“Nako!”

The girl that was called gave her attention to the instructor, “Yes, ma'am.”

“I can see that you have been eyeing the fire tools, would you like to try?”

The look that glazed over her eyes reminded everyone of the same look that Yuri had in hers, only this time it was more intense and sinister and it even unsettled Yuri a tiny bit.

Yena audibly gulped, “Why are you so scary when you get anything remotely dangerous?” Nako didn’t answer the question that was, very likely, floating around in IZ*ONE’s minds. However, Yuri answered for them.

“When Nako and I met, we happened to talk about our weird fascination with fire despite the language barrier. We had a little meeting behind the dorm buildings once and we started a fire, but we doused it immediately since we didn’t want to kill you guys.”

Nako finally spoke up, but the glint in her eyes never dissipated, “Gaeun heard us talking about starting another one but behind a different building, but she just said, ‘Back in my day, we lit up flaming wooden balls behind our school.’ She wasn’t even that old, and we didn’t believe her. But her story has given me a new goal that I would love to achieve.”

Wonyoung wanted to lift the scary mood but didn’t know what to say, so she just said what Hyewon, Yujin, and Yena said whenever they saw something indescribable.

“Bruh moment.”

Those two words was all it took for everyone to forget the hair-raising tale that Nako and Yuri had told. Everyone, even the Fire Sisters and Instructor M, guffawed.

Even after all that, Nako still attempted her fire. From the eyes of everyone, it looked like the short woman barely stuck the flint before the pile of tinder bursts into flames. Everyone jumped back at least a foot and a half, except for Yuri and Nako, and they watched as the fire that had seemingly exploded from nothing set into a reasonable size. If Yuri was the fire starting princess, then Nako was the fire starting queen. She managed to lessen the size of the flame by just hovering her hands over the fire.

“Well then,” Instructor M coughed, “I guess you guys figured out who your designated fire starters are.” She then picked up the still immobile chicken and its stubborn kin, which was inside a cage that she had brought in to at least help the girls, and started towards the door, “I’m gonna go ask the kitchen to prepare the chicken for your, I guess, kinda late lunch. But this would be a good time to go look for some nature snacks in the meantime. So I’ll be right back, and I promise I’ll be super fast.” Then she disappeared behind the door.
 

So they just sat down around the fire, that was just stomped by their resident short girl, and chattered mindlessly. Sakura, Hitomi, and Wonyoung, however, took out their phones and started researching about anything edible in Fiji, or just jungles in general. The maknae and the bread lover watched videos and Sakura was reading some articles and blogs about food items that can be found in jungles that resemble those in Fiji.

All the while, Hitomi reached into her small backpack and pulled out a bungeoppang (Korean carp bread) and tore off little equal pieces for the entire group.

“This is my last piece of bread and I know everyone is starving so….” She didn’t finish her sentence as her point was already proven. Everyone thanked her, and they ate their piece of bread.

And then they waited for, maybe, three more minutes before the door opened and revealed Instructor M with multiple tote bags and nylon sacks. She handed them out to only three people, that coincidentally were the three girls that researched about food.

“Alright, so in those bags are a pack of laminated cards that have pictures and information on the sorts of things that you can eat in Fiji. Just so you know, before you guys got here we changed some stuff around in the Jungle Field to make it resemble the wilderness of Fiji as much as possible. So whatever you find here, you can find in Fiji.”

She walked over to one of the big rocks near the edge of the clearing and sat on it, “You guys can take as much time as you need, but the kitchen will be done with the chickens in about fifteen minutes. Oh, and please gather up into groups of four.

Wonyoung and Hitomi just stood in place, waiting for the others to come to them. Sakura immediately ran to Chaeyeon, who was already standing next to Hyewon and Eunbi and formed a group with her and the nearby members.

The maknae, realizing that having the bag and having been researching beforehand had made her the leader of the small group, suddenly tensed up due to stress. She was not used to leading a group, much less being into the position of power without much discussion. Minjoo caught a glimpse of the young girl’s expression and sensed that her dongsaeng was fighting an internal struggle. She grabbed hold of the people nearest to her, Nako and Yujin, and dragged them to the frozen girl in the middle of their group.

“Wonyoung,” the girl snapped out of her stupor and looked for the voice that called her. “We're here to join you. Don’t worry, we’re not here to ask you to be our leader. We’ll all work together.”

The bunny girl finally smiled, “Okay, unnie!”

That left Hitomi, Yena, Chaewon, and Yuri as a group, which they were pretty content with. The duck was excited to be in a group with Yuri, while Chaewon was glad that there were at least two ‘normal’ people in the group that could at least control Yena. But it seems like that won’t be an issue since their resident hamster already had the ability to restrain the main rapper.

The young women gave themselves a team name, Hitomi’s team was Bread Boys, Sakura’s was, Visual Dancers, and Wonyoung’s was the Animal Squad. After a few minutes of discussion between the three groups, they all entered the jungle one by one and then, eventually, only the Visual Dancers remained.

“So,” Hyewon started “Are we gonna have a leader? Because it seems that the other groups don’t have a leader.”

“Well we have Eunbi unnie, but it’s up to her,” Sakura shrugged.

Chaeyeon also added, “Sakura’s also the one who looked up some stuff we can eat.”

Eunbi just shushed everyone and looked at them incredulously. She rolled her eyes, “Look, can we just not have a leader like the rest? Plus, I wanna see you guys work ‘without’ any authority figures.”

Chaeyeon hummed in agreement and Sakura said “m’kay,” while Hyewon just cocked her head at the oldest with a look that said This might be a bad idea but okay, sure, as long as I get food.

Then they went inside the simulated wilderness of the Jungle Field.

Nako led their small team with Wonyoung in tow. Minjoo and Yujin were a few footsteps behind just in case that the two in front missed something. Their resident baby bunny was chatting with the short woman about the things they could find.

Honestly, Yujin doesn’t understand why she agreed to name their group “Animal Squad.” Okay, so maybe she was a puppy, Wonyoung was a baby bunny and Minjoo was a frog, but what in the world was Nako? A spider? She was crawling on all fours to catch the chicken earlier. 

Not wanting to plague her mind with the question of Nako’s potential wildlife organism, she decided to ask her unnie.

“Nako unnie!” Yujin called out to the woman in front of her.

The said girl turned her head around, but kept walking, “What’s up, ‘Yujinie’?”

Yujin raised her eyebrows in confusion to the endearing but uncalled for and weird, nickname that she would’ve never expected the woman of small stature say. To her left, she saw Minjoo tense up and look away from the conversation, hiding her face in her hair.

“What’s with the nickname- ah you know what, that’s not important right now. I’ll ask later.” Her tone insinuated that she would not be dropping this and would continue this conversation at a later and more appropriate time. Next to her, the oldest of the maknae line seemed to relax a bit and let her face free from the strands of her hair.

Nako just shrugged and motioned her to continue. Beside the short girl, she noticed that Wonyoung had a small and awkward frown gracing her delicate and soft face. The tall young woman (her height making a hilarious contrast to the person next to her) fixed her face into feigned wonder when she realized that Yujin had seen her face.

“Yo! You gonna ask me or are you just gonna stare through Wonyoung’s skull?” she was joking but there was a slightly bitter undertone in her statement.

Yujin shook her head and rubbed her neck, apologizing repeatedly for losing focus. Minjoo laughed at her, “You know she’s been doing that a lot lately.”

Wonyoung finally spoke up into their conversation, “Probably because there have been things that are catching her attention.” She was smiling now, but it was more like a knowing smirk. Then she saw something to Nako, “Or someone.”

Minjoo didn’t see anything, but she ushered the younger to inquire about the question, that was now suddenly forgotten until she was reminded, on her mind.

“O-oh yeah…. Well, Nako unnie what animal are you? Since were the Animal Squad, I’d like to know why you fit the criteria.”

“HEH! That’s easy. I’m a Firehawk!”

The other three girls did a spit take. She’s what?

They pressed her for answers while trekking across the dirt floor that was densely populated by undergrowth, tree roots, and dead leaves that have fallen from its resting place at the top of the tree. Nako explained that Google had somehow caught on her fascination with fire and recommended her an article about these hawks in Australia. Apparently, they carry fire in their beaks and have caused several forest fires in the country.

“Wow~! That’s so cool!” Wonyoung exclaimed with, this time, real wonder in her eyes.

The Animal Squad, now with more confidence in their name after knowing of Nako’s animal, resumed their idle chatter whilst observing the jungle for anything edible.

Eunbi can’t help but wonder how the three other people in her group could find so much food in the little time, which was only five minutes by the way, that they spent searching. Sakura was spotting fruits and veggies left, right, and center and Hyewon and Chaeyeon, both with their combined athlet