I wake up on the chilled floor with a pounding headache, the wintry sunshine slipping through my dark curtains and making me wince. Stretching my arms with a yawn, I sit up, cursing myself for the thousandth time; this time for falling asleep on the floor at such an awkward angle. Cracking my neck to the side, I stand up and realise I’ve slept through the beginning of school, the time on my clock reading ten in the morning. I curse again, this time out loud.
Picking my phone up, I switch it on and am surprised to see seventeen missed calls from Chan, along with over a hundred messages from him and the group chat combined. I swipe to unlock and click on his contact number, finger hovering over the call button.
Just as I’m about to click the screen, my window rattles violently and makes me jump. I whip my head over to see a disheveled looking Chan balancing on my window ledge, a scrape on the side of his temple. He looks at me with relief through the glass as he catches sight of me, offering me a soft smile. I throw my phone onto the unmade bed and scramble to open the window, Chan falling onto the floor with a thud. I grimace, hoping my mother didn’t hear it.
“Chan? What - why are you here?” I ask, helping him to his feet. He shakes the dirt from his clothes and pats his hair down, unaware of the injury on his face.
“You didn’t answer my texts, or my calls, and you didn’t even turn up outside my house,” Chan gushes, suddenly pulling me into a tight hug. I blink in surprise but I hug him back, confused and happy to have him with me. “I was worried,” he says, squeezing me.
“I’m sorry Channie. I just … overslept,” I say truthfully, deciding the details from last night are unnecessary.
“I was thinking maybe you were in trouble. Or that you didn’t want to come camping,” Chan whines, his hands lingering on mine and his warmth seeping through my cold body in slow waves. His gaze wanders from my eyes for a moment and lands on the floor, picking out my tissues from last night. My eyes widen and l kick myself mentally, wishing I’d thrown them in the bin. He lets go of me and walks to the side of my bed, dropping to a crouch as he picks up one of the tissues, the maroon patches prominently staring back at him.
“Y/N … what’s this?” He asks quietly, looking straight at me. My mouth runs dry and I don’t answer, instead turning to look out of the window as I sit down on the edge of my bed.
His footsteps get louder as he approaches me, his hands turning my face to look at him. “Look at me. Did you do this last night?”
I hang my head, realising that he is actually sad. His eyes look as if he’s pained, and I hate that I’ve done that to him. Most of all, I hate that I can’t stop doing it.
Chan takes my silence as an answer and he lets out a huge sigh, hand rifling through his hair. “Sweetie, what happened?”
His soft voice makes tears well at my lashlines, my eyes prickling but I hold them back. Enough crying.
“I don’t want to be here, Chan. Honestly, I don’t want to live anymore,” I tell him calmly. Somewhere in the back of my cloudy mind I'm surprised that my own voice could sound so lifeless. Chan’s eyes widen. He kneels down infront of me, looking up at me with hurt in his eyes.
“No, Y/N - sweetie, please, please don’t say that,” Chan whispers, clutching at my hands. “You can get through this. I can help you,” he raises my hands to his face and kisses my fingertips, holding them in both of his hands.
I look down at him knelt infront of me on the floor, his eyes shining. What once would have been butterflies flapping around my stomach, is now a dead weight, sitting at the bottom of a lifeless pit. I feel nothing. Nothing at all.
I've never hated myself more than I do in this moment.
“Wait just a little longer. I’ll get you out of here. I’ll make it all better,” Chan says, leaning his forehead against my stomach. I automatically run my fingers through his hair, my body making the movements as if it’s someone else’s body, and my soul is elsewhere. I feel disoriented, detached from my life, and it’s unsettling. I should be happy, that I might have a way out of this living hell. But I'm not.
I nod after a while, letting him pull my suitcase out from beneath my bed where I left it last night. “Let me see your cuts and then we can go. We can go see the others,” Chan says, offering me a hand. I take it, his warm skin feeling like it's stopped doing anything to thaw my freezing skin.
After disinfecting and bandaging my arm, I go to the bathroom to change and come out a minute later, ready to go. I check outside and see that my mother’s car is gone, which gives us easy access to lug the suitcase out of the door. Once we’ve locked up, the two of us head off to school, Chan insisting on carrying both my school bag and case despite my constant protesting.
Once we get there, we make our way to the main hall where all the luggage is to be kept for the day, and I place mine next to Chan’s black one, scarlet roses decorating a corner of it. I can't help but smile with the little energy I have. How typical of him.
“Y/N!” Felix’s voice calls me and he rushes to give me a hug, his hair tickling my cheek. “Are you okay?”
I nod. “I am now. Thanks Lixy.”
He flashes me a cheerful grin before Changbin pulls at his sleeve, signalling at him to go with him. With a frantic wave, Felix leaves with Changbin, and Chan and I head to the roof, in order to seek some peace and quiet.
***
“Ha! I win,” Chan smirks, taking up all the counters from the board. I frown, crossing my legs underneath me.
“About time. I should have recorded that, would have been a nice memory for you,” I giggle, leaning back on my hands.
All lessons are cancelled today, in preparation for the camping later on. That means the students are free to do as they please, resulting in Chan and I playing the same game on the roof for the past five hours.
“Gosh so funny, Y/N. You should be a comedian,” Chan rolls his eyes at me, before tossing the game aside. I giggle at him, yawning.
Chan cocks his head to the left, regarding me curiously. “Who are you sharing a tent with?”
I groan. I hadn’t even thought about that. “I don’t know. I don’t have any girl friends.”
“You could always have your own tent. And then the guys and I can alternate on checking on you.”
I shake my head. “No. Then none of you will get proper sleep.”
Chan shrugs, blowing his hair out of his eyes. He grows impatient as the wind pushes it back into his face again, and I itch to push it away for him. “It’s not like we sleep anyway. And you can’t sleep by yourself. God knows what Leah will do.”
My heart melts slightly at his concern. “Don’t worry about it. If anything happens, I’ll come to you guys. Just pitch your tent next to mine.”
Chan nods in agreement, before flopping down backwards with a content sigh, looking up at the clouds. They swirl around like smoke in the sky and his eyes soften at the sight as if he’s never seen anything more beautiful. I can’t help but smile.
***
“Ow, ow, ow, ow, OW,” Jisung yells as he tries to put his tent up. The poles writhe free from the fabric and stab him in the face and ribs as his poor attempt of making a tent collapses.
Minho smacks him on the back of his head, looking disgusted.
“At this rate, we won’t have anywhere to sleep you idiot,” he whines at Jisung, glaring at him. Jisung frowns at him, throwing a stick at his head.
“Well maybe if you help me instead of lounging on your lazy, flat ass, then maybe we’d be done, smartass,” Jisung counters, poking Minho with another pole. Minho snorts, shoving the rod away.
“I’ll have you know, my ass is nowhere near flat. And why would I help, I know how to do it, you need to learn. That’s the point of this camping thing, to learn,” Minho stretches the last word out, smirking to himself.
Chan and I catch each other’s eyes and share a look, smiling at the two boys’ bickering. Seungmin steps in, hitting both boys.
“Guys, shut up. Jisung, stop trying to impale yourself, or you'll end up dead. Not that I'd miss you, but everyone else might. Minho, get off your fucking flat ass and help the struggling idiot,” he says, resulting in them shutting up and setting the tent up like normal people. Though Minho grumbles the entire time, mocking Seungmin's words.
I giggle and Seungmin rolls his eyes at Minho before flashing a large grin in my direction.
Surprisingly, Felix and Changbin were the first ones finished with their tent, and now the flaps are tied to the side, the inside visible. Changbin lays on his back and Felix is laying cuddled up to his side, hand resting on Changbin’s chest. Chan catches sight of them and shakes his head fondly, sitting on the grass outside his own tent, mine right next to it.
Just then, Leah comes walking towards us with a sense of purpose, something clenched in her fist that I can’t figure out despite my squinting. Once she is next to my tent, she crouches down and with quick flicks of her fingers, she walks off. Frowning, I get up and survey the back of my tent.
It’s not long before the tent suddenly explodes, the fabric swathed in raging shocks of fire.