Summer 2002

When summer was just around the corner, one afternoon Sung-min's mother came home with an extraordinary idea of what the boys could do instead of lazing around for months.

“Summer camp!” She presented happily, waving a bulletin which had arrived in the mail.

Hyuk-jae and Sung-min looked at each other, then at the bulletin.

“Mum, won't that be expensive?” Sung-min said as he took a sip of his bubble tea.

“Not at all, you see, your father's company is sponsoring this event, so you can go for free.”

“Sung-min, you're so lucky to have a father who is a CEO in a company, you get all the freebies.” Hyuk-jae whined, trying to look at him with puppy eyes.

“Not that fast, young man,” Sung-min's mother said, “you can tag along with Sung-min. I'll send you two together so you won't have to pay for anything.”

Hyuk-jae stood up abruptly and did his own version of a victory dance, and soon after he hugged Sung-min's mother tightly while repeating “thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Sung-min also got up and hugged Hyuk-jae, both of them going upstairs exclaiming they had to plan what they were going to bring with them.

There were two days left of school before summer holidays, and even more important – summer camp was only four days away.

During lunch, Hyuk-jae was intently staring at the summer camp bulletin.

“Sung-min, here it says that we have to sign up for two extra activities, what did you sign up for?”

“Not telling.” Sung-min mumbled in between chewing his food.

“Why not? I need to know so we can end up together!”

“That's exactly it! And if you choose the same that I do, you'll only end up at it and making a fool of yourself in front of others we don't even know!”

“B-but-”

“Look,”Sung-min interrupted, “if you choose what you want now, I'll tell you what I chose, but don't change it afterwards, okay?”

“Fine.” Hyuk-jae grunted, and returned to looking at the bulletin.

After five minutes of going back and forth between various ridiculous activities (Sung-min honestly didn't know why they were even listed there), Hyuk-jae chose dance and composition.

“So, what did you choose?” Hyuk-jae asked curiously.

“Piano and martial arts.”

Hyuk-jae collapsed to the floor.

They had only spent one day at the camp but the boys had never had so much fun in their entire lives. Amongst many exciting activities such as fishing and small alcohol-free parties at night, it was quite refreshing for the pair of them to meet other kids who didn't pick on them.

Hyuk-jae didn't really like the idea of having to be apart from Sung-min, though, but he was glad he had met two nice boys in his dance class.

“Did you come here by yourself?” The smaller one of them, Dong-hae, asked.

“Nope, I came here with my best friend.” Hyuk-jae smiled, putting on a slightly bragging tone as he talked about how he was able to come for free because his friend's father happened to be the CEO of the company who sponsored the camp.

“You sure are lucky!” Dong-hee, the other boy, exclaimed. “I've been wanting to attend a summer camp for years, so my parents scraped up all their money for this.”

“Mine did too, although I initially didn't want to come here.” Dong-hae confessed.

“So what else did you choose apart from dancing class?” Dong-hee asked the boys as he took off his cap.

“Oh, I chose composition.” Hyuk-jae said.

“Really?!” Dong-hae exclaimed, “ I chose the same!”

“Then we'll be together there too!”

“We will!”

It was lunch time, and Sung-min was standing in the entrance of the cafeteria waiting for Hyuk-jae. He had stood there for a good 10 minutes, and had witnessed how most of the tables had now been occupied, only leaving 4 empty.

He looked worriedly at his watch, and decided to wait for five more minutes before going to look for him.

The minutes passed by slowly, and when Sung-min stepped outside, he saw Huk-jae sitting outside with two boys he had never seen before.

He noticed there were crumbs of bread all over Hyuk-jae, who had a habit of eating like a pig, so he quickly went inside again and chose an empty table where he could sit.

Ridiculous, he knew, but he felt too betrayed to have any sort of human contact at the moment.

“Excuse me?” He heard, and looked up at a young boy who had been in his piano class, “Can I sit here?”

Sung-min stared at the boy for a second, before (without much thinking), moved to the side so the boy could sit by his right.

"You're Sung-min, right?" The boy asked as he sat down.

"Yeah," Sung-min replied, feeling a little guilty for not remembering the boy's name, "I'm sorry but I can't remember what you're called."

The boy smiled, a sweet laughter escaping his plump lips, "My name's Ryeo-wook, and it's okay - I know I don't have a strong presence."

"How has your day been?" Hyuk-jae asked as Sung-min entered their shared cabin.

Sung-min stared at the boy, who was lying in bed reading a One Piece manga. He knew it was stupid, but he was still angry at the boy for dumping him.

It wasn't that Hyuk-jae couldn't have friends of his own, but he could have told him that he was going to eat with somebody else, at least then he wouldn't have looked like a fool.

"Hey," Hyuk-jae said as he got up to sit on the bed, "I asked you something, is everything all right?"

"Everything's just fine."

"Oh? Don't you know them?" Ryeo-wook asked while looking at him with big doe eyes, "but I thought you and Hyuk-jae - ssi were friends?"

"Yeah, but I don't really know much about his friends except for what their names are, and since you go to the same school as them..." Sung-min let the rest of the phrase hanging, knowing that Ryeo-wook would understand.

"The fatty is Shin Dong-hee, he is okay, but does go overboard with his jokes at times." Ryeo-wook said matter-of-factly, "The other one is Lee Dong-hae, he may not look like it, but he's not only good looks; he's smart, funny and has lots of talents, a true wonderboy."

"Sounds like you like him a lot." Sung-min commented, but decided to change the subject when he saw the other boy blushing.

Managed to write most of this in the bus on my way home, ugh. Anyway, I'm having lots of fun with it, and I really enjoy your lovely comments, thank you~ ;; 

As you can see, this story follows the boys through the years, so they're supposedly 16 years old here (17 in Korean age), so yeah - something like this.

I'm planning to make the upcoming and last chapters have slightly more mature content, so be prepared for that. :)

P.S I really hope nobody gets offended by Ryeo-wook calling Shindong "fatty", but don't most boys talk like that, anyway?