On the side of the building Jungkook and Jin played a game of rock, paper, scissors to see who would get the bag of salt and vinegar flavored chips. They'd retrieved a total of five bags and three cans of soda, Jungkook pouting when Jin won until he opened the snack to share with him.

Shelby leaned against the brick wall with Taehyung and Jimin on either side of her, switching between two bags while she ate from both. Namjoon held the map up as we approached, Yoongi's hand an inch away from the small of my back to guide me without touching me.

I put my focus into watching Namjoon spread the map onto the back of the tilted vending machine, squatting next to him while he dragged a finger over the paper until he landed on the previously named city of Chapel Hill. He traced closer to the capitol before moving in the direction we'd started walking to take a guess at our vicinity.

"We should get closer to the Neuse River since it runs so far across the state. Then we can follow it until we find a place to stay." He talked to himself and to the rest of the group, rubbing his chin in thought.

If we kept going in the same direction we'd run into it soon enough, needing to cross through parts of the woods to maintain the path. We took turns sipping at the sodas they recovered, lacking carbonation but still as sweet as I remembered before falling back into formation.

I was still a little distracted and out of body as we walked, hating that something as small as a closet impacted me in a way I couldn't quite describe. Jungkook and Shelby noticed quickly, dissatisfied with the vague answer that I was fine everytime they checked in.

We stopped one more time to rest, Jin sure that we were nearing water as he combed his fingers through the ground.

Jimin was the first to hear the sound of water flowing, his eyes lighting up at the faint trinkling noise. "I want to run to it." He beamed, moving into a sprint before anyone could stop him. Jungkook was right behind him, grabbing onto my hand to pull me with him before I could protest. It brought me back to the night we ran through the woods together to escape Carolus, though this time my heart raced with exactly what I needed in that moment, exhiliration rather than fear.

Finally, at the edge of the woods there was a break in the treeline, a short patch of land that standing between us and the river.

Jimin was the first to reach it, squatting down to cup his hands into the slow flowing water. He pulled it up to splash on his face, yelping at the bite of chill from the weather and flipping his hair away from his eyes as the ends got wet.

I gasped when Jungkook released my hand to keep going, bags dropping from his shoulders as he plunged into the water, taking a sitting position so that the few feet covered his entire body.

Jimin chuckled, shaking his head at the younger when he sprang up from the river with a shuttered gasp.

Jungkook's clothes were drenched, beads of water dripping from the tips of his hair and hem of his shirt. He reached his arms out in a gesture that made me instantly scrunch my nose in refusal.

"There's no way I'm getting in that." I crossed my arms, already imagining the hard time he was going to have warming back up.

"Come on, I used to do one almost every day in school. It'll wake up everything and bring you back into your body." He dipped under a second time as if it'd prove a point.

A small part of me thought he was right, that somehow a shock to my body would help more than the counted breaths that only reengaged my mind for a moment.

It was that inkling that pushed me toward the water and over the edge until I sunk down in one breath. For some reason I expected to feel nothing but it was just the opposite, a stark sensation of pin needles poking at me with the rush of heat that seemed to leave my body, replaced with a cold that drew my attention from pain.

I sucked in a deep breath and Jungkook waded through the small area to get closer to me, making sure that I maintained a steady exhale and embraced the comfort that lay just a hair away from discomfort.

"Look at you two idiots. How do you expect to get dry?" The oldest called out as the rest of the group emerged from the woods.

Jin was filled with the same movements he always leaned into when scolding one of us, his head moving back and forth in disapproval and hands waving around. Namjoon was a sucker for the youngest of them, putting a hand on Jin's back as he watched Jungkook's mischievious and playful smile.

"I guess we should get started on a fire." Namjoon nodded to him, turning back toward the trees and laughing when Jin yelped at the water Jungkook flicked at him.

The sound of Jin's fussing faded as they left to gather firewood, Jungkook pressing his hands into the hard ground to lift himself out of the water while Yoongi offered a hand to pull me up.

"Don't you have anything to say?" I tilted my head while he squatted down to wring the excess water from the bottom of my dress.

He replied when he finished, standing to face me again with a faint smirk. "I haven't seen you smile like that in a while so no."

While the others helped set up camp by the river Jungkook and I found a place in the woods out of view, standing on opposite sides of a wide tree to undress ourselves with a little privacy.

I held my dress so that it draped to cover my backside until Shelby and Taehyung approached to collect our clothes, Shelby gasping as Taehyung's laughter rang a little too loudly.

"Jungkook why is your ass out?" He questioned, cuing me to join in as I imagined Shelby's wide eyes when they saw his backside leaned next to a tree, fully nude and probably paler than the moon.

"I need my underwear to dry too." Jungkook answered, my lip caught under my teeth as I resisted chiding him.

Even in the dark I could see the blush on Shelby's cheeks when she reached out for my clothes. It was like the words tumbled from my mouth like the most natural phrase in the world, like it'd always live there to remind me of the girl I often thought I'd lost from before. "Do we have a ten?"

Her eyes lit up at the memory of the day she moved into our college apartment. I called a maintenance worker to deal with the small leak coming from under my bathroom sink, my head turning toward the front door when Shelby came in for the first time, arms already full of her belongings and flustered from the three flights of stairs it took to reach our unit.

A young, attractive worker arrived after we hauled the rest of her belongings up, bending over to fix the leak and giving us an exclusive view of his bottom in a well-fitting pair of Wrangler's. Shelby nudged me and raised her eyebrows while I stared in appreciation, her laugh echoing so loudly that he turned around after I commented, "I'd rate that ass a ten."

"Easy ten." She winked in the same way she had on that first day, exchanging my wet clothes for a jacket I recognized as Namjoon's. "You seem better." She noticed as I pulled the coat on, zipping it to my chin.

I nodded despite the cold trapped in my toes, avoiding opening my mouth with knowing that I couldn't prevent my teeth from chattering.

We were quiet after Shelby and Taehyung left us behind to place our clothes by the fire long enough that they'd dry enough without freezing us further, kept company by the crackling of flames in the distance and faint chirping of bugs ahead.

"Alena." Jungkook's voice was breathy from working to maintain his body temperature. I hummed in response, wrapping my arms around myself. More silence and then a soft chuckle from him passed before he said anything else. "Nevermind."

"Don't do that. What is it?" I pressed, annoyed that he'd decided not to speak his mind the moment after calling my name.

There was a heavy feeling in the air when he quieted again. "I was going to say I hope the undead stay away while I'm naked in the woods."

I was sure that couldn't have been the true thought behind the lull that drew on for minutes, but let it go when footsteps could be heard. Taehyung and Shelby returned sooner than I thought with clothes that were still damp but didn't hold the weight or temperature of cold water. My dress clinged closer to my skin, seeking something to stick to until it dried fully. With me on one side of the fire and him on the other I wondered what confession, question, or sentiment he couldn't take the plunge to reveal.