Character is Junho (and the friends are Luca and his little brother Rico) from
"I told you walking was a bad idea, that's, like, the opposite of what you should do when you're lost in the woods," Junho grumbled as his feet snapped twigs and left prints into the forest floor. Fuck, his lungs burned. Everything was sore, from the back of his neck, to his hips, his knees, and especially the soles of his feetāright about now, a nice relaxing hot bath sounded heavenly.
In comparison, Luca was just as full of energy as ever with his seemingly never-ending cache of stamina, able to casually make his way through the forest despite the clear lack of a trail. One might even say he looked right at home, which made perfect sense. It had been Luca's idea to go camping after all.
"We'll be fine," Luca said, the usual snap in his voice as he kept the pace at the front of their tiny pack.
"Sorry," Rico grumbled in the middle.
Internally, Junho agreed that Rico should be apologizing. As it happens, it'd been his fault for chasing after the damn squirrel in the first place, and while it wasn't mature, holding a grudge against the ten year old seemed a much better idea than behaving like everything was okay when everything was not okay.
Outwardly, Junho simply laughed it offāwheezing, more likeāand said, warily, "No more squirrels for you."
"Okay," Rico said in glum tone, head drooping.
Pursing his lips, Junho clapped Rico on the shoulder and then proceeded to catch up the inches separating them, to tap on Luca's shoulder. "Say, it's already dark out. Shouldn't we find a place to camp?"
At this Luca blinked, slowly coming to as his brows furrowed into his look of concentrationāwhich had the added effect of making him look incredibly unhinged. This was the man Junho knew and loved, but even he couldn't help but be unsettled by the expression.
"Luca, can I have a granola bar?" Rico asked before Junho could shush him.
Luca shook his head.
"Oh, c'mon!" Rico whined.
Luca shook his head once more and then lifted a finger to his mouth, cocking his head as if listening for a sound. Junho took a step back from his boyfriend and grimly pressed his lips together.
"It might be a bear," Luca said, voice barely above a whisper. Junho heard him as if he'd spoken directly into his ear.
"Oh, what the fuck. Luca, what shit have you gotten us into? Who even goes camping where there are bears?" Junho hissed, guard instantly going up as he swept a suspicious gaze across his view of the forest, hating how dark it had suddenly gotten. He could barely see the outline of Luca's body, let alone some big ass grizzly lurking behind tree bark.
"There wouldn't have been bears if Rico hadn't run off."
"There wouldn't have been bears if we hadn't spent the last five hours walking aimlessly!" Junho shot back, stressed to high hell as he moved closer to Luca, keeping a grip on his arm. "What do we have to defend ourselves?"
"A pocket knife, I think. The lighter could be helpful too if we light some sticks on fire to bade it off. Do you think an empty water bottle could be a choking hazard for a bear?"
"Are we contemplating bear murder right now?"
"We're contemplating our survival but if that's how you want to put it."
Junho was edging on hysterical as he cried, "I don't want to kill a bear!"
"It's kill or be killed in the wild," Rico piped in before promptly reaching into Luca's pocket to pull out the knife.
"Rico, I swear to goā"
"HYAAAAAAHHHH!" Rico yelled out as he leapt forward, tackling absolutely nothing by the sounds of it.
"You dumbass!" Luca called, rushing after his brother.
"Don't leave me!" Junho cried, pushing his aching limbs to the limit to keep up, his pack bouncing against his back.
A half hour later, after Rico had been accounted for and the pocket knife returned, Luca begrudgingly admitted, much to Junho's utter exasperation, "We need to look for a place to stay the night."
"My vote is up in the trees!" Rico said and while Junho couldn't really see his face, he was pretty sure the kid was grinning.
"No way, if you fell off in your sleep, you could seriously hurt yourself," Luca warned his little brother grimly.
"Well, we lost Rico's pack," Junho reminded them. "That means we only have two sleeping bags."
"I'll share with you," Rico said immediately. "You and Luca together wouldn't fit."
"Uh, I beg to differ," Junho said, picturing being able to lay on top of Luca as he'd done in the past, cuddling for the whole night. What bliss. Nevertheless, he relented with a sigh, knowing his boyfriend wouldn't be likely to cuddle with his brother around. "But I guess it'll be me and you, kid."
"When we wake up, what's the plan?" Luca wondered, sounding wary and surprisingly exhausted.
"I swear," Junho began with a scoff, "what was the point in taking us camping if you don't even know the basic rules to surviving in a forest?"
"And you do?" Luca asked, doubt clear in his tone.
Junho sniffed. "As a matter of fact, I do. First, we have two options. Get to higher ground so we can see the landscape we're dealing with and assess where the fuck we're headed next, or, and this is the one I personally think we should do, we should travel downhill, find a river and follow it's path, because where there's water, there'll eventually be houses, maybe even towns."
The boys were quiet for a moment.
"And how do you know that?" Luca asked finally, after a solid beat had missed.
Junho rolled his eyes despite nobody being able to see it. "Uh, duh, it's called deductive reasoning skills."
"I sometimes forget you're smart," Rico admitted behind a cough.
"I was valedictorian for a damn reason," Junho said proudly before turning back onto what was most urgent. "Okay, but seriously, we need to find a place to sleep, preferably away from any source of water cause that's where the night time critters will be and we really don't need another incident with Rico."
"Touche," Rico said with a bark of gleeful laughter.
word count: 1,057
password: gingersnaps