Archive of Our Own ^beta

The only thing Beomgyu hates more than falling on his ass in front of a crowd is doing it because Soobin can’t keep his goddamn eyes off some random cute guy.

And yet. Here they are.

If he were a better person, maybe he’d find the irony funny. Instead, he’s hobbling through the woods on one good foot, clutching his cousin’s shoulder and wondering why God gives the tallest people the weakest core strength known to man.

“I am so sorry,” Soobin says for the fifth time, breath hitching as he adjusts Beomgyu’s arm higher around his shoulders.

“You had one job, Soobin. One. Catch.”

“I did catch you!” Soobin argues, already defensive. “You fell forward!”

“I was trying not to break my skull, asshole,” Beomgyu snaps back, but it’s all bark and no bite. The pain steals most of the heat from it.

“I—Yeah, okay. That’s fair.”

Beomgyu does love his cousin. Maybe too much. But there are limits to love, and one of them is apparently the trust part of a trust fall. It’s Soobin’s fault they’re here in the first place, spending their last free summer babysitting for zero pay. Paying it forward, Soobin had called it. A pathologically misplaced sense of service is more Beomgyu’s take.

It’s day one of orientation, and he's already injured. He’s ninety percent sure his ankle isn’t broken—okay, maybe seventy-five percent—but every time he tries to touch the ground with it, pain shoots up his leg. If Soobin’s muscles were as functional as they are decorative, Beomgyu would’ve demanded a bridal carry as penance. But knowing Soobin, he’d probably trip over his own long legs and take out another limb.

So instead, they limp. Slowly, and with the collective stamina of a party on one HP.

Camp Nesika looks almost exactly the same as when they were kids, only everything seems shrunken now. Back then, the camp nurse had been this tattooed, muscly guy with a voice that could make you cry harder than your scraped knee ever could. Beomgyu had bawled so loudly after seeing him once that Soobin had bribed him quiet with a kitkat.

If that guy’s still working here, Beomgyu hopes adulthood has shrunk him down, too. Otherwise, he might just turn around and limp straight back home.

“You know what a good wingman I am,” he grumbles as the med shed comes into view, a peeling green sign labelling it the ‘urses a on.’ Normally, he’d laugh at the missing letters. Right now, pain kills the punchline. “So what’s with the googly eyes? Just talk to him!”

“I can’t,” Soobin whines, which is kind of pathetic coming from someone taller, older, and (allegedly) wiser. They’re both graduating from undergrad this year. Soobin's already been accepted into his top-choice grad school, while Beomgyu… well. He’s trying his best not to think about it.

“Yeonjun’s just—” Soobin gestures with the very hand holding Beomgyu up, nearly making him slip. He glares at Soobin, so Soobin grips tighter, looking appropriately scolded. “Sorry! Sorry. I mean, he’s just so cool. Even his camp name is cool. Who comes up with Bullseye?”

Beomgyu groans. “Dude, seriously? Isn’t it a little on the nose?”

Yeonjun is the archery instructor, a senior counsellor with fiery red hair and a mouth that never seems to stop moving. Everyone here loves him, which means Soobin is already staring at him like he hung the moon.

Earlier, Yeonjun had done the trust fall exercise with Taehyun—or Chef Acorn, as they’re supposed to call him when campers are around—and Soobin had gotten so wrapped up being jealous that he forgot he had his own partner falling backwards right in front of him.

Beomgyu hadn’t even had time to panic. One second he was dropping, the next he was flailing, trying to step forward to save himself, and then twisting his ankle so hard the world blinked white. His wood cookie smudged straight into the dirt, the paint bleeding into his shirt as he hit the ground. In an instant, his counsellor name—Baloo, once printed in colour-coordinated bubble letters—became a muddy blur. It was a good name. A great name, even. Now his campers will have to call him with caveman grunts, because there isn’t a single legible letter left.

Soobin’s name tag, on the other hand, sits pristinely across his chest, a set of green letters hanging across a cloudless blue sky, complete with a little tree trunk sketch underneath. Beomgyu might’ve asked to trade, but ‘Redwood’ doesn’t exactly suit him. He’d only just managed to dodge one of the default names by spotting a copy of The Jungle Book in the lounge right before the directors could make good on their threat to dub him ‘Counsellor Spork.’

“Trust falls are literally the dumbest activity ever invented,” Beomgyu mutters. He knows he’s complaining too much, but the more his mouth moves, the less focus he has left to direct towards the pain. “They should’ve let us rock climb or hike or something until the campers got here. What’s the point?”

“Trust falls build teamwork,” Soobin replies dutifully. He’s probably read the entire manual back to back. Beomgyu’s copy got sacrificed to kill a bug on the bus.

”Yeah, sure. Teamwork,” he snaps. “Until I get dropped on my ass.”

Soobin starts to say something, then laughs instead. They’ve had some variation of an argument like this a million times before. At a certain point, it doesn’t even matter whether they actually get the words out or not. Beomgyu groans again. He’s earned the right to cling onto this grudge for as long as possible.

They stop in front of the med shed, and Soobin’s laughter fades, replaced by a string of mellow music drifting from an open window at the side. Honestly, as much as Beomgyu wants to milk this, his ankle probably just needs ice. Still, liability says they have to get it checked. Apparently, the nurse wasn’t even supposed to be here yet, but arrived early to unpack supplies. Otherwise, Beomgyu would be looking at a half-hour drive to the clinic in town.

“Do you think they charge a copay?”

Soobin chews his lip, glancing nervously at the steps. There are only three of them, but the wood’s splitting under half of the nails and rot eats at their sides. He swipes sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. Beomgyu’s sweating too; they weren’t kidding about this place being off the grid. Air conditioning is a surprisingly modern invention.

“Should I—”

Beomgyu holds up a hand. “You’ve done enough, Judas,” he huffs, untangling himself. “Go back to orientation."

He manages to hop up the wooden steps and rap on the metal screen okay, but given the only thing to cling onto here is a doorknob and a hanging windchime, he’s at risk for losing his balance, and soon.

“Hello?” He knocks again. He casts a quick glance behind him at Soobin’s retreating form, and a tinge of regret hits to see Soobin’s guilty shoulders, the drag to his pace. It really had been an accident. 

“Hi.” A voice pulls Beomgyu’s attention back forward. “Sorry, I’m not quite set up yet.”

The man who appears in front of him isn’t scary, tattooed, or towering like the camp nurse he remembers from childhood. Which should be a relief. Instead, Beomgyu’s stomach drops. This is a whole different kind of problem.

Oh no, he thinks helplessly, his good leg starting to burn under the strain of holding both sides of him up. He’s hot.

The nurse—Kai, if Beomgyu’s correctly remembering the name that crackled over his walkie—is tall and broad-shouldered, but easily softened by a smile that sits so comfortably it must be his default position. Black roots peek out behind blond curls that brush his collar, and something silver flashes under his bangs, but Beomgyu doesn’t get the chance to find out if it’s an eyebrow piercing or not, because ‘Maybe Kai’ is still just standing there, staring at him, clearly waiting for words. The only one Beomgyu manages is a strangled, “Ankle.”

To his credit, the nurse takes it in stride, pushing open the screen and ushering him in. There’s a cartoon penguin on his badge, and below it, the text reads Kai Huening, RN. So this must be him, but the photo looks like it belongs to a completely different person; someone barely past eighteen with thin cheeks and wide, nervous eyes.

“An injury already?” Kai frowns, offering Beomgyu a hand. His palm is stupid soft for a nurse. “Aren’t you still in orientation?”

“Yeah,” Beomgyu scoffs, pretending to study the stacks of carefully packed medical boxes instead of Kai’s face. The space feels microscopic, musty from nine months of disuse. “I got stuck with Judas for a partner.”

“That sounds dramatic,” Kai says softly, a smile playing on his lips. There’s no paper across the exam table, so he gives it a quick wipe down before gesturing to Beomgyu to sit on it. “What happened?”

Beomgyu launches into the story before he’s even settled. “What happened is that I have the most useless spotter in human history. He was too busy drooling over Yeo—someone else—to actually catch me, so I ate dirt in front of everyone.” He holds up his smudged wood cookie. “I’m not even getting paid for this, you know.”

Kai hums noncommittally, rummaging through boxes for gloves. Beomgyu gets the feeling he’s being humoured, but the rant won’t stop. 

“It’s basically charity work, I mean—”

“Mmhm.”

“—He begged me to sign up, and for what? So he can literally and figuratively drop me on my ass?”

That earns an actual reaction. Kai’s eyes brighten as he sanitises his hands. “Your ankle,” he says, tugging on a pair of grey gloves. “Did you hear a pop or snap when you fell?”

Beomgyu glances down at it, then back up. He’d been too busy seeing red to think about it, and now there’s no rewinding option to check. “Not even a crackle.”

Kai blinks owlishly, clearly trying to decide if that was a joke or not. His lip catches between his teeth, and he nods slowly. “Okay. Good. Crackle-free is… generally good.” His voice tips up at the end like he’s not entirely confident, which makes the concern in his face even more obvious.

Beomgyu shifts on the bed, examining the way his ankle looks almost normal when he angles it just right, and almost broken when he angles it just wrong. He can’t decide which version he wants to believe. Is this where the route ends? Is he about to be fired before he’s even started? “Be honest. Is it that fucked up looking?”

“What? No, sorry.” Kai shakes his head, hair falling into his eyes. Some of the strands are uneven enough that Beomgyu half-wonders if he hacked at it himself. “I have a terrible poker face. I’m only thinking.”

“If it helps, it doesn’t actually hurt that bad. I mostly came here to guilt my cousin. He’s the one who dropped me.”

Kai half hums, half laughs. It’s a soft, musical sound, and even though Beomgyu hadn’t been all that genuinely worried, it still makes him feel a little better. “Humour me anyway?”

Beomgyu agrees, so Kai runs him through a set of basic checks, his hands steady and disappointingly professional as he feels along Beomgyu’s ankle, pressing for swelling or anything out of place. His touch is careful, almost too gentle, and Beomgyu finds himself holding his breath every time Kai’s thumb brushes against his skin. At the end, he has Beomgyu flex, rotate, and cycle through a series of motions that look and feel way too much like his grandma’s water aerobics. Thankfully, none of it hurts much, and when Kai wraps his ankle up neatly, Beomgyu actually feels some relief.

By the end, he’s handed an ice pack and two ibuprofen. “Come back if it gets worse.” Kai glances around for a chair, then gives up and settles on a box instead. “You know, I’m technically only supposed to treat the campers,” he says, trying for a chiding tone. It’s charming how bad he is at it, and depressing how easily that endears him to Beomgyu.

“I know,” Beomgyu smiles as innocently as he can, which is to say not at all. “It’ll be good for your karmic debt.”

“Will it?” Kai nods back a little tiredly. “That’s nice.”

It’s getting dark outside. Beomgyu checks his watch and is surprised to find he’s been here for almost an hour. And he’s barely gotten a chance to pull himself together enough to flirt. What a disappointment.

A knock sounds at the door, and Soobin pokes his head in, looking worried. “Is it broken?”

“No,” Kai and Beomgyu say in unison.

“But it might as well be,” Beomgyu cuts in before Kai can let Soobin completely off the hook. It’s petty, but he has no siblings, and Soobin is the closest thing, which means he’s doomed to suffer for it.

Soobin is about to say something petulant back; Beomgyu can see it on his face. Not to be defeated this early, he adds, “Kai, is a piggyback ride below your paygrade?” He sticks his arms out and tries to look small and pathetic.

“Um.” Kai clears his throat. “I’m not sure? I can find out?”

Soobin looks confused as to why Beomgyu is asking him. “I can t—”

“Save it,” Beomgyu says, jumping off the table and only wincing a lot a little. He grabs a desperate hand towards Kai’s shoulder, digging in a little deep and noting that where he’d been expecting to meet soft skin, there’s nothing but lean muscle. Distracting. “Kai is going to do the rest of the teamwork exercises with me instead.”

Soobin wilts against the door frame. “Really?”

“Um,” Kai gently extricates himself from Beomgyu’s grasp. “Actually, I’m not affiliated with the camp. I’m on a separate contract. So I’ll probably only see you when I’m giving out medication, or if one of the campers gets hurt.”

“What?” Beomgyu watches in real time as his guilt trip explodes into dust.

“Sorry.” Kai looks like he means it. Which is worse. “I hope you feel better. Nice to meet you...” he glances curiously Soobin's way.

"Soobin," Soobin says, perking up. “I mean, Redwood.” He points to his wood cookie.

The ibuprofen suddenly feels stuck in Beomgyu’s windpipe. He flips his own wood cookie around to spare himself the embarrassment. “Thanks for your help,” he nods to Kai, who nods back shyly, or awkwardly, or maybe just in a way that means he’s grateful this is over.

The journey back to camp is quicker, mostly because they've stolen a branch from the path’s edge to use as a hiking stick. It’s crooked and a little too sharp to actually help, but Beomgyu keeps it anyway. If nothing else, it makes him look less like he’s clinging to Soobin for dear life.

"Don't look so happy," he glares at Soobin as they hobble down the dusty trail.

"Why?" Soobin looks genuinely confused. "You should be delighted. That guy was exactly your type, your ankle isn't broken, and you missed a safety lecture. That's a win-win-win for you."

"Wait, really?" That actually does make Beomgyu feel a little better. He sighs, glancing back at the med shed. There's a purple sunset painting the trees around it brown. "He was hot, wasn't he?"

"Yeah? What's with the googly eyes?" Soobin parrots. "Just ask him out."

Beomgyu leverages the branch to buck at him. "Dick. If I had a free foot, I would kick you with it."

It’s annoyingly hard to stay mad at Soobin, especially when he offers up his dessert at dinner the next night.

“You don’t have to stick to me like glue, you know,” Beomgyu says, side-eying him, but accepts the five-layer bar anyway, a layer of caramel still stuck to his teeth from his own serving. “I already accepted your apology. Even if it kinda sucked.”

The bandana Yeonjun had tied across his forehead during archery training is giving him a dull headache, but he’s left it on anyway. One, because it makes his black and white hair fluff out in a way he’d caught in the mirror and really liked. Two, because the sight of Soobin’s long-suffering face when Yeonjun tied it there was absolutely worth the initial pressure behind his temples.

“I know. I want to be here,” Soobin says, but his gaze keeps drifting across the mess hall. Yeonjun is planted at the far end of a packed table, telling a story he’s laughing too hard to get through smoothly, the people around him leaned in close in interest. It’s too cold for a short sleeve, much less a tank top, but Yeonjun doesn’t show the slightest bit of discomfort, arm slung across his knee, the other gesturing wildly. Part of Beomgyu envies that certainty Yeonjun seems to have that no matter where he goes, he’ll fit right into the backdrop. The other part is too busy worrying about himself.

Honestly, the only reason he’s even here—outside of Soobin—is to avoid a summer of fielding questions from his parents. Questions like, Have you found a girlfriend yet? Where are you applying for work? What’s next? The respective answers—no, nowhere you’ll be happy about, and nothing—don’t exactly inspire family pride.

He’d thought, naively, that things would feel different after four years of grinding away at a boring, compressing marketing degree. But if anything, it’s even worse now, because the conveyor belt has carried him right to the edge, and there’s nowhere to step but off.

The only exception—the one spark of a maybe, possibly, could be decent—is the fellowship he’d stumbled on at a game company an hour from home. The job would be doing research for the writing team, a chance to be part of the kind of stories that used to pull him through bad nights. Which sounds stupid, and even more so when he remembers that it’s basically just a clean line of zeroes and ones, things he can easily trace back and find the problem in, unlike real life. But honestly, all twelve-year-old Beomgyu really needed was the possibility that people could fail spectacularly, ruin everything, and still restart from the last save. That other, better routes existed, if you knew where to look for them.

The pay would be worse than waiting tables, the odds aren’t great that he gets it, and he’s really only qualified because the qualification is just to have a degree at all. Still, it’s something. Something that could stretch, if he only got the chance.

Beomgyu presses his thumb over a crumb on the table, rolling it flat. He can almost picture it: sitting at the kitchen table with his parents, trying to explain, saying all the things that never land right outside his own head, and watching them actually work. Words like, just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s not important work. Words like, I’m not fourteen and messing around anymore. Words like, Of course I want to be stable. I also want to be happy.

But that’s probably too much honesty for one dinner. And this is all if he gets it, anyway. Which is a very big if.

More laughter erupts from across the hall, pulling Beomgyu back to the present just as Soobin downs his soda like it’s a shot, dropping his chin to the table with root beer covering his pouty lips. There’s a counsellor looking awfully cosy with Yeonjun now, and it’s not him. Ouch.

Sympathetic, Beomgyu tears the five-layer bar in half and offers him the bigger piece. Soobin refuses without looking up. He looks as blue as Chef Acorn’s freshly dyed hair.

“You get like this every time you have a crush,” Beomgyu says, tossing both halves into his mouth in one go. Coconut flakes stick to his lips, and he tongues them away, talking through the chocolate. “He’s not the boogeyman.”

“I’m not scared,” Soobin insists, shooting up, but he’s way too stiff to be believable.

“Dude. We’re here for six weeks. Worst-case scenario, he rejects you, you avoid him until camp’s over, and then poof, we never see him again.”

“Well—” Soobin starts to argue, then stops halfway. “Well what are you gonna do without me if I do?”

“Outside of my job…” Beomgyu starts, then falters. It's a fair question. He doesn’t really know anyone here, not really. His social circle begins and ends with Soobin, and since his ankle cut out half of his chance to change that during orientation…

… !

His brain lands, unbidden, on Hot Nurse (Also goes by Kai).

This… could actually work. Beomgyu doesn’t even need it to lead anywhere meaningful. It’s just that he’s always worked better with an objective. The moment he names it, the static always clears; he can see the next move.

“I’ll be fine,” he says, leaning back with a grin sharp enough to make Soobin suspicious, but not accusatory. “I’ve got my own summer project lining up.”

Soobin narrows his eyes, leaning in until his wood cookie knocks against the table. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Beomgyu licks chocolate off his thumb. The idea sketches itself in his mind before he can stop it: BeomKai.exe. A stubbed toe here, a suspicious cough there, a few harmless excuses to keep showing up at the med shed until Kai starts to notice him back. It’ll make the time move faster, at least. “You have my blessing. Go forth and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, or whatever. I won’t be mad. Just, you know, don’t drop my rock climbing rope because you think Yeonjun’s jawline looks sharper in the sun or something.”

Soobin’s eyes go vaguely glassy, as if he’s already watching the movie version play out. “Okay,” he replies in such a saccharine tone that Beomgyu actually feels his teeth ache. “I can do that.”

Beomgyu’s campers are five nine-year-olds who have somehow already developed problems with each other. A kid with a weirdly adult disposition, Jay, is picking a fight with Jungwon, a short kid with sharp eyes and a sharper tongue. Apparently, the issue that Jay won’t share his yo-yo, and Jungwon thinks that’s selfish, started on the bus and made the full journey here without losing steam.

Sunghoon, the tallest and most polite of the group, stands planted firmly between them, perfectly unshaken no matter how much they reach around him to take swipes and attempt pinches at each other. On either side of them, Jake and Sunoo stand awkwardly. Sunoo smiles at Beomgyu innocently, but Jake looks tired, probably because the dropoff crowd spent twenty minutes asking him to repeat words in his Australian accent and squealing every time something came out slightly differently.

The yurt they’re going to be living in for six weeks smells faintly of pine and sunscreen, a family of moths at the top fighting against Beomgyu’s repeated requests to leave. Thanks to the odd shape, the bunks jut out in awkward angles, and the whole space is cluttered with duffel bags. A box fan hums in the corner, working way too hard against the heat, while someone’s unzipped backpack leaks a steady trail of starburst wrappers across the wooden floor. Beomgyu’s hoping for one of two outcomes of that: that the ants descend on the place so thoroughly that they get to move into the cabins with AC (reserved for the littles), or that there’s enough candy in there left to share. He could use the sugar boost.

“Alright,” he says, clapping once, keeping an ounce of attention on the starburst. “I’m Counsellor Baloo.” He lifts his wood cookie. The smeared bear on it is so badly misshapen that it could just as easily be considered a melted raccoon. He tries a bright look at Jay and Jungwon, but they’re too busy glaring at each other. Maybe they’re too young to care (or already too old…?) Child development wasn’t exactly part of the orientation crash course.

“What’s your real name?” Sunoo asks, springing onto a bunk and swinging his legs. There aren’t even sheets on it yet, but he doesn’t seem bothered.

“Baloo is a real name.”

“It’s not yours,” Sunghoon hazards, taking a safe, calculated step away from the drama.

Beomgyu hums, letting the cookie fall onto his sweatshirt. “That’s true. But you don’t get to know it yet.”

“Why not?” Jake asks.

“No clue. Camp rules or something.” Beomgyu clears his throat. “So… who wants to introduce themselves with a fun fact?”

Sunoo’s hand is in the air before he finishes talking. “I was on TV this year. And I’m Sunoo Kim.”

This is, apparently, interesting enough to make Jungwon pause his feud and swivel. He hops up on the bunk beside Sunoo, eyes wide. “TV for what?”

Sunoo’s excitement dulls as quickly as it’d been ignited. He tugs on a loose thread from his shorts. “Just boring school stuff. But I met the governor, and my face was on the screen for five whole seconds. My mom timed it.”

“Cool!” Jungwon’s enthusiasm is harder extinguished.

“Everyone already knows my fun fact,” Jake cuts in. His duffel bag is so heavy that Beomgyu had had to lug it in, and now he’s sitting on it, arms crossed, an adult-sized baseball cap hanging off his head. “I’m Jake, and I was born in Australia.”

“Do you have another one?” Beomgyu asks, praying he won’t have to referee another bus feud before dinner.

Jake thinks for a second. “I have a dog named Layla. Before we left, I taught her to play dead.”

“No way!” Jungwon gasps, switching beds to be closer to Jake.

“I wish I had a pet,” Jay mutters, blinking hard at the floor. It’s beginning to occur to Beomgyu that he might be less grumpy, more homesick. He spends most of their introductions picking at his nails, and when it comes time for him to give his own fun fact, it comes with a prop. “I need to eat something sweet when I feel bad,” he says, more wrappers falling out of his backpack as he pulls an entire jar of honey from it.

Beomgyu frowns. Okay, at what point is he supposed to start actually doing his job? Because that’s definitely not allowed in here. But then, what if the kid cries? Beomgyu’s not prepared for that. He’s too much of a sympathetic crier not to join in.

“Just… keep it closed and hide it when we leave, okay?”

Relief floods Jay’s face as he squeezes a line of honey straight into his mouth.

Beomgyu’s fun fact goes considerably less well than everyone else’s. The main problem is that, despite being the one to suggest it, he has absolutely nothing in mind. He could lie and make something up that would be easily impressive, like that he absorbed a twin in the womb, or that he’s distantly related to the Queen of Sweden, or that his taste buds are reversed so salty tastes sweet. Something interesting but unverifiable; it’s not like they’ll ever see him again to find out. But he’s not great at lying on command. Too many years of dialogue wheels that punish dishonesty have trained him to pick the honest but awkward route every time, so in the end, the only thing that comes out of his mouth is a truth: “Last summer, I was feeding goats at the zoo when the wind picked up and blew their droppings straight into my eye. I had to go on vacation with an eye patch.”

The entire cabin stares back at him, quiet. Sunghoon looks disturbed, but Jake is wearing a pinched expression like he’s trying not to laugh.

“… Gross,” Sunoo finally says, breaking the silence.

Jungwon cackles, falling back onto his bunk. “Why’d you pick Baloo when you could’ve been a pirate?” he asks, forming a hook with his finger and swiping the air.

“Well, we kind of look alike, don’t we?” Beomgyu hazards, even though he has absolutely no memory of Baloo beyond bear (?), probably friendly.

No one responds. As it would turn out, most of the cabin hasn’t even seen the movie. Beomgyu has half a mind to sneak his laptop in and play it over dinner. If he can’t win them over with authority, maybe he can bribe them with a movie night.

It isn’t until two days later that Beomgyu gets his first idea for BeomKai.exe. They’re in the middle of an arts and crafts project, or what was supposed to be one, at least. The RNG gods of child coordination are cruel. Most of his campers have turned their tie-dye shirts into indistinguishable blobs of damp colour, so Beomgyu is batch-making normal ones so they have something nice to wear and bring home. Sunghoon has just found out the hard way that the red dye stains skin if it sits too long, so Beomgyu is trying to scrub his hands off in the basin before Sunghoon shows up to lunch looking like he lost a fight with a patch of stinging nettle. It’s then that the lightbulb ignites above his head.

Back at the yurt, Beomgyu slouches into his folding chair with the speaking stick balanced across his lap. It’s supposed to be used for cabin meetings, but currently it acts more like a staff of power. He taps it against his palm. “Any of you guys have acting experience?”

Five young, vacant faces stare back at him. Jungwon is very obviously sliding a hand into his pocket, fake-coughing as he shoves something in there. Beomgyu decides, for the sake of his blood pressure, to believe it’s a leftover muffin from snacktime and not, say, a live beetle or uranium. Surely the camp did a sweep for that kind of thing. Surely.

“Okay, here’s the deal.” He leans forward, consciously taking his eyes off of Jungwon. “There’s a very important mission we have to do with the nurse. You all know Nurse Kai, right?”

Two kids nod. The other three look blank, which is rich considering Kai hands them gummy vitamins every morning. Beomgyu pinches the bridge of his nose. Maybe the counsellors stuck in treehouses with all the tweens aren’t the real suckers after all. At least tweens have a memory span longer than a goldfish.

“Fine. Whatever. The point is, if one of you ever gets poison ivy, we need to know what to do. Has anyone here had poison ivy before?”

“I saw it in a movie,” Sunoo offers, brightening.

Jay nods seriously beside him. “Leaves of three, let it be.”

“Exactly! Perfect.” Beomgyu pulls a red sharpie from his pocket. “So. We’re gonna fake it by scribbling this all over somebody’s arm, go see Nurse Kai, and he’ll put cream on it, or—something. Then we’ll know what to do if you actually get it.”

Sunghoon’s face clouds immediately. “Is there a lot of poison ivy around here?”

“What? No. Definitely not.” Beomgyu waves the sharpie around. After a beat, he adds, “This is just a test. Nothing to worry about. And… whoever volunteers gets my serving of dessert at dinner, how about that?”

This turns out to be the exact wrong incentive. Suddenly, four hands shoot up eagerly; everyone is clamouring to be Chosen Poisoned One, save for Sunghoon. That kind of makes Beomgyu want to choose him over the others, except he’s seen how Sunghoon tried to lie when Jungwon asked if his tie-dye shirt, covered in brown splotches, looked ‘cool.’ So he’s definitely out.

In the end, Beomgyu goes with Jake. His cousin was (supposedly) once an extra on an episode of Law and Order, and that’s probably as close to acting experience as they’re gonna get. Also, he doesn’t squirm under the sharpie when Beomgyu tries to add shading to the fake rash, which has to be a good sign.

By the time Beomgyu herds the rest of the cabin down to the pool, they’ve already separated into two factions: the ones sprinting for the water, and the ones clutching their towels to their chests, staring at the pool as if it’s shark infested. There’s a large group of kids already splashing around in it, a game of water polo starting up, which turns out to be enough to encourage the last of Beomgyu’s kids to at least dip their toes in to watch.

He’s too busy keeping a headcount—four in, four out, please God let it stay that way—to notice Taehyun until he hears the sharp blast of a whistle. Taehyun is posted in the lifeguard chair, oversized sunglasses swallowing half his face whilst a whistle hangs from his neck. Beomgyu hasn’t seen much of him since orientation, just glimpses in the kitchen surrounded by pots and one unfortunate explosion from a can of whipped cream.

“Dude,” Beomgyu calls up, shading his eyes. “How many jobs do you have here?”

Taehyun just shrugs.

“Chef Acorn! Watch me do a handstand!” one of the kids yells from the shallow end.

Taehyun blows his whistle. “Lifeguard Acorn,” he corrects flatly, but leans forward to watch, clapping when they surface. His face is stony, but the kid seems delighted just the same.

Beomgyu snorts. “Your fan club’s getting loud. Do me a favour and don’t let any of my cabin drown? I have to take Jake to the med shed.”

“I’m sick with poison ivy!” Jake adds from his side, bounding up to Taehyun’s chair and shoving out his arm. It’s covered in red scribbles that, from far away, actually do look a bit concerning. “See? All over me!”

Taehyun flinches away from it, nodding to Beomgyu. “I’ll try.”

Beomgyu steers Jake away from the lifeguard chair, mumbling under his breath, “Showtime, bud.”

It turns out the walk to the med shed takes about a quarter of the time when Beomgyu isn’t hobbling on one-and-a-half legs. Maybe even less, considering Jake’s so hyped to play his part that he keeps sprinting ahead like a golden retriever who just learned how to fetch.

“Come in,” Kai calls when they knock. He’s hunched over a textbook, looking a little frazzled. “I didn’t hear anything from my walkie,” he says from the desk, poking at it. There’s an array of medical books and colourful notes spread out around him, the most graphic of which he snaps shut before Jake can see. “Guess it’s dead again.”

“No, that was my bad. Sorry, we should’ve called.” Beomgyu sets his hands on Jake’s shoulders before the kid can start bouncing off the walls. He’s not exactly proud of how bad he is at lying, but planning isn’t his strong suit either, so… here they are. “It’s not a huge emergency, just—”

Jake thrusts his arm out as Exhibit A. “I have poison ivy.”

The sharpie rash is already bleeding from sweat (how can a forest be filled with such tall trees and still offer basically no shade…?), so Beomgyu tries to subtly angle him toward the fan before the entire masterpiece runs. “We took a hike earlier. There was a... suspicious... bush.”

”Oh?” Kai raises his eyebrows.

“Jungwon pushed me into it,” Jake adds.

That part is actually true. So, okay. Improv. Not bad, actually. Beomgyu is kind of impressed.

Jake hops onto the exam table, avoiding using his ‘injured’ arm. When Kai steps closer, though, he squirms back.

“I’ll be super gentle, okay?” Kai’s voice softens. That easy smile breaks out again, the one Beomgyu’s starting to think he must wear even in his sleep. “I just want to take a look.”

Jake glances at Beomgyu, who nods, so he sticks his arm out obediently. Up close, the sharpie job really does look… questionable. In Beomgyu’s defence, the wifi here is so bad that the best poison ivy references he could find were blurry thumbnails.

“You said you got this from a plant?” Kai asks, holding Jake’s arm up as it falls limply in his hand. There’s something strange in his tone, but Beomgyu can’t fully make it out. He’s too busy avoiding Kai’s eyes, because eyes don’t lie, and if Beomgyu meets his gaze now, he’s doomed. He should’ve borrowed Taehyun’s sunglasses.

Jake nods. “It itches and burns, and sometimes there’s blisters.”

“Huh.” Kai opens a drawer one-handed, still holding Jake’s wrist steady as he roots around blindly.

“Something you need help looking for?” Beomgyu asks. Maybe this is his in. Maybe this is when their hands brush, and Kai looks at him with new, impressed eyes.

“Nope,” Kai responds cheerfully, tearing open an alcohol wipe. “Let me try something first.” He swipes the sharpie rash once, and the red ink immediately begins to smear away.

Jake looks between them, clueless. “I’m cured!”

Beomgyu lets out a strangled laugh. “Kids, right?”

“Kids,” Kai echoes, though there’s something long-suffering about it.

Beomgyu’s guilt spreads. He should say something, apologise, anything. But all he can muster is a lame nod. “We’ll, uh, let you get back to it.” He pats Jake’s head, immediately regretting it when his palm sticks to something tacky. But he can’t visibly wince now, so instead, he just keeps patting, his palm growing stickier by the second with sap or berries or whatever the hell comes from the bush Jake landed in.

“It’s no problem,” Kai nods. He leans against the bed, forearm flexing with the movement. “I’m glad I could help. But for future reference, a poison ivy rash will be raised above the rest of the skin.” He looks away, and Beomgyu takes the chance to wipe his hands against his jeans. Kai adds the next part under his breath. “And it won’t smell so much like sharpie, okay?”

“Ah,” Beomgyu’s laugh is tight. “Good to know.”

“Which is also, just,” Kai shakes his head, “you should know it’s mildly toxic if ingested. Not that you’d eat it! Your kids are past that age, I think, and so are you. Obviously,” he adds with an equally stiff laugh. “But be careful anyway. I read the MSDS sheets sometimes when I can’t sleep, and then the warnings start popping into my head, you know?”

Beomgyu nods like he understands, but he doesn’t really. The guilt is starting to creep in in earnest, and it’s messing with his inherent charm. “Sounds like a nightmare montage.”

Before Kai can respond, Jake, growing bored now that his role is over, swings his leg out so far that it catches him in the thigh. He lets Jake root around in the reward drawer for a sticker anyway, which makes the kid’s whole face light up, pocketing another greedily when Beomgyu gives him his own, too.

“Nurse Kai, did we pass the test?” Jake asks at the door, and Beomgyu physically feels his smile die, though he does his best to hold it up. If he can’t see BeomKai.exe succeed today, he can at least not watch it fail beyond repair.

“Test?” Kai looks up, puzzled. “What test?”

“Ah-ha, kids!” Beomgyu interrupts, steering Jake firmly out with a little more force than necessary. “Thanks, Kai!” he calls over his shoulder before Kai can get any ideas, or worse, answers.

The next morning, Beomgyu spots Kai during morning meds. Today, providence has struck: a mosquito bit him right above the eye the night before, leaving it swollen and red. Which is annoying, sure, especially when he only has one fully working eye to keep his campers from daring each other to kiss frogs or whatever else Jungwon is clearly trying to rope Sunghoon into by the yogurt bar. But it’s also an opportunity.

Kai is peacefully packing up his bag in the very corner of the mess hall, right by the swinging kitchen doors, while a crowd of kids and staff moves around him. He looks too pure to be here, like he belongs in a real clinic, not in a mess hall that reeks of dirt and chlorine from the kids who woke up for polar plunge. He also looks imminently about to leave. If it could, Beomgyu’s vision would be flashing red. Beomkai.exe is the only thing that’s been getting him through the week.

Not to be discouraged, he marches right up to Kai and wordlessly points at his eye.

Kai looks up and grimaces. “Ouch,” is all he has to say, genuinely sympathetic.

“It could be infected. You should examine me."

Kai sets his bag down at his feet. His sneakers are blindingly white, the kind that should’ve died the first day of camp. Beomgyu’s curious which will last longer: the clean sneakers, or Kai’s resistance to his inevitable charm.

“It’s not infected.”

“The mosquito could’ve given me a disease,” Beomgyu insists, crossing his arms. He’s now starting to get offended on behalf of this fictional version of himself who is, by all accounts, deeply worried. “I could have Zika.”

“That is a possibility,” Kai acknowledges mildly. “Are you pregnant?”

Beomgyu scratches his eye. “No…?”

“Then you’ll probably be fine.” If Kai is amused by this conversation, he doesn’t show it. “Would you like an ice pack?”

“I’ll tough it out. Just hope I don’t succumb to my injuries, leaving behind five innocent children,” Beomgyu nods his head in the general direction of his table without looking back.

“Yeah, they’re real angels,” Taehyun calls from the kitchen.

Beomgyu whips his head around, glaring. Taehyun is behind the counter in a flour-dusted apron, scrubbing at a pan with an innocence that belongs to people who aren’t barging in on a private conversation.

The worst part is that Beomgyu wants to defend his kids, but it’s a fair dig. Yesterday, offended by Jake’s designation as Best Actor in Cabin 10, the other four staged a competition to see who could fake drowning the most convincingly. When Beomgyu showed up to collect them, Taehyun was already sopping wet and scowling while the kids stood one by one in front of him, holding their towels to their chests, an extra one twisted into a makeshift crown on Sunoo’s head.

“Is your kid doing okay? Jay, right?” Kai asks, ignoring the aside.

“Jake.” Beomgyu glances back. Jake’s currently amusing Sunoo by repurposing his mini pancake as an eye patch. It’s clearly a dig at his fun fact, so, rude. “Yeah, why?”

Kai casts a glance that way, relaxing when he sees the show. “I just thought he might be homesick. That’s usually why kids make up injuries, isn’t it?”

“Oh. Right. Probably.” Beomgyu shakes out his hair, tugging his hoodie sleeves down. “I wouldn’t know. This is my first year being a counsellor.”

“Really?” Kai seems surprised. “I wouldn’t have guessed.”

The mess hall bell clangs then, signalling cleanup time. Immediately, the hall is filled with the sound of benches scraping, kids talking, and counsellors shouting for their tables to stack trays. His own table is a mess, and Sunghoon has granola in his hair. Great. Beomgyu sighs, scrambling for a better ending to the conversation, but Kai is already on his feet with his bag slung over his shoulder, ready to leave.

“I’ll see you at lunch?” Kai pauses at the door. “Assuming you survive the bite.”

“It’s not a joke! Mosquitos kill more people annually than sharks!” Beomgyu calls after him, but Kai’s already gone.

It’s hard to tell if he’s just unlocked another level or watched it grey out. Could ‘see you at lunch’ possibly be a code…?

A blueberry hits the back of Beomgyu’s head. He knows it’s a blueberry because it immediately rolls in front of him, becoming a victim of the cleanup rush as a kid smushes it under his shoe.

Beomgyu frowns back at Taehyun. “Harsh. You know that’s what killed that little girl in Willie Wonka. Killed her dead.”

Taehyun looks unimpressed. He’s leaning on the counter, a lazy expression on his face and pancake batter on his cheek. “I'm curious. Does it run in the family?”

“What?”

“Making an idiot of yourself in front of your crush.”

Beomgyu glares, but it’s a weak one. His eye still burns. His chest does too, a little. “No.”

He stalks over to yank down the metal divider, but hesitates halfway. How much can he trust Taehyun? How much does Taehyun trust him? “Do you think…”

“That he’s into you?” Taehyun finishes without missing a beat, which is somehow worse than if he hadn’t caught on at all. He shrugs. “Ask him yourself.”

This time, Beomgyu really does pull down the divider. Whose team is Taehyun even on?

Beomgyu finds Kai during his one single break that day, while the campers are learning archery from Yeonjun. It takes way more effort than expected. Up until now, he’d been sort of assuming that—outside of doling out meds at mealtimes—Kai would be permanently stationed in the med shed, sitting like one of those delicate houseplants that only stay alive under special lighting. Honestly, this had been half the fun of BeomKai.exe: bring the mountain to Mohammed. Or, in their case, drag the fake injury to the hot nurse.

But apparently, Kai doesn’t idle. He’s everywhere, and without a working walkie, Beomgyu is left to play Where in the World is Nurse Kai? under the blazing sun. He consults two counsellors, Taehyun, and even a gaggle of kids swimming in the creek, only to hear the same thing each time: “Sorry, Nurse Kai just left.”

The trail comes together quickly, but leaves Beomgyu with nowhere to go: Kai has been spending the entire morning dropping off bug spray here, checking on a cut there, etc., etc., etc. Taehyun even swears he caught him in the kitchen taste-testing dessert.

By the time he finds him, Beomgyu’s shirt is sticking to his back, and he’s starving. Kai’s sitting sideways in a lounge chair by the pool, feeding a first aid kit in his lap with colourful bandaidsx lit up by the sun like one of those glowing click on me! NPCs. The water is still and glassy, empty of swimmers. Beomgyu tries to catch his attention over the fence, then tries to actually just hop the fence, and fails on both counts, so ends up just sneaking up behind Kai instead.

At a light tap, Kai jumps so violently that Beomgyu almost feels bad. A handful of the bandaids go flying, one landing straight in the pool. Beomgyu fishes it out with two fingers, grinning at the way Kai is clutching his stomach in real shock.

“Sorry. Didn’t realise you were so jumpy.” Beomgyu looks around for a bin, but comes up empty. With a sigh, he shoves the soggy, chlorine-slick bandaid into his pocket. It’s a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things. “What are you up to?”

“I’m not usually. Jumpy, I mean. I was in the zone.” Kai snaps the kit shut. On the ground beside him is a pile of supplies stacked neatly: rolls of gauze, boxes of ointment, bug spray, thermometers, sunscreen. He gathers them easily in his arms. “Technically, someone else is supposed to restock, but I haven’t seen them once this week, so…”

“That sucks.” Beomgyu sticks out his hand, palm open. “Let me help.”

“What?” Kai tilts his head. “Why?”

“Because I can.”

“But it’s not your job.”

Beomgyu clicks his tongue. “Yeah, eating raw cookie dough isn’t your job, either, but I heard you managed.” Before Kai can argue, he plucks the top box from his pile. “I’ve got an hour.” He checks his phone. “Okay, half an hour, because it took me that long just to track you down. I’m at your service.”

Kai’s eyes dart down to the boxes, then back up. “I mean, not that I don’t want help, I just… I sort them by weight so the heaviest is at the bottom. It’s a system. If you take the wrong one, it’s going to ruin the balance, and…” he trails off, realising how that sounds, and ducks his head. “Sorry. You can still carry it. I’ll, uh, just fix the order later. I do appreciate it.”

Their first stop is the treehouses, a short hike into the forest. Kai insists that cutting through the creek path is the most efficient route. Beomgyu would like to agree, except that he did this same hike during orientation, and the amount of uneven, slippery ground spread across it sounds a lot like begging the universe to break his ankle for real this time.

When they pass the creek, a new set of children is splashing around in the shallow end. Soobin is waist-deep in the water himself, playing sea monster while his campers shriek and scatter around him. Kai smiles at the sight, before flinching when Soobin trips and chokes on a mouthful of water, hacking so dramatically that Beomgyu actually considers making a rescue attempt before he pulls it together, dramatically stomping back towards the kids with sopping wet hair.

“When I was a camper here, I was convinced that creek was radioactive, and that’s why it’s green,” Kai admits, hopping over a branch a little too cautiously. “I even made up a whole backstory in my head about mutant fish living in it.” He laughs softly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I still half-expect one of them to surface when I walk past.”

Beomgyu wants to feel triumphant about earning that information. It’s as close to an achievement notification as the real world is going to give him. But he’s too busy stuck on the image of a mini Kai eyeing the pool in terror. It’s cuter than it has any right to be.

“I could buy it,” he nods, trying to refocus. The point of Beomkai.exe is to clear the static, not add to it. “No way they test the water for anything important. But wouldn’t it be cool to grow an extra arm or something?”

Kai has a look like he doesn’t know whether he’s being made fun of or not. “I guess.”

The path spikes, and he stumbles a bit on the first set of rocks, losing a box of sunscreen at the top before Beomgyu saves it, biting back a comment about how helpful the extra arm would be, now.

The next crossing’s steeper, and Beomgyu half-extends his arms in case. It’s mostly a joke, but it turns out to be the right call—Kai’s foot slides two steps in, and he lurches sideways, clawing for balance in the air. Beomgyu catches him by the arm without thinking, his muscles burning under the weight. He’s not all that strong, and pulling Kai upwards is a fight, but he manages it okay. Maybe more than okay, or maybe that’s just Kai’s help, because instead of returning to normal, Kai overcorrects and ends up jerking forward, inches away from Beomgyu’s face, their hands clasped tight.

“You okay?” he barely gets out, still holding on. Kai’s breathing is fast from the scare, and his pupils are tiny, bathing in warm brown. The attention is too much, too sudden, and under it, Beomgyu feels his stomach twist. He searches for a joke, but nothing comes out.

“Sorry,” Kai squeaks, his face beet red as he lets go. The blood floods back into Beomgyu’s prickling hand as Kai straightens too quickly, brushing invisible dirt off his bright green scrubs. The penguin badge pinned to his chest hangs crookedly, bouncing with every movement. “I can be clumsy.”

“Nah,” Beomgyu kicks one of the smaller rocks, sending it skittering down the hill. His pulse is still racing, but trending down. He thinks, not for the first time, that this is what he’s always liked about branching games: that every input has an output. “The rocks are just assholes.”

The path is a lot smoother after the rocks, but also steeper. Beomgyu wants to soak in this very temporary moment of currently being the better hiker, but something else is poking at his mind instead, a comment from Kai he hadn’t fully processed until now.

“Hey, you said you were a camper here? When?”

“Um, I turned nine during the last week of it.” Kai tips his head back, calculating. “So let’s see… twelve years ago?”

“Holy shit, I was here then too,” Beomgyu huffs behind him. Kai’s legs can’t be that much longer, but he speeds around like he’s going to earn a bonus for sparing the seconds. “Why don’t I remember you?”

Kai hums noncommittally. “Not much to remember. They let me hang out in the lounge whenever I felt overheated, which was often. I mostly just read books.”

“But you still came back to work here?”

“I did. As a favour for a friend, really. And…” Kai’s mouth curves, thoughtful. “This place is part of what made me fall in love with science. There was this huge anatomy book for kids on one of the shelves. I think it’s still there. I just remember staring at the illustrations thinking, there’s no way all of this is going on inside of me. But it was. Is.”

Beomgyu doesn’t know what to say at first. It’s such a large piece of lore, but part of him is still processing the fact that they were here at the same time, passing ships. Would nine-year-old Beomgyu have thought Kai was weird? Or cool? Would they have been friends? Would Kai have replaced his monthlong crush on Smoky the Bear?

Probably not, on that last one. But the possibility stands.

“I forget that part,” he mutters, stepping around a salamander in his path. “We’re shaping little minds, huh?”

“Maybe you are,” Kai amends, sending Beomgyu a look he doesn’t deserve, one filled with respect. It’s something he wishes he could download and save anyway. Who else sees him like that? “I just patch them up.”

“And me.”

“And you,” Kai agrees. His eyes drop to Beomgyu’s boots. “How’s the ankle, by the way?”

“Holding up,” Beomgyu stomps the ground to prove it. It makes Kai brighten, which sort of makes him regret it. He should’ve gone bigger, maybe done a spin kick or something, just to see how much better he can make Kai’s day. “Would’ve healed faster if you’d helped me guilt Soobin.”

“No way,” Kai lets out a nervous giggle, shaking his head. “He looked like he felt bad enough.”

“Yeah,” Beomgyu murmurs, smiling to himself. “He did.”

From here, the trail levels into something almost pleasant. Even though it’s still work, it feels kind of meditative, coming in and out of conversation easily, flowers around them waving in the breeze. Beomgyu plucks a fistful of clovers from the edge of the path and chews on one absently. When Kai gives him a look, he holds one out. “Hey, don’t knock it before you try it. No way you were a camper here if you didn’t eat them during hikes.”

Kai leans away from the green, nose wrinkling. “I was never that desperate.”

Beomgyu laughs in surprise. “Take it back! It’s not about desperation; it’s about having the full nature experience or whatever.”

“Um, I don’t mean to be rude, but if the full nature experience is chewing on a dirty weed, I think I’ll survive without it.”

“Suit yourself,” Beomgyu finishes the last of the clovers. They’re more bitter than he remembers, but edible all the same. Probably.

When they finally reach the treehouses, Kai looks appropriately flat. They’re tall, intimidatingly so, and the wooden beams they rest on are so thin that they can’t possibly be regulation. Still, a dozen kids have been living here for a week. So they can’t be too unsafe.

“I thought they’d have a pulley we could send up,” Kai says wiltingly, shading his eyes. “All they need is bacitracin.”

“These cabins lean kinda military school, don't they?” Beomgyu agrees. “Feels like punishment housing. And they’re all tweens, which should be punishment enough.”

Kai’s gaze doesn’t leave the ladder. “I hate those things,” he mutters. “Did you know most ladder accidents don’t even happen at the top? It’s usually around the third step. Statistically.”

Beomgyu opens his mouth to tease him, but the words catch. Unfortunately for him, Kai’s position puts his adams apple on full display, the longest pieces of his hair sticking to his neck with sweat. Also unfortunately for Beomgyu is the fact that when he’s attracted to someone, he doesn’t just become stupid; he becomes gallant. It’s a curse. Mostly because it has yet to work.

“Hold these,” he says, loading his armful of bandaids onto Kai’s pile and swiping the box of ointment instead. A quick check of the time shows he’s only got ten minutes until archery ends, but he’s not abandoning the mission now.

“What are you doing?”

“Being a hero.” Beomgyu tucks the box into his back pocket and starts up the ladder. “No point in both of us climbing. I’ll be back in a sec.”

The climb turns out to be not that bad. He slips a little on the fourth rung, muttering a string of curses, but keeps going, catching himself before Kai can react.

The view at the top makes it all worth it, so much so that it’s honestly a shame Kai isn't here with him. The treehouse is empty, so Beomgyu leaves the ointment on the counsellor’s bunk, stopping by the other side to get a full view of the forest.

“Be careful up there,” Kai calls, voice soft but carrying.

Beomgyu balances one hand on the top rung to grin down, cocky. “What, worried about me?”

Kai doesn’t answer, just shakes his head.

Up here, Beomgyu can see two cabins combined for a hike, a dozen little legs stomping along as their counsellors sing a song that’s too far away to fully make out, but the beat looks like ‘the ants go marching one by one.’ There’s a deer on a steep hill above them, which is rare to see out here, and Beomgyu watches as it spots the group, darting away into the deep forest. When he glances down, Kai is a splash of unnatural green against the dirt, small enough that when Beomgyu closes one eye and pinches his fingers together, he can squish his entire body.

“What are you doing?” Kai calls up.

“Playing God!” Beomgyu shouts back, squishing just his head, and then his feet, then his knees, imagining drag-dropping them to the top of the treehouse.

Beneath his fingers, Kai’s head moves into view. “Can you play God on the ground, please? I have other deliveries.”

“Oh.” Beomgyu drops his hand. “Yeah, sure.” He gives the treeline one last hungry glance before climbing back down.

The return is quick; the walk back to the main field feels even quicker. Beomgyu could be imagining it, and if he isn’t, it could just be because of the rocks, but Kai walks a lot closer to him this time. Close enough that when the wind balloons his scrubs out and Beomgyu is so focused on keeping his eyes up that he forgets to turn them away completely, he can almost just make out the shape of a tattoo on Kai’s shoulder before it’s once again hidden by fabric.

”I guess this is where we part,” Beomgyu says, saluting Kai goodbye as grass tickles his ankles. He’s five minutes late to pickup already, but it’s probably fine. “Good luck with the rest of it.”

“Thanks for the help,” Kai returns the salute a little awkwardly, squinting against the sun beating at Beomgyu’s back. “This was nice.”

Beomgyu hums. “I was better entertainment than help, wasn’t I?”

“Well, about that…” Kai shifts, one sneaker grinding into the dirt. It’s still impressively white; maybe he cleans them at night. “I still don’t get why you spent your break helping me.”

“Maybe I like you.”

Kai frowns. “You barely know me.”

Beomgyu shrugs. “Maybe I like what I barely know about you. How about that?”

Kai has a look on his face like he doesn’t believe Beomgyu is telling the truth, but can’t quite parse out why or how. “I guess that’s fair.”

Beomgyu is already walking backwards toward the archery range when he finally remembers to ask, “Hey, when’s your charting time or break or whatever? When will you for sure be in the shed tomorrow? Noon?”

Kai isn’t even that far away, but he shouts to be heard anyway. “Why?”

“No reason!” Beomgyu picks up speed, his knees pumping like the campers on their hike. “Thanks for letting me help today!”

“Nurse Kai?”

Beomgyu gives Jungwon a little shove between the shoulder blades, just enough to make him stumble forward into the light spilling out of the med shed doorway.

“Uh! Um.” Jungwon freezes, card clutched tight in his hands. Beomgyu flashes him a thumbs up and a wink, a stupid face breaking out of him before he remembers that Kai is watching the entire thing. Except it makes Jungwon snort, his confidence returning, and that makes it worth it.

Jungwon turns back to Kai, squares his shoulders, and shoves the handmade card in front of himself. “Cabin 10 humbgly—”

“Humbly,” Jay corrects from Beomgyu’s side, and Beomgyu glares at him on Jungwon’s behalf. Jay can correct him later, not now, not when he’s finally getting his words out.

“What’s ‘humbly’ mean?” Jake whispers, and Sunghoon elbows him. “Shh!”

“—invites you to the dress rehearsal of our show,” Jungwon pushes through. His voice climbs on the last word, but only barely.

“A show?” Kai’s smile widens as he takes the card, stepping out of the doorway. “What’s it about?”

His words are for the boys, but his eyes keep jumping to Beomgyu, and when they catch, he tilts his head, a wordless question on his face as the boys all speak over each other, each explanation worse than the last for what is honestly just a not-so-subtly plagiarised version of The Little Prince, pulled straight from the dog-eared copy in the lounge. Not that Beomgyu plans on mentioning that part. Let the kids have their glory.

He’d love to claim this as another BeomKai.exe mission, say it’s a genius plot to get Kai to have to split the tiny director's log with him. But honestly, all the campers adore Kai. He’s warm, he’s kind, he’s silly when he needs to be, and he’s one of those staffers who never brushes the kids off, not even for the small things. When Cabin 5 begged to braid his hair after half of them showed up to the all-camp campfire sunburnt to a crisp, he’d sat obediently on a stool, wincing when they tugged too hard but never complaining, and then walked around the rest of the night with uneven braids just to make them smile. Beomgyu had seen the way Kai ducked his head in embarrassment when he waved from the top row, but he hadn’t taken them out.

The voices finally die down, and Kai opens the card. The paper is crinkled at the corners, and marker is bleeding through in uneven patches. Luckily, Beomgyu had vetoed their use of poison ivy red.

“There’s no time written here. I’d love to come, but I’ve got important jobs at certain times.”

Sunoo tugs on Kai’s sleeve, leaving little glitter smears from craft hour. Kai glances down at the patches but doesn’t seem to mind.

“It’s a special invite,” Sunoo says solemnly. “For special people.”

“You and Acorn,” Jay adds, nodding so hard his hair flops over his eyes.

“Really?” Kai’s eyebrows lift.

“Yeah,” Beomgyu jumps in. “But he’s way easier to book. Just let us know when works.”

Jake bounces on the step. “Please, Nurse Kai, we gotta practice!”

“We could honestly use the fresh eyes,” Beomgyu adds quickly. “We’re doing the full thing at the talent show, but if you can spare fifteen minutes, we’ll fit it around you. Promise.”

“You can skip my bedtime medicine,” Sunghoon offers, dead serious. “You can just come like always, and then we’ll do the show instead.” His face is so open, so sure that this is a reasonable trade, that Beomgyu’s chest twists.

Kai pats Sunghoon gently on the shoulder. “No need for that,” he says gently. “Tell you what. I’ll talk to Counsellor Baloo, and we’ll figure something out, okay? I definitely want first watch.” He turns the card over carefully in his hands, his thumb smoothing out one of the crinkled edges. “Do I get to keep this?”

“Only if you show up,” Sunoo says.

Kai laughs, pocketing it. “Deal.”

The next evening, their audience is small but mighty. Taehyun manages to sneak away from dinner prep after all. Without the apron and the perpetual stress of feeding the entire camp stamped across his face, Beomgyu has to admit that he understands why Soobin was so jealous. The guy is ripped, but casually so, messy blue hair falling over his eyes where a grease-stained bandana fails to pull it back, and his shirt clings just enough to make the faded local band logo across his chest look like a flex of its own. Beomgyu is almost certain he’s seen that band play a gig on his campus once, probably for gas money and discounted drinks.

Around them, the campers tear through their bags in search of ‘props’ (whatever they haven’t lost already) and ‘costumes’ (spare clothes layered until someone gets heat stroke—though it had been deeply exciting when Jake discovered a fox-eared beanie in his duffel bag).

“You smell like cinnamon,” Beomgyu comments as the kids whir past them. He leans just close enough to catch it properly, his nose twitching involuntarily. “And… vanilla?”

“Intentional,” Taehyun replies, unfazed. “I’m a walking menu.”

Before Beomgyu can reply, another voice cuts in. “Am I late?”

Kai is standing a few feet off, the dusk light blurring around him. His scrubs peek out from under a Patagonia sweatshirt he’s clearly thrown on in a rush, hair sticking in tufts.

“Nope, I was early,” Taehyun says, giving Kai a little wave.

Kai relaxes, but his eyes don’t leave Beomgyu, even as he waves back.

“Sit,” Beomgyu says, jerking his chin at the logs they’d dragged together as benches. The wood’s damp, but not too uncomfortable. “Best seats in the house.”

“I’ll go front row with you guys,” Kai says easily, nodding at the middle spot between them. “If that’s okay?”

“Sure,” Taehyun shrugs, shifting until his sharp shoulder digs into Beomgyu’s side.

Beomgyu scowls, but before he can elbow him off, Kai scratches his neck and says, “Actually… I’ve got terrible balance. Mind if I sit in the middle?”

That earns Beomgyu a long, perceptive look from Taehyun, thick with an accusation that Beomgyu would rather he just come out and say. It’s not like he’s been subtle about it.

Kai doesn’t take a single step forward. The silence stretches, so Beomgyu opens his mouth, then shuts it again, his pulse doing a dumb rabbit hop in his throat. It’s kind of hard to tell who’s being weird in this equation. Maybe it’s nobody. Maybe the weird is the friends they’ve made along the way.

Taehyun clears his throat. “Go ahead, Kai.” He shifts, giving a wide scoot the other way so the space left is clear. His expression stays neutral, but there’s something curious in his gaze as Kai comes to sit between them, a sort of ginger pleasedness about the way he wiggles in, boots stamping across the wet mud underneath.

On ‘stage,’ the boys are beginning to settle. Most of them clump toward the trees, whispering furiously at each other. It’s the most rushed production Beomgyu has ever seen, and they’re guaranteed to forget at least half their lines, but he feels an oddly protective twinge at the sight of Jungwon tugging the fox beanie onto his head, Sunoo’s thermal leggings turned scarf, Jay with cardboard wolf claws taped to his fingers.

Jake waves for their attention. “Chef Acorn, Nurse Kai, tell Sunoo he can’t be the narrator and the prince,” he pleads, clutching a bath towel he’s fashioned into a cape. “It’s confusing!”

Taehyun just gives them a thumbs up. “Creative vision. Who are we to interfere?”

Jay scowls, crossing his arms and watching a wolf claw fall to the ground. “I told you guys we should’ve done a fight scene instead. I could’ve had a sword.”

“You would’ve poked my eye out,” Sunghoon mutters, fussing with his paper crown, his hair sticking damply to his forehead in the evening humidity. It’s fitting for his character, at least.

“Hey, guys, show must go on,” Beomgyu cuts in before they can get into an actual fight. “We’ll work out the bugs later, okay? Your audience,” he gestures to Kai and Taehyun, “is waiting patiently.”

It’s a little insulting how quickly that gets them to move compared to the times when Beomgyu has asked for himself, for his reputation as an okay-ish counsellor, for his own sanity. But whatever. A win is a win. The boys quiet, getting into their places.

Beomgyu raises a hand before they start, signalling to wait a minute, and leans close to his companions to mutter, “I know neither of you would, but if you’re dicks about this, as in if you don’t clap at the end like they just cured cancer, I will personally find a way to make bedbugs infiltrate this camp.”

Taehyun gives a thumbs up, an amused smile breaking through his flat exterior. Kai only hums, eyes forward and hands tucked into his sweatshirt pocket.

The second Beomgyu lowers his hand, the curtain (a towel draped over two branches) drops. With that, the show starts. It’s full of improvisations, and kids yelling for “line!” so often that at some point, Beomgyu gives up completely on watching and just sticks to being prompter on command. At the end, Sunoo goes abstract and tries adding a dance that no one knows how to follow.

So, it’s a mess. It is, also, better than watching them cure cancer, in Beomgyu’s opinion. That feels like a karmically bad thing to admit, but as far as metaphorical platitudes go, Beomgyu is pretty confident he won’t regret this one.

Beomgyu is starting to feel like Taehyun swerved him a bit on dessert. He’d been promised cinnamon rolls, not shrink-wrapped slices of chocolate cake that look like they’ve seen better decades. The campers don’t care, of course. They’re inhaling theirs, frosting smeared across fingers and cheeks, already arguing about who got the biggest slice. Beomgyu hasn’t even touched his. He’s too busy tracking Kai around the room and then pretending to be oblivious when he looks in their direction.

“Sit with us,” he blurts out when Kai passes by, shoving Jungwon further down the bench. Jungwon protests with a groan, but Beomgyu sticks his tongue out until the boy gives up.

Kai hesitates, squeezing the med pack in his hands. “I really should go back and study.”

“You’re always working or studying. Did you even get a slice of cake?”

Kai glances at the tray near the kitchen window, then back at Beomgyu’s untouched slice. “… No.”

Beomgyu sets down his fork and slides the plate over. “How’s this. I heard a rumour that someone slipped a poisonous leaf into the batter. Oh no! Guess you’ll have to test it to make sure.”

“What’s with this cabin and poison?” Kai laughs under his breath. But he sits, perched at the very edge of the bench, and takes the fork anyway.

Before he can even take a bite, Sunoo is up and by his side, wanting to recount their morning, which was mostly just that a centipede crawled into his sleeping bag, triggering a yurt-wide bug search. Kai sets down his fork and listens seriously, nodding at every detail, grimacing at the vivid picture of the centipede that, in all reality, was not actually that big, but absolutely was that gross.

Sunoo’s ramble continues, so Kai’s attention returns to the cake. At his first taste, his eyes drift closed for a brief, savouring moment. It looks like bliss, and for a second, Beomgyu forgets to breathe. There’s a feeling like satisfaction in his stomach, the same one that comes when he completes a hidden side quest that doesn’t pay in points, only pride. It’s the kind of interaction that a game wouldn’t remember, but he will.

Because, sure, it’s nice to hang around the guy, make him laugh and try to flirt in a way that’ll actually land. But it’s also just nice to see him happy. He works hard, he’s kind, he makes the campers feel safe and cared for. That’s a hard job. Little minds are precarious. Beomgyu’s was. It sounds like Kai’s was, too.

When Sunoo’s story winds down, Kai sets the fork aside, half the slice still untouched. “Thanks. I’m almost positive it wasn’t poisoned.”

“You can finish it, I don’t mind,” Beomgyu says honestly, but Kai shakes his head.

“It was more than enough. I’ve gotta get back now.”

Across the table, Jake’s got frosting covering his cheeks, chin, and even one eyebrow, somehow. He leans forward on his elbows, eyes already glassy with a sugar high. “Did you bring any stickers?”

Kai smiles tiredly. “Not tonight. You’ll have to remind me tomorrow.”

Jake shakes his head. “What if I forget tomorrow?”

“Good point. I’ll remind you to remind me.” Kai pushes back from the table and brushes crumbs off his knees. “All of you sleep tight, and steer clear of centipedes. I know they’re harmless, but, uh… they have too many legs. Anything with more than six legs should be illegal.”

Sunoo giggles, and the rest of them wave Kai goodbye as he disappears into the night, swallowed up by navy blue. Immediately, the sound of screeching cicadas and mess hall noise filters back in, causing Beomgyu to cringe involuntarily. He hadn’t noticed until now how quiet everything had become when Kai was sitting with them.

“Are you gonna eat your cake?” Jay asks, eyeing the remainder of Beomgyu's slice.

“Yes,” Beomgyu says, protectively dragging it closer. He doesn’t even care about it anymore, but if his campers get any more sugar, lights out is going to be hell.

“But that’s Kai’s fork,” Sunoo’s eyes are wide. “It touched his lips!”

“Yeah, what if you get cooties?” Jay adds, though it’s clearly a fakeout.

Beomgyu takes a slow bite, watching them all squirm. “Good thing he’s a nurse,” he says. “If I catch anything, he’ll cure me.”

The staff lounge still smells like burnt popcorn from last week’s failed movie night. Beomgyu considers making another bag—fight fire with slightly less intolerable fire, or something like that—but when he checks, the box is empty. Everything’s empty, really, except a half-crushed bag of stale marshmallows shoved in the corner of the cabinet.

Soobin’s half-asleep on the couch a few feet away, long legs folded awkwardly to fit, one foot twitching in rhythm to whatever’s playing in his single earbud. It’s just the two of them tonight. They’ve only got ten minutes before Counsellor Ponyo stops covering their bunk checks, but making the trek out here had felt necessary. In the woods, there are just too many listening ears, even at night.

“Just brainstorming, what if I pretend to slip and fall during morning beds?” Beomgyu asks, too loudly for the late hour. “Not, like, bad, just enough to need mouth-to-mouth. Kai’s a nurse. It’s literally his job to care. I’d be giving him job security.”

Soobin cracks one eye open. “You sound insane.”

“I sound proactive.” Beomgyu shakes the marshmallow bag Soobin’s way; he declines, so Beomgyu eats another. “And the mouth-to-mouth was a joke.”

“You sound,” Soobin pauses, stretching, “like the reason there’s an extra fire drill next week.”

Beomgyu sighs and drops into the armchair across from him, the cushions wheezing under his weight. “Okay, fine. What if I borrow the golf cart and drive it into the creek? It’s ancient anyway. They’re probably dying to use the insurance.”

Soobin chuckles, voice rough from sleep. “Are you trying to date him or get workers’ comp?”

Beomgyu goes to respond, then reconsiders. “I don’t know. Both?” He tosses a marshmallow into the air, missing his mouth completely. “He’s immune to subtlety. Every time I flirt with him, he looks at me like I’m the make-a-wish counsellor.”

Soobin hums in agreement, so Beomgyu throws a marshmallow at him. It bounces off his hoodie and lands in his lap.

“You’re supposed to be supportive.”

Soobin aims it towards the trash. It lands. “I’m conserving energy.”

“Conserve this.” Beomgyu tosses another marshmallow into the air. This time, he manages to catch it with his shoulder before it rolls onto the floor, disappearing under the couch. Beomgyu sighs so hard it empties him out. “I keep thinking if I do something big enough, he’ll have to notice me. But when I’m around him, my brain just—” he snaps his fingers, “—crashes.”

For the first time, Soobin looks sympathetic. “You talk too much when you’re nervous. You’re better when you’re not trying.”

“I’m aware.”

“Then stop doing that.”

“I’d love to,” Beomgyu says, rubbing at the back of his neck, “tell my brain that.”

He presses the marshmallow bag to his chest, half-tempted to eat the rest, half-tempted to scream into it instead. The camp’s dead silent at this hour, drowned in rain, and their only entertainment is watching the bug-splattered window fog over.

“… I think I might fake drown.”

Soobin doesn’t even look up. “Don’t.”

“Just a little bit?”

“Beomgyu.”

Beomgyu sighs, slumping lower as the rain thickens. He traces a heart into the armchair’s fabric, then wipes it away. “You could help. Maybe if you fell out of a canoe or something, I could be your valiant saviour. It’s teamwork.”

Soobin makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “And let Yeonjun find out I can’t swim? Hard pass.”

Beomgyu glances over. “You still haven’t asked him out?”

Soobin sits up, stealing the marshmallow bag. “No way. I barely see him, and I don’t want to do it while we’re surrounded by seven-year-olds.”

“So when?”

“I’m working on it, okay? The actual normal person way.” Soobin rolls a marshmallow between his fingers. “My mom called earlier, by the way. She wanted to know if I’d filled out my housing forms yet. And if we’re coordinating graduation shirts.”

Beomgyu groans, tipping his head back until he’s practically talking to the ceiling. “Don’t start. She texted me about that, too. Said I should ‘keep an eye on you.’ Like you’re not twenty-three.”

Soobin nudges him with his foot. “Have you heard anything back yet? From that fellowship?”

“Not yet. I keep telling myself no news isn’t bad news, but…” Beomgyu trails off. “I keep checking, then I close the tab and pretend I didn’t. I feel like if I look at it too much I’ll jinx it or something.” He laughs, but it comes out thin. “My dad left a voicemail this morning. He said ‘Indeed should be your morning newspaper’ three times in thirty seconds. He’s really proud of that line.”

Soobin snorts, then stops when he catches the look on Beomgyu’s face. “Okay,” he says, gentler now. “So stop checking. You can’t do anything about it here anyway.”

Beomgyu raises an eyebrow—one that says, when has that ever worked for either of us...?—but Soobin keeps going. “I’m serious, it’s not doing you any favours.” He chews on his lip. It’s a look he usually reserves for his 400 level math courses, which only serves to make Beomgyu feel worse. “Or, if you want, when lights-out patrol’s done, I’ll sit with you and we’ll check together, every night until you get something back. You don’t have to open it and panic alone. I’ll just… panic with you.”

Beomgyu looks at him, surprised and suddenly, irrationally, a little grateful in a way that tightens his throat. “You’d do that?”

“Sure. I can witness the meltdown firsthand.” Soobin smirks. “Kidding. Obviously, you’re not doing that alone.” He bumps Beomgyu’s knee. “Get out of your head. You’re good at landing on your feet.”

Beomgyu huffs. “Not when it’s a trust fall, apparently.”

Soobin rolls his eyes. “That was your fault for keeping your eyes closed.”

“Are you serious? I literally had to. It’s the entire point.”

Somewhere across the field, a counsellor’s shouting that lights-out ended an hour ago and dessert’s on the chopping block of their kids don’t quiet. Beomgyu wonders if that’s what real authority sounds like. He would’ve gone with pretending to summon the mothman.

Soobin catches the time and nods towards the exit. “Are you still planning to launch yourself into the lake tomorrow?”

Beomgyu shrugs, following him out. The rain finds them instantly, soaking through his shirt before they’ve even cleared the porch. “Depends on how early Kai’s shift starts.”

Soobin shakes his head. “I don’t get why you’re so invested in this.”

Beomgyu only shrugs, splashes through a puddle. There’s a part of him that doesn’t get it, either. A big part. “Just… need a win, I guess.”

Soobin stares at him for a beat, slowing. “He’s not a win, you know. He’s a person.”

“I know that,” Beomgyu says, more indignantly than he means to. “It’s not about—” He stops. “I know.”

They're at the point in the path where they need to split, go their respective ways. It’s still pouring rain, but neither of them move. There’s a weird feeling growing in Beomgyu’s stomach, and he can’t tell if it’s the expired marshmallows or just good old-fashioned dread.

Soobin opens his mouth, then shakes his head instead. “Please don’t get banned before the final campfire.”

This, at least, is more familiar territory. Beomgyu relaxes enough to walk backwards; his cabin is finally in sight. “Eh… no promises.”

“Then at least don’t drown. I don’t want to explain that to the entire family.”

Beomgyu gives a lazy salute. “Heard.”

Soobin shakes his head, muttering something about a circus as he disappears into the dark.

Beomgyu shoots a glance Taehyun’s way. Today, he’s working triple time trying to chop tomatoes, keep an eye on his campers, and do what he always does when he gets restless: talking too much, trying to fill the silences that Taehyun clearly doesn’t mind at all. “Don’t you ever get bored back here? Or like, lonely?”

Taehyun doesn’t even bother to look up. The kitchen is hot, but his face isn’t red at all, and he doesn’t seem overwhelmed by what feels like millions of little prep stations, loudly bubbling pans of boiling chilli and frying beef.

Beomgyu has to hand it to the camp directors. They chose the right guy for the job(s?). He’s beginning to get the impression that aliens could land on the main field right now, and Taehyun would simply wipe his hands and ask if they’re hungry for a bowl.

“I don’t work well with kids,” he replies mildly. “This is better.”

“You work well with my kids.” Beomgyu leans over the counter to count heads again. One, three, five… Sunghoon and Sunoo already look like they’re gearing up for round two of some dumb argument. He can already see the scene tree branching: [ mediate ] or [ ignore ]. The tooltip flashes: This action will have consequences. He tries for a warning look, but it’s weak, and they pretend not to notice anyway. Beomgyu sighs. This arrangement works a lot better when he gets to be the idea of a responsible adult instead of an actual one. He’s pretty sure the kids have figured that one out, too.

Taehyun’s mouth quirks upwards, but only slightly. “No. You work well with your kids. That makes them easier for the rest of us. Cabin 3 tried to start a food fight yesterday, and Cabin 6 keeps asking if the blue hair is because I’m part smurf.”

Beomgyu grins. “Hey, that’s kind of wholesome. At least they’re not old enough to ask you if the carpets match the drapes.”

Taehyun grimaces. “You’d be surprised.”

Suddenly, Beomgyu’s feeling very grateful that Soobin talked him into putting streaks into his hair instead of dyeing it bright pink. The worst he’s gotten so far is some of the littles comparing him to Anna from Frozen. “‘Chef Smurf’ has a decent ring to it. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right?”

Taehyun snorts. “Acorn is my limit, but thanks.”

"You never told me. Why’d you choose it?” Beomgyu asks, keeping a closer eye on what looks to be shifting into a full-out, cabin-wide argument. Jungwon is taking Sunoo’s side, Jay is taking Sunghoon’s, and Jake has gotten stuck in the middle, fighting back a quivering lip. Beomgyu tries to listen to Taehyun’s answer, but only makes out bits and pieces.

“Sorry, repeat that?” He asks, but gets distracted, again, this time because a pot is beginning to boil over behind them, and the clatter of the lid is loud. From the tables, Sunoo stomps away, his face red. Jake is full-on crying now, and Jay and Sunghoon take off the other way, heading for the large doors they know they’re not allowed to disappear behind. He needs to get this done quickly, really quickly, before—

The blade slips on a slick patch of tomato skin and slides straight across his knuckles. He doesn’t even feel it at first, just sees the knife clatter against the cutting board. Then Taehyun sucks in a breath, and that’s when the sting finally registers.

Beomgyu curses under his breath, then again, wringing out his hand, hot blood spreading between his knuckles. It’s so many warring sensations; the sinking feeling in his stomach, the stinging in his hand he still hasn’t gotten the courage to look at yet, and maybe worst of all, someone has begun singing Boom Chicka Boom on the field. Loudly.

Great. Just great. He’s supposed to be the one preventing all this. But here he is, can’t even be trusted to chop tomatoes without being too dumb to forget to keep his eye on the knife. If he can’t even keep himself together, how the hell is he supposed to keep five kids safe? The thought makes his stomach churn worse than the sting in his hand. Shit, shit, shit.

Taehyun hands him a rag, retrieving the knife and rinsing it off in the sink coolly. The pots have stopped rattling, so he must’ve turned them off, but Beomgyu can’t remember seeing it. “That looks… not great. You should get it checked out.” Taehyun doesn’t sound overly concerned. That’s something.

Beomgyu presses down hard, hissing through his teeth when the cloth immediately soaks red. “Two of my kids just went AWOL. I can’t ditch them.”

“I’ll handle it,” Taehyun says simply, turning the stove off. “They’re not your actual children.”

“You literally just said you’re bad with kids.”

Taehyun rolls his eyes. “Dude. Not that bad. I’ll let them pick from the candy stash if they cool down. Boom, fixed.”

Maybe it’s the adrenaline, but Beomgyu actually laughs at that. “Tell them they can use my steam deck past lights out. And if Jake’s still crying, play a song. They all lose it for ‘take me home country road,’ for some reason. And—”

Taehyun flashes him an OK sign without missing a beat, already moving toward the door. “Got it, got it. The world’s not gonna fall in twenty minutes, man. We’ll be fine.”

It’s hard to leave without casting at least a few worried looks behind his shoulder, but at the sight of Sunoo and Sunghoon returning from the field, Beomgyu finally trusts Taehyun enough to leave and make the short, bumpy walk up to the med shed without feeling like he’s destined to return to a pink slip.

On the way there, it occurs to him that there’s a possibility Kai sees this as another excuse to be in his company. Technically, this incident was Beomgyu’s fault. But not in an intentional way. Hopefully, Kai will see it similarly, or else maybe he’ll start worrying that Beomgyu has less of a harmless crush and more of a Van Gogh devotion. Which is…. not entirely unfair. But not to worry. Beomgyu really values his ears. At worst, he’d send like, a toe or something, but not one of the useful ones. Maybe the edge of a pinkie, so he has a good party story. Or maybe his ring finger, so he can pretend he was marked unmarriageable or something.

It’s stupid, but the thought entertains him for his entire walk.

Kai is waiting on the steps when he arrives, a can of soda sweating in his hand. Beomgyu had been expecting dread on Kai’s face, but if anything, the nurse looks relieved to see him upright.

“Oh, good, Taehyun made it sound like you were going to show up drenched in blood or something.”

“Sorry to disappoint.” Beomgyu leans against the railing for a beat. The cut is starting to throb in earnest now, but this is the first moment all day that he hasn’t had half a dozen kids pulling at his attention, and he wants to savour it. “Next time I’ll dump a red paint bucket over my head for the full effect.”

“Please,” Kai holds up a hand, “the sharpie was enough.”

Beomgyu’s heart skips a beat. It’s as close to an accusation as he’s gotten all summer. It should feel embarrassing, but if anything, it feels like he’s been volleying tennis balls for weeks and only just got one back. He ducks his forehead to the wood, painting on a pained expression. “In my time of ail, you mock me.”

Kai laughs, and the sound pulls Beomgyu’s gaze sideways like a magnet. From the crook of his arm, he catches only glimpses of Kai’s profile: the soda can raising to meet his lips, his eyes squeezed shut in appreciation. He’s in his scrubs like always, but every day, there’s something even less regulation about them. Today, it’s a loose flannel layered over top, patched in several places and fading, so probably a hand-me-down, and the sparkle of an earring in one ear. Beomgyu wants to make fun of that choice; it’s vaguely pirate chic. But he knows it’d come out wrong. The truth is, everything looks right on Kai. Call it crush magic. Call it Kai magic.

He nods at the soda. “Any chance you’ve got more of those?”

Kai pushes up to his feet, stretching tall, his knees cracking faintly. “Depends. What’ve you got for me?”

Beomgyu raises his bandaged hand. “Just a cut. Is there a prize for easiest patient?”

“You know…” Kai swings the door open and shoos away a fly that tries to follow. “You’re the only counsellor I’ve seen for an injury all summer.”

“Hey, the season’s still young, so don’t celebrate yet.”

“Just—” Kai pauses at the threshold, nodding Beomgyu inside first. It’s getting to be the peak of afternoon, golden hour pushing through, and for a second, it reminds Beomgyu of their first meeting. Afternoon light spills across them both, catching in Kai’s hair and setting it aglow, brighter than the glowworms his cabin caught last night. There’s something soft and warm in Kai’s eyes, like diving into a pile of freshly dried laundry.

“—be more careful, okay?”

It’s not what Beomgyu expected to hear. It’s expressly what he should have expected, but still, he didn’t. It kind of hurts, even though it’s meant to be something nice. Staying out of harm's way is kind of the bare minimum that he can hope Kai wants for him. And sure, he doesn’t want to be here for a real, necessary reason, but…

“I thought you liked my company.”

It’s supposed to come out teasingly, and Beomgyu presses into his tone to try to make it come out that way, but if anything, it just sounds tight and weird. Can he blame blood loss? He must be down at least a teaspoon, right? There was that year he kept getting nosebleeds and became briefly anemic. What if he’s the type of person who really needs every single drop?

Kai just pats the papered exam bed, and Beomgyu tries not to feel too much like one of the campers as he perches on it, hand cradled to his chest. The mattress squeaks under his weight. His feet don’t quite reach the floor, leaving him hovering just enough to feel unsteady. Kai must’ve raised it. How much money did the camp spend on this fancy ass exam bed that Beomgyu still has to sleep in a yurt?

Kai settles into the rolly chair opposite him. His posture is slightly hunched; it must have been a long day so far. “I do like your company,” he says plainly. “Would it surprise you to know that I like it much better when you’re not bleeding all over my floor or pending an xray?”

It feels like a placation, but he says it so sincerely that Beomgyu wants to believe him anyway. It’s actually kind of stupid how easily he’s reverted to his kid self here. Tell me you don’t mind me hanging around. Tell me you see me as a real adult and not just a blown-up head on a baby's body. Tell me I’m not just something you humour until the day resets.

If Soobin were here, he’d tell Beomgyu to get out of his head. And he’d be right to. The problem is, it’s impossible to leave that thing behind. Even when it’s being an asshole.

“Why don’t you ever come to night wrapups?” Beomgyu asks as Kai begins carefully unwrapping the rag from his hand. The sticky cloth peels away with reluctance, exposing the cut. It is, thankfully, much shallower than Beomgyu had feared, and allows him a brief exhale of relief. “All the staff like you,” he adds. “They’d be happy to see you there.”

Kai sets the rag on a tray before lining the pillow with paper so thin it tears the instant Beomgyu’s skin touches down. “That’s nice to hear. Really, I mean it. But I’m not really a big group person,” Kai admits, brows drawn as he studies the injury. All his movements are careful and methodical, and there’s a sort of rhythm he gets into that Beomgyu hasn’t seen before, his brows raising and bowing in focus, his lips sticking out like a duck. The kids must make it hard to really lock in. Or maybe it’s a new habit? Or maybe this is creepy, and Beomgyu should definitely try staring at something else. The Hang in There! cat poster on the wall is cute, but also a little too much like something his mom would post on Facebook.

“I’m not a group person either,” Beomgyu says, locked into a staring contest with a maine coon, “but doesn’t it get boring in here?”

Kai puts on gloves. They snap against his wrist, making him wince, and Beomgyu bites back an impulsive joke about getting ready to cough. “Boring, no. Quiet, yes.”

“Well, if you ever want just one person to talk to, I usually sit outside of our yurt until I get tired enough to sleep.”

“Oh yeah?” Kai tilts his head. “What do you do out there?”

He dabs alcohol on the cut, and Beomgyu jerks back, hissing in pain. It might be shallow, but it’s inconveniently long, and Kai is as efficient as he is gentle, which is to say takes way too fucking long. “Definitely not smoke and try to talk myself out of a stress spiral, if that’s what you’re asking,” he gets out through teeth gritted in pain.

Kai has a look on his face like he doesn’t know whether to laugh or apologise. “Then I won’t ask.” He presses his lips together, then puffs them back out again, dropping the alcohol pad into a nearby bin. “So, the good news is you don’t need stitches. The bad news is the glue stings pretty bad.”

“I can take it.” Beomgyu flexes his fingers. His knuckles are stiff from how tightly he’d clung to the rag. “I would’ve patched it myself, but I’m pretty shit at it. And I didn’t want to freak any campers out by walking around with some Halloween-looking hand or something.”

… Nevermind that he already offered to show up like Carrie just to get Kai to notice him. That would’ve been theatre. This is different. This would be genuine emotional damage to the kids, like the time that a bat got trapped in his cabin during his own summer camp, and after reassuring them that the series of shots was no big deal and that he’d do the first one in front of them if it made them feel better, their counsellor had passed clean out at the mere sight of the needle. Which is funny to think about now. But at the time, not so much. Thankfully, back then, they’d gone to the big clinic in town. Beomgyu has a hard time picturing seven scared kids and their six-foot counsellor squeezing into this same space for rabies shots. He has an even harder time imagining someone other than Kai giving care here, now.

“You want a countdown?” Kai is eyeing him, glue in one hand and a bandage in the other. The fan is fighting a losing battle against the way the room is cooking in the sun, but thankfully, Kai’s calm seems to cool the space more than AC ever could.

“No, just go for it,” Beomgyu says, less because he’s being brave about it and more because he’s too busy mentally calculating how far the sound will reach if it hurts too bad and he swear-yells. Not that anyone seems to care when Soobin does and then covers it up with his dumb shitaki mushroom thing, but he should at least be trying not to, right?

Kai doesn’t move right away. For a second, he just studies Beomgyu’s face, too close and too carefully, like he’s trying to read the actual truth in the lines of his jaw or the twitch in his brow. From his pocket, his walkie crackles with a message about a biohazard cleanup, but he ignores it. In fact, barely even glances at it.

Maybe he feels bad. Maybe he doesn’t believe Beomgyu. Maybe—and this is best best case scenario—he’ll kiss it better instead of glueing him up.

There’s always supposed to be a prompt here: [ say something reassuring ], [ make a joke ], [ stay silent ]. Beomgyu waits for one to pop up like muscle memory, but nothing comes. Just Kai telling him, “Take a deep breath for me.”

Before he’s even past the inhale, the ache in his hand flares into a sharp, stinging burn. He curses to stop himself from jerking away, face scrunching up so tight that for a moment, even that hurts, too. It’s an overwhelming, demanding stack of sensations, and then all of a sudden, it’s all joined by something new. The feeling is faint and strange, and for a second, Beomgyu’s sure Kai’s tickling him to distract him.

But he’s not. He’s leaning close, blowing gently over the freshly glued skin.

What… the fuck…?

Beomgyu swallows as the pain blurs. His heart does something weird; it’s a similar feeling to the glowworms that wriggled in his hands last night, only this is less like it’s trying to escape and more like it’s trying to relocate, like if Beomgyu let it, his heart would be happy to jump straight out of his chest and into Kai’s capable hands.

Kai’s ears go pink when he realises he’s being watched. He pulls back fast. “Sorry, I’m still on peds mode. It’s not all that sterile, but sometimes it helps the kids. You know, a different sensation, but not as harsh as ice. Usually it’s—usually I wrap it first. I’m sorry.”

Beomgyu nods dumbly. The pain in his hand has faded to nothing more than a pinch, something that’s saying, pay attention to me! Pay attention to me! Stop daydreaming about the cute nurse and the way his lips look pursed! to no avail.

Beomgyu misses another QTE, and Kai interprets his silence as annoyance and shifts even further back in his chair, the wheels squeaking across the uneven floor and catching on the lifted boards until he forces them through. He’s literally, physically, putting space between them, but his attention doesn’t leave Beomgyu’s hand. “Ah, that was really weird of me. I made it weird.”

“It’s fine,” Beomgyu croaks out. Then, because fine isn’t enough: “Not weird. My mom used to do that, actually.”

Kai’s shoulders loosen. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Beomgyu watches as Kai bandages his hand from an impressive distance, tucking the bandage in the space between Beomgyu’s pointer finger and thumb. He’s seen kids come back with stickers and tiny drawings over their bandages, but Kai leaves this one plain. “Guess I forgot until now.”

Kai hums, sympathetic. “You miss her?”

The question hits a nerve. Beomgyu shifts, frowning. “I’m not a camper.”

“You don’t have to be one to miss your mom.” Kai turns to toss his gloves in the bin. “I miss mine.”

Beomgyu pinches the bridge of his nose. It’s been a long day, and it’s not even lunch yet. And now he has to worry about whether the chilli will taste bland because he bled all over their tomato supply. “You’re right. I’m just in a different place with it right now, I guess. There’s a lot of—it’s stupid. I don’t know. Now I’m the one being weird.”

He glances around, desperate for a subject change, and lands on the cluttered desk, covered with textbooks he would’ve expected Kai to be far past needing by now. Under a mug that reads Best Nurse (According to Me), there’s a calendar, a date two weeks after camp ends circled in red: FINAL EXAM.

“Exams?” Beomgyu asks without thinking. “Aren’t you done with all that?”

Kai looks back at the calendar on instinct, wincing a little at the date. The ink is a little smudged, like he’d immediately tried to press it away after writing it.

“Unfortunately not. At least this is something new, and not recertifs.” Kai pats one of the books—just the cover is graphic enough that Beomgyu struggles to look at it for too long. “Vascular access certification. It’s harder than I expected, the studying. It’s—I’ve never not been good at that part.”

Huh.

It’s weirdly grounding, the idea that Kai is also waiting on something that might not go the way he wants. Beomgyu lets the silence pass too long, stuck on the indecision. What he should do. What Kai wants him to do. Why he told him about it in the first place.

Kai rolls his shoulders back; consciously, this time, like he’s forcing the calm instead of just living it. His usual easy smile flickers in halfway but doesn’t quite generate completely. “Sorry,” he says, voice a touch rough. “Didn’t mean to dump that on you.”

Some tense, pressure-cookered part of Beomgyu jumps on that. “I get it. I’m graduating in December. Or, I’m supposed to, anyway.” It’s a slingshot he’s had pulled back so long that his arm has finally given up and fired without permission.

Kai doesn’t interrupt. If anything, he leans in. “Supposed to?”

“Yeah. I don’t know. Everyone else seems to have a plan for after. Soobin’s already signing contracts. My roommates are looking at apartments. And I can’t even be trusted to chop tomatoes.” Beomgyu laughs once, weakly. “I don’t have a single fucking clue what I’m doing, honestly, and there’s a part of me that wants to fail the last semester, just so I have more time.” He grimaces. “There. Now I’ve full-on trauma dumped on you. We’re even.”

Kai opens his mouth, then closes it. The silence that follows isn’t uncomfortable, exactly, but it is the kind that makes Beomgyu hyper-aware of everything else. The fan is squeaking, there’s a moth batting against the closed window, and he can feel his heartbeat at least three points: his throat, his stomach, and his cut.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that,” Kai says carefully, and he sounds too sure. “Not knowing, I mean.”

“Tell that to my advisor,” Beomgyu mutters.

Kai straightens. The nerves are gone. “I’d tell it to anyone. You’re allowed to not know what’s next.”

Beomgyu looks down at his hand, flexing it gently under the wrap. The glue’s already dried, sealing everything in place. “Yeah,” he says, not sure if he believes it yet. “Guess I just thought by now I’d have levelled up.”

Kai’s eyebrow twitches at the phrasing, but he doesn’t comment on it. Beomgyu expects a polite nod, a change of topic. Instead, Kai says, “You feel stuck.”

In so many words? “… Yeah.”

Kai looks about to reach out, but decides against it, patting the space right beside Beomgyu’s thigh instead. After a beat, he asks, “Do you feel better getting it out at least?”

Beomgyu blinks. “Actually, I kind of do.” And he means it. The pit in his stomach has eased, if only a little. He eyes Kai with open, exaggerated suspicion. “How did you do that? You cast some kinda spell on me? Is that what those wind chimes outside are for?”

The joke makes him feel better, like it always does, especially when it’s stupid. But what really kicks it—what really makes Beomgyu’s stress spiral halt completely—is that Kai actually laughs. It’s a full laugh this time, something Beomgyu didn’t realise Kai had in him, his head thrown back and his eyes squeezed tight in joy. It’s such a different sound from his usual polite giggle. This one is full-bodied and loud, more of a cackle than anything.

Despite himself, Beomgyu finds himself laughing along, hard enough that his core begins to ache. He can’t help it. Kai is simply curative in all parts, in every way. Spending time with him feels like chugging a tonic, one of those expensive ones from the health store that burns going down; except this one actually works.

When the laughter eventually ebbs, Kai scoots closer. “I know you didn’t ask,” he says, voice gentler now, “but I think you sell yourself short.” The moth outside has disappeared, and now, it feels like just the two of them for miles. “I’ve spent more time with your cabin than you realise. Those boys look up to you.”

Oh. That’s not the kind of thing that Beomgyu’s good at responding to. His mouth goes dry, and the urge to make a joke flashes before fizzling out.

Kai keeps going. “I’m not just saying it to make you feel better; promise. You can tell by the way they talk when you’re not around. They really trust you. It’s sweet.”

“Really?” Something strange is happening in his stomach. There’s a twist and a tang like he’s just heard something terribly wrong, but he can’t quite put his finger on it.

“Oh, definitely. Don’t tell anyone I told you, but you’re the only cabin I haven’t had a kid fake a stomachache to escape for an hour.”

“Eh… that could just be luck.” And/or the fact that I keep letting them play genshin impact while we’re supposed to be hiking.

“It could be.” Kai acknowledges. He thinks for a moment, then shakes his head. “But I don’t think so. You treat them like actual people. That means a lot to a kid.” He hesitates, gaze darting down. “It would’ve meant a lot to me, as a kid.”

Heat rises in Beomgyu’s cheeks, too obvious. The light’s changed while they’ve been talking. Evening’s coming in slow, honey-thick, spilling through the windows and washing over Kai’s face. Beomgyu looks away before it can feel like staring. He isn’t sure he could stand to see the full weight of Kai’s sincerity without crumbling under it, anyway. Where is all of this coming from? He hasn’t done anything to deserve it. That, he’s positive of.

Before Beomgyu leaves, Kai presses a cold can of soda into his hand. It’s Orange Crush, so not his first choice, but it feels like gold anyway. “Take care of yourself, please?” Kai asks. “I don’t want you leaving camp with one less appendage.”

Beomgyu starts to argue how good of a party story it would make, then stops. It’s not his best strength, sincerity. But here he is, treating this like a game, meanwhile Kai’s been nothing but genuinely kind to him the entire time. Despite the fake injuries, the real injuries, the teasing. He deserves sincerity back.

"I’ll try. And thanks. For everything.”

Kai nods, a little awkwardly like he isn’t sure what to do with the gratitude. “Just doing my job.” He brushes his palms over his pants before pushing to his feet. His voice is even, but there’s a hint of reluctance to it that Beomgyu doesn’t miss. “I hate to kick you out, but I’ve got dinner meds to set up.”

“Yeah. And I should make sure Taehyun hasn’t been duct-taped to the floor or anything,” Beomgyu says, half so it isn’t too obvious just how much he’d like to stay, and half just to hear Kai laugh again.

It works. Kai throws his head back again, delight on full display. Only this time, when he comes back, he reaches out to steady himself, resting a hand on Beomgyu’s shoulder. And then he leaves it there. And then, like he really has no idea why he’d put it there in the first place, he freezes.

Beomgyu’s brain trips over itself. Kai’s hand is still cool from the soda, making him tense unconsciously. “Um.”

Have they been this close before? No. Definitely not. Otherwise, he would’ve known that Kai wears the kind of aftershave that smells like lavender and leaves behind a white cast, and that he either doesn’t shave very often or just isn’t great at it, because even in the poor lighting, Beomgyu can make out a faint scrape along his jaw.

Kai is still frozen, the oddest expression on his face. Beomgyu reaches out and points at the nick. The words are out of his mouth before he can even try to second-guess them. “Want me to blow on it?”

“What!”

“Oh my god,” Beomgyu blurts out. “The cut. I just meant—you know, since you—”

In a blur, Kai is spinning away, pretending to tidy up an already tidy desk; the previously clean piles of papers and books on his desk are now a victim of what looks to be a completely random, frantic shuffling, red creeping up his neck. “I mean—not right now. I mean, I—I have a lot of work to do, Beomgyu. Sorry.”

Beomgyu hops off the bed. He should feel guilty, but he’s buzzing. For the first time since he got here, he’s beginning to wonder if BeomKai.exe isn’t a co-op.

“Rumour is there’ll be cookies at tonight's wrapup,” he mentions on his way out, the rickety screen door slamming shut behind him without effort. It’s muffled, but he’s pretty sure he hears Kai clear his throat, a weak “good to know,” following behind it.

Lighter on his step, Beomgyu bounds off the shed. The wind is too weak for any major effect right now, so he strings his fingers along the windchimes as he leaves, not even minding when they come back dusty. He doesn’t even realise he’s grinning until the sound fades.

When Kai finds him later that night, it isn’t, like Beomgyu had half-fantasised about, under the warm lights of the rec centre. Instead, Kai doesn’t so much as approach but simply spawn, a sudden black figure in the corner of Beomgyu’s vision that nearly has him jumping out of his skin.

“Jesus, Kai!” Beomgyu clutches at his chest, hissing, “Bring a flashlight next time.”

“Sorry.” A beat later, the path glows faintly from Kai’s phone. “Better?”

“Better,” Beomgyu allows, though his pulse hasn't settled. “I thought you were a cryptid.”

Kai’s lips twitch. "Disappointed?"

"Hell no."

Too late, Beomgyu wonders if he’ll be cool about the smoking. It’s not exactly model counsellor behaviour, or carbon neutral, or whatever else the directors would lecture him about if they knew. But it’s also the only thing that lets Beomgyu sleep without a racing mind. So sue him; he’s not winning counsellor of the year. At least he does it away from the windows.

He tucks the arm holding it behind his back. The ember glows orange in his hand, a small, guilty star. “Nice night.”

Condensing whatever parade of thoughts he must’ve watched cross Beomgyu’s face into one, Kai just says, “It’s a little late to hide it, don’t you think?”

“Worth a try,” Beomgyu mumbles, offering a drag to Kai when he joins him on the steps. Kai declines, but he doesn’t look like he minds. It’s almost a shame, because Beomgyu really could’ve used something simple but decisive like incompatibility to knock this crush out of his brain. If Kai keeps looking at him like he’s worth a damn, he might actually start believing it.

“Are they that bad to room with?”

It takes Beomgyu a second to register what Kai means, and when he does, he snorts. “Surprisingly, no.” Normally, this is when he would toss it on the ground and stomp the light out with his feet, but thanks to his current company, he just twirls it around in his finger, watching the embers die. “I look like walking stress back home, too.”

Kai coughs. “Not what I meant.”

“I know. You’re just fun to tease.”

They sit there in silence for a long beat, listening to the sounds of the forest, which is mostly made up of crickets in the bushes and hoots of an owl that Beomgyu is pretty sure lives on top of the outhouse when people aren’t there. The air feels damp, like it wants to rain but can’t quite muster the ability. There’s a feeling of attention like Kai keeps looking out of the corner of his eye at him, but Beomgyu is too chicken-shit to check. Instead, he lands on the easy territory. “I never asked, where do you sleep?”

“There’s a motel about fifteen minutes from here. They’re putting me up there for now.”

“Serious? That’s bougie.”

Kai laughs, quietly so as not to wake the campers, but his shoulders still shake, brushing Beomgyu as they go. It’s delightful, sending shivers down his spine, lighting up every nerve he owns. “You wouldn’t say that if you saw it.”

“Show me, then,” Beomgyu volleys back before he can think better of it.

“Beomgyu. What if your kids hear?” Kai’s expression is scolding, but not uncomfortable.

“I didn’t mean—like, not like that.” Beomgyu winces, running a hand through his hair. “Forget it.”

He’s glad for the darkness when Kai waves it away. Would it be better or worse to know if he was blushing right now, affected at all? Would it even give Beomgyu any real information to know either way?

“I don’t know how you say that stuff so confidently,” Kai says, tugging his legs up to meet the closest step. It’s awkward, given how long they are, but he seems to appreciate the chance to have somewhere to hang his head, exhaustion from the day cracking his composure into something more lived in and tangible. “I wonder if you—I mean, do you—”

The yurt zips open behind them, and both men freeze.

The smoke is under Beomgyu’s sock in a dash. It burns, but only for a second, the soil swallowing it up. It takes a second to register which camper it is, but when he does, he’s nodding at Kai, hoping the unspoken apology comes through. Go, I’ve got it.

Kai’s gaze lingers a second too long, like he wants to argue, but then he tips his head in agreement and slips into the trees, the phone light fading behind him. All they’ve been able to manage so far is these little pockets of time, and it’s a shame to see him go. But Beomgyu’s gotta manage this one on his own.

“Another nightmare?”

“Yeah,” Sunoo whispers, voice wobbling as he takes a seat next to Beomgyu. He looks so small like this: long-sleeved pjs hanging off him, hair sticking up, eyes darting between Beomgyu and Kai’s retreating form like he’s still trying to suss out if this is a dream or not.

Beomgyu’s chest aches. Please don’t cry, he thinks as he tugs off his jacket and drapes it over the kid’s shoulders. Because if Sunoo does, he knows he will too, and that won’t help anybody.

This was what Soobin had meant about how hard it can be with the littles. Beomgyu gets it, now. Mostly because he’s also been nine years old and sad for no logical reason. It sings to remember that, even more to see it in someone he cares about.

“You were in it,” Sunoo says after a pause, surprising him. “For a little bit.”

Beomgyu blinks. “Good or bad part?”

Sunoo shrugs, chewing his cheek. Beomgyu’s jacket has completely swamped him, so in the dark, he looks like just a floating head, tiny socked feet barely brushing the steps. “I don’t know. You were a giant gummy bear. It was kinda weird.”

Beomgyu snorts. “You know what, I’ll take it.” He tugs the jacket tighter around Sunoo’s small shoulders, smoothing the fabric once, twice. The kid’s skin is still warm from bed, and Beomgyu can feel the shiver beginning to settle. “Do you want me to sit with you for a bit? Until you’re tired again?”

Sunoo nods, leaning in without hesitation, and Beomgyu lets him, resting his chin lightly on top of Sunoo’s head. For a while, he just keeps his eyes on the treeline, dark blue sky peeking through, and tries not to think too hard.

There’s technically a protocol for this, a stupid script that lands more patronising than comforting. It hasn’t changed in a decade. The truth is, Beomgyu has no idea if he’s actually doing anything, either way, when he follows it or doesn’t, or if he’s just poorly filling a necessary space. They’re so young to be away for so long. But he’s trying. He’s really trying.

When Sunoo’s breathing finally evens out and the weight at his side goes slack, Beomgyu eases him back inside, tucking him under the covers with as much care as he can muster. Standing over the bunk, he brushes a hand through his own hair, shaking off the burn in his throat. He’ll need another smoke before he can even think about sleep.

Just one more. Then he’ll call it.

Two nights later, it finally arrives. The one night when every counsellor’s break converges. The camp directors are stuck on babysitting duty while the rest of the staff get to relax, set up a campfire, pretend the hundreds of mosquito bites peppering their skin are just freckles, and best of all, call each other by their actual names. Beomgyu is growing tired of “Redwood,” for Soobin, mostly because it makes no sense, but also because watching him go all swoony-eyed every time Yeonjun says it is more nauseating than the bacon eating contest he lost that morning.

Beomgyu’s been looking forward to tonight for weeks. As much as he genuinely does like his campers, evenings drag once they pass out at nine and he’s left with nothing but check-ins every twenty minutes. Reality is, there’s absolutely nothing fun in a twenty-minute walking radius, unless he counts standing outside Soobin’s cabin and trying to scare him through the window; which, while funny, only works so many times before Soobin starts expecting it and trying to scare him back.

Tonight, though, Beomgyu is nametag-less, responsibility-less, and, unexpectedly, shoeless, having soaked them on a waterfall hike that morning. The squishing and squelching that now comes out of their sides had grown annoying and fast, so currently, they hang off the edges of a stick bisecting the campfire, looking sad and worn. The more that Beomgyu watches them, firelight making his eyes ache, the more they start to look similar to if he were cursed by a witch and turned into a shoe. Isn’t his hair that exact shade of brown? Isn’t he sort of dripping and depressing and well beyond his best years?

“Hey."

Beomgyu jumps so hard his beer nearly spills onto his lap. He blinks up into the fire and finds Kai standing at the edge of it, the glow sharpening the lines of his face. The others don’t notice; they’re too busy burning marshmallows or arguing about the right way to make a s’more. But Beomgyu does. Beomgyu always does. Which is weird. He’s never fallen into a crush this fast before. It’s disorienting.

“Sorry.” Kai shifts awkwardly. It’s the first time Beomgyu has seen him completely out of uniform. “Didn’t mean to spook you. Again.”

Beomgyu shakes his head and pats the dirt beside him, gesturing Kai over. He’s chosen the ground instead of the log, liking the way the bark presses into his back while the heat licks at his bare toes. This feeling he’s getting could also just be the effects of the beer Taehyun slipped past inspections, grossly warm in his hand but fizzing in his stomach, blurring the edges of everything around him. They can’t get truly pissed out here—they’ve still got kids to wrangle in the morning—but after five weeks of bone-dry sobriety, even barely tipsy feels like flying.

To his surprise, Kai does sit, though it doesn’t exactly look natural; his posture is a little too formal for the natural hunch the log usually demands of the sitter. Beomgyu is about to tease him for it when someone stumbles past, hollering about grabbing a guitar for songs. Kai ends up shoved to the side by their thigh, tipping straight over onto Beomgyu’s shoulder. He’s not heavy, but his hair brushes the side of Beomgyu's neck, softer than it has any right to be, carrying that stupidly strong lavender smell with it. For a split second, Beomgyu forgets to breathe.

Then Kai jerks upright like he’s been shocked.

“Sorry!” Kai blurts at the same time as Beomgyu shoves his drink toward him and mumbles, “Beer?”

They blink at each other. Kai’s eyes are wide and dark, and Beomgyu’s pulse is suddenly too fast, too loud. The beer has him slightly lagging, his brain processing a few frames behind his mouth.

“I can’t drink,” Kai mumbles after a pregnant pause. “In case of emergency.”

“That sucks.” Beomgyu takes a swig in his honour. It’s officially intolerably warm, but so is he, so in some way, doesn’t it cancel out?

“I will take a s’more, though,” Kai amends, glancing around the group, “if we can find one.”

“Sure. We just gotta steal a stick,” Beomgyu nods, scanning the growing crowd. Soobin is tucked into the shadows, looking awfully cosy with Yeonjun, so that is to be bookmarked to bring up later.

“Or we could just grab one, you know, from the woods.”

“Hell no.” Beomgyu shivers. “I forgot my flashlight. That sounds like the start to a shitty slasher.”

Kai grins, eyes flashing. “Only if we’re first kill.”

“Wouldn’t we be? That’s horror 101.” Beomgyu can physically feel his brain blurring, the night growing muted, but Kai’s attention stays just as strong; maybe stronger. Stupid aftershave. If Kai doesn’t have curative properties, then it’s that damn aftershave that does; it makes it impossible to think straight. “Dumb couple sneaks off to make out on murder rock, except murder rock is already, like, a murder scene. Cue my head getting chopped off; cue your guts spilling out on the way back to camp to call for help.” He waggles his arms grotesquely. “Blahhh.”

Kai frowns, his mouth bobbing like he wants to say something but can’t figure out what. Was he always this far away? Wait, no, he seems too close now. Beomgyu sets down his beer. Better to cool it before he says something stupid.

“I mean,” Kai clears his throat, “that… or we get killed just going for a stick.”

“Ah—” Beomgyu’s brain catches up a beat too late, and shit, it’s a good time to be sitting in front of a fire as an excuse, because his face is burning. “Right. Yeah. I was just saying, like, that’s always the first double death.”

“Yeah. No, I—I got you.” Kai coughs; both of them suddenly become fascinated by literally anywhere else.

The night sky is too murky to hold many stars, but Beomgyu still makes a wish, something half-panicked, half-pleading. Transportmeoutofherenow—or actually just lightningstrikemenow—or maybe bothofussoheloseshismemory.

“S’more?” Counsellor Raindrop’s voice cuts in as she leans down with a napkin full of collapsing chocolate and marshmallow.

“Pre-made?” Beomgyu asks, already grabbing one. He hands it to Kai, then takes another for himself.

“Yep. Sorry for hogging the skewers.”

The bonfire fills out as more staff members show up. Soon enough, it’s a full house, shins bumping into the back of Beomgyu’s head and bodies boxing him in from all sides. His s’more is long gone, but his mouth is still sticky, sugar clinging to his tongue, sweet and tacky.

Kai hasn’t bolted yet, not even after Beomgyu’s dumb comment about making out. If anything, he seems almost shy now, skittish when their arms bump and even shyer still when Beomgyu leans in to make room for the instruments joining the circle. Right now, Beomgyu’s thigh presses against Kai’s, his head lolling lazily as he watches one of the older counsellors riff on the guitar, a song Beomgyu hadn’t heard since middle school suddenly pouring out of everyone’s mouths, lyrics automatically remembered. He isn’t one for singing, not anymore, but he hums along. Kai just watches, boots swaying to the rhythm.

Beomgyu nudges Kai’s ankle with his own, feigning innocence when Kai looks back. In retaliation, Kai jabs him in the ribs, luck landing him right in the ticklish spot, and Beomgyu lets out such an ugly shriek that the staff around him actually look concerned for a second, shooting curious glances before deciding there’s no danger and moving on.

Kai doubles over, hand pressed to his mouth, shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.

“Okay, okay,” Beomgyu hisses, “laugh it up. But when a serial killer shows up, I’m not sharing my bear spray.”

“Hey, that’s too far.” Kai pretends to pout. It’s such a stark difference from his on-call personality, reserved enough to be professional but not unkind, wrapped up perfectly. This Kai is messy and awkward and so much more eager to play than Beomgyu expects. It lights something up in him to feel it, see it. This isn’t exactly known territory; he doesn’t often just gel with someone. His melody is a unique one; his mother used to say he isn’t even marching to the beat of his own drum, but to no beat at all. But this feels nice. Kai is starting to feel less like something to achieve and more like someone Beomgyu can just… like. As a person. More specifically, as a person with a handsome, kind face, one that, for all its stark angles, is predominantly soft and pliant, like one of those marble statues that somehow pulls off the image of wind rolling through clothing. He’s kind, and he’s interesting, and best of all, Beomgyu likes how he feels about himself around him. There’s a part of him that’s beginning to wonder if Kai feels the same.

“Hey, Kai?” Beomgyu says. Or, at least, it’s his mouth that’s moving, which means it has to be him. The words don’t feel like his, though. They’re too muffled and out of body. And they’re definitely, absolutely, the last thing he should be saying right now. “I’d really like to kiss you.”

Kai goes stiff, his throat bobbing with a swallow that looks almost painful. A smear of chocolate stretches across his bottom lip, and Beomgyu’s brain betrays him immediately with a list of things he wants to do about it. Kiss it off and ask if the beer still lingers on his tongue. Lean in close enough that the thick scent of lavender hits his sinuses raw, tilt his head and find out if the back of Kai’s hair is as soft as the brush of it against Beomgyu’s cheek had suggested earlier.

“Preferably now,” he adds, too fast, voice tripping over itself. “But whenever’s fine.”

Kai shakes his head, but he doesn’t shift away. “You’re drunk.”

“I don’t think so.” Beomgyu touches his finger to his nose, a definitive test. “See? Steady. I’m perfectly—” he pauses, because he definitely isn’t perfectly anything. “—sure I still want to kiss you.” It’s the kind of line you don’t plan. Just a flashing prompt in the corner of his brain, and by the time he's noticed the details, he’s already pressed yes.

For a long moment, Kai just stares at him, frowning. Not like he’s upset, or grossed out, thank God, but more like he’s confused.

“Ask me again later,” Kai says finally, after his mouth has twisted and turned enough that Beomgyu might’ve asked if his cheeks hurt if he wasn’t so caught up in feeling like he’d just vomited up an organ instead of his dinner and was now trying and failing to think of a way to get it back. But alas, no shoving the toothpaste back in the bottle. No unconfessing to your crush while you’re still in dirty hiking clothes and probably smell like creek water, and they’ve moved on to playing the sad songs now, so it kind of feels like an unskippable cut scene where every player is watching and going, No! Don’t say the dumb thing! at the same time as Beomgyu is saying the dumb thing.

“I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” His throat feels tight, straining. “I’m shitty with timing. Sorry. I don’t know why that came out right now. I’m really sorry.”

“‘S okay,” Kai says, and maybe it is, but he tucks one leg to his chest, folding in on himself; so there’s no more footsie to play, and his face is kind of hard to see all smushed into his knee.

He leaves soon after, mumbling something about an early alarm. The space he leaves behind feels colder than the raw air. Beomgyu finishes his beer mechanically, grabs his boots, and waves apologetically to Soobin, who arches an eyebrow but says nothing. The guitar behind him shifts into some indie song about a dead dog, or identity loss, or something else his ex would’ve definitely given him a rambling lecture on the symbolism of.

The walk back to the yurt feels longer than usual. Every rock along the path becomes a potential murder rock, and Beomgyu half-heartedly ranks them, imagining himself and Kai as the dumb couple in a horror film again, only this time the killer is his own mouth.

By the time he reaches the yurt, mosquitoes are swarming him, blinking in and out of his phone light like stray pixels. Beomgyu clicks it off to unzip the entrance. In the corner, the camp director has dozed off, his mustache twitching with every exhale. The kids are out cold, too, limbs tangled in sleeping bags. Jake is on the floor after refusing to sleep in the centipede-invaded bunk, and next to him, Sunoo has doubled their mattresses. Beomgyu checks each one automatically, counting just in case. By now, he only slightly flinches at how Jay’s eyes stay open through the thick of REM.

It’s only when he finally curls into his own bag that he lets himself feel it completely. Ask me again later, Kai had said. Later means a door cracked open, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it?

Beomgyu presses his face into the pillow, half praying for sleep, half for a skip button. Praying ‘later’ could be tomorrow, or next week, or maybe the small span of time between now and breakfast. He tries to picture Kai showering up at their table like always, flintstone gummies in hand, calm and professional like nothing bad has happened. He tries not to picture Kai at the bonfire, glancing up, meeting his eyes, and meaning something else entirely.

He fails.

Kai doesn’t show up for morning meds. Or afternoon meds. Or when Soobin panics about a bee sting he’s not allergic to and makes Beomgyu watch his kids while he goes for a checkup.

At first, Beomgyu figures it’s a late start—Kai’s human, maybe he overslept, maybe he forgot to mention his day off, maybe he’s decided he can’t handle another day of ten-year-olds stealing gauze rolls and mummifying each other. But by dinner, Beomgyu’s brain is inventing new ways to spiral.

He sends two campers off with the excuse of needing bug spray. They come back slumped and dragging their feet.

“There was some other guy in there,” Jungwon reports. “With freaky big hands!” He thrusts both palms toward Beomgyu’s face. They reek of DEET. “Freaky.”

Sunghoon nods, arms folded behind his back. “And tattoos all over his arms.”

Beomgyu’s stomach sinks. He’s committed the cardinal sin: inflicting his campers with the trauma of his own summer camps past. His own child self would’ve written an angry letter home about it. He ruffles Jungwon’s hair; gives Sunghoon a thumbs up. “Thanks for trying, guys.”

When they wander off, he sits back against his bunk and scrubs a hand over his face. What had started as letter writing time has derailed into espionage with the kids who’ve finished early. But even after twenty minutes of ‘intel,’ he hasn’t learned a damn thing.

Rationally—rationally—he knows Kai hasn’t just quit camp forever because of one shittily timed confession. But rationale has never been Beomgyu’s strength, and his imagination is already spinning out entire cutscenes of Kai packing up, driving away forever, ‘I don’t fuck with you’ blasting from the radio.

By the time he finally cracks and tells Soobin, they’re wedged in the back of the rec centre during the talent show, an hour into the talent show with no end in sight.

“Bin, I think I broke him.”

“Who, Kai?” Soobin barely looks up from his clipboard. “You didn’t break Kai.”

“He’s gone,” Beomgyu mutters. “How else do you explain that? And there’s a new nurse in the med shed now. With freaky hands, apparently.”

“Pause. You didn’t hear?”

Onstage, a magician’s grand finale fails, but at least there’s no frog in her hat this time. Beomgyu joins the applause, clapping on his forearm to avoid his still-sore knuckles. “Hear what? That I’m a romantic pariah?”

Soobin makes a face. “What?”

“What what?” Beomgyu shoots back. “What did you mean?”

Soobin tips his chin toward the stage, where Yeonjun is introducing the next act. His shirt is wrinkled, and his wood cookie is hanging on by a thread. He looks exhausted.

“One of his kids had an allergic reaction this morning. From what I heard, it was pretty bad. Kai went with her in the ambulance.”

Beomgyu stands up straighter. “Shit. Is she okay?”

“Last I heard, yeah. But Kai called in a replacement before they’d even left. I think he wanted to stay with her until her parents got there, and they far, and… yeah.”

“Shit,” Beomgyu repeats. It’s hollower this time. He feels like a complete and utter dick, making up all these stories while Kai has been busy saving a life.

“You’ve really gotta start reading the emails if you’re going to yawn your way through morning call.”

“Don’t scold,” Beomgyu grimaces. “I’m in a vulnerable emotional position right now.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah—”

The door to the rec centre opens. It’s muted and carefully done, so no one except those at the far back notices. Mainly, Beomgyu. Or maybe by this point, he just has a sixth sense for Kai. A Kai-sense.

His first thought is that Kai looks drained. His second is that Kai looks nervous, which makes him nervous for a confusing mix of reasons. He elbows Soobin, who raises his brows at Kai in silent question: Okay?

Kai flashes the OK sign back with his fingers, and both of them relax.

Soobin exhales, brow unfurrowing. “I’ll spread the word,” he murmurs, pushing off the wall. “You go be a romantic piranha.”

“It’s ‘pariah,’” Beomgyu hisses back, but Soobin’s already gone, leaving him alone with Kai.

Kai smells like cheap espresso, which Beomgyu didn’t even know he drank. Or maybe he doesn’t usually. His shoulders are tight, and when Beomgyu’s eyes dip lower, he catches the faint tremor in Kai’s hands before they disappear under crossed arms.

For a second, Beomgyu’s brain lights up with a QTE: [ Press square to act normal ]

He misses the window completely. “Hi,” he mumbles, so meekly that it barely makes it past his lips.

“Hi,” Kai says back just as quietly. But then, that’s kind of always how he says the word anyway, so Beomgyu has no idea what to glean from it.

“Long day?” he asks, though the answer is already written all over Kai’s face.

Kai deflates in real-time. “I love my job. But sometimes I hate it. Today was one of those days. She’ll be fine, and perked up a lot once she saw her mom, but… that was rough. Just rough.”

“I’m sorry.” Beomgyu’s hand moves before he can think, reaching halfway to Kai’s arm before curling back into hoodie paws. Why is Kai even telling him this? Surely he wants space, not this awkward orbit. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Just helps to be around you, actually.” Kai says it plainly and without hesitation. 

Beomgyu nearly chokes on air. His sleeves are already halfway devoured, but he yanks them further down anyway, pressing his fists tight into the fabric. It’s still not enough. Not even close. His whole body feels too exposed, and suddenly, he envies every stinkbug he’s ever flicked off a window. At least they get to curl tight into a shell and disappear when things get too overwhelming. He tries for words, any words, but his throat’s a clogged traffic jam.

Kai saves him the trouble. “What are we watching?”

Beomgyu squints at the stage. He’d initially thought finger puppets, but at some point it’d become more…. lyrical? “No fucking clue, honestly.”

Kai bites his cheek so hard to stop from laughing that Beomgyu half-worries he’ll actually cut through.

For the rest of the show, Beomgyu watches his crush more than the stage. Kai is bone-tired, that much is obvious. His posture slumps, his smile lags a beat behind everyone else’s, and his usual spark is well dimmed. But little by little, as act after act shuffles across the stage, something in him thaws. By the time the final performance—Beomgyu’s own campers—stumbles through to applause, Kai is leaning forward with the others, whistling and clapping, louder than the others and with genuine pride. Beomgyu feels it, too—the glow in their eyes. The satisfaction in their grins. The way Jay and Jungwon have put enough aside to clasp hands for the bow. It’s a fucking miracle.

“They’ve really settled into the show,” Kai leans down to whisper, close enough that his breath brushes Beomgyu’s ear. The tickle sends a traitorous shiver down his spine, impossible to hide completely. “The rap battle was such a missed opportunity in the original text. Shame it’s one night only.”

“Want a private encore?” Beomgyu whispers back, a little wheezy and a lot too aware of it.

Kai’s mouth quirks. “Counsellor Baloo, are you extorting children for romantic gain?”

“Yes,” Beomgyu replies, shameless. “Is it working?”

For once, Kai looks completely caught off guard. He studies Beomgyu for a long moment, something flashing in his eyes that's hard to interpret. “Maybe.”

Before Beomgyu can process the layers to that one single word, his campers swarm, overwhelming them both with overlapping accounts of how Jay had to feed Sunghoon his lines from behind the curtain, but they’re pretty sure no one caught on, so it’s okay.

It’s almost bedtime, so Beomgyu is, unfortunately, back to work after this.

Kai’s hand catches his shoulder just as he’s herding his kids toward the exit. Beomgyu pauses at the back of the line. The kids are already off, locked in some frantic competition toward the bathrooms.

Oh well. At least he knows their destination. “What’s up?”

Kai doesn’t let go. Instead, his hand slides down and catches Beomgyu’s. The touch is so sudden—and such a far leap from where they were last night—that Beomgyu almost pinches his leg to make sure this isn’t just one of those hyper-vivid dreams he has sometimes. But then Kai turns Beomgyu’s palm up, presses something into it, and pulls back. Just like that, the touch is gone, leaving behind a strange emptiness, save for the small folded slip of paper still sitting in his hand.

It’s a phone number.

“So you can call me directly,” Kai says. His attention drops to the waxed floor as he rocks on his heels. His cheeks are already pink, and the colour only spreads as he keeps talking. “The wifi here is terrible, but it’s better than the walkies.”

“And we keep getting interrupted,” Beomgyu says, pocketing the number.

Kai glances up, and for the first time all day, there’s something like ease in his face. “Exactly.”

The crowd is thinning out fast, but Soobin is still hanging around, pretending to take down the stage while he stares daggers their way. Beomgyu tries to flash him stop!!! eyes, but Soobin ignores them. Is this retribution for telling Yeonjun that Soobin’s too shy to ask for 1:1 archery lessons…?

“I don’t know what your plans are after camp, but I’d like to find out. And I’d like the chance to talk to you. Properly.”

 Beomgyu scrunches his face up and hopes the memory of his schedule will appear. “My cabin has rock climbing tomorrow, so I’m off for an hour at, uh, maybe 3?”

“I can do maybe 3,” Kai nods, brightening. “It’s a date.”

“It’s a—it is. Sure. Okay.” Beomgyu doesn’t think he could fight the stupid grin from appearing on his face if he tried. Not that he wants to. He feels like he’s just chugged a soda in one go and faced no consequences. He hopes his kids aren’t daring each other to lick the bathroom mirrors again, but whatever if they do. He and Kai have a date. Tomorrow. Which is almost as good as having one today.

On stage, either having gotten close enough to hear or guessing anyway, Soobin falls through the curtain with a yelp.

Beomgyu’s grin doesn’t fade all the way, even hours later. The next afternoon, he and Kai end up by the creek, moss covering the surface. Beomgyu dips his feet in, watching the ripples spread when he stretches them, while Kai keeps his legs folded tight. The heat is relentless, pressing in. They pass a tiny handheld fan back and forth, but it’s barely enough to stir the air, and Beomgyu’s stray hair is already sticking to the back of his neck, most of it tied up. He really should cut it. He should do a lot of general adult things, actually. Not that he wants to.

A dragonfly zips past his ear, and Beomgyu jerks back. “You know, I’ve told you a ton of shit about me, but I barely know anything about you. What's up with that?”

“There's not much to know,” Kai says, not looking up. There’s no ego in it, but no invitation, either.

“Come on.” Beomgyu flicks water toward him. “No way. Everyone’s got at least one thing.”

Kai’s smile is patient and slightly self-mocking, even as he dodges the spray. “I mean it. I live a boring life. I graduated early, jumped into nursing, and now I mostly just work and try to remember to eat a vegetable every few days.”

Beomgyu squints at him, trying to pick apart which piece of that is the information he actually wants to share. “You graduated early?”

“Yeah.” Kai wipes sweat from his temple with the back of his hand. “I couldn’t wait to get out of there. It wasn’t… my place.”

Beomgyu thinks back to those long four years, ending in the brief taste of freedom before he was already back in school. “Is it anyone’s?”

Kai’s gaze drifts to the fan, and he seems to really think about it. “I guess not.”

Beomgyu tips the fan his way, watching his hair feather back. “So why camp, then? You could be somewhere with actual AC. You could be working on the hill. They’ve gotta pay better.”

Kai’s response is immediate. “They do.” He doesn’t sound bitter—just tired, maybe. “I got pretty burned out bouncing around departments. Here, at least no one’s dying. It’s a nice break. Worst case scenario, someone eats a weird berry or tries to staple their friend’s shoe to the wall.”

“Or gets hit with an arrow,” Beomgyu adds before his brain lights up with the idea that the shoe stapling might’ve really happened.

“Don’t—” Kai winces. “I think about that constantly.”

“They tape the tips.”

“You think they tape the tips.”

Beomgyu goes to rebut, and finds he can’t. “Hey, confidence is half of safety training,” he grins. Nevermind that he missed the other, more technically important half while dealing with his ankle.

Kai shakes his head, but there’s a small smile fighting to pull at his lips. “And you?” he leans in, shoulder brushing Beomgyu’s. “Why this gig?”

Beomgyu shrugs. Cheers from the field carry faintly over. “I already told you. Soobin dragged me here.”

“Yeah, but you could’ve done something else. He didn’t actually drag you here, right?”

Beomgyu snorts. “You’d be surprised. He’s surprisingly immovable.” There was Soobin’s brief stint on the wrestling team, ‘good for the resume’ and terrifying for everyone else. He was a full foot taller than most of his weight class. Beomgyu drags a hand through his hair, the hair tie slipping loose. “Soobin said I needed to ‘touch grass.’ His words, not mine. So here I am.”

Kai laughs. “Here you are. Touching grass professionally.”

“Yeah,” Beomgyu says, looking at the moss brushing his ankle. “Living the dream.”

They fall quiet for a beat. Somewhere across the field, a whistle blows; the shouts of campers rise and fall again, and the heat kicks up even worse. Beomgyu half expects the air to warp with it. “I don’t know, I figured I’d help clear my head, I guess. Maybe reset a little.”

“Reset from what, though?”

“I applied for this fellowship that’s… pretty much the opposite of my degree. I don’t even know if I’ll get it. I was bullshitting half my cover letter. But I scoured indeed, and everything else just looked like the same grey conveyor belt forever. Like if I started, I’d never get off it.” Just talking about it is a twist to his gut. The email sitting in his inbox, mocking him. The full boxes he has back home with nowhere to land. The job that’s not really a job but is about to end, dropping him nowhere. “I don’t know. It sounds stupid, but it feels like I’ve only got now. Even if I fail, I have to fail trying, right?” His voice catches; it’s that familiar restart-screen feeling—[ CONTINUE? YES/NO? ]—except this time, there’s no timer counting him down, and no walkthrough to fall back on if he fails.

Kai is listening so intently, and it all comes out of Beomgyu so easily, it’s almost a surprise when he speaks again, his gaze on the water. “I get it. I mean, I don’t completely, I’m not you, but I remember that feeling. It’s like, when you’re in school, there’s so much noise. Then it stops, and you’re just… stuck with your own voice, trying to figure out if it’s what you really want.” Kai glances his way. "But it sounds like you’ve got that part figured out. Even if it goes to shit, at least it’s yours.”

“At least it’s mine,” Beomgyu echoes, hoping saying it out loud might make it true. He wants it so bad, not to be a teenage fuckup anymore. He wants to believe it—that he’s capable of steering his own life now. That he’s not just pretending to move forward because stopping feels worse. But it’s like there’s something in his way, and he’s half-sure it’s himself.

“So…” He scrambles for an option other than [ go on depressing, maudlin monologue ( - Kai ) ]. “What does Kai Huening do when he’s not saving lives?”

Kai looks amused by the subject change. “I still read a lot. And,” he hesitates, fingers drumming across his knees. “I used to be in a band. That’s probably my most interesting fact.”

Beomgyu blinks. “Wait, for real? What kind?"

Kai looks sheepish. “Indie rock, mostly. Some covers, a few originals. We called ourselves Paper Aquarium. Don’t laugh.”

Beomgyu freezes mid-blink. Paper Aquarium. Why does that sound so familiar? The name hits some dusty corner of his memories like a pebble dropped down a defunct well. “Wait,” he says slowly, sitting up a little. “Paper Aquarium... why does that...?”

It clicks. He shoots upright so fast the fan nearly falls out of his lap. “Holy shit, I saw you!”

Kai startles at the volume. “Really? Where?”

“You played at the student centre, right? In that weird pit by the vending machines? My roommate dragged me.” Beomgyu groans at the memory. “I got so drunk after midterms I puked in the bushes. Ugh, that citation was like fifty bucks.”

Kai tilts his head, fighting a smile. “That’s your review?”

“Hey, let me get there,” Beomgyu nudges him. “You were good! I would’ve come back if you did. You guys had, like, a whole crowd.”

“That was mostly my sister’s friends,” Kai says, rubbing his neck. “I feel kinda bad about that. She made t-shirts and everything. I think Taehyun uses one as a rag. But we broke up right after that show. I just couldn’t keep up once I graduated nursing school. I was too worried I’d mess up my hands.”

“Damn.” Beomgyu pulls his feet from the water, savouring the way the air hits them, cooling him off. “You ever miss it?”

“Sometimes. Maybe the people more than the actual playing. The other members are spread across the country now, so I barely see them.”

That sucks, Beomgyu almost says, then decides against it. He’s not great at this part, this side of the conversation that Kai seems to have mastered. He’s so much more mature, more composed, more adult than Beomgyu in almost every way. But at the same time, he’s also so… so sweet. The kind of sweet that makes you want to both throttle and hug someone at the same time. It’s giving him the oddest urge to pat Kai’s head right now. It doesn’t make sense.

“Why are you staring at me? Is there moss on my face?”

“No, I—” Beomgyu does not throttle Kai. He does, however, give in to the other half of the urge. His hand lands on Kai’s head, fingers ruffling through gently.

Kai stares at him, that same half-put-out, half-fond look on his face that he wore when the kids braided him in pink. But he doesn’t pull away. If anything, he leans into it just slightly. 

“Thanks for listening,” Beomgyu murmurs. His tone is light, but his stomach flips anyway. “You didn’t have to.”

Kai looks at him for a long moment. “Yeah, I did,” he says quietly. He slowly reaches up and covers Beomgyu’s hand. “I’m… really glad I met you. I’m kind of disappointed I didn’t recognise you. From um, before the puking.”

“How would you? I was just a random face in the crowd.”

“And I was behind a drum set, and super shy back then,” Kai concedes, tugging both their hands down, and shaking his hair out like it’s nothing. “Good point.” He pauses, then adds, almost like it slips out, “Taehyun told me you liked me.”

Beomgyu rubs his palm in his lap, a tingling feeling spreading through his fingers. “What? When?”

“A while ago. I didn’t believe him.”

“I wasn’t subtle.”

“I know.” Kai has a goofy smile on his face that makes him look young, younger. “I can be hardheaded about that stuff, I guess. I haven’t dated much.”

Beomgyu gestures helplessly. “But you’re so…” He trails off, unable to pin the thought down.

“Easy to talk to?”

“… Hot.”

“Oh!” Kai blinks rapidly and his ears go pink. “I don’t see myself like that, but thank you.”

“So when did you figure it out, then?”

“Maybe… the talent show? You had this look on your face when you saw me that… I don’t know. I guess I couldn’t explain it anyway anymore.”

“What?” Beomgyu gawks. “No, wait, what? That’s when you figured it out? But I literally asked to kiss you at the bonfire!”

“Yeah, about that.” Kai rubs the back of his neck. The pink is rapidly spreading from his ears to the rest of his face. “I thought you were just, you know. The get drunk, kiss whoever’s closest type.”

Beomgyu shoves his shoulder into Kai’s, laughing. It hurts more than he’d like to admit—Kai has a torso like a battering ram—but it’s worth it for the way Kai groans, embarrassed.

“See? Hardheaded. You flustered me.”

“But you believe it now,” Beomgyu tries to get a clear look at Kai’s eyes. He looks so pretty in the afternoon light, his attention soothing like the fan, his hair more gold than blonde. It’s like he belongs here by the water, soaking up the sun just to spread it around.

“... Yeah. I believe it.”

“And…” Beomgyu pulls his other foot from the creek, letting the water trace down his ankle. He glances back, scanning for movement, nosy campers. The forest is steady, unlike his pulse. “If I wanted to ask again? To kiss you?”

He expects the stammer, the blush, the way Kai usually short-circuits under attention. But this time, Kai just meets him evenly. He shifts until they’re face to face, knees knocking, the mossy little deck suddenly too small for both of them. If Beomgyu had imagined this moment backed by music, the universe offers him bullfrogs and children screaming instead, the wind picking up to the point that it’s tearing through the trees, making them whistle. It sneaks under his shirt and leaves behind goosebumps. That could also just be the present company, though.

Kai’s touch is hesitant and full of a million tiny confirmations before he moves forward. His palm is cool against Beomgyu’s cheek, cupping it gently, and before they close, his eyes are half-lidded and a little unfocused, like he’s halfway to somewhere else already.

The kiss isn’t perfect. It’s awkward, tentative, and they have to laugh their way through more than one bad angle, noses knocking together and teeth clattering. But somehow, it’s so much better than anything Beomgyu has daydreamt about in the past few weeks. Because Kai doesn’t need him to be perfect, or suave, or have it all figured out. He’s happy just to meet Beomgyu where he is, tuck a stray lock of hair behind his ear, slip a gentle hand from his jaw to his neck and pull him closer. Butterflies detonate in Beomgyu’s stomach, his heart hammering so hard he’s certain Kai must be able to feel it through his lips. Every neuron in his brain is flashing press anything to stay calm, and his hands are choosing hold, hold, hold.

When they finally part, Kai’s eyes are glazed, dreamy, and Beomgyu can’t stop pressing a hand to his own mouth, tracing the edges. Is it too soon to say his lips feel different? Because they do. They feel different.

“We could’ve been doing this all summer,” are the first words out of Kai’s lips, thick like he’s just drunk syrup.

Beomgyu wants to, but does not, whack him over the head. “I! Have been trying! Since day zero!”

“Right,” Kai raises a fist to his mouth, clearing his throat, “about that, does this mean you’ll stop with the excuses now? I had to write assessment reports on all of those, you know.”

“Mmmm, maybe I’ll just come up with new ones. Sprain my pride or something.”

“You don’t need a reason, you know. You can just show up,” Kai says, too reasonable for someone who’s just been kissed breathless. “I would’ve told you that before.”

“Yeah,” Beomgyu grins, cheeky, “but it’s hotter when you sound like you’re diagnosing me.”

Kai laughs under his breath, shaking his head. “You’re unbelievable. Not one normal pickup line all summer.”

“I don’t use pickup lines.”

“Murder rock? Blowing on my shaving nick?”

“Those were not pickup lines,” Beomgyu protests, prodding him in the knee. “Those were my tragic debut as a romantic pariah.”

Kai wrinkles his nose, and the gesture is so unbearably cute that Beomgyu doesn’t even think; he just kisses it. And then his cheek, and then his lips.

“A romantic,” Kai says through half-smothered laughter, lips brushing clumsily against Beomgyu’s, “what?”

“I’ll tell you later,” Beomgyu mutters against his mouth. Crumbling dock be damned, he shifts, pulling Kai closer across until their knees knock and their shoulders press, until the wind and heat are nothing but background noise and the bullfrogs are their only witnesses. Talking becomes impossible, irrelevant, unimportant. Because there’s kissing, and more kissing, and somewhere in the back of Beomgyu’s mind, there’s a small, stupid thought: if life really did run on checkpoints, he’d perma-save here.

The night before the end-of-camp campfire, Beomgyu finally opens it. The final boss. The email. It’s been sitting there for weeks, taunting him from the top of his inbox, then slipping lower and lower, until it’d eventually sunk all the way to the bottom. That stupid little blue circle has been staring him down every night since, and winning.

He’s curled up in his bunk, screen brightness turned all the way down, trying not to think too hard about the fact that he’s been the go-to for these five kids for nearly two months, and now they’re going home. Jay lost a tooth here, and it was Beomgyu’s quarter that went under his pillow. Sunghoon went from barely speaking to spearheading a game of Mafia on the field, albeit a little stonily, but leading all the same. Sunoo made up for the pool incident with Taehyun by gifting him the crown they made for the play, and Beomgyu caught Taehyun putting it away carefully in his home bag. And and and. The memories keep looping, moving in front of his eyes, echoing in his ears. Beomgyu tries not to think about how much he’s going to miss them. All of them.

Soobin would be here right now, if Beomgyu had asked him. Probably even if he hadn’t and was still stuck in that same loop of avoidance and dread. But something about it feels like one he has to take on his own, at least initially. That’s changed over the past few weeks. A lot has changed over the past few weeks, and a part of Beomgyu wonders if it’ll be noticeable when he gets home; that things feel different. That he is different.

In three days, he and Soobin will drive back to the city. Yeonjun leaves a day earlier, but Soobin already has his number, and, impossibly, his attention, so Beomgyu doesn’t have to worry about that anymore. He wants to rib Soobin for the whole thing, but truthfully, it’s good to see him blooming like this. Real adulthood, no training wheels, is going to be a wrecking ball for both of them. But Soobin’s always been their grounding thing down. If he doesn’t have a Yeonjun dragging his gaze upward, he’ll never even look past his own two feet.

But that’s enough stalling. It’s getting late, and if Beomgyu doesn’t do this now, he’s just going to lie awake until his phone dies, sick with maybe’s.

He opens it.

Dear applicant,

We are pleased to…

Beomgyu’s out of bed in seconds, thudding down the steps and cutting across the leaf-littered ground, ignoring the way dirt covers his heels, ignoring the cougar warning at the top of his inbox, ignoring the fact that he’s definitely just woken half the cabin up. He just runs, over flowers and roots, past the dark outline of the mess hall, past the field, past every murder rock candidate. His lungs are burning, but he can’t stop, doesn’t want to stop.

He’s halfway to the med shed before it hits him that Kai doesn’t actually sleep there. Shit.

He fumbles for his phone instead, thumb finding the contact easily. His screen is almost completely black in the dark, but Kai’s face is immediately illuminated when he switches on his lamp, his face puffy and confused thanks to being yanked straight from sleep. “Beomgyu?” His words slur. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

“Nothing’s wrong! Everything’s right!” Beomgyu sounds comically relieved, even to himself. But he really is. It’s a relief so thorough, it’s sped straight into elation. He pinches himself—once in his head, then once for real, nails digging into his arm. Is this real? Is life really allowed to feel this good? This possible?

“Beomgyu,” Kai pulls him back to earth. “What happened?”

“I got it,” Beomgyu chokes out. He hadn’t even realised he’d been crying until now, but the tears just won’t stop. “The fellowship. I got it.”

For a second, Kai just stares, hair sticking out in every direction, like his brain’s still booting up. Then he beams. “You’re serious?”

“I’m serious,” Beomgyu presses his sleeve to his face, sniffling and laughing all at once. “They actually picked me. I thought I tanked the interview, and I had no references, and—Oh my God, holy shit, I’m gonna puke.”

“Hey, hey,” Kai cuts in with his nurse voice, “breathe. You did it.”

“I did it,” Beomgyu says again, tasting the words like they might dissolve if he says them wrong. “And I… will need a computer. I think it’s remote. I hope it’s remote? Or else I’m moving to Boston. Wait, shit, hang on, give me a second to check—”

Kai’s laugh crackles through the speaker. “You woke me up to tell me you might be moving across the country?”

Beomgyu scrubs at his eyes with the heel of his hand. “I didn’t know who else to call. Everyone else’s asleep, and you’re…” He trails off, shoulders lifting helplessly. “You’re you.”

“I’m glad you called.” Kai leans closer to the camera, chin propped on his hand. “Is it too early in the relationship to say I’m proud of you?”

The reminder sends a thrill down Beomgyu’s spine. “Thanks,” he mutters, embarrassed and glowing at the same time. “Sorry I woke you up.”

“Don’t apologise. You sound happy. I like hearing you sound happy.” Kai fights against a yawn; loses. “You should probably go to bed before you pass out in the dirt, though.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Beomgyu rubs his eyes, still grinning. He’s way too buzzed to even think about sleep right now. “Fine. But only because my phone’s at two percent.”

“Good,” Kai says softly. “Beomgyu… you did it, you know. You got off the conveyor belt.”

Before Beomgyu can respond, the screen goes black. He stares at his reflection for a long beat before pocketing it with a sigh. The feeling hasn’t faded yet, not even a little. He tilts his head to the stars, watching the blink of an airplane pass by as his pulse continues to pound in his ears.

The air smells like damp dirt and pine and everything he’ll have to leave behind in two days. It’s bittersweet, but not a terrifying reminder; not anymore. Because maybe Kai’s right. Maybe he really did get off the belt. Maybe this is his Good Ending.

Somewhere in the forest, a wind chime stirs. It sounds a little like laughter.