Status: entry for mibba's first annual big bang.
Azalea
mountain men
So things were okay again. Sort of. Azalea and I were... whatever we were. Jinki and Jenny were actually dating and went out most nights regardless of the fact that they both had to get up early to go to work the following morning. Jonghyun and Taemin spent most of their time making fun of Azalea and me.
Things were okay.
In the last month or so, guys' night had become a serious event. It was nice, I guess, to just be able to hang out with the guys for once and not feel any pressure or anything. We decided that we'd go camping because we're guys and we're trying to be manly (despite the fact that we are so far from what manly is that it's not even funny).
So we go out and get tents and everything. We're planning what may very well be the greatest weekend in guys' night history. I'd never been camping, but I'd seen enough videos online to know how to survive for a few days. (And it was a local campsite, so I doubted anything serious would happen.) I even got a bunch of flannels because it was supposed to snow.
We're leaving at seven on Friday night and coming back on Sunday morning. It's going to be awesome. Jinki's the only one who's kicking up a little bit of a fuss and being a little crybaby because he doesn't want to leave Jenny behind, but it's only one weekend. She'll still be here when we come back.
The ride up there is fun, mostly because we play car games - I Spy, 20 Questions, and so on - and made fun of the songs on the radio. Even Jinki cheered up after we got some coffee and donuts into him. We took turns driving - well, except for Taemin, who said that he lived in New York City solely because he didn't need to have a drivers' license and didn't want to drive anyway - and managed to get there at around ten. Since it's really cold, but it hasn't started to snow just yet, we start building our tents.
It's so not as easy as the directions make it seem, but after a half hour or so of yelling at each other about spare pieces, we seem to have tents that are fully functional and hopefully won't collapse on us in the middle of the night.
After we did that, we went to sleep, since we were all pretty tired.
I woke up early the next morning to Jonghyun nudging me to ask about the cooler of food that we had packed earlier. It was in Jinki and Taemin's tent. Since I was already awake, I figured I might as well try to get dressed and ready for the day. Jonghyun and Taemin signed us up for pretty much every outdoorsy thing they could find. We were going hiking and fishing and all sorts of things. I heard my phone ring, but by the time I found it, the call had gone to voicemail.
It was Azalea.
"Hey! My little mountain man." She giggled. "I was just calling to see how you were doing and if everything was okay. Hopefully you haven't done something stupid, like gotten yourself eaten by bears or mountain lions or whatever. I guess Jenny and me will have to fend for ourselves in the big bad city without you and Jinki. Oh well." She sighed. "Anyway, I miss you and can't wait to see you - if you manage to make it back, that is. Bye, Bummie."
She started calling me Bummie because it annoyed me to no end and she found a special pleasure in annoying others. And she knew that I didn't have it in me to tell her to quit, so the name just stuck. It was starting to grow on me.
I always thought of myself as an independent person. I did my own thing, always. Even as a child, since I didn't have any siblings, I was left to my own devices pretty frequently. My parents both worked, and I did stay with my aunts from time to time, but I still did my own thing. I had friends, but it wasn't like we were all attached at the hip. I kept my distance from everyone, and I liked it that way. It wasn't for any particular reason - just a preemptive strike, of sorts.
Since I was so independent, I didn't miss people easily. I missed my parents the way that everyone does, in a vague and transient sort of way. That was about it. I dated, but I was pretty aloof and distant just because no one ever really interested me to the point where I felt like I had to be around them all the time and know every minute detail about them.
And then Azalea happened. I say happened because she was like a big cataclysmic event in what was, up that point, a very predictable and dry time in my life. And suddenly I found myself daydreaming about her while I was giving tours, and wanting to hear her voice before I went to sleep, and thinking about her legs while I was at staff meetings at work. There was an ache. A very small and insignificant ache that was like a small irritation, nothing of much importance. And then that ache blossomed and took a life of its' own and squeezed my heart and pressed down on my chest and made me feel like I couldn't breathe when she walked into a room. And then I needed to hear her voice, needed to hold her and kiss her and touch her and be around her, needed to be hers as much as she was mine.
And as I sat on my sleeping mat, pulling on my boots, it occurred to me that I missed her too and that I might have actually had serious feelings for her, and I didn't entirely mind the prospect.
Things were okay.
In the last month or so, guys' night had become a serious event. It was nice, I guess, to just be able to hang out with the guys for once and not feel any pressure or anything. We decided that we'd go camping because we're guys and we're trying to be manly (despite the fact that we are so far from what manly is that it's not even funny).
So we go out and get tents and everything. We're planning what may very well be the greatest weekend in guys' night history. I'd never been camping, but I'd seen enough videos online to know how to survive for a few days. (And it was a local campsite, so I doubted anything serious would happen.) I even got a bunch of flannels because it was supposed to snow.
We're leaving at seven on Friday night and coming back on Sunday morning. It's going to be awesome. Jinki's the only one who's kicking up a little bit of a fuss and being a little crybaby because he doesn't want to leave Jenny behind, but it's only one weekend. She'll still be here when we come back.
The ride up there is fun, mostly because we play car games - I Spy, 20 Questions, and so on - and made fun of the songs on the radio. Even Jinki cheered up after we got some coffee and donuts into him. We took turns driving - well, except for Taemin, who said that he lived in New York City solely because he didn't need to have a drivers' license and didn't want to drive anyway - and managed to get there at around ten. Since it's really cold, but it hasn't started to snow just yet, we start building our tents.
It's so not as easy as the directions make it seem, but after a half hour or so of yelling at each other about spare pieces, we seem to have tents that are fully functional and hopefully won't collapse on us in the middle of the night.
After we did that, we went to sleep, since we were all pretty tired.
I woke up early the next morning to Jonghyun nudging me to ask about the cooler of food that we had packed earlier. It was in Jinki and Taemin's tent. Since I was already awake, I figured I might as well try to get dressed and ready for the day. Jonghyun and Taemin signed us up for pretty much every outdoorsy thing they could find. We were going hiking and fishing and all sorts of things. I heard my phone ring, but by the time I found it, the call had gone to voicemail.
It was Azalea.
"Hey! My little mountain man." She giggled. "I was just calling to see how you were doing and if everything was okay. Hopefully you haven't done something stupid, like gotten yourself eaten by bears or mountain lions or whatever. I guess Jenny and me will have to fend for ourselves in the big bad city without you and Jinki. Oh well." She sighed. "Anyway, I miss you and can't wait to see you - if you manage to make it back, that is. Bye, Bummie."
She started calling me Bummie because it annoyed me to no end and she found a special pleasure in annoying others. And she knew that I didn't have it in me to tell her to quit, so the name just stuck. It was starting to grow on me.
I always thought of myself as an independent person. I did my own thing, always. Even as a child, since I didn't have any siblings, I was left to my own devices pretty frequently. My parents both worked, and I did stay with my aunts from time to time, but I still did my own thing. I had friends, but it wasn't like we were all attached at the hip. I kept my distance from everyone, and I liked it that way. It wasn't for any particular reason - just a preemptive strike, of sorts.
Since I was so independent, I didn't miss people easily. I missed my parents the way that everyone does, in a vague and transient sort of way. That was about it. I dated, but I was pretty aloof and distant just because no one ever really interested me to the point where I felt like I had to be around them all the time and know every minute detail about them.
And then Azalea happened. I say happened because she was like a big cataclysmic event in what was, up that point, a very predictable and dry time in my life. And suddenly I found myself daydreaming about her while I was giving tours, and wanting to hear her voice before I went to sleep, and thinking about her legs while I was at staff meetings at work. There was an ache. A very small and insignificant ache that was like a small irritation, nothing of much importance. And then that ache blossomed and took a life of its' own and squeezed my heart and pressed down on my chest and made me feel like I couldn't breathe when she walked into a room. And then I needed to hear her voice, needed to hold her and kiss her and touch her and be around her, needed to be hers as much as she was mine.
And as I sat on my sleeping mat, pulling on my boots, it occurred to me that I missed her too and that I might have actually had serious feelings for her, and I didn't entirely mind the prospect.