Mr. Cha took the cows home shortly after Jungkook had been brought back to the hut, came back by the time the campfire was becoming stable, then stayed to drink and talk till around 1 a.m. So he was still there when, 1 and a half hours after falling asleep, Jungkook woke up with the need to pee and went outside to take care of it. As he was coming back, Seokjin saw him and came towards him.

S: “Why’d you go outside like that? Look at you – you’re shivering.”

J: “It’s fine… Is Taehyung drunk?”

S: “He’s so drunk he almost believed Mr. Cha about the Earth being flat. Get inside now.”

J: “Oh… How come Mr. Cha’s hanging out with you guys at this hour?”

S: “I invited him to hang out with us. Wanna eat again or go back to bed?”

J: “Eat.” Jungkook said then followed Seokjin with a puzzled gaze as the latter was getting the food ready. “But… weren’t you bothered by him and his constant presence?”

S: “I learned to not freak out in the presence of snakes, I can learn to not be bothered by Mr. Cha.”

J: “Why? For that so-called love?” Jungkook asked, making Seokjin snort.

S: “Who in their right mind would put up with stuff like this for such a vague and intangible thing? My reason is called Kim Namjoon. You know him. He’s pretty palpable and complex and a lot of fun. It’s nice having him in your life, isn’t it? It feels good seeing him happy, right? Now take those feelings, multiply them by 10, add a good giving up and gaining ratio along with quite a few other things and then you get my reason.” Seokjin finished while placing the food on the table in front of Jungkook.

J: “I see… I guess it’s good that both of you have similar mindsets about all the compromising being well worth it. But I won’t be following in your steps. Even if I were willing to, I probably can’t.”

S: “What do you mean?”

J: “I didn’t intend to get lost for so long or have my phone die at such a time, but it happened and it wasn’t like I chose to be reckless for the fun of it. And it’s also not like this experience thought me to be more careful ‘cause, if it worked like that, all those other times I went through rough times would’ve done the job already. So I’ll continue being like this, both unintentionally and by choice.”

S: “Okay, but who’s asking you to stop being reckless? If it worked like that, I would’ve hired a debate team and written a dozen essays.”

J: “No one’s literally asking me to, but… Don’t you find it odd that, given Taehyung’s personality and principles, instead of staying with me, staying sober and ready to go into action if something more happens, he got drunk enough to render him useless in case of an emergency?”

S: “It is out of character for him, I agree…”

J: “Which means that all those hours of worrying and seeing me in the state I was when they found me probably pushed him beyond some sort of limit. I like seeing him go over his limits, I think it’s really cool how he does that, but not like this. This just hurts for both of us… Either I make him suffer or he makes me suffocate. Neither option’s okay, so this should come to an end pretty soon…”

S: “Woooow…. Such angst! Such a dramatic dilemma! Oh my!” Seokjin ironically let out while snorting and then wholeheartedly laughing. “You know, for someone so inventive when it comes to ways to have fun and ways to get out of trouble, your thinking is so limited on this. Why is it even a matter of one or the other when it can be both or neither or both to an acceptable extent? Did you even ask Taehyung to see what he thinks of the matter? Maybe he already accepted dealing with this kind of person and with the implications of that. Maybe he’ll change as a person along the way because there are already signs of that. Maybe all you’ll have to do is avoid the obvious grave dangers that you can avoid because, you know, that’s just common sense. Or maybe Taehyung got drunk because he completely stopped giving a about you after today and this decision is not yours to make anymore.”

At that last part, Jungkook stopped gobbling down half of Seokjin’s and Namjoon’s remaining food supplies and just followed Seokjin with wide eyes as the latter started getting the inflatable mattress ready, because it was clear that no one was driving back to the guest house that night.

J: “Taehyung wouldn’t stop giving a about me… Not over something like this.”

S: “Oh? Then why didn’t he come check up on you even once?” Seokjin said, deliberately omitting that Taehyung asked about how Jungkook was doing every time Seokjin exited the hut after checking up on him and that, when he was asked why he doesn’t go check up on Jungkook himself, Taehyung said “I can’t. That’ll bring back things I’m trying to drown out right now.”.

Jungkook was still and silent for a few moments, then got up and attempted leaving the hut, until…

S: “Stop right there! If you wanna talk to him, you’ll do it in the morning.”

J: “Why?”

S: “He’s too intoxicated right now to hold a proper conversation and because I think it’s good for you to learn what it feels like to be stuck in a state of anxiety for several hours.”

Despite being exhausted, Jungkook didn’t manage to fall back asleep. At around 1 a.m., Namjoon and Taehyung came back into the hut and the latter had started his sleeping process even before crashing on the inflatable mattress. Jungkook fell asleep shortly after that and, when Thursday morning came and he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a post-it in Seokjin’s writing that read:

“We went shopping for food and stuff. Take care of things here till we’re back. If there’s a problem or you want something from town, call either one of us. Drink water! I left it on the table. Peace!”

Then Jungkook saw that Taehyung was sleeping on his side with his face towards him and he reached out a hand to touch that face, but Taehyung squirmed at the contact, then turned around to sleep on his other side. Jungkook was so taken aback that he froze with widely open eyes and an arm still suspended in the air between them. He got up into sitting position, shook Taehyung’s shoulder lightly and called out his name, but the still sleeping Taehyung tried shaking him off. Jungkook tried again with more agitation and volume in his voice and, this time, Taehyung pulled the cover over his head to block him out. Jungkook was getting restless and yelled Taehyung’s name, until…

T: “What?” Taehyung yelled back at him as he shot up into sitting position, then felt sharp pain going in all directions inside his head, so he closed his eyes and held it between his hands. “Aaaaaaa…”

J: “Jin left water and probably some pills too on the table.”

Taehyung got up, still holding his head with one hand, went to the table, drank half a liter of water, took a pill, drank the other half, went back to the mattress and laid on his side to continue sleeping with his back towards Jungkook.

J: “Taehyung.”

T: “What?”

J: “Face me.”

T: “I don’t want to.”

J: “Face me!”

T: “No!”

J: “Come on, face me for crying out loud!”

Taehyung let out a sharp breath full of dissatisfaction, but turned around to face and look at Jungkook.

T: “Happy now?”

J: “Uh, I think so…” Jungkook let out, wondering if it wasn’t actually messed up to be happy and relieved about Taehyung doing something he didn’t want to do just because Jungkook wanted it.

T: “I’m going back to sleep.”

J: “Don’t. We need to talk.”

T: “About what?”

J: “What do you think I should give up?”

T: “Huh?”

J: “In other words, what do you want from me?”

T: “Nothing.”

J: “Nothing?”

T: “I have no expectations of you.” Taehyung said with a bit more bite than intended because he was in a bad mood and he didn’t feel like explaining that he was trying to have that kind of mindset to neither make Jungkook feel controlled nor make himself feel disappointed or regretful later on.

J: “I see.” Jungkook said, his voice clearly indicating that something was wrong, then he laid down on his side with his back towards Taehyung.

T: “Hey… Hey, Jungkook! Face me!”

J: “…”

T: “Well, whatever…” Taehyung let out alongside a short, breathy laugh, then also turned with his back towards Jungkook. “I knew you’d turn away sooner or later.”

J: “What do you mean by that?” Jungkook yelled as he shot up feeling offended.

T: “Nothing. Give it a rest.”

For a few moments, only Jungkook’s heavy breathing could be heard and it sounded like he was either angry or something else was wrong.

J: “I’m not committed in relationships, I don’t believe in love, I’m reckless and I hate being controlled. You knew it would end badly if you got involved with me, so you were scared. But you still wanted to, so you took a leap of faith, but you decided to not have any expectations to make it easier for both of us.”

T: “If you knew all that, why even ask? Also, apparently, I’m more reckless that I thought I’d ever be…”

J: “I knew all that… but it only really clicked now…” Jungkook said, moving to lay beside Taehyung and back-hug him. “Giving up and gaining. You started way ahead of me with that, but I… I want to put in effort too.”

T: “You don’t have to.”

J: “If I have to, then I want to. Because… I want us to have fun by each other’s side.”

Taehyung felt his heart rate going up, so he moved to free himself from Jungkook’s hold, his other side to face him and said:

T: “You can’t say these things if you don’t mean it. If I start having expectations, I can’t get back to where I am now.”

J: “But I mean it.” Jungkook said, cupping Taehyung’s face with his hands and moving to give him a long kiss on the forehead. “I mean it.” he repeated in a whispered voice after moving down so they could look in each other’s eyes before sharing the most emotional and loving of their kisses so far.

Then Taehyung got chocked up and tried to not cry, so they switched to hugging each other tightly.

Outside of the hut, Seokjin was leaning with his back against the car and with his arms crossed for Namjoon to come back from listening at the door of the hut that was still closed.

S: “So can we go in now?”

N: “Let’s give them 10 more minutes, alright?”

Later on that Thursday, they finally finished the space for keeping the wood dry and it was just in time because a heavy rainfall had started. They hurriedly gathered the wood and placed it in the new space for it, then ran inside the hut. But they had to stop and undress at the entrance because, by that time, water was dripping from all of their clothes.

After dinner, they toasted to the recent completion of the project Namjoon, Jungkook and Taehyung had been working on for the last few days, but Taehyung didn’t want to ingest alcohol again so soon after the previous night, so he designated himself as the driver for that night.

Upon reaching the guest house, Taehyung and Jungkook went straight for the latter’s room where they did things they had wanted to do since that morning.

Friday morning came and another loud thud, caused by something another resident of that guest house did, woke Jungkook up and put a frown on his face. Taehyung was still mostly asleep and just snuggled closer to Jungkook who hugged him tightly and felt blissful until a realization hit him – 2 more days and those kinds of mornings wouldn’t take place anymore as, on Sunday, both Jungkook and Taehyung would have to go back to their regular urban lives with work and a lot of routine.

So Jungkook thought he should talk to Taehyung about what they would do after the trip ended, if and how they were going to continue seeing each other, and maybe Jungkook could even suggest moving in with him to Taehyung, since he remembered hearing something about Taehyung wanting to move out of his parents’ place.

It was no wonder Taehyung hadn’t said anything about such matters yet because, until a day ago, he didn’t have expectations for their relationship. But Jungkook was awkward about approaching this topic so, as he drove them to the hut, the asphalted road ended and he had finished 3 cigarettes on the way there, but he still had not said anything.

J: “Do we have a plan for today?”

T: “I think Joon said something about going exploring.”

J: “Where though? I did so much “exploring” on Wednesday that everything started looking the same.”

T: “We’ll see when we get there I guess.”

They ended the conversation there because Jungkook had to concentrate a lot to drive on the dirt road. It had rained since the previous day’s afternoon until early morning, so there were a lot of holes hidden under puddles of water and it was hard getting enough traction in areas full of mud.

He had to make a tight right turn at a point where the fence, which comprised a few sets of 2 wooden boards on 2 thin and short wooden poles, was broken and had partially fallen down the slope, probably because a car or something had ran into it and went over the edge along with it.

Jungkook thought he had made it when the front of the car was finally going in the intended direction, but the back of the car didn’t follow. On a road where there was less friction than usual, at a narrow corner and with a heavier than average car, the wheels in the back skid to the left more than they should’ve, went over the edge where even the small protection offered by the wooden fence wasn’t present anymore, pulled the car backwards because that side was lower than the front of the car, started to go down the slope and lift up the front of the car in the process.

J: “Oh, !” Jungkook let out as he aggressively hit the parking brake.

They kept going down a few more centimeters until they stopped and Jungkook slowly pulled on the manual break to hopefully increase the chances of the car remaining still.

J: “Don’t move! At all!”

T: “I’m not even breathing over here.”

J: “I’m gonna slowly take my foot off the break. Let me know if you feel any slight movement.”

There weren’t any movements and that, at least, was a good sign. Then Jungkook unlocked all the doors, automatically rolled down all the windows and turned off the engine.

T: “What should we do now?”

J: “We’re gonna have to slowly exit the car at the exact same time.”

T: “How? There’s a wooden fence blocking the door on your side. It won’t open properly.”

J: “I’ll pull myself out through the window.”

T: “And then what? You’re just gonna fall and roll down the cliff.”

J: “It’s better if that happens while I’m not inside the car. The earth should be softer from all the rain and I can stop myself when I get into a good position.” Jungkook explained while unbuckling his seatbelt.

T: “But…”

J: “I’ll manage, Taehyung. You just make sure you also get out safely, okay?”

Taehyung stopped asking questions, unbuckled his seatbelt, opened the car door, slowly shifted on his seat and put his feet outside without moving his weight yet while Jungkook carefully got into a squatting position on the driver’s seat and reached with his arms outside the window to grab the top of the car.

J: “When I say “Go!”, you count 1-2 really fast and then immediately get out. Okay?”

T: “Okay.”

J: “Ready… Go!”

A.N. I have nothing specific, so here's another campfire :)