The rest of the afternoon was marked by hard work. Kazuya ran back and forth, carrying supplies and helping build tents for the children. Jin-Woo, without a word, chopped all the wood for the evening bonfire in record time, earning admiring looks not only from the children but also from Nami, who admitted that at least someone here worked efficiently.
Killua disappeared somewhere the whole time, probably sleeping in the shade of the trees, and Misa complained about the insects while trying to force every boy in reach to act as her servant.
When evening finally fell and the heat eased a bit, the camp was plunged into the orange light of the setting sun. Kazuya sat on a wooden stump by a nearby stream and tried to catch his breath. He had blisters on his hands, and his whole body ached.
'First day. It's only the first day and I'm already on the verge of a breakdown. I'll have to take care of the children here conscientiously... and meanwhile endure Nami's strictness, Misa's manipulation, Killua's insults, and that Jin-Woo's terrifyingly perfect approach,' he thought sadly.
Suddenly he heard footsteps. He looked back and saw Jin-Woo, who had come to the stream, knelt down, and rinsed his face with cold water. Kazuya hesitated for a moment. Should he say something? Should he start a conversation?
"Um... Today... today you did a lot of work. With the wood and the suitcase."
Jin-Woo slowly wiped his forearm and looked at Kazuya with his dark eyes. His gaze was direct. There was no disdain in it, like Killua had, only curiosity.
"I did what was necessary. There's no point in standing and complaining when the work must be done," Jin-Woo answered simply.
Kazuya felt those words hit him. It wasn't an insult, but to Kazuya, it sounded like a quiet reproach of his own incompetence and constant internal lamenting.
"You're right. I... I'm not used to things like this. I'm only here because my family forced me. Sometimes I feel like I'm just in the way," Kazuya murmured, looking at his scraped hands.
Jin-Woo stared at him for a moment longer. Then he stood up. "Strength isn't about how much you carry. It's about whether you stand up when you fall." He didn't wait for Kazuya's answer and, with a quiet step, walked away toward the central fire pit, from which smoke was already starting to rise.
Kazuya remained sitting there, looking at the flowing water. Jin-Woo's words echoed in his head. 'Strength is about whether you stand up.'
Kazuya took a deep breath of the evening air. Maybe this camp wouldn't be such a catastrophe after all. Maybe he could manage to prove to Nami that he wasn't just a lazy fool. Maybe he'd stop just staring at Misa.
He stood up, brushing off his knees. From a distance, he already heard Nami's resonant voice calling everyone for dinner. He heard Misa whining loudly again that a mosquito had flown into her hair. And he heard the childish laughter of Taichi and the other children chasing each other around the fire.
It was a normal, if slightly quirky, group of people at a normal summer camp. The first stars came out in the sky. Kazuya smiled. It was just an ordinary, peaceful night. Nothing suggested that this peaceful world should ever change. Everything was exactly as it should be. Nature was quiet and the heavens clear.
Morning at a summer camp doesn't begin with the gentle chirping of birds and sunbeams that wake you tenderly. It begins with noise.
Kazuya opened his eyes and immediately regretted it. His back protested at every, even the smallest, movement. The thin mat he had under his sleeping bag clearly couldn't compensate for the hard and bumpy forest ground. Moreover, in the tent, it was already incredibly stuffy by seven in the morning. The air was still and smelled of damp earth, pine needles, and mosquito repellent.
"Get up! Get up! You promised that today we would go to the river!"
Enthusiastic children's shouting echoed from outside. Kazuya unzipped his sleeping bag with effort and sat up. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. He felt as if a steamroller had run over him and then, just in case, backed up. Yesterday's toil had taken its toll on every muscle in his body.
'Why am I doing this? My uni buddies are surely sleeping off some party now, or playing video games in an air-conditioned room. And I'm here. In a hell that pretends to be a summer camp,' he asked himself in his mind while pulling on a clean t-shirt.
When he crawled out of the tent, the sun was already beating down relentlessly. Organized chaos already reigned in the small clearing in front of the main building.
"No, Taichi! I said the soccer ball stays here until you finish breakfast!" a firm voice of a girl with short red hair rang out. It was Sora, one of the children, but she acted much more maturely than most of her peers.
"Oh, come on, Sora! I just want to kick it around!" protested Taichi, the boy with wild brown hair and ski goggles on his forehead.
"Listen to her, Taichi. You'll break something again, like yesterday," Yamato, a blonde with a cool expression, chimed in.
"What did you say?!" Taichi lunged, ready for an argument.
Kazuya watched them with his mouth half-open. These kids had so much energy they could power a small power plant. He himself had trouble even keeping his eyes open.
With a slow step, he headed to the washrooms, which were basically just wooden troughs with flowing water from a nearby spring.
When he arrived there, he found he wasn't alone. Killua was sitting on the edge of the trough. He was wearing the same loose clothes as yesterday, with a toothbrush in his mouth and a cup of water in his hand. When he saw Kazuya, he just glared at him and spat foam into the drain.
"You look like you fought a bear during the night. And lost," Killua remarked with a smirk, rinsing his face with cold water.
Kazuya sighed and turned on the water. "I didn't sleep very well. That tent is like a greenhouse, and the ground is hard as stone."
"The ground is normal. You're just too soft. If you can't sleep on a bit of dirt, how do you expect to survive in the real world? You're a grown man, aren't you?" replied Killua, jumping off the edge of the trough with the fluidity of a cat.
Kazuya blushed. This boy was about fourteen, but he talked to him as if Kazuya were the younger and more inexperienced one. And the worst part was that Kazuya had no arguments to defend himself.
"I... I just prefer a bed, that's all!" he murmured and chose to dip his face into the icy water instead.
When he returned to the center of the camp, he found that Nami was already assigning tasks. Today she wore simple shorts and a yellow t-shirt, but her posture was just as commanding as yesterday. She held a clipboard with papers in her hand.
"Kazuya! Excellent, you finally deigned to show up. You're on kitchen duty. We have thirty hungry mouths here and the rice won't cook itself. And pay attention to how many portions you make! Do you know what vegetable prices are today? If we throw something out, I'll deduct it from your money. Even if you're only here as a volunteer, you have some pocket money, right?" she commanded as soon as she saw him.
'She would really force me to pay for overcooked rice!' Kazuya instinctively nodded, completely paralyzed by her sharp, yet nonetheless immensely attractive authority.
"Count on it! I'm on it!"
He ran into the large canvas tent that served as a field kitchen. Sung Jin-Woo was already standing inside. He was dressed in a simple dark tank top and quietly, with maximum efficiency, was chopping a huge pile of carrots with a large kitchen knife.
His movements were so fast and precise that Kazuya just stared in silent amazement. Every piece of carrot was equally thick. Jin-Woo didn't even break a sweat, didn't breathe deeply, just mechanically and perfectly performed his work.
"G-good morning, Jin-Woo," Kazuya greeted uncertainly while putting on an apron.
Jin-Woo raised his gaze for only a fraction of a second, nodded his head in greeting, and returned to chopping. Kazuya felt that inferiority complex echoing in him again. Jin-Woo was the embodiment of everything Kazuya was not; he was quiet, capable, strong, and radiated no chaos.
"Alright then, rice," Kazuya murmured to himself and set about rinsing a huge pot.
After about twenty minutes, Misa floated into the kitchen tent. And the word "floated" was appropriate. She wore a light pink dress with ruffles, a huge straw hat, and perfect makeup on her face. She looked as if she had just stepped away from a cover shoot for a fashion magazine, not as if she was going to help with breakfast.
"Oh, Kazuya-kuuuun! Nami told me to come here and help you peel potatoes. But..." she showed him her hands with perfectly groomed, long gel nails decorated with tiny stones.
"With these nails, it's just not possible! I could ruin them. And that would be a huge tragedy. Wouldn't you peel them for Misa? Pleaaaase?"
Kazuya felt his pulse quicken. She was so close and looking at him with those big, innocent eyes. His brain immediately declared a state of emergency. She is so gorgeous! How could I say no to her? If I don't do it, she'll be sad. If I do it, maybe she'll smile at me with that sweet smile of hers...
"Sure... I... I can handle both. You can sit down for now," stammered Kazuya, already reaching for the potato peeler.
"Misa, potatoes. Now."
Nami entered the tent. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and her gaze could freeze water. She stopped directly in front of Misa, ignoring Kazuya's panicked looks.
"But Nami-chan, my nails..." Misa pouted her lips.
"Your nails absolutely do not interest me. This is a camp, not a five-star hotel in Tokyo. We all have to work here to feed those children. If you don't want to peel potatoes with a peeler, you can go scrub burnt pots with a steel wool pad. Choose," Nami replied coldly.
Misa covered her mouth in shock. For a moment, it seemed she would start crying. "You're... you're mean! No one treats me like this!"
"So get used to it," Nami snapped without a hint of empathy. "And you, Kazuya!" she turned to him so sharply that he flinched. "If you do her work for her, you'll be cleaning the latrines tonight. Do we understand each other?"
"Y-yes! Sure! I totally agree!" Kazuya squeaked, immediately dropping the peeler as if it were red hot and returning to his rice.
Misa just angrily stamped her foot, took the peeler, and, with tears on the verge of falling, sat in a corner of the tent where she began to very, very slowly and clumsily peel the first potato. Jin-Woo, who had watched the whole scene silently, just quietly added the last chopped carrot to the bowl and took another pile of vegetables.