“G’morning, Minnie!” Donghae crooned as he literally hopped out of his tent and pounced on the unsuspecting Sungmin with a bear hug. “It’s such a lovely day today, isn’t it? The sun is out, the birds are singing—”

“And your optimism is making me sick.” Sungmin pretended to gag before adjusting his bra strap, which had slid off his arm when Donghae practically squeezed the life out of him. “Where’s Eunhyuk?”

“He’s still in the tent,” he revealed. “He’s packing my stuff for tomorrow.”

Sungmin arched one eyebrow at him, “Can’t you pack your own things?”

“Hyukkie says he’ll feel better if he did the packing for both of us.” He said, shrugging. “He was really insistent about it.”

“Oh yeah, Eunhyuk gets really uptight about keeping things tidy.” Sungmin waved him off. “But anyway, have you seen Heechul? I’ve been looking for him all morning.”

“No, I haven’t,” he shook his head. “But if I see him, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him.”

Sungmin muttered a small thanks before letting him skip off to do God knows what.  He then took a peek inside his former tent, where Eunhyuk was in just as Donghae had mentioned, folding shirts and putting them in neat stacks.

“God, you are such a neat freak.” He snorted.

It only took Eunhyuk less than a minute to toss a dirty glare towards his friend and come up with an equally snarky comeback, “And you look like a drag queen.”

“I prefer the term ‘princess’.” He smiled cheekily as he purposely kicked over the neatly folded stack of shirts Eunhyuk had just made, emitting a small cry of horror from the teenager as he immediately scrambled to put it back together.

“Is there any particular reason you’re here?” he asked, knitting his brows together crossly. “You know, besides annoying the crap out of your supposed best friend?”

“I’m looking for Heechul—” Sungmin didn’t even get a chance to finish his sentence as Eunhyuk cut him off right away.

“Well, he’s not here.” He dismissed gruffly, as he was too engrossed in packing his boyfriend’s things to give a rat’s .

“I can see that,” Sungmin rolled his eyes at his friend’s obsessiveness. “Do you know where he is?”

“No.”

“Well, can you help me look for him at least?”

“No.”

“Gee, I’m glad I can always count on my bestest friend in the whole wide world to help me.” He replied, his voice heavily tinted with sarcasm. “I don’t know how Donghae puts up with you.”

“Boohoo,” Eunhyuk scoffed with just as much as sarcasm as Sungmin did earlier. “Go cry me a river.”

Sungmin had missed these moments between them, ones where all they did was get on each other’s nerves because it was just so damn fun to see each other get annoyed. When Eunhyuk wasn’t looking, Sungmin tilted his head and smiled at him, cherishing the moment while he could. But as soon as Eunhyuk looked up and met his eyes, Sungmin immediately contorted his face back into a frown and stuck his tongue out at him.

Suddenly, the pair was distracted by a distinct ripping noise. Eunhyuk looked down at Donghae’s bag which he was just about to close, but much to his horror, a part of Donghae’s favorite plushie had gotten caught in the zipper. “Oh, no no no no no…Donghae’s gonna freak!”

Deciding he didn’t want to stick around and wait until Donghae murdered Eunhyuk, Sungmin showed himself out. “You’re on your own.”

Before leaving, Sungmin made sure he toppled over the shirts that Eunhyuk had just ever so meticulously restacked, causing the teenager to gasp loudly and glare at the diva once again.

“Lee Sungmin, I swear, Hell is filled with people like you.” He hissed crabbily.

“Well, then I must remember to make an appointment with my fellow clan to worship the devil.” He smirked, flipping his wig hair as if to emphasize his diva-ness.

“You don’t have to worship the devil; the devil worships you!” Eunhyuk responded, making sure to get every last word in as Sungmin made his way out, cackling evilly like a true primadonna.

As Sungmin continued his search for the camp counselor, he happened to overhear a curious conversation in the neighboring tent, or more specifically, the tent he had just moved into a few days ago.

 “Mom…Dad…I’m gay.” There was no mistaking that the hesitant voice belonged to his Kyuhyun. “And yes, I have a boyfriend, and yes, we have , and yes, we’re in love. I don’t care if that makes you love me any less, because if there’s anything I’ve learned from Sungmin, it’s that I shouldn’t give a rat’s what other people think because they don’t ing matter. So yell at me if you like; at this point, I’m ready for anything.”

“…What the heck have they been teaching you at camp?” Sungmin was surprised to hear Siwon’s voice respond.

Kyuhyun groaned, “Siwon! This is a serious matter and you’re not being very helpful right now.”

Siwon let out a small chuckle, “What? I’m using humor as a coping mechanism.”

Finally, Sungmin has had enough and so he poked his head inside, giving them both looks of suspicion. “What the hell are you two doing?”

Kyuhyun seemed to be very flustered, so Siwon spoke for him, “I’m helping Kyuhyun rehearse.”

“For what? A tacky play?” he asked, crossing his arms over his s chest.

“Well, Min, tomorrow’s the last day of camp and I’ve sorta been planning to come out to my parents when I get home…or soon after. Whichever works.” He admitted, blushing faintly.

“Oh, that’s nice,” he remarked mindlessly. “Any luck so far?”

“Not much,” Kyuhyun sighed in despair as he laid his head on Sungmin’s lap. “How did you come out to your parents?”

“Well, my family always sorta knew.” He revealed as he lovingly his boyfriend’s hair. “Apparently, when I was four, I wrote to Santa and asked for a dress and a pair of heels.”

“That’s…” Siwon scrambled his brain for a nice adjective for Sungmin’s colorful anecdote. “That’s interesting.”

“You know what’s funny? When I was eight, all I wanted for Christmas was a bunny.” Kyuhyun sat up, a soft, nostalgic smile on his face. “And now I finally have one.”

“Aww,” Sungmin nearly swooned as he moved to peck Kyuhyun’s lips. “That is so cheesy but at the same time, so sweet.”

“You guys are even more sickening than Eunhyuk and Donghae.” Siwon was unable to stop himself from grimacing at the couple’s public display of affection.

“You’re just jealous because you’re alone.” Sungmin responded, to which Kyuhyun nodded in agreement. “Anyway, I did not come here to be insulted, I came here to look for Heechul. Have either of you seen him?”

Kyuhyun shook his head while Siwon dropped his gaze at the mention of Heechul’s name. “Um, no.” He replied in a tiny voice.

Realizing the sudden tension he had created, Sungmin quickly excused himself. “Okay then, I guess I’ll continue looking elsewhere.”

As Sungmin’s feet landed on the grass on the ground again, he found himself running his manicured nails through his hair in frustration. Just as he was about to give up on his search, his eyes managed to catch a glimpse of a familiar bob of hair by the lake.

“Oh my God, Heechul, no, don’t jump!”

“Hyukkie, what are you doing?”

Eunhyuk jumped at the sound of his boyfriend’s curious voice. He quickly tossed the stuffed animal he was trying to repair out of sight and turned to face Donghae with a nervous, gummy grin. “Hi, sweetheart.”

He returned the smile, “Hey.”

“How are you?”

“Good.”

“Good!”

“Great,” he nodded. “Where’s Nemo? I need to tell him something.”

Eunhyuk’s eyes widened as he prevented Donghae from taking a step further, “But, Hae, why tell Nemo when you can tell me? Your caring and loving boyfriend?”

“But, Hyukkie, I was gonna tell Nemo something about you and it just wouldn’t make sense to tell you something I want to tell Nemo about you…now I’m confused. What were we talking about?”

“I forgot too. Let’s talk about something else!” He proposed, turning Donghae around so his back was to the damaged Nemo he had carelessly thrown aside just a minute ago. “Let’s talk about ice cream!”

“Ooh, Hyukkie, let’s get ice cream when we get home!” He said, grinning widely and hopping up and down in excitement. “I think we have ice cream at our house—oh, you should come to my house! You can meet my parents and my dog, Bada, and I can show you where Nemo stays—” Donghae then promptly turned around before Eunhyuk could stop him, causing him to gasp when he laid his eyes on the ripped clownfish on the floor. “Nemo!”

“Oh God,” Eunhyuk palmed his face as Donghae immediately ran to tend to the plush toy. “Hae, I’m so sorry. It was an accident. I—I’ll fix this, I promise…”

“No need, Hyukkie.”

“What?”

“You don’t need to fix him.”

“I don’t?”

“I can fix him myself.”

“You can?”

“Oh, Hyukkie,” Donghae laughed at Eunhyuk’s baffled demeanor. “I’m not exactly the most careful person ever. I am me, after all. I break Nemo all the time—by accident, of course—but my mom has shown me how to sew so I can put him back together. Didn’t you ever notice the stitches on his body?”

“Um, no, can’t say that I did,” Eunhyuk felt a wave of relief overcome him as he wrapped his arms around Donghae’s shoulders. “Oh God, this is such a relief. I thought we were going to have a big fight over this or something. And I can’t stand the thought of you being mad at me.”

“I can’t stand it either,” he giggled as he pressed Eunhyuk’s cheek against his. “Come on, Hyukkie. Let me show you how to sew so we can fix Nemo. I brought my sewing kit with me to camp in case of a situation like this one.”

“Sewing? Um, I don’t know, Hae,” Eunhyuk rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “That kinda seems like a girly thing…”

“Girly, huh?” Donghae arched one eyebrow at him. “Don’t you own a diary? Where you write about how dreamy my eyes are and how good of a kisser I am—”

“Alright, fine,” he interrupted, blushing as he grabbed Nemo from Donghae. “Teach me how to sew so we can fix this thing.”

Donghae chuckled as he kissed Eunhyuk’s cheek before digging through his backpack for his sewing kit. Eunhyuk, however, folded his arms and pouted, mentally slapping himself for being so careless as to leave his diary lying around for his boyfriend to read.

“I can’t believe you thought I was gonna jump.” Heechul snorted. “If I wanted to kill myself, I’d probably choose an easier method than drowning myself—gun to the mouth, maybe.”

“Well, I’m sorry I was concerned for your life.” Sungmin rolled his eyes. “I don’t even know why I got so worried. I should’ve let you jump.”

“I wasn’t going to jump.”

“Then I should’ve pushed you in.” He huffed, crossly turning his face away from his.

“What’s with you today? You’re being even ier than usual.” He remarked.

“I don’t know,” he sighed, feeling his spiteful façade slowly disappearing. “I guess I’m just sore about leaving tomorrow. I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but I’m gonna miss this place.”

“I know what you mean,” Heechul smiled in sympathy. “Once we leave camp tomorrow, we have to return to the real world. I have to be the art teacher again, you guys have to be students again and, well, I guess I’m gonna be stuck pretending that nothing happened between Siwon and I. It’s probably gonna be really hard though…seeing him in class everyday…”

“Oh, don’t worry. You’ll get over it.” He assured him as he rested his chin on Heechul’s shoulder. “And if you don’t well, I’ll always be right here with all the ice cream and sad chick flicks you need.”

Heechul smiled and kissed Sungmin’s temple. For a moment there, it seemed like Heechul was finally given the chance to appreciate the peace and solitude that nature brought. “Sometimes, I like to come here to think,” he admitted. “Just to clear my head, you know?”

“So this is where you have been the whole time.” Sungmin said. “I’ve been looking for you all freaking morning. Do you have any idea how much I need a pedicure right now? I would’ve asked Eunhyuk for one, but let’s face it, you’re just much better at giving mani-pedis.”

“Sungmin—”

“Although, I can see that your nails need some buffing too. Oh, and I’ve been meaning to tell you this: your roots are showing. You totally need to dye your hair again. Plus, your eyes have gotten so puffy from all the crying you’ve been doing. That’s enough to convince me that you desperately need a make-over…although I’m not sure I can do much with those wrinkles of yours that are starting to show. Ever thought of getting Botox—?”

“Oh, for—” Heechul rolled his eyes at Sungmin’s talkativeness. “For once in your life, would you please shut up?”

And with that out in the open, Heechul promptly pushed Sungmin into the water, making his frustration with the teenager quite clear.  Heechul, feeling slightly better about himself, walked away with a triumphant smile as he ignored the sounds of water splashing about and Sungmin repeatedly cursing Heechul’s name.

Fourteen chapters down. One more left to go.