Yoongi was not having a good time. He hated everything about this trip, including the people he was forced to spend it with. The only thing that was keeping him somewhat sane was all the gold he would be awarded at the end of it all.

He leaned his back against the nearest pine tree, stretching his legs out in front of him, crossing his arms, and closing his eyes. Perhaps if the abhorrent birds stopped their cheerful chirping and the annoying sun would not shine so brightly, he could sneak in a couple more moments of sleep.

Tuning out the obnoxious sound of Seokjin and Taehyung’s laughter in front of him, he tried to picture all the things he would do with his piles of gold. Maybe he could start a business, or buy a brothel, or—

“Hyung!” Taehyung’s voice suddenly exclaimed, interrupting Yoongi’s rare moment of peace, “that is not how you are supposed to chop wood!”

Yoongi opened his eyes with the sole purpose of glaring at Taehyung, but he could not help but be vaguely amused upon seeing the comic scene in front of him.

The two idiots were chopping wood to start a morning fire while the ladies roamed the forest, looking for acceptable logs. Taehyung’s technique – though sloppy and in Yoongi’s opinion, subpar – seemed to be working well enough, as evidenced by the neat pile of wood chunks beside him. Seokjin, on the other hand, had placed a log on the ground and was repeatedly slashing it with an ax – causing small, irregular pieces to fall off chaotically.

Yoongi ducked just as a sliver of wood flew towards his head.

“Yah!” Yoongi screamed, “learn how to chop wood properly or don’t ing do it all.”

Taehyung wiped the gleam of sweat that had formed on his forehead before turning towards him, “as if you could do better.”

Yoongi barely blinked at his challenging tone, unfortunately used to his bull at this point in his life, “nice try, but I am not helping you.”

Just as he finished this sentence, Jisoo, Lisa, and Chaeyoung entered the clearing, each of them holding a heavy chunk of wood in their arms. Yoongi cleared his throat and casually got up, walking towards Seokjin and Taehyung as the ladies approached from the other side. Not wanting to appear useless, he snatched Seokjin’s ax and shoved him aside.

He raised the weapon high in the air before slicing down, neatly cracking the cylinder of wood in half, as the two other men watched him in amusement.

“I thought you were not going to help us?” Seokjin raised a brow at him, which Yoongi completely ignored.

Taehyung released a deep scoff, “he’s not doing it for us. He’s trying to impress the ladies.”

“I just have nothing better to do right now,” Yoongi defended himself smoothly, mentally cursing Taehyung for always calling him on his bluffs.

With the corner of his eye, he saw Taehyung and Seokjin exchange a knowing glance, which Yoongi (again completely) ignored just as the three ladies reached them.

“Don’t hurt yourself, Princess,” Taehyung teased.

Yoongi paused momentarily, glancing up in time to see Taehyung taking the heavy wood off the Princess’s hands, their arms gently grazing each other’s. He scoffed under his breath at Taehyung’s uncharacteristically gallant action but continued to watch them with interest.

“The only thing I want to hurt right now is you,” she countered quickly, narrowing her eyes at him as he smirked at her. Yoongi suppressed a laugh – perhaps this trip would not be as boring as he thought.

“Wow, did someone wake up on the wrong side of the forest this morning?” Taehyung continued to tease, “you should save all this aggressive energy for our training session later.”

“Can you two stop flirting long enough to start this fire?” Jisoo asked, throwing her log to the ground with a loud thud.

“We are not flirting,” they both replied at the same time, causing the rest of the group to collectively chuckle.

Yoongi rolled his eyes, keeping his face expressionless as he walked towards the firepit, “I can start the fire.”

“Perfect,” Jisoo took the ax from him, “I will help chop the wood while you do that.”

Yoongi’s eyes widened in surprise as she hauled the ax above her head and began breaking the logs effortlessly. He could not help but stare at her long flowing hair and slender fingers as she repeatedly broke off chunks of the wood in a smooth motion that put his own technique to shame. It was unbelievable how she managed to possess so much strength and beauty at once.

Sensing his eyes on her, she glanced at his frozen figure questioningly, “is there a problem?”

Yoongi cleared his throat as Taehyung laughed lightly in front of him, no doubt witnessing his awestruck reaction. Without another word he turned sharply and walked away.

After a low fire was burning smoothly in the middle of the clearing, the group gathered around it to warm up and discuss the plan for the day.

“The first thing we need is to find food,” Jisoo announced, “since Taehyung and Chaeyoung will be using the morning to train, that only leaves 4 of us to hunt. But, we also need at least 2 people to guard our belongings, which leaves 2 available people to gather food in the end.”

“How are we going to decide who does what?” Lisa asked while braiding her long auburn hair.

Jisoo quickly picked up four twigs from the ground and hid them behind her back as she shuffled them around randomly. Then she used both her hands to cover the bottom of the twigs and held them out towards the middle of the circle.

“Everyone pick a stick. The ones who pick the shortest will have to go hunting together.”

Seokjin was the first to choose, followed by Yoongi, and then Lisa. Together, they held the sticks in front of them to compare sizes. Immediately, Yoongi felt his heart drop as he saw the results. Seokjin and Lisa began to cheer animatedly, squealing and jumping up and down like ing four-year-olds.

It appeared, Yoongi and Jisoo were about to spend some quality time together. He just hoped they wouldn’t kill each other along the way.

~{❀}~

Chaeyoung laughed as she watched Yoongi and Jisoo grumpily walk away through the expanse of tall pine trees, each carrying a bow and several arrows in their hands. They were already starting to bicker, so she could only imagine the fun they would have on their quest to find food.

“What are you laughing at?” Taehyung gave her a long side-glance, his eyes filled with mischief, “you are about to embark on a far more stressful experience than them.”

She knew he was referring to the training they were about to have, and although he tried his best to make it seem terribly strenuous, Chaeyoung was still excited to finally learn the art of combat. As she had repeatedly stated before, she had always wanted to fight. No matter how intensive Taehyung wanted to make this, she was eager to start and determined to learn.

“How many times do I have to tell you? You don’t scare me, Kim Taehyung,” she replied, plastering a bored expression on her face.

Taehyung rolled his eyes, “let’s see if you can still say that in a couple hours. Follow me.”

Chaeyoung had to practically run to keep up with Taehyung’s long strides as he led her deeper into the forest. The morning sun beamed down on the array of green trees, illuminating a twisted trail that ran between them like a river of brown soil.

Suddenly, Taehyung began to jog, and Chaeyoung really had to sprint to catch up with him.

“We’re going to start with a short warm-up run to loosen our muscles,” he explained when she reached him.

She groaned internally but remained silent as she jogged alongside him. It was way too early in the day for this. Also, it did not help t