Camp Counselors | vkook

07 | day 40

[ dedicated to ErinBTS_xo_ as a thank you for reminding me of this story. thank you so much for reading! it means a lot ]

NOTE: while this ending may seem a little rushed/out-place, please remember that this story is supposed to be a one-shot of sorts so it's supposed to be short! i did my best to wrap it up as cleanly as i could given the time that i had. i hope you guys enjoyed CAMP COUNSELORS as much as i enjoyed writing it for y'all <3

WARNING: you will bust all your uwu's

It was supposed to be a normal kind of night - calm, quiet, bright.

It was supposed to be the kind of night where the kids went to sleep without a fuss, where Jungkook wasn't expected to meet up with the rest of the camp counselors for a late night smoke. It was supposed to be the kind of night where starlight freckled his skin as he wandered dirt pathways, where his breath came out in puffs as the temperature dropped.

It was supposed to be him, his thoughts, and any accompanying panels of moonlight.

Sometime around midnight, minutes after finishing the last of his curfew rounds, Jungkook was following wherever his feet took him. His brain hadn't quite registered the way the rest of his body screamed with exhaustion, each pace slightly more sluggish than the previous. It explained why, in spite of feeling like the world was sitting on his shoulders, Jungkook was wide awake - and that pissed off the rest of him. He could see exactly where his feet were taking him but he had no control over where he went.

His body was staging a mutiny.

He was used to walking in the woods after midnight. The faint sound of the running river calmed otherwise actie nerves and whistle of the wind added a skip to his step, even if small. Every now and then, his feet led him to the lake dock. Sometimes he took his shoes off and sometimes he kept them on - every time he dipped his feet and sat, shoulders slouched. There was something wholly comforting to him about seaweed tangling around his ankles and frogs croaking in the distance. It was the way water lapped against body, soothing the ache in his soles that made the lakeside a welcome detour from his normal.

But while the lake and the woods were familiar territory for Jungkook, the heart of camp was not - at least not at night.

Camp's main meeting point was nothing more than a dirt circle. A worn, wooden rod dipped into the earth, standing high in competition to the trees. Two megaphones hung from the top end, one taut against the pole and the other dangling by a thread. It was odd - in daylight, the rust on the megaphones caught the sun and sparkled. In moonlight, the glossy finish of the metal - albeit a little faded - brought out the megaphone's white undertones.

At night, the normalities of camp didn't seem as normal anymore.

Sunlight had a tendency of dousing the world in an excess of fire - orange, red, and magenta. Moonlight was its undoing, washing away the saturation until the color contrast was back to normal - it was the saving grace to colors overwhelmed by flame. The megaphones, from where they were, looked like calla lilies coming into bloom. Log benches became phasmids shaking out the sleep in their legs as they prepared to prowl the grounds. The hearth was like molten lava and the rocks surrounding the continuous campfire were like volcanic ash. And the figure sitting the folding chair across from where Jungkook stood - he didn't look just like any regular camp counselor anymore.