When I woke up, Minho’s feet were two inches from my face.

“Ugh!” I muttered, scooting as far back as I could within our small tent. I had this thing about feet; they grossed me out for some reason. At least Minho’s didn’t smell like Eunhyuk’s had when he’d taken his shoes off last night at the fire. He smelled like a mixture of rotten fish and soybean paste, and we’d all complained loudly until he went and washed his feet.

I rolled over, facing the side of the tent, trying to get back to sleep. I hadn’t had my eyes closed for more than a minute before I heard people talking outside the tent. Guess it was breakfast time.

I crawled over Minho and out of the tent, trying hard not to wake him. He’d been up late after all, and I wasn’t sure if we were ok again, even after our talk last night (morning?).

Sungmin was trying to cook something in the ashes of last night’s fire, but I could tell it was hopeless. They were grey and cold by now, not even an ember left. He seemed to realize this too, and gave up, standing.

“Good morning, Taemin!” He smiled.

“Morning.” I mumbled back. I was still tired, but perked up a little bit when I saw Onew, EunHae and Siwon take seats around the fire. I spent a good thirty seconds trying to catch Siwon’s eye, but he avoided my gaze, staring almost pointedly into the forest.

“So what’s for breakfast?” chimed EunHae, in their spine-chilling unison.

“We’re hungry.” Whimpered Donghae. Eunhyuk just nodded in agreement. Were they really that close, that their bodily functions were in sync too?

“Well, guys,” began Sungmin, “we’re going to have to go with something uncooked this morning, since the fire’s died out and it’s too late to start another.”

“Too late?” I asked.

“We’ll have to leave fairly soon, almost by the time we get a real fire started. Plus, it’s not wise to start a fire in this forest when you can’t be around to make sure it’s out for good. Things here have a way of…. Growing on their own.”

Something about the way he said that made me nervous; it sounded sinister, almost.

“Where’s Minho?” asked Onew, changing the subject abruptly.

“Still sleeping.” I replied. “I didn’t want to wake him up.”

“No, I’m not.” I heard a muffled voice shout from the tent. Out came Minho, fully dressed and ready to go, reminding me that I didn’t have clothes to wear other than the pajamas they gave me last night. Maybe I could find something in our magic, self-filling bags.

Sungmin passed around a bag with what we’d have to have for breakfast, fruits and bread. Everyone rifled around in the sack, grabbing whatever they wanted. Some fruit I recognized, like apples and pears. Others looked questionable at best: a round fruit with no stem and brown fur that had to be smashed open with Siwon’s sword hilt, a handful of roots that looked like carrots with blue, almost moldy spots.

I tentatively nibbled on something resembling a nectarine, aside from the fact that it was a shiny, bruised-looking purple color with a white, fleshy inside. It was sweet though, and had an almost nut-like aftertaste. It tasted even better sliced up and put onto our crumbly white, slightly yeasty bread. All in all, breakfast was passed quickly in silence, and we packed up to get started on today’s walk. I had been able to get my old jeans and t-shirt back, Sungmin having washed them last night.

“Where are we going again?” I questioned as I shouldered one of our many canvas sacks. It didn’t weigh nearly as much as I’d thought it would, no more than a couple of books or a single tent, even though a sizable amount of supplies had clearly been crammed into it.

“I told you Taemin. We’ve got an invitation for a tea party.” Smirked Onew.

I recalled nothing of the sort, but it was obvious he wasn’t going to give me much more than that. It was like I was some annoying kid in the backseat of my parent’s SUV. ‘You’ll see when we get there, Taemin. Hush now.’

I wondered how much of this mushroom-fueled misadventure would be the seven of us just walking through the forest. Onew, who was leading us, seemed to know exactly where we were walking, even though all of the trees looked the same to me. I recognized nothing, not that I had expected to really.

It’s just that recognizing any part of this place would have made me feel less young, less scared.

We kept walking through the analogous scenery for hours, chatting amongst ourselves to pass the time. EunHae also occasionally broke into odd marching songs I’d never heard, occasionally replacing a line with a rude, rhyming substitute. “We’ve just gotta press on” became “Siwon put a dress on.” “I don’t know and I don’t care” became “We’re not wearing underwear.”

We giggled at some of the better ones and booed the ones that weren’t funny, time flying much faster than yesterday’s silent march.

“You doing ok, Taemin?” Minho leaned in from his position at my right side, whispering almost conspiratorially into my ear.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I shrugged back. I was used to walking, after all the trips to the bus stop back home. Besides, it was better than just sitting and waiting for something to happen, let me work off my edge. Still, though…..

“Actually, I changed my mind. I’m not fine. Carry me.” I teased Minho with a grin.

Minho blinked at me blankly for about two seconds before reaching over, grabbing the back of my left leg with one hand and my right arm with the other and swinging me onto his back, making me thrash and yell in surprise and then wiggle around on his back, scared to jump while he was still walking.

 He hadn’t stopped moving all this time, and I clung to his shoulders desperately, wrapping my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. I’m sure I must have been choking him, but he didn’t stop me, just calmly kept walking.

“I wasn’t serious, jack-! Put me down!” I hissed into his ear.

“Nope.” He replied blandly.

“You asked me to carry you, so I am. If you want me to put you down, you have to say ‘O Great Minho, you are glorious and mighty, and I bow to your awesomeness’ or I’m not doing anything. You can stay up there, doesn’t matter to me.”

“Um, no. There’s no way you’re gonna get me to lie to you like that, just let me down before I start spitting in your hair or something.”

Minho didn’t reply, but instead slid his hands around, holding onto my legs, before suddenly jumping up and down violently, shaking me around and making me dig my nails into his skin.

“, MINHO, STOP!” I screamed, dizzy and jumbled, my vision blurred and shaky.

“Nu-uh. You have to say the magic words.” He sounded barely out of breath while I felt like a tossed salad.

He didn’t stop jumping, shaking and spinning until I screamed “OHGRAYDMINOURGLORIUSANDMITYANIBOWTOYORAWSUMNIS!”

Minho immediately stilled, giving me time to be able to see straight first before slowly sliding me off of his back and onto my feet.

“I hate you. You’re a .” I glowered.

“Sorry, Taeminnie-ah.” He cooed at me, ruffling my hair with his hand.

I batted him away, angrily. He didn’t get to treat me like a child and then try to be nice to me.

“No, I’m mad at you. Go ‘way now.”

Minho just kept grinning blithely, stupid thing. I noticed that we had stopped walking and the rest of the group had been staring at our little display. Onew had this look of satisfaction on his face, but all he said was “That settles that, then. Shall we keep going? We’re not far now.”

True to his word, ten more minutes of walking and the dirt beneath our feet slowly morphed into dusty grey stone, fitted to make a road leading up to a strange house shaped like a top hat.

There was a pink-painted picket fence surrounding it, and a lovely vegetable garden off to the side of the yard. The hat-shaped house itself seemed to have black satin tacked up onto it, creating the illusion that it was actually made of the shiny fabric.

The brim of the hat was turned slightly up and seemed to be filled with water, creating a shallow pond around the house. This made the house accessible through only one way: a bridge resembling a pink ribbon that first wrapped around the house, creating a sort-of deck on all sides and then flowed over the hat brim and onto the ground, creating an arc by which one could access the door. The door was white and had the numbers ¹⁰/₆  painted on it.

We walked straight through the gate, passing the house and following the walk around to the back of the house, and suddenly I understood just how serious Onew was about this tea party.

Four tables had been put end-to-end in the backyard, but they were mismatched: a white plastic picnic table next to a stately, carved dining table next to a shoddily constructed wooden bench next to what seemed to be a chest of drawers put face down.

Every table was covered with even more mismatched plates and cutlery, some small and plastic like a child’s playset, some white porcelain with intricate gold-leaf designs. It looked like they had gone house to house in some neighborhood taking one piece of tableware from each cabinet. The effect was at least ridiculous, if not schizophrenic.

Three men sat at the end of the table, obviously arguing about something. On the left was a short, chubby male with dark hair and whiskers. I could just barely see a grey tail twitching behind him. At the head of the table sat a blond man with a top hat that matched the house almost perfectly. On the right sat a lanky, arrogant-looking man with a pair of furry brown ears sticking out of his head. I could hear them as we got closer.

“They’re coming tomorrow, Shindong, I told you that.” Said the blond man, looking at the man with the tail.

“And I told you, Leeteuk, that your watch is two days slow, so they were supposed to be here yesterday.” Retorted Shindong.

“And I can tell both of you that they’re here today now, so it doesn’t matter either way.” Cut in the lazy voice of the man with ears.

“Kyuhyun-ah!” Chirped Sungmin happily before launching himself into the lap of the man with ears. Kyuhyun smiled at him indulgently before wrapping his arms around Sungmin’s waist and shifting him to a more comfortable position in his lap.

The rest of us took seats wherever we felt like near the three men. The chairs were as slap-dash as the tables and I wound up in a high-backed armchair while Minho took a seat next to me on a barstool.

“It’s lovely to meet you, just lovely.” Fluttered Leeteuk while he walked around pouring us all tea. It was black and chokingly bitter, obviously steeped too long and when I finally located the milk jug I saw that Donghae had accidentally upset it onto his part of the table and was frantically trying to mop it up with slices of bread.

I gave up on the tea, instead reaching for a small green cake.

“Not that one. Not if I were you.” Warned Shindong.

“Why not?” I asked, already withdrawing my hand. I was getting better at accepting warnings.

“Because those ones were from the Duchess.” Stated Kyuhyun. “And he puts pepper into everything he cooks, and way too much of it.”

Ew, peppered cupcakes?

“Thanks for the heads up.” I nodded to Kyuhyun. He nodded back, Sungmin leaning in and snuggling his chest.

“So, I take it you and Kyuhyun are… together?” I mumbled, not sure what they were exactly.

“Yep! Kyu’s my baby Bunny.” Sungmin cooed.

“Technically, I’m a Hare.” Corrected Kyuhyun. “But we certainly fu-“

“KYUHYUN!” Shouted a scandalized Leeteuk.

“Like bunnies.” Finished a completely deadpan Kyu.

“I didn’t want to know that.” Came the voice of Donghae from across the table.

“Well, I don’t see how you couldn’t know. It’s not like Sungmin here’s quiet, and we have done it while you were home before.” Kyuhyun rambled on blandly before being slapped on the chest by a bright red, mortified Sungmin.

“…I really didn’t want to know that.” Repeated Donghae.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ok, this is about 2/3 of what was supposed to happen, but you'll get another chapter in a few days so cool beans. I just didn't want to make you wait anymore. I deleted the last chap, like I said I would. Those just now reading, it's cool, it was just an explanation of how I couldn't update because drunk gay guys broke my laptop. Happens errday. Here's a link to what MadHatterTeuk's house would look like if I had photoshop and not skills with MS Paint.

http://s1250.photobucket.com/albums/hh525/Fairybreath493/?action=view¤t=tophattwo.jpg 

K, bye!