A few weeks passed, and the team divided their time between their encampment in Hibiscus Valley and the Five Stars Guesthouse. The more suitable clothing Jisoo had sent for from home finally arrived, so she no longer had to borrow clothing from various members of the team. In time, she also grew used to the heat. 

The flat expanse of the valley that was so smooth before was suddenly full of square holes, each five square meters big and at least one meter deep. Jisoo wished that she had sent for some books or something, too, since there was little for her to do there except make sure her father took his pills and didn’t get heat-.

She filled her time by finding ways to be useful. Sometimes, she would get bottles of chilled water and distribute them to the team or fetch a shovel or a pickaxe. Sometimes, she ended up back in the resting tent, making conversation with Minho. But mostly, she watched Jinyoung.

As much as Jisoo esteemed and trusted her old friend, Minho, she found the things he said about Jinyoung hard to believe. 

Judging from his first reaction to her and her father’s privilege, it seemed unlikely to her that Jinyoung was at all concerned with fame and fortune. In fact, the only thing he seemed concerned about was finding Homo erectus. He seemed to pour every ounce of his energy into that sole pursuit. And every day that passed with no progress, the more irritated he became. At the end of each unlucky day, he would retreat to the cataloging tent to redraft charts and draw up new plans for excavations. The fact that Minho was there, breathing down his neck, also didn’t help his mood. 

Still, Jisoo was… interested. She couldn’t figure him out, and it was bugging her. 

He seemed so boorish and arrogant, but at the same time, she couldn’t deny that there was something kind of alluring about his single-minded determination. She also couldn’t forget the sound of his voice. That time, at dinner at the guesthouse, when he spoke so ardently of his job. 

Jisoo was convinced that no one who has heard him speak that way could ever accuse him of being only interested in fame. 

His attitude was still unattractive, though. Every time he passed by her, he’d give her a scowl and then promptly look away, even when she’d done nothing wrong. In fact, she was going out of her way to make sure she didn’t do anything to annoy him. 

The rest of the team, however, were fairly pleasant. Jisoo liked talking to them, especially Jackson who was about as knowledgeable in archaeology as Jinyoung was in paleoanthropology, except nicer by miles. 

During a digging break in the rest area, Jisoo handed Jackson a water bottle and they discussed the project.

“So, the human species—,” she said.

“Hominid,” Jackson said, politely correcting her.

“The hominid that we’re looking for is Homo Erectus, right?”

“Yupp,” Jackson drank some water. “They were a pretty handy species, so it’s a good idea to look out for anything that might have been tools or weapons. That’s my area of expertise, anyway.” 

“It’s just so fascinating to think that at some point, there were different species of human wandering around, at the same time.”

Jackson nodded. “We’re pretty arrogant, aren’t we? Thinking we’re so special for being the only ones of our kind when just a couple million years ago, there could have been as many Homo species as there are dog breeds.”

Jisoo smiled.

“I never thought it about it like that,” she said, leaning on her arm. “Imagine if they hadn’t all died out. I could be Homo sapiens and you could be… I don’t know, what’s another hominid?”

He shrugged. “Neanderthals were contemporary with Homo sapiens at one point, and… Heidelbergensis, too, right, Gyeom?”

Yugyeom was sitting with them, too. The younger archaeologist finished drinking his water and then pointed the bottle at Jisoo. 

“You know who you should ask about this?” Yugyeom said. “Jinyoung-hyung.”

Jisoo had been afraid that he would suggest that. The whole point of asking Jackson and Yugyeom these questions was to avoid Jinyoung. Beside them, Bambam started to laugh.

“Gyeom, come on,” Bambam said. “She’s busy, she’s got things to do. Trust me, Noona. Unless you want Jinyoung-hyung to talk to you for six hours straight without breathing, definitely do not get him started on paleoanthropology. You’ll be there literally forever.”

“He’s really into this, isn’t he?” Jisoo asked.

Doyoung entered the conversation: “There we have it. The understatement of the century.”

“He’d marry that damned Homo erectus skeleton if he could, probably,” said Yugyeom.

“’Til death do us part,” joked Bambam.

“You know what?” said Jackson. “Maybe you should ask him.”

Jisoo blinked. “I should?”

“Yeah, I mean, I don’t know,” Jackson rubbed the back of his neck. “He might like it. It might smooth things over between you two. Get him talking about something he likes.”

Jisoo was about to scoff at the suggestion, but then she paused and considered it. It had been long enough, she supposed. It was time she and Jinyoung actually became friends. And she was genuinely curious a