyun responds quietly, after a moment of silence. “Don’t waste your time saying sorry because I know you hate me anyway. There’s no point.”

“Hate you?” Kyungsoo asks, evidently surprised. Baekhyun looks up, confused at Kyungsoo’s confusion. “Why do you think I hate you?”

“Everything about me makes you hate me!”

Baekhyun lets out a low laugh, getting up and crawling to the zipper door of the tent. He opens it and steps outside into the night, tears still running down his cheeks. Not wanting to wake the others, he runs through the trees, barefoot, stumbling about. His breathing turns shallow as he realises that he’s become hopelessly lost, with not a single tree or branch to indicate which way he came from. Baekhyun sits on a tree stump and starts panicking.

Oh my god oh my god oh my god.

Breathe in, breathe out, Baekhyun wills himself, but he can’t seem to manage it without making his breathing worse. His panic startles an owl in the tree above, and its movement spooks Baekhyun so he picks himself up, starting to run again. He trips over a rock and his foot begins to bleed, so he panics some more.

“Help!” he finally screeches into the night. Baekhyun’s tears flow freely now, as he pulls himself into a ball at the foot of a tree. His eyes widen as the shifting of underbrush and a strange light barrel towards him. Suppressing a scream, Baekhyun makes himself as small as possible.

“Calm down!” comes a familiar voice, as arms wrap their way around his shoulders. Baekhyun whimpers, as the voice shushes him and he is pulled into a warm embrace.

Kyungsoo’s embrace.

“For the record, I don’t hate you,” Kyungsoo says, as he treats Baekhyun’s foot. Kyungsoo wipes the wound clean with the back of his shirt and takes out a tissue, pressing it tightly to a cut on the heel of Baekhyun’s foot. Despite the pain, Baekhyun is now much calmer, but still evidently uncomfortable that Kyungsoo is the one that rushed to look for him. Uncomfortable that the reason he was out here in the first place was because of Kyungsoo, and that they now have to have this ridiculous conversation.

“Perhaps I was overreacting,” Baekhyun says.

“I don’t think you were overreacting,” Kyungsoo says. “I didn’t really think about how you’d feel when I said that. I guess if you said the same to me, I’d be pretty angry and upset.”

“But it was stupid, too,” Baekhyun winces as Kyungsoo binds his wound. “I mean I could have died out here or something over some little comment.”

“…Well, besides running into the forest with literally nothing, not even shoes, you weren’t that stupid,” Kyungsoo responds sarcastically.

Baekhyun tears up again, turning away from Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo’s eyes soften as he finishes wrapping Baekhyun’s wound, pushing himself under Baekhyun’s left shoulder and using his strength to lift his bandmate up slightly, wincing as Baekhyun yelps when pressure is placed on his injured foot. Kyungsoo wipes the tears out of Baekhyun’s eyes and presses his lips to his forehead, a familiar gesture that doesn't go unnoticed by Baekhyun.

“We need to stop acting all snippy with each other,” Kyungsoo finally says, as he leads Baekhyun back to the campsite. “I’ll be more careful with what I say around you, if you’re OK with doing the same for me. It won’t work if we’re always fighting. I mean, it will be difficult being friends.”

“Friends?” Baekhyun asks in surprise, tremor still evident in his voice.

“Well, if you’d like that… But, to be honest… I’m only really hostile to you because… well… oh, nevermind,” Kyungsoo trails off.

“What?” Baekhyun prompts.

“It’s nothing.”

“Tell me!”

A pause.

“It’s… because I really like you, as in… m-more than a friend!” Kyungsoo says sheepishly, hiding his face in the crook of Baekhyun’s neck as he drags him along.

Baekhyun’s eyes widen in surprise as he stumbles after Kyungsoo, thinking about what impact that revelation will have on his own feelings towards the other, but realizing (rather belatedly) that Kyungsoo's feelings were the same as what he was feeling all along.