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boymeetsweevil · 5 years ago

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(Welcome to) Camp Lonely Heart

Grouping: Camp Counselor!Reader x Camp Counselor!Taehyung

Word Count: ~15.6k lmao

Warnings/Themes: walkie talkie sex + masturbation, graphic public sex in a field, descriptions throughout of breast play, 69ing, riding, fingering, creampie sorta, some bullying, some angst, concerned older brother Minho, OC is kinda flaky

Summary: It’s possible to find love in all sorts of places: In bars, in school, on apps. But what about through a walkie talkie?

Part of the Masterlist for Group 2 of the @btssmutclub Summer Project

A/N: sorry its late! tagging @classickei and @chimchurro

A noogie from his older brother is the first thing to welcome Taehyung when he arrives at the admin building for the first weekly counselor meeting. He sits through it patiently because he knows Minho means well and it’s better than those times where he just cups Taehyung’s face tenderly and says absolutely nothing. But this is why he insisted they arrive separately.

With Minho’s arm tossed over his shoulder, Taehyung makes his way into the familiar conference room. Despite the fact that this is his 3rd year as a junior counselor, the fact that the conference hasn’t changed since it was built in the 80’s still surprises him every time. The people inside it change fairly frequently, though. There’s always a steady rotation of counselors for both the boys’ and the girls’ camps on their respective sides of Lake Lonely Heart.

A smattering of people are already seated and chatting amongst themselves before the introductory meeting starts. As more people trickle in, Taehyung acknowledges them from his corner seat. Some veteran staff from the boys’ camp naturally come to his and Minho’s side of the table, greeting Minho mostly.

“How was your trip up, son,” asks one of the senior staff, Cref.

“It was good,” Minho gives a genuine smile up at Cref before giving a pointed look in Taehyung’s direction.

“Oh,” Cref’s eyes dim noticeably, “And how was your trip, Tae?”

“It was fine,” Taehyung’s answer matches Cref’s in its lack of warmth.

“I see you kept that little ponytail thing you had last summer.”

“Yeah.”

“Shame,” Cref huffs before turning to some of the other boys’ staff that arrived while he was talking and gesturing to Taehyung.

“Cref can you really talk when you’ve still got that comb-over?” The comment sends the other boys’ staff who’d been listening into a tizzy and Cref scoffs before turning on them to compensate. Meanwhile, Minho gives Taehyung a covert pat on the back.

None of the girls’ staff seemed to be watching the exchange with the exception of one girl who must be a new hire. Taehyung doesn’t recognize her face from last summer and though she’d been snoring softly when Taehyung first arrived, she looks at some of the jeering boys’ staff with a bit of muted disapproval. The look is brief because almost instantly another one of the counselors near her pulls her into another conversation. The sour tinge her features had disappears and leaves a gentle and open expression on her face as she listens to someone tell her about what to expect with her sleeper cabin.

There’s something nice about her face even though nothing specific jumps out at him as super beautiful or sexy. The soft way she smiles is subtle, almost like the turn of lips could have been a trick of the light. He wants to know what a full-blown smile would look like. Taehyung likes to think that he would have gotten up to talk to her. Eventually. If it weren’t for the camp leader entering the room with the dreaded Talking Stick.

“Alright everyone,” the camp leader shouts energetically, halting all conversations. “Veterans don’t spoil anything. Newbies, one of you raise your hand and tell me what you think this is,” she grins and wiggles the bedazzled stick in a wide circle.

Taehyung sighs and settles back further into his chair, ready to endure yet another round of icebreakers and name learning games.

“Here’s your humble abode for the next few months,” Moe grunts as she pushes the door of the cabin in. She smiles shakily before mumbling something about the paint job being so new that the door wouldn’t budge. A few hits to the door with her shoulder help it swing open.

The cabin looks nearly identical to that of Moe and Moe’s roommates. A pair of bunkbeds sit across the main room from one another. There’s some simple wooden furniture and a nice view of forest on the girls’ side of the lake in the front window by the door. The bathroom has two shower stalls and two sinks. The cabin is clearly made to hold four occupants.

“Are my roommates on their way?”

You walk in and admire the posters on the wall. They must have been left by some other counselor some number of summers ago.

“So, uh, you actually get this whole cabin to yourself.”

“Huh? Like I’ll be sleeping here by myself?”

“Yeah. I know its weird, but it’s not on purpose. The rooming system isn’t the most efficient. People fill the first cabin and then we fill the second one and on and on. When we got your answer, it was late and we’d perfectly filled 3 other cabins before this one. And since your position was the last one we filled before closing the apps, there weren’t any other people after you who could have been placed here.”

You try your hardest not to look too dismayed at your lonesome living situation. But, truthfully, one of the things that made you consider taking the position was the friends you were hoping to make on he job. The job testimonies on the Camp Lonely Hearts website mentioned that some of the best times of being a counselor were the times had in the cabin with coworkers after dark. With you being new to the city and this being the first summer in a long while where you weren’t forcing yourself into a boring 9-to-5, you wanted to take a chance on something inspiring instead. And you really wanted to make friends because city life alone was taking a toll on you. The chance to be a ‘youth leader for the young women and men of Camp Lonely Heart’ seemed like just the right thing.

Now, though, it looked like you would have to work a little harder to make the lasting connections you were expecting to fall into your lap the first night on the grounds.

“I’m sorry sweetheart,” Moe says when some of the bouncy pluck in your shoulders seems to leave you with the sigh you let out. “You’re welcome to bring a sleeping bag and sleepover in cabin 3 any time.”

“Thanks, Moe.” She leaves you to unpack with the slow setting sun.

Everything seems clean enough under your quick inspection. You take over the bathroom with your toiletries and towels. The bunk bed is less uncomfortable than you thought it would be, and there’s an outlet near your little writing desk, so you’re able to plug in and set up your boombox. There’s no wifi at the camp, and while it’s an experience you’re looking forward to, you can’t live in total silence. You did, however, bid all your friends a temporary goodbye on Facebook after explaining where you’d be for the summer.

You switch the boombox onto radio mode and extend the boosted antennae. It picks up a classics station that you unpack to. The job is over quickly given that you only had to pack a few undergarments and pairs of shorts to rotate with the t-shirts that they give to counselors so people don’t confuse some of you with campers.

When boredom starts clawing at the edges of your brain, you snoop through all the little corners and crannies you ignored when you first arrived and were busy with settling in. You don’t find much. You find a shoebox with a bunch of office supplies under the other bunk bed, a supremely large beetle carcass on your window sill, and a solar powered walkie talkie in the bottom drawer of the writing desk.

The walkie talkie obviously is the most intriguing find out of all of your finds, but you don’t see its mate in the cabin. Surprisingly enough, it powers up, but it has a low battery. You fiddle with the channels and mumble a wimpy little ‘anyone there’ into the first one. Figuring that no one is there, you lower it from your ear and move to go make your bed when the device sounds.

“Hello?”

The voice is deep and smooth. You’re so spooked by the response that the walkie talkie slips from your hand and clatters to the floor with a loud clunk. You let out a curse and bend down to pick it up only to find that the transmission was cut off from the impact. With the hopes that you can revive the device, you stick it in the bathroom window where you know it will get the most sun during the day and pray it's not broken.

Before you head to bed early, you go over your schedule and how you’re going to present yourself to the kids the next morning. It takes a while for you to memorize your schedule because your mind is slightly preoccupied, wondering what the person on the other end must be thinking of your sudden departure.

You were worried that it would take a while to adjust to your position and that the kids would be intimidating, but quickly you realize there was nothing to worry about.

You love your girls more than you could have predicted. They took to you instantly since you were the youngest among the counselors. Even the 17-year-olds, who are the oldest campers there, flocked to you too during parts of the daily schedule that you weren’t leading. Many of the girls in high school would drag you to their table in the mess hall during dinner or the free period before lights out to ask you for school advice and questions about the more mysterious parts of life. It instills in you a strong sense of responsibility that you didn’t think was possible. You didn’t think you’d ever find teenagers endearing.

The camp itself is kind of like a hazy afternoon dream. The nature around you is beautiful and the air is crisp. If you take a 20 minute trek away from the main grounds, you stumble into the camp’s medium sized lavender field. It’s your favorite place to be at any time of the day because the air is thick with the scent of the purple flower. The first time you see it, you’re joining one of the other junior counselors, Jade, to grab some plants for craft time.

“You’re gonna trap flies like that,” Jade gestures to your slack mouth.

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just that we barely even get grass on the sidewalks at my new apartment. And this is...so beautiful.”

You can’t help it really. The sweet scent that had been coating your nose and throat since you were halfway up the trail just increased ten-fold and has stolen the place of your breath.

“Yeah, it has that effect on people. But you get used to it after working here long enough and the smell starts to fade. You might even get a little sick of it.”

You shake your head to clear it and try to fathom the idea of being sick of lavender. The rows of plants are lush, huge, and neat. You walk through the small plowed paths between each bush looking for the most fragrant patch you can find. There’s what looks like a few other counselors from the other side of the lake wandering through some nearby rows, looking for the same thing you are. You tap Jade’s shoulder when their backs are turned to you and whisper.

“They’re from the boys’ camp, right? Do you know those guys? ” Jade turns and squints into the distance before straightening up immediately.

“Oh my god, yeah, that’s Minho. He’s the yoga instructor for the boys.” Her tone takes on a wispy, dreamy quality. “He’s so nice and so cool. And, like, really funny.”

The man in question has on a shockingly bright Tiffany blue t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up to beat the heat. And perhaps showcase his sculpted arms. He looks tall and broad from your vantage point, but he doesn’t seem extraordinary at first glance. Maybe he’s really great once you get to know him.

“What about the other one?” The slightly shorter man with the tiny ponytail and coke-bottle glasses catches your attention more. Even though he’s fairly far away, you can tell he has a nice profile. Jade squints again and hums in thought.

“Mm, I don’t know. I think he’s one of the newer guys. I don’t really remember his spiel from the intro meeting. Do you know him?”

“No,” you give him one last look before squatting down and getting to work. “Just curious.”

***

“—and then move this finger here,” Taehyung nudges one of the camper’s fingers until it’s sure to make the guitar in his hands sing that way he wants. “That’s the last part of the chord. So from there you can play that song we went over in musical hour. Did you take notes?”

“Yeah.” The kid in front of him is probably no more than 16, maybe a baby-faced 17. He looks too nervous for an impromptu guitar review during free time.

“Kook, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” Jungkook hangs his head a little in embarrassment. “Just...what if I suck at guitar?”

“Then you suck at guitar,” Taehyung shrugs. “It’s okay to not be good at things. Especially if you’re just learning them for the first time.”

“I know, but I really need to be good at this. I have to be able to learn a song in less than a week by the time camp ends.”

“That can be kind of fast depending on the song. Why do you need to learn songs so quick?”

Jungkook’s round cheeks heat up and he eyes his peers who are playing jacks at one of the dinner tables. “There’s this girl...”

Taehyung hums knowingly and smiles down at the kid. “I see. Did you tell her you could play guitar?”

“How did you know?” Jungkook’s are wide as he eyes Taehyung like he read his mind.

“Just a guess.”

The camper nods. “I told her I’d learn her favorite song and play it for her when she gets back from vacationing with her parents. But I obviously don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Well, I can’t promise you that you’ll become a prodigy before the end of camp, but I’ll let you borrow my guitar every day as long as you promise to practice like you mean it every time.”

“If I do that, do you think I’ll at least be able to learn her song?”

“I’ll personally help you learn the song.” Jungkook’s shoulder relax instantly once he realizes he’s in good hands.

***

“Star, it’ll be fine. Really,” you try your hardest to get the tiny middle schooler to stop shaking without drawing attention to her as you bring her into the admin building. “Once your mom picks up, I’m sure she’ll understand and she’ll bring your hormones over.”

“I know,” Star’s frame shivers with the force of her hiccups, her eyes pink and watery. “But I can’t believe I forgot them at all. She didn’t even wanna let me go because she was worried I’d lose them.”

“But you didn’t lose them, sweetpea. You forgot them. Kinda different.” The little sobs, now intermittent at best, halt as she processes your logic.

You show Star to the telephone used for emergency contact or extreme cases of homesickness before stepping away to let her have some privacy with her mother. In the meantime, you let the borrowed keys of Moe’s truck swing from your fingers while you explore the halls of the admin building.

It feels odd roaming the various wings of the building when you’re not there for your Wednesday morning staff check-ins. The layout isn’t any different from those days, but you rarely get to see the other parts since you usually just make a beeline for the conference room.

The white painted cinder block walls and the linoleum tiles give you flashbacks to your own adolescent days in school. As does the un-ironic use of retro inspirational posters—though you suppose they weren’t retro when they were first put up. A few doors leading to utility closets or other, smaller conference rooms. While hunting for the staff lounge, you find a counselor you recognize from your side of the lake talking covertly with a counselor presumably from the boys’ side. Your roll your eyes when they give a disdainful stare for breaking their private moment and keep snooping.

At the end of the hall is the communal laundry room. The lines for it are usually awful on Wednesdays. You peer in just to see what it is you don’t have to deal with since you have your own unit in your little cabin. In that moment, you catch someone holding up boxers. You recognize them as that Minho guy that all the counselors seemed to have fallen for.

“Did you find any extra detergent, Tae?” He turns to you then and realizes you’re not who he thinks you are and you’re out of there as quickly as possible.

When you get back to the phone, Star is waiting patiently with no more tears and news that her mom will be dropping off her hormones and some homemade fudge.

***

Breakfast is served to the counselors at asscrack od dawn so that they can get the mess hall ready for the campers and complete the first things on the schedule for the day. Usually it's not so bad, but today’s early rise is hard for Taehyung because Minho brought some of the other counselors into their cabin the night before and they didn’t leave until late.

So when Taehyung stumbles into the mess hall looking for pancakes, he hasn’t given any thought to his morning appearance. He fixes his plate and sits across from his brother since the spot next to him is taken by Cref.

Taehyung’s wearing an old t-shirt that’s gone through many of his more experimental phases with clothes. The previously white t-shirt is now a soft apricot color after a night he was practicing with dyes a few years ago and the sleeves are thin in the places he took scissors to the shirt.

“Nice lingerie,” Cref sneers down his nose at Taehyung while he picks at his breakfast meat sleepily. “You know, I think I saw something at the mall a few weeks ago.”

A few of the guys sitting on the side laugh, some even dumbly repeat the joke under their breath as they chuckle into their breakfast.

“Fuck off, Cref.” Taehyung’s sigh comes out deeply tired. More tired than one could be from one night up too late from a noisy roommate’s friends. “It’s too early for this.”

“Yeah, Cref,” Minho pipes up, eyes locked on Taehyung’s sleep-puffy face and messy long hair. “We all know you don’t personally have the ass to pull off anything in a lingerie shop. And you definitely don’t have anyone’s ass to pull them off of either. You just sound sad, man.”

Cref stammers at Minho’s comment, not missing the subtle way the jab went a little deeper than it normally does when the two are just ripping on one another for fun. He admits defeat and sends a little nod in Taehyun’s direction. The same guys who were giggling earlier look on at Minho with some awe and are quick to jump on Cref for his non-existent ass as well.

When Minho kicks him under the table, Taehyung gives him a small thumbs up before taking his now half-eaten plate away to dump.

***

Dinners are normally spent at a table off to the side with the campers because they want to be able to treat you less like an authority figure and more like a wise older sister. But tonight you’re eating with the other counselors because you’re missing adult company. It’s been hard to have any of the bonding moments you were hoping for and there’s not much time during the day to have them when you’re trying to patch up skinned knees and guide macaroni projects.

Even though everyone is friendly enough and does try to make sure you feel included, you can’t help but notice how peripheral you are. After a few weeks, everyone has their designated dinner seat, so you were forced to pull up a chair to eat. Once the plates were cleared, you still felt a little left out. Apparently everyone makes a habit of staying up a little later than you so they can have time to unwind and talk about the day together in the other cabins. Apparently, people even share bunks occasionally so that they can visit non-roommate staff for the night.

You know you’re really not part of the group when the conversation becomes 80% inside jokes and you can’t recognize or understand a single one. The girl next to you attempts to explain the first few, but it slows the conversation down and you can tell that people are losing their patience when a story has to halt for you to catch up on nicknames or events. She stops explaining after the 4th one and you don’t really blame her. Maybe you should have spent dinners with them more. Or maybe you shouldn’t have gone to bed so early; even on the nights where you felt the exhaustion in your bones.

While everyone laughs about something someone said one night earlier in the summer, you construct a mental pros and cons list in your head. You could stick around and try to scrape through every single thing everyone says until you get all the jokes and can understand why random things like the brisket you’re eating is so funny. Or you can accept that you’ll probably have to forge these connections individually and not feel bad about getting well-deserved rest when you need it.

You opt for the latter and genuinely explain to everyone that while you had a nice time, you’re feeling a little fatigued. No one looks like they’ve caught on, but no one looks too upset to see you go either. The conversation continues to flow as you leave the dining hall, no need to fill the space you left because you didn’t really leave one. The walk from the mess hall to your cabin is short and brisk and you feel as though you’re not sure you made the right choice. You hope sleep will clear your head.

But before you get to the little fork in the foot trail that separates the other cabins from yours, you get struck with a current of rebellion. If you’re going to be lonely, you might as well make the solo time as fun as possible. So you sneak behind one of the cabins, searching for the cooler you know is wedged under the raised foundation. The first night there, someone showed you the booze that they brought in behind the camp leader’s back during the strict luggage inspection. If you recall correctly, you remember this girl saying that her boyfriend drives up during the weekly meetings and drops off new cases of beers for her to scoop up under the guise of a “bathroom break”.

When you open the cooler, there’s several 40s sitting in a bath of ice. It’s not your drink of choice, but beggars can’t be choosers. You take two for good measure and skip off to go drink on your porch with the radio blaring from inside the cabin.

***

“Tae, come on. You haven’t pulled your trunks out once since we got here.”

Minho whines fairly well for someone of his stature and it’s convincing enough with the pouty lips and the puppy eyes that Taehyung really does consider it. ‘It’ being swapping his pajamas for some board shorts and heading out to the lake for a night swim. Apparently the water will be refreshing in the thick and heavy heat in the night air. One of the other counselors had promised a smuggled beer, but Taehyung isn’t really interested in tempting fate.

“I don’t think I’m up for it,” Taehyung says while pushing Minho out the front door of their cabin. His biggest fans Jay and Dan are waiting outside and groan when Minho turns back again.

“You sure you don’t want to come? Maybe you’ll end up having fun. You never know.”

Jay whispers to Dan then. “I don’t know why he’s always so obsessed with bringing him around to stuff. It’s not like he adds anything to the mood, you know?”

It’s loud enough for Taehyung to hear, though he doesn’t think it was supposed to be heard. Minho instantly shoves Jay into Dan, who both go stumbling off the steps of the cabin porch. A moment later his eyes admit defeat and he pats Taehyung’s shoulder.

“Do you want company? I can stay in and you can, like, teach me the color wheel again.”

“Really, it’s fine. I’m gonna do some reading. I brought a few books that I’ve been wanting to crack open. And I’m kinda tired. Don’t worry about me.”

***

By the time you’ve finished half of your second bottle, you’ve migrated back into your cabin. Drunk-you is a little paranoid and worried that the camp leader will show up out of nowhere and see you intoxicated. Although, as you flop onto your bed, you’re not sure that’s such a bad thing. At least then you’d have company, you muse.

The bottle hangs from your lax fingers and you take a look at your surroundings. The screen door is facing out towards the lake and the view shows that the boys’ side of the camp is still awake with the lights from their own cabins shining like small beacons back at you. Then you look back and there’s the four walls of wood. You wonder briefly if its pine or oak before realizing you’re a little too drunk if you’re trying to distinguish between types of lumber. You do appreciate the wood’s warm tone and the natural striations that add some intrigue to the otherwise bland walls. If it weren’t for the abandoned Kiki’s Delivery Service poster on one wall facing your bed, you might think you were in a wooden version of solitary confinement.

Your head turns to rest more comfortably on your pillow and you gaze up at the little writing desk below the window that faces the woods behind the cabin. A little blurry shadow obscures some of the view of the forest and you sit up to see it better. It’s the little walkie talkie you discovered on the first day.

Drunkenness and boredom compel you to leave the softness of your mattress and stumble over to the window. The walkie talkie spent several weeks in the sun, so you figure it can’t be out of battery. You also figure it can’t have actually been destroyed from the meter it fell from your hand to the floor that one day. So you flip the power switch with blind hope and squeal excitedly when it turns on. Pressing the ‘talk’ button, you hop around the main room of the cabin and hum into the first channel. The song you’re singing is a broken version of a tune your grandfather used to always have floating in the air of his house from his record player. The melody sloshes together at certain points like the contents of the bottle you continue to take generous swigs from.

***

Taehyung’s reading in his bed, trying to tune out the sounds of distant splashing and shouting coming from his co-counselors by the lakeside. When he picks up the sound of sloppy singing, he wonders if Minho has come back to the cabin for a towel or to try to convince him to come back out again. But the door of the cabin doesn’t swing open. Taehyung is confused for about 5 more seconds before he’s eyeing the dark space under his bed suspiciously. There, underneath a sheet that fell down the crack between the mattress and the bed, is the walkie talkie that’s been collecting dust since the night before the camp session started.

He shifts an arm down behind the bed and disentangles the device from the sheets and dust bunnies. Sure enough, the broken lilting of the soft tune is coming from the walkie talkie. To say he’s surprised is an understatement. A few weeks prior, he’d turned on the walkie talkie by accident and a moment later someone’s voice sparked from the speaker. He was intrigued enough by the voice to leave the device on during the day, charging it often in case whoever was on the other side would want to tune in again.

Now, the fog of sleep rises to make room for this little mystery. He doesn’t try to speak just yet. Instead, he lets your voice continue your rendition of a few songs mashed into one from a famous jazz album. When your voice putters out because you forget where the rest of the tune’s trail leads, Taehyung smiles to himself.

“I really—hic—wish someone was there,” your whisper crackles through the speaker.

He worries a bit about scaring you off again, but the urge to speak outweighs the worry. He holds the device up to his mouth hesitantly. “Someone is.”

“Oh.” You don’t seem nearly as startled as you were last time he spoke up. “The void speaks.”

“Believe it or not, I’m not the void.”

“Well,” you hiccup more into the walkie talkie and the sound is funny and tiny. “I suppose you’re not if you say you’re not. But who’s to say the void isn’t just a consciousness trapped in a reality that won’t answer back.”

“Wow. Do you normally philosophize in the midnight hour while drinking?”

The sound of you taking a large swig from your 40 washes into his side. “How did you know I’ve been drinking?”

“Call it a hunch,” he grins up at the slats of the mattress above his own.

“Well, what are—what are you doing?”

“Me?” For some reason the question takes him by surprise. “I’m just reading.”

“Reading what?”

“N-nothing.” He stares down at the book he was reading. “It’s just an art book.”

“What kind of art?”

“Uh, Van Gogh,” he trails off, waiting for your reaction.”Van Gogh’s art.”

“Oh, that kid. Nice one.” You let out a burp, but otherwise sound completely serious.

Taehyung can’t help the laughter that takes over him. It’s not that your reaction was stupid, but it was so unexpected and nonchalantly ridiculous that his brain can only react with laughter. You grumble at him through the speaker, but don’t actually take offense. He laughs for so long that you’re silent on the other line when he finally calms down.

“Sorry,” he wipes at his eyes, “I didn’t mean to laugh at you like that. I just...I’ve never heard anyone do something like that.”

“‘s okay,” your shrug is practically audible.

“Hey, you’re not a camper from the girls’ side, are you?”

“Are you asking if I’m one of Camp Lonely Hearts’ young women?” Your voice takes on a strange lisp in attempt to sound hauty.

“Yes?”

“Well, sadly I’m not. I’m a counselor over there, though.”

“I think this is the first time I’ve talked with one of you guys this whole summer.”

Back in your cabin, you have the walkie talkie resting against your ear after having fallen back into bed. Your feet are at the wrong end of the mattress, but you don’t care because the sound of the deep voice on your little radio is soothing and pairs well with your beer exhaustion.

“Mmm, me too.”

Your breathing slows and evens out, lengthening in Taehyung’s ear. He lays the walkie talkie down then, realizing that you’re probably on the verge of falling asleep. From the sound of it, you probably fell asleep with the ‘talk’ button still activated. He switches his walkie talkie off after mumbling an awkward ‘goodnight’ and lays the device down on the ground near his bed. He falls asleep quickly that night.

*** After waking up slightly hungover but not hungover enough to be without memory of the night before, you panicked.

Whoever this mystery person was on the other end of the walkie talkie, you had babbled dark philosophical nonsense at them for a good five minutes before doing who knows what else. You were so embarrassed you could hardly swallow down the overlooked eggs they served you for breakfast that morning. Being on kitchen duty didn’t help the upset stomach. You felt nauseated by your dopey antics and the smells of the meat and eggs you were frying for the campers’ breakfast.

The only thing that settled your stomach was the resolute plan you made to apologize to the mystery person over your lunch break. You hoped to all that was good in the world that the other person wasn’t a camper that was so scarred by your actions that they already reported you to the camp leader. Although, something about their tone when they asked you if you were a camper the night before made you think they were a counselor like you. It was the nerves and the hint of disappointment that even drunk-you picked up on. Nerves and disappointment about what, though?

With all your musing, you’re spaced out during physical education period and get brained by a volleyball. It’s actually a blessing in disguise because it means you get sent home and don’t have to work the dinner shift. The walk back to your cabin is full of you patting the tender skin of the back of your head while you practice your explanation for why your dignity is still actually intact and why you’re not as weird as you may have seemed last night.

But when you get back to your cabin, you find that you’re more nervous of the idea that no one picks up than the idea that they do pick up to give you a piece of their mind. Still, you switch the device on because you want to explain yourself. The first channel crackles to life again and you press the ‘talk’ button.

***

“I’m telling you, if these kids would just put their phones down, their spinal alignment would be so much better. You ever looked at their little shoulders? They looks like fucking mole hills. Makes me wanna cry.”

Minho is trying as best he can to remain still despite how much the topic of young people’s posture riles him up. Taehyung appreciates the effort, though, as it makes Minho’s silhouette much easier to capture on his canvas. On nights when there isn’t much to do, Taehyung takes out his paints and sometimes gets his older brother to be his model. In exchange, Minho gets to rant to a whole person about the dangers of office chairs on the coccyx or whatever the sexy new topics are in his chiropractors' digest.

Tonight is one of those nights and Taehyung’s managed to fill the canvas with three different poses and has also learned why he shouldn’t ever cross his legs for extended periods of time or diss nursing shoes until he’s tried them. But before he can ask Minho to find another position to hold, the walkie talkie by the foot of his bed fires up; on from when he turned it on as soon as he got back into his cabin for the day.

“Hello? It’s me,” your voice calls tentatively out into the air.

“Ooooh, who’s that?” Minho’s eyes turn into little semi circles as he grins at Taehyung. The mocking coos are inaudible to you because Taehyung hasn’t pressed the ‘talk’ button and he’s glad for that too. He quickly flips Minho the bird before scooping up the little device and leaving to sit on the porch.

Time stretches thin as you wait for an answer. The seconds are long. Long enough that your face is hot with unnamed shame and you’re reaching to switch the device off when—

“Hey. Sorry about the delay.”

“Hey!” You pull back automatically before remembering you’re the one who initiated the call. No backing down now. “So, I’m—I’m sure you remember the other night.”

“I do,” he snickers and recalls the way you’d bumbled around verbally. “Are you back for a repeat performance?”

“Uh, no. I actually wanted to apologize for being so weird yesterday. I was kinda drunk and I didn’t think about the fact that I might be bothering someone by turning this thing on and talking into it.”

“You didn’t bother me.”

“I didn’t?” You were just about to venture into the next part of your prepared speech, but now that you don’t need to, you’re at a loss for words. “That’s...good to hear. Are you sure? I can be kind of a lot when I’m drunk.”

“I really didn’t mind. It was a nice change from—I mean, it was funny. And nice.”

“Nice? I can’t remember the last time someone said I was nice.” The laugh behind your voice is subtle, but it sweetens the tone of your already pleasant words until Taehyung is smiling again.

“Glad to be of service, then,” he shoves a hand in his pocket.

“You sound nice too,” you blurt out. The sound of your feet hitting the floor in a little dance of embarrassment are thankfully too soft to reach Taehyung’s ears. “I mean—”

“Thanks. So,” he clears his throat softly, “do you like jazz?”

From that night on, you and Taehyung begin talking with one another via walkie talkie. Every night, a few hours before sunset, one of you will send out a little message to the other. Nearly like clockwork. Nearly because there are some nights where the conversation gets put on the back burner. Those were unusual nights, though. On one of those nights, the older counselors wanted to host an ABBA karaoke night with some of the older campers in the dining commons and you couldn’t miss it because 1) the 17-year-olds really like you, and 2) you can completely body an ABBA song despite the fact that you were never an avid fan growing up. Another one of those nights Taehyung couldn’t make it because Minho dragged him out of the room to play flashlight tag in the woods. He didn’t even have time to change out of his paint-stained shirt, much less shoot you a quick warning about not being able to talk. Although you didn’t like being left hanging, when he explained why he was busy the following night, you completely understood. Because, really, how often does an adult flashlight tag opportunity come up?

Even still—on nights like those you both miss each other’s voices.

99% of the time, though, you both make time for talking with one another. When you both are in, you talk about anything and everything. From family and life outside the camp to joke competitions that have Minho snorting to himself from under the covers even though he’s supposed to be asleep. The number of movie and book recommendations you’ve swapped only to find out that the other person was a fan is almost too high to not make you wonder if you’re actually stuck in some cliché young adult summer novel.

These days Taehyung’s cheeks hurt from smiling so much. Usually he doodles what he thinks you could look like in his Moleskin while ignoring Minho’s weird soft looks or wiggly eyebrows. Sometimes he’s not up for sharing his cool new digital pal with his brother and he’ll migrate outside, to the back of the cabin, and endure the bugs so he can enjoy your voice in peace. The only downside is that Minho won’t let him live it down. The countless jokes about his new lady friend only get worse when Minho slips up one breakfast and lets all the other counselors know that Taehyung’s been avoiding the group to talk to you. The raucous applause was one thing, but Cref’s fake pride that Taehyung managed to capture female attention was enough to have him kicking Minho under the table for his indiscretion. But it wasn’t all that bad.

You’re fairly content with the way things are as well. You’ve managed to get your boombox radio to play a local ‘best of’ jazz station and it reminds you of your myste when you’re not talking with him. It's only until you catch yourself trying to recall Taehyung’s appearance that you realize what you’re missing. That is, you don’t know what he looks like and that makes you feel odd. In theory, people don’t need to know what their friends look like. Pen pals and mutuals on social media sites don’t always know what their internet friends look like and still manage to talk for years and feel a real sense of closeness. But you keep wondering. Is he tall, is he brunet, is he pretty?

The thought keeps plaguing you until one day the question just tumbles out of your mouth. It’s a Tuesday, and you’re getting ready for bed because you have to be up earlier on Wednesdays for the weekly meetings. Taehyung had just been telling you about a flip that the arts director did that morning off the pier. It was a grisly story of broken legs and nose bleeds and how Taehyung became both the arts and music counselor until further notice. You’d been trying to listen diligently but you couldn’t help drifting off. You’re trying to picture Taehyung’s face solely off the timber of his voice when that same voice blares a little louder than normal in your ear.

“Yo, did you fall asleep on something?”

“How tall are you?”

“Uh,” is all you get back from him. And it’s honestly an appropriate response to such a blunt change of subject.

“Sorry, that was kinda rude of me. It’s just that I realized that you’re probably the closest person to me in this whole camp and we’re not even on the same side of the lake...I just realized I don’t even know your name. And I definitely wouldn’t be able to pick you out in a crowd.”

“That’s—that’s true,” he gnaws thoughtfully on his lip and Minho raises his surprised and bespectacled gaze from a physical rehabilitation manual. “I’m Taehyung.”

He’s not sure how he managed to spend weeks talking with you nearly every night only to never ask for your name. When he was alert and talking with you, he felt no gaps, he didn’t even think to ask. But, Taehyung thinks, maybe the thought came to him when he was on the fuzzy border of sleep and wakefulness. When he was most open and sometimes the yearning slipped out. He doesn’t say any of that to you, of course. He just listens to you reply with your own name and repeats it to you until you’re praising him for the way it sounds on his tongue. Minho makes fun of him and whispers your name in a squeaky voice that’s supposed to be Taehyung’s.

“I like your name,” you chirp. You’re so happy to have one more piece to the puzzle that is Taehyung that you almost forget your original question. “So, Taehyung, what do you look like.”

“I’m 5’10.5,” he starts. “And I have...blond hair. All my friends tell me I have a perfect face–”

“Is that so?”

“–and a great chest-to-waist ratio. I don’t wear makeup, b-but if I did my MAC shade would be NW30.” Minho narrows his eyes at Taehyung, but the younger man simply turns away.

“That’s nice?” You sound a bit baffled by the description as well, but you try to take it in stride and picture it.

The resulting image in your mind isn’t exactly what you expected, but you guess you can’t be surprised that he looked different from how you imagined when you didn’t even know his name. You rattle off your own appearance, though not quite so awkwardly. When you’re finished, you wonder what he imagines with the description you gave. What does he think, you wonder. Do I sound nice?

Taehyung, on the other hand, realizes instantly who you are. You’re the girl that was falling asleep during the first meeting. He remembers watching your head lolling back and forth during the icebreaker and trying to contain his laughter when the camp leader shouted loud enough to wake you. He remembers your boisterous laughter at the third weekly meeting when someone thought it would be funny to round up 5 squirrels and release them into the conference room to watch the mayhem unfold. If he’s being honest, he’s actually more excited with the connection he’s made now. He’s glad it’s you. It makes sense.

“Well, I guess this will make tomorrow’s meeting a little more fun, right?”

“Huh,” he snaps out of deep thought. “Why?”

“Because now we can talk to each other in person.” Your voice is brimming with excitement and it’s easy to hear even through the half mile of distance and the static-y connection. “I’ll be able to find you now.”

“Yeah,” his voice trails off guiltily but you don’t catch onto it because you’re busy smoothing out your sheets.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Taehyung,” you bid him goodnight with extra giddy emphasis on his name now that you can actually use it. It’s cute and should probably bring a smile to his face, but as he turns off the device, he can only purse his lips in frustration.

The sounds of sheets rustling remind him of his brother’s presence and he lets out a sigh, waiting for the lecture that’s about to come.

“So,” Minho begins slowly, “How come the person you described was cousin Jin when she asked you what you looked like?”

“In my defense, I...”

“In your defense, what? I’m really curious about what your explanation is.”

“I didn’t want her to be disappointed. And no one’s ever been disappointed by Jin’s looks, so when I got nervous I just gave her his greatest hits.”

“I heard. The foundation thing was a little much.”

“Yeah,” he sighs.

“Why do you think she would be disappointed?”

“I don’t know. I guess if for some reason the appearance stuff was important to her, I thought it made sense not to leave things to chance. In case that would mess things up.”

“But what if, to her, lying is even worse than having an ‘ugly’ friend,” Minho asks with air quotes included.

“Then...I fucked up big time.” Taehyung holds his head in his hands for a few minutes before eventually looking up helplessly. “But I didn’t do it to spite her or anything.”

“Did you really just do it because you thought she would be disappointed? She doesn’t sound that shallow to me, and I don’t know her like you do.”

“Yes and no,” he groans and tosses himself onto the mattress. “I mean, I wanted to seem good in her eyes. Someone she might...like?”

“Someone she might like? She does like you.”

“Someone she might,” Taehyung eyes Minho softly, “want to be with.”

“Ah,” he nods sagely. “So it’s like that.”

“It’s like that.”

“Then you know what you need to do.”

“Yeah. I’ll tell her tomorrow. During the meeting.”

***

Taehyung figures that the idea of preserving his friendship with you being so important will make confessing his lie to you super easy. But when he lumbers into the meeting room the following morning at 6:30, the nerves take over. He grows silent. He stays silent when you come in looking too chipper for a normal morning meeting. And when you spend the majority of the meeting studying the face of every counselor from the boys’ side of the camp, looking for the man described to you on the phone yesterday and not finding him. And when the meeting officially adjourned and you’re standing around hoping for some sort of explanation. Silent when he eventually slips out while Minho is in the bathroom and someone has started chatting you up.

He knows that eventually he’ll have to face you—figuratively speaking. The floor will probably have a trench plowed into it from where he paces the area in front of his bunk anxiously. Sundown is soon and normally you’d be tuning in at this time to see what his plans are for the night and talk about each other’s days. But as the minutes tick by, his walkie talkie stays quiet. Minho pins him with an expectant look before mumbling something about going to go hang out in someone else’s cabin. Maybe he thought Taehyung would benefit from the privacy, but the empty space on the other side of the room just makes him more aware of how the ball is in his—and only his—court. He picks up the walkie talkie and presses the ‘talk’ button.

“You there?” When he gets no response at first, he presses again. This time, he just calls your name pleadingly. Surprisingly, you pick up.

“Is this Taehyung?”

“What? Yes, who else—”

“Or maybe this is Mr. tiny waist dorito face SPF 30. Can’t tell who’s who these days.”

He ducks his head. The smile in his voice is self-deprecating. “It’s me. Taehyung.”

“What can I help you with this evening?” Your voice is sharper than it normally is, but subtly so. He almost wants you to just yell at him instead.

“I just wanted to say sorry.”

“For friend-catfishing me?”

“Yes. For lying and for not coming clean at the meeting when I first saw you.”

“Why didn’t you say anything at the meeting,” your voice wavers a bit, traitorous in the way it shakes. “I was looking for you.”

“I know. I really was gonna tell you. You can ask Minho. But I just got scared all of the sudden. Like as soon as you saw me, you’d regret the decision to ever talk with me.”

“Tae, I wouldn’t do that. I really...I care for you. Something like that doesn’t just go away because what you pictured in your head isn’t 100% reality.”

Your words are simple, but he feels comfort from them. The grip he had on the plastic of the walkie talkie loosens significantly and he lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

“I still haven’t been completely honest with you, yet.”

“What is it now. Do you even work here?”

“No, no,” he chuckles and the sound drives you to chew on your thumb. “When you asked me what I looked like that night, I described my cousin to you.”

“Yes, ok, we’ve established that you’re not really Mr. Dorito head. What else is there,Taehyung, you’re making me nervous.”

“Hear me out.” You huff but otherwise settle for tapping your foot rapidly to channel the nerves productively. “I told you that I did that because I thought you wouldn’t want to be friends with me. But that’s not the only reason.”

“Okay,” you trail off.

“I did it because I thought maybe if you thought I was handsome, it would make it easier for you to, uh, return the feelings I have for you. I...like you. In a like-like way.”

“I see.”

Now it’s your turn to stretch the pause out until Taehyung’s fisting tufts of his hair in his free hand. The walkie talkie is probably going to leave a red imprint on his face from how hard he’s pressing it to his cheek, but he doesn’t even register the discomfort.

“I really don’t like that you lied to me,” you begin. “But, since I really like-like you, you can be on probation.”

The sound of exaggerated gagging sounds from the entryway of the cabin where Minho has been eavesdropping for the last five minutes. Taehyung doesn’t even bother to chastise his older brother for getting into his business and instead lets laughter bubble passed his lips.

Not too much changed after the night you both confessed to one another. Supposedly that’s a sign that you had a good foundation for your romantic relationship. But there are little changes and they’re noticeable. Much to Minho’s chagrin.

Most notably to everyone involved, since that night, the tone of the walkie talkie conversations shifted. Now your voices have become a little more hushed and Taehyung absolutely refuses to pick up the device unless he’s alone, whining until Minho leaves the cabin or is truly asleep. If the talks go on late enough, midnight moonlight lays a forlorn, whispered feel over you both and things become a competition for who can be the mushiest. The air is made of breathy laughs that bleed into sighs and unironic use of ‘No, you hang up first’. It’s all so rosy and the happiness you feel starts to stain your cheeks and smile. The other counselors notice too. A few give you meaningful looks like they’ve caught on. Moe, especially, looks proud to see that the dour cloud that was hovering over you has dissipated some. Others don’t quite have it right. They ask you if you’ve been sneaking weed into the camp. You don’t give up your secret for either of them. Mainly because you could face disciplinary action, but also because you don’t want the next time there’s a meeting to be turned into a spectacle. It’s not lost on you that you still don’t know what Taehyung looks like. But you were being sincere when you said that you didn’t need that to care for him.

Still, the curiosity wears on the edges of your consciousness every now and then. You can’t quite ignore the idea that you guys are sort of dating—that you may have a boyfriend at the end of this summer—and you still can’t tell when you’re in a room with him. Despite this, you feel a visceral attraction to him growing from what was a gentle simmer to a boil the longer you exchange pillow talk with him. At the right moments of the night, your hands itch to feel the solid weight of him, of any part of him. To have something other than the intangible rasp of his voice when he spills his feelings to you over the walkie talkie.

***

The Sunday night before the last week of camp finds you, of course, on the walkie talkie. Unlike all the previous conversations, there’s a bittersweetness that you’re trying to swallow down. You’ll both be busy with preparations for the end of the summer festival where both sides of the camp meet—this year on the girls’ side of the lake—to celebrate a summer well spent. This means you won’t have the time or the energy to talk to one another before the big day. If it wasn’t for the fact that you still hadn’t met up properly, you wouldn’t be bemoaning the brief absence so much. But with the end of the camp session rapidly approaching, questions linger in the air. It’s not clear what happens to what you have with Taehyung once you’re not close enough to use walkie talkies to talk with one another every night. So you cherish every minute you get with the man, even if its just his voice.

“I wish we could just keep talking forever,” you whine half into your pillow, half into the balmy night air. You’re trying your best to combat the heat with your sheets kicked down to your ankles and your lightest sleep clothes on. The tone you use is one you might normally be a little ashamed of, but you’re feeling extra needy.

“I wish we could have worked on the same side of the lake,” Taehyung counters after a quick glance toward Minho’s bed. Still unmade and empty because the man in question went to go smoke on the dock. “This whole separating the camp for the kids’ sake is dumb sometimes.”

“Yeah. I wish I could’ve seen you teaching songs to the kids on the guitar.”

“I wish I could see your face while you listen to the songs I rec’d you.”

“And I wish I could see your paintings.” Taehyung turns back to see the canvas he’d filled yesterday with paint swatches, trying to remember the exact hue of your skin from the first meeting in which he knew you were you.

“I wish we could just see each other.”

“Me too.”

“And touch each other.”

Your mouth drops open wide. He’s been flirty in his own way, but never so outright.

“Oh my god, Taehyung, are you drunk?”

“I don’t drink,” he replies simply. Your cheeks feel too warm and you have to pat you face to give yourself a semblance of control.

It’s not that you haven’t entertained the idea of being intimate with Taehyung, but it was a bit difficult when you still couldn’t match a face to his name. Perhaps that was just a ‘you’-issue, but it frustrates you and, until now, kept you from getting very far with your fantasies. But with his voice in your ear that night, you think maybe you could get there. Already your skin is taking on a feverish heat, sweat starting to prick certain areas.

“What would you do if we could. H-how would you start?”

He palms himself deftly over his shorts and lets his eyes fall shut in indulgence. “Are you in bed?”

“Yes.” Your breath is bated. A hand trails down the top you’re wearing to lift the hem up, exposing the dewy skin of your torso. You pick at the elastic waistband playfully, eager to hear what Taehyung’s plans are for you.

“What are you wearing?”

It’s a benign question, but it still speeds up your heartbeat. His voice is somehow silken in its depth while tugging raggedly at something inside you.

“Um. I’m wearing a camisole and some shorts.”

He hums appreciatively. “Well, first, I’d take off your top. I’d pull the straps off and push the rest down slowly. I’d kiss your neck and your skin all over. Until I get to your breasts.”

Your fingers slide under your shorts to find the crotch of your panties. A growing wet spot greets the searching pads of your fingers. “And then what?”

“Easy, easy.” He smirks. “I’d take my time on you. I bet they’d feel so nice in my hands. Probably soft and warm. I’d put my mouth on them, lick them, suck on them. I’d pinch your nipples until they’re hard and you’re moaning.” Sure enough, a moan floats up through the speaker on Taehyung’s end. “Then I’d kiss your stomach and your hips and then I’d get your shorts off. Are you wearing panties?”

“I am, yeah.”

“Shame,” he pouts. “I’d take those off too. I’d kiss your thighs and then I’d kneel between your legs and I’d taste you. Get you all over my tongue.” His erection throbs with the image and he has to squeeze himself at the base to keep his cool. With his words momentarily halted, you jump in.

“All that sounds nice, but I think I’d like you under me more.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I want you on your back on the bed and I want you naked. And then I want to sit on your face. I wanna grind on your mouth for a bit and then I want to get you in my mouth too.” His breath hitches sharply in your ear. From the sound of it, he’s stroking himself slowly and leaning on and off the ‘talk’ button. “I want to feel you in my throat. I want to gag around you while I stroke you.”

Taehyung’s whines are high as he fights the urge to fuck into his hand quickly and chase the high he feels pulsing under his skin. “Are you—ngh—are you touching yourself?”

“Yes, but I wish it was you. I’ve got my fingers inside, but it’s not enough when I could have you do it. I want you to stretch me out. I wanna ride you after. I’m gonna ride you one day for real.”

“Can’t wait for that day,” he sighs, tossing his head back.

Taehyung spits into his hand to aid the glide. His hand moves quickly over his length, under the fabric of his bottoms. The slick sounds show up in the background noise of your cabin, egging you on. You bring your fingers to the apex of your lips and ghost them over your swollen clit. The first touch has so much anticipation behind it and has your back bowing off the mattress. Like a feedback loop, your moans set Taehyung’s hand in action and trigger his groans, which bring trickle after trickle of arousal down to wet your hand.

“I bet you’d feel so good. You sound so wet, god. You’d probably squeeze my dick so tight and good.”

“What would you do,” you gasp into the little radio, rolling a nipple under your satiny top. “Tell me what you’d do while I sit on your face.”

“I’d fuck you with my t-tongue. And I’d give some attention to your ass. It would probably look so good from where you’d be sitting. Bouncing on me while I fuck your mouth.”

“Fuck, Tae. I want you so bad.”

“I know,” he hisses through gritted teeth. “Add another finger for me and play with your clit with your other hand. I want to hear you come. Be loud for me.”

“I’m so close. I’m—”

As soon as you heed his instructions and add another finger, you’re able to re-angle your hand and hit a sensitive spot along your walls. The sudden onslaught of pleasure makes your volume increase by double. Taehyung’s erection jumps at the sound of your orgasm.

“Did you come?”

Your heaving breaths through the speaker are answer enough. He soldiers through, trying to catch up to you. So you help him along.

“If I were with you, I’d hold your dick right on my tongue so I can taste all of it when you come. Or maybe you want to come inside me. To fill me up and get me all sticky?”

“Fuck,” he grunts one, twice and then his mouth drops open as he spurts over his hand. The thick white of his orgasm leaks through the gaps of his fingers to make a mess. His body tenses with a few of the aftershocks before he flops bonelessly into his pillow. “I can’t feel my toes.”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to walk for a while either.”

Taehyung pouts up at the top bunk. “If we were on the same side of the lake, we could have just done this in the same bed. Then at least we’d be immobile together.”

“How romantic.”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with taking a lazy day off.”

“Maybe not normally. But with the festival coming up, I don’t think we really have that choice.”

“That’s true.”

“But,” the smile is audible in your voice, coy in its sing-song tone. “The next meeting is coming up soon. And we can maybe see each other there.”

“Yeah, we can.” Sleepiness makes his eyelids heavy, but he fights it as best we can. “I wanna see you so bad. Wanna hold you.”

“We can be really brave and hug in the parking lot outside the admin building.”

“I’d swim across the lake if it meant that was the fastest way to see you.”

“Aww. You’re such a sap when you come.”

“Only for you,” he mumbles. His cheek presses into his pillow as he loses his battle against sleep.

By the time Wednesday rolls around, you’ve been swamped with preparations for the festival. When you’re not busy avoiding paper cuts while designing decorations for the mess hall, you’re fighting off campers who want you to spoil the movie that the boys have chosen for the group as a whole to watch together. You go to bed at night without word from Taehyung, but you’re too tired and too familiar with the work he’s most likely doing to feel upset about it.

You’re so busy and your mind is so full that you don’t even realize that you should be looking for Taehyung when you go to sit down in the conference room. It’s only when you’re zoning out while the camp leader gets progress reports from the boys’ side that you realize you haven’t heard his voice in several days and you’re still not hearing it during the meeting. So you tap your fingers and wait for the meeting to adjourn. And as soon as it does, you make a beeline for Minho. Despite never having spoken with him directly, you’ve heard enough about him in and out of meetings to know what he looks like. Though, even if you hadn’t heard anything from your fellow counselors, you’d heard enough about him from Taehyung. If you listen carefully, you can almost hear similarities in the way that he and Taehyung talk. You suppose that’s what happens with siblings.

“Hi,” you greet him when there’s a lull in the conversation between him and some older counselor from the boys’ side.

“Hi, yourself.” Minho’s eyes widen as he registers your voice. It’s the only part of you he has direct experience with, but he has quite a lot of experience with it. He takes in your appearance with a grin, happy to finally meet the person who’s ensnared his baby brother’s affections.

“We’ve never met before, but my name is—”

“I know who you are. I hear Taehyung talk on the phone with you every night.”

“E-every night? Like even Sunday night?”

“Uhh,” his eyebrows raise at the sudden question. “No, actually. Not Sunday night. I was staying at someone else’s cabin. Why?”

“No reason. Listen, I just wanted to ask you if you knew where Tae was. I was planning on finally meeting with him face to face, but that...didn’t happen. And there’s not much time left.”

“I mean, there’s always after the summer. You both live in the city.”

You give him a non-committal noise that he doesn’t really like the sound of, but he doesn’t say anything. He’s not about to butt into his brother’s relationship just because he’s older. Even if it seems like you’re maybe not on the same page about what happens after camp ends.

“Well, he’s not pulling another fast one on you if that’s what you’re worried about. He told me not to tell you, but he got sick off bonfire weenies last night. So he’s probably still at home shitting his pants while he makes banners for the festival.”

“Thanks for that.” You blink away the image Minho’s words bring up and focus on the task at hand. “So I guess I probably won’t see him until the actual day of, then.”

“Probably. Since he’s covering the old art director’s tasks in addition to the musical stuff, he’s pretty swamped and this hot dog thing might set him back a bit. He definitely wants to see you, though.”

Minho tries his best again not to overstep and reveal too much. Not about the rampant diarrhea, but about the way Taehyung’s been scribbling frantically in notebooks for tasks that weren’t assigned to him for the fest. Nor does he tell you about the 3 a.m. guitar sessions. Or the tender way he sees Taehyung pick up the walkie talkie sometimes, holding it in his hand as thoughtfully as someone can when running on 5 hours of sleep.

(Festival Day)

“Come on, we’re gonna miss the concert!”

A camper pulls you by the wrist from the small station where face painting was being held to the center of the makeshift festival grounds where a stage has been set up.

People have been pulling you around since the wee hours of the morning. By now you’re used to just letting your body follow the person pulling you, but the slight twinge in your wrist is starting to worry you. You replace your wrist with your hand and the camper merely pulls you along harder. There’s already a large amount of campers and counselors from both sides of the lake surrounding the stage where some performances are about to take place. Somehow the 11-year-old holding your hand manages to weave you both through the bodies until you’re only a few feet from the platform.

After a juggling act done by two of your favorite campers, a lovely comedy routine where Moe roasted her ex-husband Cref, and a trio of high school yo-yo experts, the prep for the final performance begins. Apparently, Camp Lonely Heart had an anthem that all the campers learned in their music periods so they could all sing together during the final days of the summer. Since you were never present for the music sessions, you didn’t really know there was a song. Luckily for you, Jade gave you a sheet with the lyrics printed on them earlier that morning. You didn’t have any time to memorize them, but you got a good look and they seemed like pretty typical camp lyrics.

You spot Minho making his way to the front of the stage easily. He’s got a small glittery sign that says “That’s my little brother” and a few of the guys around him snicker when he waves it at the counselor and camper on stage. The words on the sign are slow to register with you, so it takes a moment for you to put two and two together to get Taehyung. But you do. And when you do, all you can hear is your own blood rushing in your ears and all you can see is him.

He’s seated with a guitar resting casually in his lap. His hair is long. Longer than you imagined it would be. It’s also lighter than you thought it would be based solely off Minho’s own dark chestnut locks. He’s handsome, though. With the honeyed skin and the large, expressive eyes behind vintage frames to offset the manly geometry of his other features. The young boy next to him on stage must say something nice or cute, because his whole face lights up. You marvel at the boxy shape of his mouth while he laughs.

In the background noise, you hear the camper, Jungkook, make a little speech about this summer and camaraderie and how long it took for him and Taehyung to prepare this original arrangement of the Camp Lonely Heart anthem you’re about to hear. But it all sort of washes in one ear and out the other. Instead you’re watching Taehyung bounce his foot with pre-show nerves and smile occasionally at what the other counselor says. Then he’s being handed the mic and he’s looking out into the audience. You lock eyes after a few beats, and he holds your gaze like he’s trying to see if you know who you’re looking at. Maybe it’s your awestruck expression. Or maybe it’s the stupid smile on your face when his voice comes through the mic and you’re hearing the voice you’ve grown to love pour through something other than shitty walkie talkie speakers. But either way, his back becomes a little straighter while he greets the crowd and tells them he hopes they like the song.

Everything after that is kind of a blur. You don’t sing along and instead watch Taehyung sing back up to Jungkook’s pretty tenor stylings. Minho was screaming when the song ended and threw some snipped sunflowers wrapped in cellophane onto the stage at Taehyung and Jungkook’s feet. In that chaotic moment of applause, you slip out the crowd after making sure Taehyung’s eyes are on you. The path you make is clear: a beeline straight behind the cabins on the trail that leads through the small foothills. With the festival going on and all the campers in one place, counselor supervision has to be tight. No campers allowed past these parts.

After giving him a few minutes to catch up, you can hear his footsteps are close behind you. The trek is short and you come up to step past the gates that open into the camp’s lavender field. It’s been a while since you last visited it, but the smell is just as fragrant and lovely as it was the first time. Your heart rate slows down slightly. Anticipation makes everything in you coil taut, full of sharp and tiny vibrations. You feel giddy. When his footsteps thud softly and finally behind you, you release your breath and turn around.

“It’s you.”

“Me,” he confirms with his palms open like an offering. An offering that you take immediately.

Your launch yourself into his open arms and he huffs as he takes the impact. The hug is tight like you’re worried he’ll turn into mist if you’re not careful. His arms are sturdy around you and he pulls you in even tighter so he can get closer. He runs the tip of his nose along your temple, revelling in the way the summer sun mingles with the scent of your soap and you. It’s a small detail but it’s exciting. Here you are, in the flesh, in all your glory. Your arms and bare legs are covered in small splatters of dried paint from the last minute changes you had to make to some of the decorations this morning. And your counselor’s t-shirt has a few rips and frays in the seams from all the wear and tear it got over the summer. The flyaways in your hair and the way you sway as you hold him are all catalogued. Even in this more life-worn state, he can’t stop looking at you.

You pull back after a long while with your heart still beating in your throat. There were so many things you planned on doing when you first met Taehyung for the first time, but now you’re overwhelmed. Perhaps it’s because, in the back of your mind, you’re worried about time. It feels very fairytale-like, the way you only managed to come face to face on a special occasion. Like a good dream that will come to an end at the beep of an alarm or a fantasy that collapses into tatters at the stroke of midnight. You try to remind yourself that you’re not in a fairytale. This is real life and you have more than midnight because you have the internet and public transportation. But is that enough? You shake the thoughts out of your head, trying to focus on the here and now because it may be all you have.

“I liked your song,” you finally say. Both his hands come up to cup your face.

“Thanks. I practiced a lot for you.”

“It paid off.”

He takes a deep breath and accepts your compliment robotically before letting his eyes flit back down to your upturned mouth. “Can I kiss you,” he sighs.

“Please.”

The kiss doesn’t actually start for quite a few moments. As soon as he has your permission, then he decides to take his time. Your eyes are nearly closed and he admires the pretty shadow your eyelashes cast on your cheeks. Impatience scratches at your nerves, but you try to go with the flow. He tilts your head in his hands like he’s calculating the best angle to kiss you from, knowing he’s driving you crazy from the little frustrated huffs you let out. Chuckling, he ghosts his lips over yours once before fully pressing forward.

As soon as your lips move together for the first time, you both let out twin sighs. Instantly, like a choreographed dance, arms and hands move in tandem to bring each other closer. You experiment with the long hair that flirts with the back of his neck before following its path and dipping your fingers beneath the collar of his shirt. He responds with large hands spreading over the small of your back, fingertips digging in before lifting and then digging in again like a game of practicing restraint.

You press your chest to his in an effort to get closer to him and unwittingly tease him with the promise of more unexplored softness under your clothes. He opens your mouth up with his own and nudges a subtle rhythm against your tongue. You moan and he mirrors the sound earnestly.

“I don’t think we can make it to the cabins,” he mumbles against your mouth.

“That’s fine,” you lay both hands on his chest and enjoy the firmness you find before pushing him back towards the tall rows of lavender. “I don’t need a bed if you don’t.”

“You’re something else.” He pulls back then with a wet sound. His lips are slightly puffy and shiny from kissing you and you grapple with the urge to bite them. You lose the battle and he shivers at the feel of you nipping at him. “Fuck.”

Once he and you have stumbled far enough back amongst the fragrant bushes and you find a soft enough patch of flattened lavender, you lower yourself to your hands and knees. He scrambles to sit beside you before immediately pulling you back in. You straddle his waist and rest some of your weight on his thighs while you peel off your shirt and bra. His hands smooth over the curve of your side once the skin is exposed, noting the way you arch into his touch. With an inquiring look, your hands move to the fly of his cutoffs. He lays back and then lifts his hips, impressively with you still seated on his lap, to pull his bottoms down and off. You do the same with yours and return to your perch as fast as possible.

Taehyung’s fingers find the soaked center of your panties and you rock your hips against the heel of his palm when he wriggles a finger in experimentally. He lets out a low appreciative whistle at how wet you are. You get wetter still when he grinds up into your clit to get you to lose some of the control you’ve garnered since leading him to the field. The feeling forces you to lean your hands on his abdomen, fingers fisting in his shirt.

“I want you inside me,” your moan shudders with the rhythm of the little circles you gyrate onto his long fingers. “I wanna ride you like I promised.”

“Are you sure you’re ready? We have time until we need to go back for clean up.”

“I know, but I want you to fuck me a couple of times before that happens.”

“I don’t have a condom, though.”

“Are you clean?”

“Yeah...You?”

“Yes,” your mouth drops open when he scrubs at a particularly sensitive spot on your slick walls. “And I’m on the pill. If you want, we could...”

“If you don’t mind.”

“I want it,” you assure him.

He takes off his shirt while you massage your breasts and take in more of his body now that it’s on display. The long hair framing his face falls prettily in his eyes after the shirt displaced it. Once it’s off, he pulls your panties to the side to admire the crystalline sheen that coats your lower lips. You shoo his fingers out of the way and pull the fabric to a more ideal angle before lowering yourself onto his length. The skin of his erection is hot to the touch and parts your lips easily. Your hips move in stuttering pushes forward to bump your clit against the swollen head.

“Oh, fuck,” his hands fly up to comb through his bangs. “God, this—you’re so sexy.”

“You are too. I don’t think I can wait any longer.”

With that, you raise up just enough to grip his length and line him up with your entrance. Instantly you realize his girth is a bit of a challenge, so you’re not as quick as you’d like when you take him in. But the slick aids things and your pelvises are snuggly slotted together after a few moments and some deep breaths. Taehyung’s hand flies to the slight bulge in your lower belly, enjoying the way he seems to fill you already.

You rest your hands on his ribcage again and get your bearings. With an efficient readjustment of your weight so you can freely work your thighs, you begin bouncing on him with no pretenses. His answering moan is louder than he clearly intended because as soon as it’s out, he bites down on his tongue. It’s clear he doesn’t want to make it obvious where you are and what you’re doing, but he’s having trouble containing himself. There’s sweat already starting to prickle under the surface of his skin and his hands feel restless just minutes into your ministrations.

Taehyung settles for muttering quiet curses and gripping your rapidly circling hips with bruising force. He can barely keep up with the pace you’ve set, but he does manage. He thrusts up to meet your every downstroke, though it’s not without an obscene slapping sound. The fact that he’s so visibly affected by your movements gets you wetter every second until he almost slips out a few times. You adjust your rhythm so that’s not a problem, but your thighs are burning with the effort. Taehyung sees through hooded eyes that you’re losing steam and seizes his chance.

You’ve opted for sitting and grinding with him inside you when he starts to shift. His arms come to envelope you and keep you steady as he sits up. Then you’re suddenly on your back. You want to protest about the dirt, but the ground looked clean and dry and doesn’t make your back itch, so you let it happen. Taehyung repositions himself among your splayed legs, hitching one up to wrap around his hip. He grabs the ankle of your other leg and lifts it slowly, testing your flexibility and giving you time to tell him where your limit is. When your ankle is hovering level with his shoulder, you give him a cheeky smirk at his wide eyed expression. He punishes your silent brag by sucking a rough hickey into the skin just above your ankle before resting it on his shoulder. The very fact that he’s pretzled you like this turns him on and gives him a slight energy boost. He figures you must have stolen some of his life force with the way you rode him earlier.

“Little succubus,” he spits through gritted teeth as he begins pistoning his hips against yours.

You let out a shameless laugh that quickly devolves into a low moan with the way the new angle feels. He’s not going to last much longer if you continue to squeeze around him like you’re doing, but he’s fairly certain you’ll finish first. Certain because his hand moves down between your bodies to tweak at one of your nipples. He noticed earlier how your eyes fogged over while you played with yourself in the same way. Leaning over, he continues to thrust into you while pulling the nipple between his teeth. He rakes over it lightly and your leg tenses before falling back down with a thud. You don’t seem to notice and instead your abdomen spasms with the waves of pleasure that begin lapping at you without ebbing back. The feeling merely builds until it explodes the moment he minutely clenches his jaw and bites. It’s a small amount of pain, but it takes you by surprise and pushes you over the edge.

With your walls milking him, he follows your high soon with his own. His breaths come out in deep huffs in your ear, heavy with bass. You test your limbs and the shifting makes you aware of the come he filled you with. When he pulls out, the sensation grows and you’re moaning weakly as it leaks out. He takes his lower lip in between his teeth as he watches the evidence his orgasm drip from your puffy center. He kind of wants to push it back in with his tongue or his fingers just to watch it drip out again, but he knows you might still be sensitive. So he settles for stroking your hip bone lovingly.

Grabby hands creep into his peripheral vision. It’s you silently asking for him to come lie with you, and he does. He presses sweet kisses against your lips until you sling a leg over his hip and add tongue. His dick twitches with the promise of second round, rubbing against the soft skin of your inner thigh. Normally, he’d need more time between orgasms. But you’re kissing his neck and for some reason the smell of your sweat combined with lavender is a miraculous pairing and has the blood flowing back south. A quick glance at his wrist watch tells him that there’s still a good 45 minutes and he flashes the little screen to you. Your answering grin is the rest of the motivation he needs.

The festival day ended two days ago. Following your rendezvous, you both smoothed out your clothes and shook the grass out of them before sneaking back into the campgrounds smelling suspiciously of lavender and ‘something else’ according to Moe. You managed to somehow avoid her keen nose just like Taehyung avoided his older brother’s wiggly eyebrows.

Clean up was an absolute bitch that night, so you both went to bed without hitting each other up. And the following day was for making sure all the campers were packed up and shipped off to town or picked up by their guardians. That was somehow more exhausting even though there wasn’t any cleaning or sweaty sex involved. It was probably the giant bonfire you had and the 40s you threw back that night with your co-counselors. It was probably the most fun you had with them in a while. You were up into the wee hours recounting all the chaos from the last week and the shenanigans that resulted from having the counselors from the other side of the lake involved. No one mentions you slipping away for over an hour, and for that you’re thankful.

But the headache you wake up with the next day has you silently cursing the whole camp. You don’t need to spend a long time packing, and you’re out of your cabin in record time. Hitching a ride with one of the other early risers, you find yourself at the admin building with plenty of time to kill until you have to walk to the nearest bus stop. There’s donuts and bagels and a basic fruit plate in the conference room and you stealthily sneak some food out while the camp leader interrogates other counselors about how they felt the summer went. You even resort to filling out your evaluation form in the hallway to avoid the camp leader’s hawk-like gaze. You’re still seated on the floor, counting the dots in the pattern on the linoleum tiles, when Taehyung’s characteristic sneakers appear in front of you.

“You going home?”

It’s an awkward question, but it technically shouldn’t be. The last moments in the lavender field were spent with you skirting around his questions about where in the city you lived and what your plans for the fall were. It seemed pointless to tell him all that and act as if you were guaranteed to be able to pick things up where they left off once camp closed for the summer. With your back turned that day, you missed the way Taehyung looked at you after struggling with the feeling of not knowing you. Despite the fact that he felt deep in his soul not more than 3 hours ago that he knew you.

Couple this with the fact that you did have down time after the festival ended, but you said you were busy when you weren’t and you end up where you are now. Suddenly uncomfortable in front of the guy you’d been opening yourself up to for months because you never really got to breach the subject of what would happen when the summer ended. Now you’re realizing these are probably your last moments with what you had with him at Camp Lonely Heart.

“My bus is coming at 2,” you say eventually. He tries one last time.

“That’s hours from now. I can...I could drive you instead. I’m going into the city anyway.”

Yes, your brain wants you to say. Take me home, and then come in and stay with me. You want to utter the words, but your tongue grows heavy and clumsy. So instead you say something stupid.

“The ticket’s non-refundable.”

“Oh.” His head lowers to stare at his own shoes. “Yeah, that’s...I get that. Money, right?”

“Yeah.” You stare down at your shoes. You fight to find a redeemable moment, something lighter to end the summer on. “Hey, uh, look what I brought when I cleaned out my cabin.”

Taehyung stares down at your seated form while you fish through your little backpack for something. He’s not sure why the moment he was dreading before officially meeting you is happening now. The rejection he was hoping to avoid by remaining a nameless, faceless voice is now slowly rearing its ugly head.

“Look!” Your voice is a bit too enthusiastic to come off as 100% genuine, but the sight of the walkie talkie that started it all does make Taehyung smile despite himself.

When he pulls out a matching device from the side pocket of his messenger bag, the uncomfortable atmosphere lifts a little. Minho shows up then, keys jingling in his pocket. He calls for Taehyung and looks at you curiously.

“Are you coming with?” Before you can explain, Taehyung answers for you.

“She can’t. She’s gotta catch the bus.”

“The bus that’s going into the city? Where we’re also headed,” Minho asks with an incredulous smile that’s got none of the usual sweetness in it.

He looks at you for a better answer, one that makes more sense, but you don’t volunteer one when suddenly put on the spot. The slump in Taehyung’s shoulders betray the weak smile on his face. To Minho, the whole situation positively reeks of a similar situation his baby brother got into when he was younger and much less careful with his heart. He’s not 100% surprised at you, though. He saw this coming in the last few days when there were no calls from you and Taehyung’s eyes lost their summer shine. Minho pins you with a look of disappointment that you feel deep in your bones before he gives you a second chance.

“Tae, can you go start up the car?”

There must be something in Minho’s voice that you miss because Taehyung surprises you by only hesitating for a second before taking the keys and turning on his heel. You can feel Minho’s eyes on your face the entire time you watch Taehyung leave, but you can’t bear to face him until he’s gone.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“I don’t know,” you answer honestly. “I just panicked when he asked if I was coming, so I said no.” He sighs in what you think is understanding, eyes closing momentarily before opening again. This time, his face is slightly more patient. He thinks he knows what’s going on.

“Do you want to ride home with us? With him?” There’s something else in the question, and you see it and grab at it, even though the implications scare you.

“I think so. I want to spend more time with him before I have to go for good. We didn’t really...talk about how this would end.”

“Does it have to end?”

“I mean, you know what they say about summer flings. Plus, this all happened in a really weird environment. Who knows if all of this was only possible because we just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

“Mm, yeah. It sounds like you guys were lucky in that regard,” he crosses his arms. “But you can take luck and build on it with actual effort and make something solid.”

You open your mouth to protest, but you can’t think of anything to actually say because he’s right. So you pick up your backpack and zip it up and gesture for him to lead the way to the car. A tiny bit of prideful approval bleeds onto his otherwise grave expression. On the way to the parking lot, your mind swirls with thoughts about the ways that this thing could fall apart. About how a summer haze made everything possible or how the distance that can’t be covered by walkie talkies will be the end of you and Taehyung. You look up to catch Taehyung’s profile as he waits for Minho in the driver’s seat. You also catch the way his face goes from a flat mask of indifference to surprise to badly concealed joy at the sight of you trudging behind his older brother. He rolls down the window while Minho makes a beeline for the back seat.

“You’re coming?”

“If that’s okay.” And you do wonder. Is this okay? Can we really do this? Can we make it?

“Y-yeah, of course,” seems to be Taehyung’s answer to all your questions, even the ones unspoken.

While you make your way to the passenger’s side, Taehyung whips his head around to stare at his brother.

“What did you say to her?”

“I’m not telling you, but just know that you may owe me for life after this.”

“Alright,” Taehyung concedes as you get in and strap in for the ride.

Thanks for reading through these collab pieces with me. Plz also go check out the pieces @polaritae wrote on the masterlist link above!!

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