ambrosia [NCT DREAM]

7. I Nearly Become a Meat Skewer

"Twelve? But there's... there's thirteen cabins..." Jaemin furrowed his eyebrows, recounting the buildings on the hill. Maybe he miscounted? Or maybe he's just stupid.

"Mm yeah, but only twelve of them suck. My dad included." Donghyuck tied back his golden-brown hair into a small ponytail and nodded. "Let's get started. This-" He gestured towards a large, dark building with drawn blinds and a little wilting pomegranate garden on the side of it. The room and gloom honestly reminded Jaemin of the inside of a Hot Topic.

"This is the Hades cabin, Cabin Thirteen. AKA, home of the only reasonable major god." Donghyuck gestured. Jaemin only nodded, remembering vaguely that Hades was the god of death or something like that.

A dark and misty shadow appeared next to Jaemin and out of nowhere, a girl's face showed up. Her face was twisted grotesquely and her dull brown eyes were wide, as if she were dead.

Jaemin screamed, throwing his body over Donghyuck, who didn't flinch. The other boy just folded his arms and looked at her sternly, unbothered by what happened.

The girl unfroze and stepped out from her black cloud, laughing loudly and pointing at Jaemin, who's eyes still bugged out in horror.

"Ningning! Stop shadow traveling to scare people! You're gonna give him a heart attack!" Donghyuck scolded, the younger girl only giggling even more.

"I'm sorry! His reaction! Oh, his reaction was priceless! He's so stupid, he fell for it!" The girl laughed, doubling over and disappearing in another cloud of black mist. Jaemin looked both horrified and bewildered, silently asking Donghyuck what the hell just happened.

"How would I not have?" Jaemin muttered, heart still racing. Sweat beaded on his forehead and it wasn't because of the pre-summer heat.

"Get used to stuff like that. That's the least weird thing you'll see here, honest to gods." Donghyuck pulled him along and through the circle of cabins. "This is Cabin Twelve, Dionysus. Actually, he should be around here somewhere... anyways, this is where the parties happen. You remember Johnny, right? He's Dionysus's kid."

"And this is Cabin Eleven, Hermes. Bunch of troublemakers." Donghyuck murmured. "Unclaimed campers usually hang out here. They'll probably steal your shoes, fair warning."

"Oh. It's fine, not like they're expensive or anything." Jaemin shrugged off, not really caring. Donghyuck looked at him as if he were stupid, then shook his head.

"Moving on, we've got... them."

They approached another cabin, which honestly looked more like a fancy American sorority house than anything else. Two younger boys peeked their heads out of the second floor's large windows and giggled when they saw Jaemin. They hollered something to the inside of the house and within seconds, teenage boys and girls with pink shirts were scrambling to the windows to get a sight of the new boy. They squealed and blew kisses and yelled flattering things at Jaemin as he walked by, which made his face blush a furious pink.

"Dongju was right, he is pretty!"

"New boy alert!"

"He's got the prettiest eyes, y'know!"

"This is the Aphrodite cabin, Cabin Ten. Whatever you do, don't look them in the eyes. Especially not Jaehyun." Donghyuck whispered frantically, shoving Jaemin behind him and out of view of the cabin's residents.

"What was that about Jaehyun?" A silky voice deadpanned from behind them. Jaemin turned to see the same boy with pink hair and a pink camp shirt who he'd met back in California.

"Jaehyun! You and your sirens are not gonna get your icky, magenta claws on this one! I know how you are, I know how you guys get -especially you and Lucas!" Donghyuck muttered and pulled a comedic face of distrust, holding onto Jaemin tightly.