"Hey," Dongwan said. He nudged Minwoo with his elbow before jerking his chin at Minwoo's biceps. "I like your guns."

Minwoo wanted to drop to the dusty ground at that, but the fact that he was supporting a machine gun with his whole body would have made it slightly difficult. In fact, everyone around him was holding one of the things slanted across the chest, from hip to shoulder. 

"Shut up," Minwoo hissed. Dongwan's puns . Especially when they were created in the middle of a very serious training session, when none of them dared to crack a single smile.

Dongwan fell silent, albeit with a very satisfied expression, and Minwoo relaxed. He shifted the weapon in his hands closer to the crook of his neck, his shoulder whining. He did not have the attention span to pay due mind to whatever the higher officer in front of him was telling them. He felt sticky with all the sweat even though it wasn't particularly hot out, and his throat was slightly parched. The gun was getting heavy, and that they weren't using the weapons - only clinging to them - was a sign that the exercise was really meant for disciplinary purposes.

"But," Dongwan said. Minwoo glanced over at him, keeping his peripheral vision on the officer in case he had an order to give. Dongwan moved the gun into one hand, holding it at the base and leaning the rest against one side of his chest. He flexed his other arm. "I think my guns are pretty good, too."

Minwoo snickered. It took him one second to realize what he had done and he quickly stifled it. The officer tossed them a sharp glance and he and Dongwan straightened up, hurriedly sobering their expressions.

"Stop that," Minwoo muttered out of the corner of his mouth at Dongwan. At this rate, there was no way he would get through the rest of the training without receiving some kind of penalty for fooling around. Dongwan shrugged the gun he was holding back to both hands, regulating his lips to prevent a smile from escaping. 

"And here," the officer was saying, followed around by an assistant holding a box. "Here are the hand grenades. While we are in mid-distance combat, these will be your best friends." He plucked one from the box and tossed one at the first person in the line of recruits that Minwoo and Dongwan were standing in. The man on the other end nearly dropped his gun in order to catch it.

"Don't worry," the officer assured, eyeing the draftee with a hawk's glare. "These aren't real. Not yet, at least." His eyes went along the line of his juniors, critically glaring with his mouth in a perfect line. "We can't have you amateurs making a mess of our camp because you didn't know how to properly set off a grenade."

The assistant threw grenades over at Dongwan and Minwoo respectively. Dongwan caught it easily with one hand, but Minwoo had a little more trouble stabilizing the object in his hand. He tapped his thumb against it. The whole thing was made out of plastic, like a cheap toy someone would give to his or her child - if training the latter generation in weapon-wielding was a parent's interest, that is.

"Hey, Minwoo," Dongwan said. Again, Minwoo directed his attention at him. Dongwan held the fake grenade firmly in his hand and brought it down against his head. He unexpectedly used so much force that the object cracked. Minwoo's jaw dropped open. The good thing was that it wasn't a real explosive. The bad thing was...

"Dongwan!" Minwoo hissed. He shot an uneasy look at the officer, who was still passing out the grenades and hadn't noticed what was going on yet. Minwoo gave his friend a quick swat with his hand. "Why'd you do that? He's going to be so pissed!"

Dongwan didn't appear to care who would get angry as long as he could have some fun. He showed his teeth in a wide grin and held the broken grenade next to his temple, the visible fracture facing Minwoo. "I guess it's a mental breakdown!"

Minwoo was unable to prevent a scoff from leaving his mouth, and his superior heard it. The bulky man whirled around so fast that the assistant next to him walked right into him. He disregarded it and marched right in front of Minwoo and Dongwan. The two of them, being of below average height, tilted their heads up in fear. Absolutely frozen.

The officer reached over to Dongwan's hand and snatched away the cracked grenade. He evaluated it for a moment before growling,

"You two have just earned yourselves an hour's worth of squat walking while your friends are eating dinner."

--

"This is all your fault!" Minwoo grumbled as he clung to the back of his neck with two sweaty palms. It had been less than five minutes since he and Dongwan had begun to carry out their punishment, and already his thighs were burning. It wasn't just his thighs that were burning, though - his chest was stirring a whole batch of resentment for Dongwan, his foolish humor, and the officer that had punished them. "If you hadn't been so stupid..."

"Hey, I can't help it," Dongwan said, doing his squats diligently behind Minwoo. Despite being newly recruited, Dongwan had been punished numerous times already for his misbehavior during training. It was Minwoo's misfortune that they were placed next to each other today, and that he actually found Dongwan's jokes funny enough to react and get himself caught. "Stupid is in my blood."

Minwoo stopped his frog walk and shot a glare over his shoulder. "Are you joking around even now?" he said. "Did you see the look on that sunbae's face? He was not happy."

Dongwan set a hand on the side of Minwoo's face and forced him to face forward. "Keep walking." Minwoo grumpily did as told. "Yes, I saw it. He looked like a tomato."

Minwoo smiled as he recalled the picture of that giant man whose face had become a panel of red. That he looked like a tomato was indeed true.

"Hey, can we stop for a second?" Minwoo asked. "My legs are on fire."

"Are you serious? It hasn't even been that long."

Minwoo rolled his eyes. He strained himself to continue, cringing as he pushed himself forward. "Hey, I'm not the one that receives this punishment every single day and builds leg muscle because of it." He checked around him and found that the area was empty save for him and Dongwan. No supervisor? That meant he could slack off!

He dropped onto his back on the grass, breathing outward in pleasure as his muscles relaxed. His officers may have been higher up on the military hierarchy, but they were stupid when it came to making sure that the punished were doing as told. Which, for Minwoo right now, was a nice thing.

He stared up at the dimming sky as Dongwan gave up on the punishment as well and laid down next to him. The war had officially started a couple of months ago, and after being drafted, life as a soldier had been kind of difficult to get used to. Minwoo had to share a room with way more people than at home; the food was totally different, and not in a good way; he could only communicate with his family every once in a while depending on his letter quota. Not to mention that once he would actually go into combat, he might die.

Minwoo shut his eyes, absorbing the feeling of the sweat along his collarbone and the breeze that cooled the area. That was an estranging concept - that he might die. He found it weirder that he wasn't afraid of it, but instead accepting of it. Yeah, he could lose his life. But there was no use panicking over it since he was already here.

It was likely influence from his father, a lieutenant. His old man was always firm when it came to the military. When Minwoo was old enough to form ideas of his own, his father was the one who taught him that fighting for the wellbeing of the nation was important. Dying for that cause was honorable.

"What are you thinking about?" Dongwan's voice came from right beside his ear.

Startled, Minwoo jolted and scrambled away in a tangle of dirty clothes and loose grass. He heard Dongwan guffawing as Minwoo got up and brushed grass from his hair. He made a face at Dongwan as the man rolled over onto his stomach, his entire body shaking from the laughter. 

"It's that funny?" Minwoo challenged, reaching over and grabbing a handful of Dongwan's hair. He tugged slightly, causing Dongwan to cry out in pain even while the ghost of his grin remained on his face. "Is it that funny?"

"Stop," Dongwan said, reaching for his hair and latching onto Minwoo's fingers. "Sto-ow!"

"Back to punishment," Minwoo mumbled, regretfully getting up while still holding onto Dongwan. He glared at the man's dark hair. "Since someone needs it."

--

Minwoo and Dongwan reported to their bunking room as soon as the hour was up. By then the sunset had already given way into the night, and the only source of light inside was a measly oil lamp on the ground.

The rest of the group were all cooped up inside, laying on their bunks. The room was relatively small, with two triple beds separated by only a couple of feet of space where the light was sitting. 

"Back already?" Eric said from the second bed on one of the bunk beds. He was flipping through letters from his family - something he did every night. "Are you dead yet?"

Minwoo didn't even bother climbing up to his upper bunk, instead collapsing onto the bottom bed where Hyesung was kicking up at the bottom of Eric's. "Hey!" Hyesung protested as Minwoo nudged into the center spot and squished Hyesung against the wall. "You're kidding, right?"

Minwoo didn't budge as Hyesung kicked and shoved at him to try and shoo him away. "I can't move," Minwoo groaned. That was almost true - there was a dull ache radiating from his legs and they were protesting every movement their owner made. "You can take my bed tonight."

Hyesung grumbled before relenting, standing up slightly on the bed with his back against the bottom of the bunk above him. He sidled over Minwoo's body and hopped to the ground.

"But why did Minwoo get punished?" Hyesung asked as he climbed up to the highest bed where Minwoo would have slept if he had the ability to get up. "You don't usually do stuff that could get you in trouble. At least, not when there's a superior watching."

"I saw it," Andy said. He was level with Hyesung; perched on the uppermost bed of the other bunk. "Dongwan was doing stuff and Minwoo was laughing."

"You actually find his jokes funny?" Junjin asked, earning him a slap in the head from Dongwan.

"You just don't understand humor," Dongwan said, driving a finger along Junjin's skull as the man was laying down on his pillow. Eventually Dongwan released his pitiful friend to rub at the side of his head as Dongwan climbed up to the bed between Junjin's and Andy's. "Minwoo, on the other hand, has a great capacity for funny things."

"And it basically got him unable to walk," Junjin pointed out. Dongwan reached over the side of his bed and blindly flailed to hit Junjin, who rolled away from his searching hand.

"You can say that all you want," Dongwan sniffed, withdrawing his arm. "But this punishment is nothing to me. Although, with all my new muscular strength, I'll have a much greater chance of surviving than all of you weaklings combined."

Eric scoffed. Out of all of them, Dongwan did have the best toned body. But his fighting skills were, at best, mediocre since he rarely paid attention during training.

"Please," Eric said. "Don't come crying to us if you ever get shot while on duty."

Dongwan grinned, his teeth reflecting some of the light. He jabbed at his arm with a finger. "You kidding? Bullets'll bounce right off these babies."

In what world did Dongwan live in? Minwoo shook his head, on the border of bursting out laughing at the pure ridiculousness of his friend.

"Great," Junjin replied. "So you'll be a rubber man."

"Rubber Dongwan," Eric said, smiling as he neatly folded the letters in his hands and stuck them under his pillow. "Now that's something interesting."

"Trampoline Dongwan," Junjin added, his voice shaking as he suppressed his laughter.

"Boing," Hyesung said, and they all broke into heaps of cackling.

"Hey!" a deep, commanding voice from outside said. They hurriedly shut their mouths and listened. "Lights out! And voices out too; you lot, always making such a racket!"

The six of them remained in silence, all watching as the shadowed figure near the tent entrance headed away and disappeared from the circle of light cast by the lamp on the floor. After a few moments with a lack of words hanging between them, Minwoo clambered partially off the bed to blow out the light. Complete darkness fell over the six of them. Minwoo's legs creaked in protest and he took no time in fleeing back to his place.

"All the officers here are such jerks," Dongwan said, his voice level lowered. "Do they think we can keep sane if we just keep being serious from day to night?"

"They probably think it's unfit to joke around," Minwoo put in. He knew what his father would tell him: "Because our country hangs in the balance."

"So they think we shouldn't have fun?" Junjin asked. Minwoo didn't have any excuse for that. "No thanks."

"I can still hear you in there!" The same voice from before came from outside. "Shut up and get to sleep!"

The six of them felt each other's gazes on one another as they listened for the fading footsteps of the officer outside. As soon as they couldn't hear him anymore, they returned to their conversation.

"He needs to loosen up," Hyesung mumbled, shifting on his bed and shutting his eyes.

"He should take a trampoline session on Dongwan's muscles," Andy suggested. Six pairs of hands flew up to their mouths to smother their laughs.

"I'm dying," Junjin gasped, having been delivered a mental image of their officer doing somersaults on Dongwan's arm.

"No," Dongwan said after recovering his wits. Minwoo knew he was going to say something weird by the edge to his voice. "I don't want that dude on me; are you serious? He's not even goodlooking."

"Ah, Dongwan; you're so disgusting!" Minwoo snapped, covering his face in secondhand embarrassment.

"It's the truth," Dongwan whispered. Then, secretly his lips and wishing the others could see the action, he said, "I'd rather have you on me."

"I'm sure you would," Minwoo replied smoothly, burying the side of his face into the pillow. 

"Shut up and go to sleep," Andy hissed. "I swear, if we suffer punishment because of you..."

"Okay, okay," Dongwan said. But he did not yet have his fill. "Then let's go to sleep. But Minwoo."

"What," Minwoo groaned, desperate to get to sleep.

"Do you want to be on me?"

"Aish!" Eric snapped. He snatched his pillow and raised it to throw it at Dongwan. Dongwan saw the motion in the dark and chuckled curtly but triumphantly.

"Shh," Dongwan said, the mischief concentrated in his voice. "Don't let the officer hear us."

Eric placed his pillow back in its spot and laid back down. It had been a long day of training, and while he was usually a leader of the foolishness within the group, he was tired today. He swore that sooner or later, he'd get back at Dongwan for being so lively while everyone else was tuckered out.

Minwoo cracked a small smile. "Dongwan-ah."

"Yeah?"

"I'd like to be on y-"

"Good night," Hyesung interrupted harshly. "Now shut up."

--

A/N: I hope you liked that first chappie :3 This is really kind of an intro chapter to what's going on with them. See you later~!