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The narrow path opened onto a logging road winding along the precarious edge of a hill, and ended. Baekhyun stood in the middle and looked into the ravine on the other side, the stony creek tumbling rapidly under the trees. He turned slowly to look back down the path, hoping to see a white trail blaze. He saw nothing. He realized he’d seen nothing for hours. “Fuck.”

He supposed he should have gotten suspicious when the sun started setting and he still hadn’t reached the next shelter. Was it too dark to go back and start looking for the right trail? He still had a couple hours of daylight, maybe. Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen anyone all day either. He had been in the middle of a popular park at the height of prime hiking season this morning. He’d probably left the trail a long time ago. “Fuuuck!”

Dinner time. He shrugged off his backpack and spent a couple minutes spinning in circles with his eyes closed, arms spread out, his usual ritual of weightlessness after removing the pack. There was no fire pit, so he settled for his narrowing stock of beef jerky and fruit leather, a dry, bland, very flat, very small meal. He’d missed lunch just to conserve it.

He pissed in the woods, filled up his water bottle in the stream and purified it, then tackled the issue of shelter. He supposed he could set up his tent in the middle of the road. It was probably rarely used, but as a rule of thumb, sleeping in a road is usually a bad idea.

There really was nowhere else. Tent, or sleeping bag under the stars? Might as well put up the tent. Cars were less likely to run over brightly colored nylon triangle standing tall and reflective in the middle of the road than they were to run over a flat sleeping bag in a rut.

By the time he’d finally assembled the tent across the bumpy road, laid out all his sleeping supplies, struggled through organizing his belongings, and finished finding a significantly downwind and distant location to take a shit, the sun was already setting. Usually he’d be setting at a fire pit in an established shelter either making friends with other weirdos or writing in his journal, something like “Quest for self day forty-three: progress, if any, unnoticeable. Feet hurt a bit. Can’t smell my own stink anymore. Need a haircut. Running out of food with no idea where the next stop is. I’ve been hungry for days. Beginning to feel dizzy and confused. Maybe that’s why I’m lost?” He was too social for this wild-man-in-the-woods shit, too dependent on other people. Maybe he should have gone for hipster instead of lumbersexual and tried to find himself (and bonus: attractive potential partners) studying abroad for a year in Amsterdam or some shit.

He’d walk all the way back to the trail tomorrow. He pulled his bandana off his head, the boots and socks off his feet, went for a cursory wash in the river, and then conked out in seconds on top of his sleeping bag, stomach grumbling.

His dream about an intimidating but ultimately friendly grizzly bear ended with a building roar, like a train coming up a tunnel. He opened his eyes to a blazing light against the nylon of his tent, an engine rumbling loudly right at head height. Baekhyun sat up groggily just as a very deep voice asked for him to come out. Fuck. Goddamn North Carolina rednecks. Probably about to kill him. Maybe he should just stay inside.

He unwisely unzipped the tent and couldn’t honestly tell who was standing there with headlights nailing him right in the face. He flinched back with a grunt, a hand over his eyes.

“Oh, shit. Sorry. Maybe if you stand up you’ll be able to see?”

“Lemme put pants on,” Baekhyung muttered, zipped his tent back up, and yanked his pants onto his legs.

“I’m sorry about this,” the man said as he crawled outside and stood up. “I just need you to move your tent so I can drive by.”

Baekhyun stared blearily down at his tent. “That’ll take a bit. And then I’ll have to put it back up, and it’s nighttime so I won’t be able to see.”

“Maybe, um, maybe we can carry it behind the truck and set it up while I’m still here?”

Baekhyun could finally see his face a few inches above him, lit up by the glaring headlights. He was young, with absolutely huge eyes over a strong nose and beautiful lips, eyebrows to die for. He had a green-grey shirt with a bunch of pockets and the classic Smokey Mountains hat. Baekhyun completely forgot the question and started ogling. “Shit, are you a park ranger?”

“Yeah.”

“Damn that uniform looks good on you.” He filled it out, shoulders and chest stretching the fabric flat. “How old are you though? You have to be my age.”

“T-twenty-three? What about my uniform?”

“Fuck, I’m twenty-four. What’s your name?”

“Chanyeol. Are you lost?”

“No, I’m Baekhyun.” There was a moment of silence. “Yeah. I’m lost.”

Chanyeol snickered.

“Can you point out the direction of the Appalachian trail to me?”

“You’re, like, ten miles off. I think there’s a path back that direction around here.”

Baekhyun nodded absently and pointed at the woods.

Chanyeol chewed on his lip for a minute. “Okay, here’s my issue with this. I really shouldn’t let you sleep in the middle of this road. It’s busy. But obviously there’s really nowhere else you can go. If you’re okay with it, and I understand if you aren’t, I have a cabin a little way down the road where you could stay if you want to. I’ll drive you back to the trail tomorrow morning.”

“Sounds great. I’ll start packing up my tent.”

“You’re not even going to think about it?”

“You’re a park ranger, Yeolie—(“Yeolie?”)—I’ve trusted far less qualified people with my life in the past month.” And give up the opportunity to stay in this princely man’s cabin? Never.

He sleepily got dressed and threw everything into his backpack, collapsible pot clinking against some loose tools, one shirt sleeve sticking out of the zipper, his messy sleeping bag roll dangling from one hand. He’d never actually hike like this. Chanyeol raised a gorgeous, strong eyebrow and opened the car door for him like a gentleman.

Baekhyun fell asleep in the truck. Chanyeol poked him awake when they got to the cabin, a tiny little thing shortly off the road, trees hugging close on all sides. The roof looked green with moss, but the ceilings were lofted like a mountain lodge, and huge windows along one wall looked out into darkness.

“There’s only one bedroom,” Chanyeol said, “and I sleep on the couch a lot anyway, so you can take the bed if you shower first. Actually, you should shower before sleeping on the couch too. Just go shower, please.”

Baekhyun stood in the shower for a long time. He washed his hair twice. There was a window at about head height that stretched the length of the shower, stacked with shampoos and soaps, bubble baths, face wash. Was that bottle labeled personal lubricant? Baekhyun snickered and rested his chin tiredly against the sill. It was well past bedtime. A half-moon rose behind the trees.

He finally got out and found a pile of clean clothes waiting for him, plaid sweat pants and a large t-shirt. They swamped him. Chanyeol was reading a book under a pile of blankets on the couch, out of uniform, hair a little messy, looking very much like a person-sized teddy bear with dreamy eyes.

“Thanks for the clothes.”

“No problem. If you give me the rest of your clothes right now we could have those washed by tomorrow morning.”

“Really? You’d do that? Don’t you have to sleep?”

Chanyeol shrugged. “I can wait up.”

“Wow, okay. Thanks.”

They got everything in the wash. Baekhyun was glad he’d left all his embarrassing underwear at home, nothing but flannel, denim, and utilitarian briefs. So it was devoid of all personality too.

His stomach whined. “Do you have any food I could eat before I sleep?”

Chanyeol fed him some leftover chicken and green bean casserole and Baekhyun nearly cried. “How’s the trail treating you,” Chanyeol asked, and Baekhyun took a break to breathe.

“It’s not what I expected.”

“That’s what they all say.”

“Yeah. I mean, I like it. It’s, pretty wow. There are some really good moments like when I have an especially good night at a shelter with cool people, or when I’m on the top of a mountain and there’s beautiful scenery, and stuff like that, but mostly it’s just really mindless. Some of it is zen and thoughtless and peaceful. I don’t think I’ve ever been this level of, just calm and happy, like, ever, but then I get worried, or lonely, or cold. My feet start hurting and my back aches and it just feels like slogging up a hill. I came out here with a purpose and I don’t know if I’m fulfilling it. And then I feel like I’m overthinking. It’s just, I’m postponing my life for this, you know? And there are things I need to deal with—”

Chanyeol hadn’t done anything but nod and stare directly into his eyes since he’d started rambling, chin on his hand, hot tea on the table in front of him. Baekhyun got distracted by those enormous eyes and it was like his lungs tensed up, forcing the rest of the air out of his chest. “Sorry. I shouldn’t complain. I don’t want to overshare.”

“I don’t mind,” Chanyeol said quickly. “I want to know.”

Baekhyun shook his head. “I’m tired. I need to sleep.”

“Okay. Tell me tomorrow?”

Baekhyun smiled a little. “Maybe. We’ll see. Thanks so much for all of this, by the way. I fell incredibly lucky right now.”

“No problem. I hope my bed is comfortable.”

It was.

Baekhyun woke in darkness, strangely comfortable, with that strange, hot, turning feeling in his stomach that meant he was going to throw up some time in the next ten seconds. He slammed the door open, pounded across the floor, lurched into the bathroom, and barely made it to the toilet before heaving his entire dinner into it.

Chanyeol appeared in the doorway, his long, wow beautiful legs disappearing into Smoky the Bear boxers. “Baekhyun? Are you okay?”

“I’m afraid I’m wildly sick.”

Chanyeol cautiously made his way into the room. “Damn. That blows. The fuck happened? Is it contagious?”

“My stomach is currently very unused to food, I think.”

“Were you not eating?”

Baekhyun lay his head right down on the toilet seat. “I may or may not be living on a diet of beef jerky and fruit leather right now. I ran out of rice a week ago.”

Chanyeol took a deep breath to say something, then let it slowly out, hissing in the quiet bathroom. “Maybe I shouldn’t preach, but…”

“I’m really not cut out for hiking, Chanyeol.”

“Do you think you could eat some crackers?”

“Nah. I’m going to wait till morning to eat. I feel a lot better now, by the way. Could you get me my toothbrush?”

A strong wind had started up around the cabin, the sound of wildly rustling leaves dimly muted through the walls. A branch scratched at the shower window. This would have been misery in his tent. Chanyeol returned with his toothbrush, and he brushed groggily on the floor, watching Chanyeol curiously. He looked wide awake and cheerful.

“What time is it?”

“Only about ten. You’ve been asleep for less than an hour.”

“Shit.”

Chanyeol giggled a little, warm smile breaking across his face, the brightest and boldest smile Baekhyun had ever seen, toothy and glowing. Baekhyun sat back a little, dazzled. “Hey, do that again.”

“Do what?” He looked a little startled.

“Never mind. Can I get a glass of water please?”

Ten minutes later Chanyeol had him sitting on the couch curled around a mug of ginger tea and feeling slightly gross but less sick.

“So, Mr. Park Ranger, how the hell does someone even land this job?”

Chanyeol smiled. “Connections. I took forestry in college, and then my Dad knew someone and got me an interview. It’s still amazed that I’m here. Lots of people really want this job.”

“I can imagine. Watching nature for your nine to five? Your own private cabin in the woods? Cute hikers dropping in like a bad porno? Good deal. I’d take it.”

Chanyeol snickered. “Yeah yeah. It just gets a little lonely.”

“Hm.” Baekhyun leaned his head against the back of the couch and watched Chanyeol stare around his own living room awkwardly. “Nice boxers.”

“Thanks! These are my favorites!” His whole body jerked when he got excited, smile somewhere close to crazy. Baekhyun buried his face in the couch cushion and giggled helplessly. “What?”

“I expected you to get embarrassed.”

“No way. Not on account of these. I love these.” He kicked his legs out and smoothed his hands over the where the boxers loosely covered the tops of his thighs. He had really beautiful long legs, muscular but thin.

He sipped his tea and enjoyed the view.

“You should sleep,” Chanyeol murmured, “you’re getting up early, right?”

The trail. Right. That seductive serpent of a trail wanted him back. He’d lost a lot of ground today. His clean, bare feet stared up at him from Chanyeol’s worn sheets over the couch. The wind howled. “Can I stay up for just a little while longer?”

“I mean, be my guest. It’s your choice.”

“Are you going to sleep soon?”

“Sometime in the next three hours.”

“What do you do out here in your free time?”

“I read books, write music, chop wood, you know.”

“Oh my,” Baekhyun giggled, “With an ax and everything? Do you wear flannel when you do, or do you usually go shirtless?”

“Depends on the weather,” Chanyeol said, smirking through his blush. “Usually shirtless.”

“Ooh. Very nice. You should show me before I head out tomorrow. I could do with a good breath of fresh sexy before I trek back into the wilderness.”

Chanyeol barked, eyes wide as he laughed. “Wow. Um. Okay.”

The silence settled again. Baekhyun stared into the empty fireplace. “So you write music,” he said. He’d heard a couple of folk “musicians” with their dodgy, poorly-tuned instruments on the hike so far. He’d stopped hoping and now just missed music. “Play anything?”

“Guitar, drums, piano, I sing, and I DJ a little, write stuff electronically.”

“Damn, cutie. You’re the whole band. Any pianos out here?”

“There’s a really old, poorly tuned one down at the ranger’s station. I hang out and play with the guys down there a lot. Some regular campers and some of the other guys sing and stuff too. So we have jam sessions.”

“Nice. So you do have friends. You’re not a hermit?”

Chanyeol shook his head. “No way. I’d go crazy. I try to get people up here with me as much as possible. Sometimes I sleep over at the station or with the other rangers. This place is great and all, but I need people.”

“Damn, I feel that so hard,” Baekhyun said. “Sometimes when I’m on the trail I don’t see people for a whole day. By the end of the day it feels like I’ve walked off the edge of the world and time doesn’t work anymore. It’s sublime, but in a way that hurts a little.”

Chanyeol’s eyebrows knit together, bottom lip jutting out.

“Play me something,” Baekhyun said.

Chanyeol got up and returned with a guitar. “Any requests?”

“Something you’ve written.”

Chanyeol nodded and started quietly strumming. He was no joke of a guitarist, no grandma’s-Christmas-present-in-eight-grade player, no occasional strummer. He sang along in his lovely low voice, completely free of the standard pretentious mumble, words clear and notes steady. Baekhyun head dropped back onto the cushions, muscles weak. “Mm, good boy,” he whispered, trying to flirt, but he suspected his tone was a little too strained.

Baekhyun couldn’t find it in himself to even twitch until the song drew to a close and Chanyeol transitioned into what sounded like improvisation, a twisting chord progression with subtle half-plucked melodies, delicate and soft. He had that musician’s twitch, the subtle, natural movement of someone who had long passed self-consciousness, someone who knew his instrument like a fifth limb. Baekhyun’s brain processed it like that one time in college when a friend of a friend had dragged a group of them out into his car in the student parking lot and they’d hot-boxed it until they could barely move, trance music shaking the subwoofers and rattling in the plastic doors.

He realized he was just falling asleep. “Yeolie.”

“Yeolie?”

“Play me something I can sing to.”

He recognized the opening notes of “Hallelujah,” and snorted. “That’s a good go-to, I guess.” He stretched out without opening his eyes, freeing up his lungs and laying back against the arm rest. “I heard there was a secret chord…”

He heard Chanyeol huff out a single laugh in disbelief.

“That David played and it pleased the lord,” his breath broke at the end of the phrase. His throat hurt a little. His voice was too loud in the quiet cabin. He didn’t care. He’d spent so many hours alone on the trail cycling through every song he’d ever known, making a game out of remembering lyrics, teaching the songbirds Christmas carols in May.

“Don’t sing on the path,” people told him. “You’ll scare the wildlife away.” When he’d seen no one on the path all morning he’d stop at an overlook and belt Whitney Houston to the wilderness.

The guitar carried him, soft or loud, harmonizing in all the right places, filling the room like still water.

As the song finished, Baekhyun let himself melt into the cushions, eyes trained on the ceiling. “Another one.”

Chanyeol started up “While my Guitar Gently Weeps,” and Baekhyun smiled and shoved his legs behind Chanyeol’s back so he could stretch out, running his hands running through his strangely clean and fluffy hair. It’d be disgusting again within a few days.

Chanyeol kept him singing through another mug of tea. He dropped off to sleep to the sound of “Skinny Love” in a deep bass hum.

Seven a.m. gave the Smoky Mountains their name, blue mist sliding down the green hills and collecting in the valleys. Baekhyun sat at Chanyeol’s window, staring mournfully out into yellowing world, the sun still low over the hills. “Bacon and pancakes?” Chanyeol asked, back in his ranger uniform.

“Oh god, please.”

“Not gonna throw up on me, are you?”

“I hope not? I’ll go easy on the bacon.”

Baekhyun didn’t want to change out of Chanyeol’s baggy t-shirt. He liked the way Chanyeol kept glancing at his bare collarbones. Eventually though, he folded all his clean clothes and put on a t-shirt and shorts, laced up his boots, and tied the bandana back on his head. “Ready to go?” Chanyeol asked. “I have a shift to get to, you know.”

The mountains looked gorgeous down the precarious roads that Chanyeol had to take, but they went by alarmingly fast for someone used to walking speed, trees whipping by at twenty-five miles an hour. Baekhyun leaned out the window and stared into the foliage.

“You’re like a dog,” Chanyeol giggled. Baekhyun pulled himself back in the window.

“Can we sing something together again before I get back on the trail?”

“Just singing? Dude, without my guitar I’m a fucking toad next to your voice.”

“Sing with me or I will belt Frozen here right now.”

“Fucking do it. I dare you.”

Chanyeol giggled through the first verse, but interrupted the second with Adele’s “Someone Like You.” He let Baekhyun take over that one too, then brought it back to a Peter, Paul and Mary’s “If I had a Hammer,” something that Baekhyun had learned since starting the trip. Folksy, easier to harmonize low.

Baekhyun made him pull over so he could throw up along the side of the road.

“That can’t be good for the foliage,” Chanyeol said as he leaned against the truck behind where Baekhyun crouched on the ground.

“It’s such a nice day,” Baekhyun groaned, “but I think the damn wind is picking up again.”

“Hm. That might mean rain coming.”

Baekhyun snorted in disgust. “At least it’s—uuugh god—warm. And the air smells really good. Very planty.”

“Are you sure you’re going to be safe out there?”

“This is not the first time I’ve gotten sick on the trail. I’ll be fine.”

“Do you want to stay with me another day?”

Baekhyun spun around and almost fell in the barf. “Is that an option?”

“I’d be happy to have you. You haven’t worn out your welcome yet, and you’re a lot of fun.”

“I haven’t been around that long though. You have no idea how annoying I can get in twenty-four hours.”

“I just wouldn’t feel right putting you back on the trail right after watching you throw up. Do you want to tail along on my shift today?”

“Chanyeol, I’d fucking love that.”

And Chanyeol’s bright smile and happy little jump was so worth throwing up all over the roadside ferns.

“You’ve got some reports to process this morning because I don’t want to do them,” some old woman in an ill-fitting ranger’s uniform said, not looking up from her computer, “And then you can patrol the campsites. After that, we’ll see who’s needed where, and we’ll figure it out from there. Who’s your friend?”

“Lost AT hiker who got sick in my house last night. I’m keeping him for a day.”

She side-eyed Baekhyun. “You don’t look like the typical trail type.”

Baekhyun snorted. “What’s typical? I’ve seen every kind of person that exists in the past month.”

“You’re a little on the small, pretty side.”

“Ha…”

“This is true,” Chanyeol said. “Not enough beard for a thru-hiker.”

“I don’t really, um, grow facial hair. Yet.”

“You’re like, twenty-four.”

Baekhyun sighed sadly. “It takes me weeks to even get scruff.”

Chanyeol giggled. “I’m kind of the same way. That’s good though. We don’t have to worry about shaving much.”

“Could you two move the conversation over to the reports you have to process?”

“Right. Sorry.”

Chanyeol settled in front of a computer and started going through emails. Baekhyun sat nearby and trimmed his nails with his teeth. Even with the shower the night before, trail dirt stained his scuffed-up palms and clung to his cuticles. “I’ll be back soon,” he said, and spent fifteen minutes in the bathroom, scrubbing his hands.

“That was a lot of water wasting I just heard,” Chanyeol murmured, eyes still glued to the screen.

“Look,” Baekhyun said, stretching his arms over Chanyeol’s shoulder, spreading his hands out. “Clean.”

Chanyeol stopped typing, but didn’t speak, and for a moment Baekhyun worried that he was being an annoying distraction, and then Chanyeol softly took hold of one of his hands. “Whoa. Your hands are super pretty, Baekhyun.”

“Really? Are you sure? They’re a total mess right now. I haven’t been able to take care of my nails properly, and I’ve got callouses and scratches, but when I’m at home I spend so much time taking care of them. One thing that’s been bothering me since I’ve been out here is that one of my biggest worries is that my hands will still be ugly when I get off the trail, and then I feel super shallow for worrying about that. I just really love my hands and I didn’t realize they were something I’d have to sacrifice for this. I’m sorry. I’m rambling.”

“Dude, if you think your hands are ugly right now, I really want to see what they look like normally.”

“There are pictures online.”

“Facebook?”

“Um, no, there’s a nail polish company that I used to model for.”

Chanyeol snickered. “You’re the real deal, huh, Mr. Hand Model. Nail polish?”

“They’re supposed to be a woman’s hands,” he said softly.

“I can see it,” Chanyeol said, offering him the keyboard. “Show me the nail polish?”

The other ranger wandered past with a Tupperware container of spaghetti. “What are you kids doing? That doesn’t look like reports.”

“Look at this! Baekhyun used to be a nail polish model!”

“I needed money in college,” Baekhyun said, blushing.

She snorted and shook her head. “You kids. Sounds like a good job though.”

“Yeah. It paid well.” He leaned forward against Chanyeol, his chin on top of his head. Letting himself relax, his hands still stretched out for inspection.

Chanyeol had one of his hands now, held up close to his face, long fingers running along Baekhyun’s thin ones, light on his palm. Baekhyun felt his eyes closing happily. “We should paint your nails before you go.”

“Do you have any polish?”

“Well, no. We could get some during lunch.”

“You have nice hands too, Yeolie. They’re very…masculine.” He admired the way his own hands looked, soft flower-petals compared to Chanyeol’s big, callused, veiny hands, thick and strong, dark and gentle.

“You like that?”

“Yeah.”

The door slammed open and Baekhyun jumped. Chanyeol didn’t flinch, hanging onto Baekhyun’s hands.

“We’ve gotta fix the trash bins in camp D. There was another raccoon raid last night. Things are getting out of control.”

“Good patrol, Jongdae?”

“Fuck yes! Doing my fucking job! Hi. Who are you?”

Baekhyun grinned up at Jongdae, another hot young ranger with cat-like lips and a concerned upward tilt to his eyebrows. “I’m an AT hiker and Chanyeol saved me last night when I got lost. He’s babysitting me till I’m good to get back on the trail again.”

Jongdae shook his head. “He’s too nice. Good to see you though. I like what you’ve done with the bandana.”

Baekhyun touched the rolled-up headband he’d made out of his red bandana to keep his over-long hair out of his eyes. “Thanks. I like your hat.” He had on a soviet style beret.

“Thanks.” He whacked affectionately at Baekhyun’s arm. “Keep him company, would you? He gets whiny and clingy when we leave him alone for too long.”

“Oh shut up,” Chanyeol snorted.

“When you go out later,” Jongdae said, kicking Chanyeol’s leg, “Please bring Minseok’s lunchbox to him. He’s down at the visitor’s center. Also, Jongin and Soo are camping out in F again, and they want to see you. They’d appreciate some firewood. And the LARPers are having an event in the usual camp this weekend, so don’t drive through there.”

“I know. You’re the only one that fucks that up on a regular basis.”

“Definitely did that this morning. Nearly ran over a bunch of zombies fighting a crowd of elves and orcs. Bitches need to stop wearing camouflaging colors so early in the morning.”

“Maybe I should try LARPing,” Chanyeol sighed. “It would give me something to do.”

Jongdae raised an eyebrow, but shrugged. “Looks fun. I’ve considered NPCing for them when I get off shift before, just volunteering to put on bad guy outfits and fight whoever they tell me to. Seems like great stress relief.”

“Wow you guys are awesome,” Baekhyun said. “I wanna do that. They do LARPing here? Chanyeol, can you just drop me off there and pick me up later?”

Chanyeol pouted.

“Okay, never-mind. I’ll stay with you.”

“I ship it,” Jongdae muttered. “I’ll see you both later.”

Baekhyun settled on a worn out couch until Chanyeol finished and led him back out to the truck. The wind had picked back up, whipping Baekhyun’s hair into his eyes and blasting his t-shirt tight against his body. He caught Chanyeol staring at his chest.

“What?”

“You’re so thin.”

“I’m not very good at feeding myself.”

Chanyeol pursed his lips in worry and started the truck. “Oh, I keep forgetting to ask you,” Chanyeol said. “While you’re here, would you like to use my phone to contact anyone from home?”

“Hm? No.”

“No?”

“No thanks.”

“No one at home wants to know how you’re doing?”

“Oh I’m sure they want to. I just don’t feel like telling them.”

“Oh. Wanna talk about it?”

“Nah. There’s really not much to say. Don’t worry about it. They aren’t expecting a call until I make it to Virginia anyway.”

Chanyeol pursed his lips in worry again. “That should be any day now. We’re really close to the border.”

“They don’t know that.”

“Baek.”

“I’ll think about it. Did you remember to pick up the lunchbox?”

Chanyeol braked fast. “Fuck.”

Baekhyun snickered and watched him out the rearview mirror as he ran back up the hill to get it.

Minseok in the visitor’s center fell out of his chair when Chanyeol brought the lunch box out, clinging to Chanyeol’s waist and fake-sobbing as he thanked him.

“So fucking hungry. You have no idea. Did you finally land a boyfriend?”

“I, uh, he’s an AT hiker. Baekhyun, stop winking at me.”

Baekhyun giggled as Chanyeol got very red.

Back in the truck, Chanyeol turned on the radio so Baekhyun could get up-to-date on all the new hits on the radio, giving him as much background as he could on new songs. When they got to songs Baekhyun already knew, he would belt it into the wind as Chanyeol sat in the driver’s seat and grinned. They circled down steep roads along shady creeks and through deep green campsites dotted with neon nylon tents and cabins that blended in with the stands of towering evergreens around them, or grew out of brilliantly green woods like tree trunks.

Baekhyun leaned out the window and stared out into the forest, just like the rest of the woods he’d passed through in the last month, mountainous. It varied up the slopes. He could tell how high up they were by which bushes he saw amongst the trees, and how thick the grass was on the ground. Somewhere out there the trail curled through the trees, waiting for him to continue slowly conquering it, or waiting to continue slowly punishing him until he was forced to emerge and go back to a world where he was something bigger than just another life form struggling under the canopy. He’d only been on the trail a month. It had so much more to show him.

Eventually they pulled up alongside Chanyeol’s cabin.

“Why are we back? Don’t you have other stuff to do?”

“Jongin and Soo want firewood. Now, we don’t just give any campers firewood, but these two are here at least three nights a week and we help them out with supplies. Soo’s a great singer too, and you should see Jongin dance. They’re like the camp’s resident artists.”

“You’re not?”

“I’m the rangers’ resident artist. But Jongdae and Minseok are pretty impressive too. I told you we have jam sessions all the time, right?”

“Damn. I want to work here.”

“Maybe when you finish the trail you can come back. I’ll put in a good word.”

Baekhyun sighed. “I’ll keep that in mind. I really will.”

Chanyeol made a fist pump. “Now, do you want to see me chop wood?”

“Yes please.”

Chanyeol’s excited expression sank into something else, eyes hooded, on lip caught in his mouth. He tossed his hat in Baekhyun’s lap and started unbuttoning his shirt. He flung his car door open and slid out, still popping the buttons on his shirt open. Baekhyun rushed out his door and followed, still holding the hat. Chanyeol advanced on the wood pile, tossing his grey button up on a stump, followed quickly by his low-collared undershirt.

Baekhyun’s throat went dry. Chanyeol’s wide shoulders became thick arms, back well-formed, dimples over his shoulder-blades, a narrow waist. He picked up a log on the ground with one wide hand, placed it upright on the chopping black, and swung an axe up off the ground. Baekhyun sagged against a tree. Chanyeol whipped it up over his head and swung it down, arms bulging, abs sharpening, and the log burst under the blow like it was made of balsa.

Chanyeol glanced at Baekhyun, who realized he was gripping the brim of his hat over his face, eyes bugging. Chanyeol giggled happily and flexed, then propped one of the halves back on the block and chopped it into thirds.

“Fucking lumberjack. How many flannel shirts do you own?”

“Too many,” Chanyeol said.

“I wanna see you in one. I wanna wear one after you’ve gotten it all sweaty.”

Chanyeol gave a low whistle. “Damn. That sounds gross, and somehow really sexy.”

Baekhyun giggled happily and put Chanyeol’s hat on his head. “This is mine for now.”

“You look good.” He slammed the axe through another log.

He got a good pile of wood into the back of the truck, and then went inside and drank half a bottle of water, Baekhyun tagging along, uncomfortably half hard in his shorts. Chanyeol snickered and nudged him under the chin. “If I wasn’t on the clock I’d take care of that for you, but I am. Let’s go deliver some wood.”

“You fucking tease! Are you serious?”

“You’ll never know.”

“You’re awful!”

Camp F looked just like every camp, a little higher up than the others, a little steeper, a little rockier and a little emptier. Only a couple spots had tents. Outside of one deep green and grey tent, a little blond girl played with a baby doll and a pile of sticks. Her young mother stood in a grubby tank top over the fire, poking at some frying hotdogs. Another tent had an old bearded man and his grumpy-looking wife loading up with backpacks, prepared for an afternoon hike.

The last small, blue tent, deep in the campsite, had a young man lounging out front, worn jeans and tan work boots stretched out on the ground in front of him, flannel and vest on even in the middle of summer, unbuttoned down half his chest, a camo patterned hat on his head and a beer in hand. He was exactly the kind of guy Baekhyun avoided on the trail, the kind of self-righteous manly-man that snorted when he told them he was hiking. He looked like he murdered innocent deer in his spare time.

He stared evenly as they drove up and got out.

“Soo!”

“Chanyeol. We already saw Jongdae this morning.” His voice was surprisingly soft and measured. For such an intimidatingly stare, his features were beautifully gentle. Baekhyun shivered a little.

“He told me you wanted wood. We brought some.”

“Thank you. This site’s been completely stripped this season. Too many campers. It’s better in the winter.” He stood up. Baekhyun noted with relief that he was shorter than him, and even though he spread out like he needed all the space in the campsite, his shoulders were narrow. He moved like he had muscles hiding under that shirt though, especially with the way his rolled up sleeves stretched around his biceps.

“You camp here in the winter?” Baekhyun asked.

“When we can. Sometimes it’s a little too dangerous. Jongin, Chanyeol is here.”

The tent unzipped and an ethereal nymph of a human stepped out, fluffy brown hair, soft brown eyes, and plush lips on strong jaws and high cheekbones. Baekhyun got the disorienting feeling that he’d transcended the regular world and entered some sort of magical forest. Maybe he’d been seeing too much ugly on the trail.

“Chanyeol! You brought wood?”

“In the bed.”

Jongin put one foot on the back wheel, hopped up into the bed, and started tossing logs over. Soo caught them easily.

How did Chanyeol function around these people? Baekhyun felt like swallowing his tongue.

“This is Baekhyun, by the way. He’s an AT hiker and he’s staying with me for the day.”

“That’s great,” Soo said, unconcerned. “I’ve hiked pieces of it, but never the whole thing. I don’t think that’d be for me, you know? Six to nine months on the trail?” He shook his head. “I’m impressed by anyone who manages it. The hardest part of it isn’t the hiking. I’m Kyungsoo, by the way. This is Jongin. Nice to meet you.”

Jongin waved.

“You too! Nice to meet you both. You’re right. The trail is pretty rough.”

“You know what’s worse?” Jongin said. “Re-adjusting after you’ve finished.”

“Really?” Baekhyun asked. “Does it change you that much?”

“Doesn’t change you so much as get you used to different things,” Jongin mused. “I hiked half the trail after high school. It’s different for everyone, but I’ve never really gotten over that hike. I’d do it again tomorrow if I could, and I probably wouldn’t come back.”

“He had it rough though,” Kyungsoo said quickly. “That’s unusual. You’ll be fine.”

Baekhyun flinched a little. “Do either of you have any pro-tips about feeding yourself on the trail? Quick, easy, and light food? That’s what I’ve been doing worst at.”

“Oh my god!” Chanyeol yelled. “I never fed you lunch! You threw up breakfast and it’s nearly two and I never fed you! I’m so sorry!”

Kyungsoo’s scary eyes went comically wide. “Sit down right here. I’ll feed you.”

“What?”

Fifteen strange minutes later, he had a bowl of oatmeal and dried strawberries in one hand and a banana in the other. Kyungsoo was boiling water for tea.

“If you weren’t getting sick so much I’d make you something more solid, but let’s see if you can keep that down first.”

As he ate, Jongin stacked all of Chanyeol’s wood neatly beside the fire. He stopped halfway through to tie a woven headband over his hair to hold the fluffy brown waves off his face. Kyungsoo walked past, gestured for Jongin to bring his face closer, maybe to whisper in his ear, and easy as anything, pressed a soft kiss to his lips. Jongin smiled. Kyungsoo looked like he’d never done anything, but the harshness around his eyes had lightened. Baekhyun looked back down at his oatmeal, blushing.

“They’re together, obviously,” Chanyeol explained in the truck as they drove to the next campsite, probably in response to the way Baekhyun watched them out the back window until the campsite was hidden by trees. “They live on either side of the mountains. Went to high school together or something. I think they weren’t friends. Kyungsoo doesn’t talk about it much, but I’ve gotten a bit out of Jongin. Jongin got bullied a lot for being gay. His family sent him to conversion therapy and everything.

“They started helping each other out and fell in love somewhere along the way. Their families hated it. I don’t even know what all happened. Now they both work shit jobs, but they come up here every single weekend to be together. We do whatever we can to help. That’s how this whole situation with them and the rangers here came about. We also love them for what they bring to the campfires. You should hear Kyungsoo sing. And Jongin dances.”

“Why don’t they just run away? They’re both old enough, right?”

“Financial dependence, I think. They have plans, but things are taking a while, and Kyungsoo, at least, has never left the state,” Chanyeol said with a smile.

“They’re so beautiful.”

“They’re incredible people,” Chanyeol said solemnly. “I hope they get out of here soon, but I’ll miss them.”

The road curved around a fold in the mountainside, the evergreen walls falling away through the thin screen of trees along the guardrail. Baekhyun stared until they passed into the heart of another ridge and a thicker section of trees. He took a small road off the the side and they rattled down the precarious edge. “This is one of our highest camps,” Chanyeol said. “It’s pretty small.”

While Chanyeol went about tending to the fire pits, Baekhyun sat on the edge of camp and stared out across the tops of the trees. “I wanna go see the Rockies eventually,” he told Chanyeol when he sat down beside him. “I love high places. I went to the Grand Canyon once, and I like how you can see so much more of the earth from up high, like when you’re over a deep valley and it’s like the earth is bigger than the sky because you can just see so much more surface, even if the distance is short. Flatlands just don’t feel as big.”

“It’s that whole transcendentalist Sublime thing,” Chanyeol murmured.

“Maybe I’ll go see the Himalayas,” Baekhyun murmured. “I like feeling small. It’s comforting to know that nothing I do really matters.”

“Is that why you’re out here? To not matter for a while?” Chanyeol said, casually looping an arm around Baekhyun’s back. Baekhyun leaned into his side.

“Yeah. I didn’t want to matter to anyone but me for a while. I’m tired of having to fill responsibilities so I don’t disappoint the people I love. Why are you out here?”

Chanyeol shrugged. “I like all the trees. I feel like I make a difference out here. I kind of want to matter, and when I’m the only person on the mountain, the only thing moving, I feel like I do. People make their worlds small because they want to matter, you know. You make yours bigger to disappear?”

“I went to college for vocal performance,” Baekhyun said. “I wanted people to see me. Graduated and ended up working as a waiter in a chain restaurant. I had to get out. Honestly I don’t know what I’m doing out here. Maybe I’m just forestalling the inevitable life of minimum wage suffering and self-doubt.”

Chanyeol pulled him practically into his lap, arms latched around his chest. “You’ll be fine, Baekhyun. Keep singing. I wanted to be in a famous band when I was little.”

Baekhyun rolled over uncomfortably in his lap and stared up at Chanyeol’s face. “Not very reassuring.”

What a pretty pout, big, expressive eyes and strong eyebrows. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure what to say. That sounds rough. You might need to find a different calling.”

“Peace Corps,” Baekhyun muttered, “International volunteer work for the rest of my goddamn life.”

Chanyeol chuckled. “Yeah, yeah.” And he had a pretty frown, but he was goddamn gorgeous when he smiled, the most handsome park ranger.

“You sure you’re not an elf?” Baekhyun said. “Like a Tolkien type elf, not a Santa Clause elf. You’re so handome. You’re a musician. You’ve got those ears. If you grew your hair out you’d make a great elf. Join the LARPing troupe.”

Chanyeol laughed out loud and nearly fell over. “Maybe I’m already an elf. Maybe you are too, though you look more like a Santa elf to me.”

Baekhyun huffed, stood up, and stomped back to the car, heavy hiking boots making a satisfying slamming sound on the packed dirt. Chanyeol followed behind him and climbed into the driver’s seat, still giggling. “Maybe you could go work the assembly line up at the North Pole. They’d pay you in chocolate coins and candy canes.”

“Fuck off!” Baekhyun yelled, curling his small, elf-like body up and covering his petite, elf-like face. “I get teased about that every fucking December! You have no idea.”

“Sh, sh. You could be a Tolkien elf too. I’d love to see you with long hair and a bow hunting orcs through the woods.”

They stopped at a picnic area and Chanyeol led him down a narrow path back to where the river curved in a tight arc through a tall, narrow hollow in the mountain, hidden from the road. Someone had piled up a little fake damn across the churning creek. It sluiced through this middle with a satisfying rushing sound, and swamped the bank on one side.

“Let’s break it down,” Chanyeol said. “It’ll piss the campers off and it’ll choke fish migration anyway.”

He took off his shoes and pants, and waded out into the frigid, just melted water. Baekhyun followed, gasping and shivering. If Chanyeol could do it, so could he. He’d been wading in frigid creeks for weeks. Chanyeol hefted large stones up off the pile and tossed them as far as he could down the stream. Baekhyun giggled and lofted a fair-sized rock close to Chanyeol’s legs. He shrieked in Soprano when the cold water splashed across his back. Baekhyun cackled.

“I’m in uniform, fucker!”

“Sucks for you—ahhh!”

He scrambled to get out of the way as Chanyeol lobbed what looked like half a boulder at him. The waves swamped over his bare thighs and he yelped, feeling his calves beginning to ache with cold.

The dam proved much harder to break down than they thought with the current tugging on their legs, and random deep spots trying to suck them down as their feet when numb from cold. There were so many rocks. Chanyeol tried to shove it down with his feet and walked back to shore with a limp and lots of flinching. “Think I bruised my heel,” he muttered when Baekhyun ran over to check on him.

“Want me to kiss it better?”

“No way. I wouldn’t wish that on you. My feet? With this water?”

“Mountain creeks are pretty clean and your feet are not the nastiest thing I’ve had to deal with this month.”

Chanyeol went back out, bruised or not, and Baekhyun followed. They worked in silence, throwing rocks and stepping gently from stone to stone. Baekhyun saw a crawfish and almost pointed it out, but figured Chanyeol had seen plenty. Chanyeol worked with concentration, brows furrowed as he slung rocks downstream, unflinching as the rocks launched water ten feet in the air. Baekhyun wished he’d take his shirt off again.

Baekhyun leaned down to grab a rock and felt the world spin. He froze, leaning heavily towards the water, his hands still latched around the rock, then tried to lift it and nearly fell over. He lurched his way onto the pebbly shore and lay down, curled up and shivering. For a few more minutes he dimly heard the rhythmic splashing of rocks, and then a couple minutes of just gurgling water, and then Chanyeol knelt beside him. “You okay.”

“I think I need some food. I’m a little lightheaded. That was a lot of exercise.”

“A lot of exercise? Don’t you hike miles every day?”

“Yeah, but that’s an endurance thing, like low level over a long period, not a lot all at once on one meal over the past day. I’ve thrown up everything else.”

“You’re shaking.”

“It’s cold. I’m sorry. I’ll get better.”

Chanyeol started shaking himself off like a dog, sweeping the water off his legs and arms and flailing wildly around to dry off. Baekhyun felt very damp in just his t-shirt.

“We’ve only got one more stop, and then it’s back to the station. I don’t know if there’s much else to do today. It’s already afternoon, so I bet they’d let me go home if I asked.”

As soon as Baekhyun groggily managed to get his pants and shoes on, Chanyeol hefted him up in his arms and carried him, squealing, all the way up the path and to the van. “I can walk!”

“Take it easy. You’re freezing.”

Baekhyun curled his cold legs in close to Chanyeol’s warm chest and relaxed. The blush heated him up anyway.

Their final stop was the last camp where the raccoons had raided the trash cans. Baekhyun got out and sat on the hood as Chanyeol got to work with a tool kit, nailing a few new boards down and replacing the latch.

“What a man,” Baekhyun sighed. “You can do everything, can’t you?”

Chanyeol shrugged, smiling. “I have yet to find something I can’t do.”

“Speak Klingon.”

“I could learn if I tried.”

“Oh fuck off. Can you fly? Huh? Can you fly?”

“Are you ten?” Chanyeol asked. “Gonna go back to the ‘I know you are, but what am I’ level stuff, are you?”

Baekhyun giggled. Chanyeol stepped up to the hood of the truck and rested his hands on either side of Baekhyun’s, smiling warmly. “Your roots are coming in.”

“I’m excited,” Baekhyun said. “It’s been years since I’ve had black hair.”

“I like the dirty blonde though.”

Baekhyun shrugged. “The light hair looks better on me, honestly. I’ve really been enjoying having it get all crazy and long out here. I look more rugged and it makes me feel like I’m doing something even if I’m not.”

“It looks especially authentic with the red bandana.”

Baekhyun touched it proudly. “I know. I brought a mirror along.”

Chanyeol snorted. “You’re kidding.”

“Unfortunately, I’m not. I’m very vain.”

“You have reason to be,” Chanyeol said, voice low, and Baekhyun grinned slow and happy, leaning forward just a little, eyes flickering to Chanyeol’s lips, hoping. Chanyeol fished his keys out of his pocket and strolled back to his car door. “Get in! We gotta head back.”

Baekhyun sighed and climbed down.

He fell asleep back at the station, curled up against the arm of a worn-out couch, passed out despite Jongdae teasing Chanyeol in the background and the other lady printing copy after copy of trash disposal instructions and laminating them all. Chanyeol woke him up in the late afternoon and folded the blanket he’d laid over him, setting it back across the top of the couch. Baekhyun hugged one of his long legs and nearly went back to sleep against his hip.

“C’mon cutie. I’m gonna make soup for dinner.”

“Hmmmm, delicious. What kind?”

“Whatever you want.”

Baekhyun hung out the window again on the ride back. The sunset filtered through a low line of small clouds and outlined the world in shining gold-orange. Baekhyun should be setting up his tent and boiling water for dinner. Golden hour meant time to unload and take off his boots and review his maps. Somewhere out on the trail was the ghost him, an alternate universe self who had never gotten lost. He’d be fifteen miles away by now, continuing his outlined, predictable path to a predictable self-discovery, maybe singing along to someone’s harmonica in a trail shelter. Maybe singing to himself in a darkening meadow.

At Chanyeol’s house, he got out of the car and walked to the top of the hill to watch the sunset. It had been quite a while since he’d spent so much of a day disconnected from the feel of earth under his boots, and it felt both more and less real than what he’d started to get used to. How distant would this expansive valley feel behind him had he walked for just another day? How wide was the world? How long would it take to walk around it?

He’d heard a story once of a man who hiked all the way around a great lake. He didn’t remember which one, only that it had taken well over a year. Georgia to Maine took six to nine months, less if he’d decided to run the whole way. A single lake could take twice as long by the time he walked around every small cove, out to the edge of every peninsula, the ragged shoreline deceptively rich in unexpected meters that don’t show up on a map, that built up like small credit charges for things like extra snacks and toe-nail clippers that are so insignificant as to not even cost money in the grand scheme of bills, and yet must be budgeted for anyway, scraped out the edges of a paycheck.

“Am I hiking a mountain or a lake?” he murmured to himself.

“You’re not hiking at all right now,” Chanyeol said from right behind him. “Come inside. It gets chilly fast this time of year and you don’t have a jacket.”

Chanyeol decided on stew. “I already have, like, half a chicken cut up so we can just use that. Here’s a couple carrots.”

“Carrots?”

“Peel and cut them?”

“I didn’t realize I was helping.”

“I’m not your chef!”

He swung a large wok-looking thing out of the cabinet like it was made of wire and not solid steel. “Onion. I should have had you do the onion first.”

“Do it yourself, babe.”

Chanyeol spitefully prepared all the other ingredients until Baekhyun had the onion done, and then started frying them in oil. “Gotta let that sit for a few minutes. Cut these potatoes.”

“Yes, your majesty. And what are you going to do while I do that?”

“Stand behind you a breathe down your neck.”

“Chanyeol!”

He did though, hands on either side of the cutting board, mouth against the back of his head, chest pressed up against Baekhyun’s back, breathing intentionally heavily as Baekhyun struggled to cut the potatoes. “I can’t concentrate! This is a hazard! It tickles! You’re making me nervous and I’m gonna fuck it up!”

Chanyeol giggled and bit his shoulder. Nothing sexy. It reminded Baekhyun of a puppy playing more than anything, but he couldn’t help the shot of fire down his dick that made him drop his knife and glare. Chanyeol gave the bite a quick kiss. “I’m gonna go change.”

“Why are you such a fucking tease!” Baekhyun yelled at his back.

“Stir the onions, please.”

Baekhyun spent a couple more minutes alone in the kitchen, feeling like a housewife, and then Chanyeol came back in with one of Baekhyun’s own flannel shirts and sweat pants. “You should change. It’s going to get kind of cold in here before I’ll let myself turn on the heat.”

Baekhyun gave him his best wide-eyed and innocent look, and then stripped off his t-shirt right there in the kitchen. Chanyeol looked like he was trying to swallow a smile, lips pursing and eyes crinkling up. He looked politely away, but Baekhyun figured he’d gotten his point across. So he stripped off his shorts too, and pulled Chanyeol’s over-large sweatpants onto his legs.

“Did you finish the potatoes?”

Baekhyun picked up his clothes and walked back to his backpack without responding. “You didn’t finish these potatoes!” Chanyeol yelled after him.

The stew, when assembled, took thirty minutes to cook, so Chanyeol gave him a slice of homemade zucchini bread to hold him over. Baekhyun was suspicious, but it tasted nothing like zucchini, and Chanyeol grabbed him by the hips and hefted him up on the counter to eat it, so he ate every bit of it but the small piece he pushed between Chanyeol’s lips, letting his finger drag on the way out.

Chanyeol washed all the dishes they’d already used, humming to himself while Baekhyun stared out the front window across the living room. “This is a seriously nice house.”

“Bit too big for one person,” Chanyeol agreed.

“I have—I had an apartment in the city. Rent went up so I sold half my stuff and put the rest in my parent’s garage. Now I’m a homeless adventurer!”

Chanyeol rubbed his hands up the outsides of Baekhyun’s thighs, soothing. “When I was in college, I got evicted because my roommate wasn’t paying his half of the rent, and I didn’t know. And all my shit got rained on while I was in class. I never saw that roommate again and I had to throw away a lot of stuff and sleep on my classmate’s floor for about three weeks. We weren’t even friends. It was awkward.”

“That sounds terrible.”

Chanyeol nodded. “Had to buy a new guitar. But I recovered, and so will you.”

Baekhyun tried to stretch out sensually across the counter, but Chanyeol grabbed his legs and swung them off, then pulled him off and pushed him into the living room.

“I’ll be out in a minute. Just go sit and stop trying to seduce me.”

“You can’t escape!” Baekhyun yelled. “Wait, is that a nerf gun on your bookshelf?”

“Fuck.”

And so passed the remaining fifteen minutes on the timer for the stew, with Baekhyun yelling and firing bullets as Chanyeol jumped behind furniture and tried to retrieve his smaller guns hidden in various spots around the room while Baekhyun reloaded.

Chanyeol ate his stew curled up into the corner of the couch, an oven mitt on his hand so he could hold the hot bowl. Baekhyun ate at the coffee table, sitting on the floor, and they watched the light get lower and lower of the woods, casting huge slices of the valley into shadow.

“Sunsets always feel so significant in the mountains,” Baekhyun said. “Back home the sunset just means it slowly gets darker, but here different pieces of the world get cut off before others. Like, you can see it’s still brightly daylight just half a mile in the distance, but around you it’s already night and cold and you’d better get the fire started fast. During the first couple weeks I was on the trail, every sunset felt like a small catastrophe.”

“Baekhyun, do you even like hiking the trail?”

Baekhyun looked up, startled. Chanyeol put his soup on the table beside him and stripped off the oven mitt, sitting down on the floor next to him. “There’s no need to do something that makes you miserable for half a year.”

“I like hiking the trail,” Baekhyun said, “I’m not very good at it yet. I don’t know how to feed myself and I’m upset about my pretty hands getting messed up. I’m tired all the time. Hiking sometimes feels like living inside a nightmare instead of enjoying the world because it feels unsurmountable. I’m scared and uncomfortable most of the time. Okay, yeah, it’s not very enjoyable. I enjoy living a rather pampered life when I can manage it. When I told people who know me that I was going to do this, most of them just laughed and said they’d see me in a week and I’m beginning to see their point.”

“Then stop.”

“No! I need to do this. If I stop now I’ll just feel like even more of a failure. This is so much better than any alternative options I have right now. What else can I do for six months that’ll take me so completely away from my life so I can just spend time doing nothing and something incredibly difficult at the same time? I need this.

“Besides, the trail makes up for it, you know? I really love making fast friends with people I’m never going to see again. It’s all the love and comfort with none of the emotional attachment. Campfire friendships are my jam. And I love the scenery. Last week I passed through an entire section of forest laughing hysterically because it was so beautiful that if I didn’t laugh I would cry. Some girl spooned me for three consecutive nights back in Georgia when it was super cold and then she stopped in a town and I got out ahead of her. She was really powerful and awesome and scary and I don’t miss her at all, but she was warm. Have I told you my trail name yet? I’m Bambi. It’s not just because I’m small, pretty, and sad either.”

Chanyeol smiled suddenly and accidentally dribbled soup down his chin. Baekhyun snorted and wiped it up with the oven mitt.

“There was this super hot lumberjack-looking guy out on the trail doing a week long hike in the other direction, and we were the only people at the shelter. Right in the middle of him fucking me, a whole herd of deer walked right past. I don’t know how many people would count that as trail magic, but I promise you, there’s something magical about lying in the woods with a huge, rock-hard dick in your ass as a man whispers to you not only every scientific detail you’ve ever wanted to know about the deer interrupting your sexy times, but also how to murder them. He was a hunter.”

Chanyeol cackled. “I’m lying there, gasping and sweating and twitching, and he’s just crouched over me whispering all this like a fucking documentary narrator. And then I said, ‘If I was a deer, would you fucking fuck me?’ And he called me Bambi for the rest of the night. My trail name is Bambi now. It’s nice, but now I have to come out every single time I explain my trail name. Which would be funny at home, but it’s probably kind of dangerous out here.”

“Bambi. Here, use the deer Snapchat filter to take a picture for me.”

Baekhyun hammed it up, and then took some more selfies as Chanyeol took the dishes to the kitchen. “I’ve really missed Snapchat,” Baekhyun said. “You’d think I’d get used to not having my phone after a month, but I haven’t. I miss my iPhone more than my family. I should probably get to a point to call them in the next week.”

“Are you leaving tomorrow morning then?” Chanyeol called.

“Yeah. I really should.” He snapped a photo with the golden butterfly crown. “I’m fucking gorgeous.”

“It’s my day off tomorrow.”

“Really? Well maybe I’ll stay for the morning. It depends on how far the drop off point is from the next shelter. I’ll have to look at some maps. I’m just antsy to get back on my feet, you know? It feels like I’m losing ground even if it really doesn’t matter how fast or slow I go. No deadlines. I was bound to get holed up a day or two here and there over the course of the hike. I just feel like I need to keep moving or I’ll get bogged down in self-doubt. You know, as I get older, poorer, and my life stands still.”

After Chanyeol washed the dishes, he sat down on the couch next to Baekhyun and pulled him down into his lap, Baekhyun’s head on his knee, chest across his legs. Baekhyun adjusted his arms, bringing them up over Chanyeol’s thighs, and stared out at the last edges of sunset, a low red over some a distant mountainside, a lighter blue off to the west where the stars still hadn’t come out. Chanyeol rubbed his shoulders over his flannel shirt and Baekhyun hummed softly.

“Are you sure you’re happy?”

“Chanyeol, I know I’m not happy. This is just better than the alternatives, you know? And if I make it through, I’ll have walked the AT. I want to do this so bad. As my Dad phrases it, I ran off to hide in the woods, and god dammit I’m going to hide in the woods for as long as I can.”

Baekhyun’s whole body felt warm, the heat of Chanyeol’s hand radiating out across his back and down his arms, up into his face. “Chanyeol, are you happy?”

“Me?” He didn’t answer for a while, long enough that Baekhyun almost forgot the question. “I love this job. I love my co-workers and the friends I make here. I love this house and I love the woods. I’m never bored. I’ve learned a lot, just about living off the land and cooking and all that jazz. I’m just lonely sometimes. The rangers tease me for living on their couches, but I’m an extrovert and it’s hard.”

“Maybe you should hike the trail.”

“Maybe…”

The last red gleam on the mountaintop next door had faded and the world looked a little silver, a three-quarters moon washing out the slopes with a dim gray glow. “Do you know the last two lines from that Robert Frost poem, ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’?” Baekhyun asked.

“Sounds familiar.”

“You probably read it in high school. Everyone reads it in high school. It starts ‘Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; he will not see me stopping here to watch his woods fill up with snow.’”

“Oh yeah. That one.”

“It’s a famous American poem. You should know it. Anyway, the last stanza is The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, /But I have promises to keep, /And miles to go before I sleep, /And miles to go before I sleep. It’s become my mantra on the hike. I don’t know why, but it keeps entering my head like it fits everything I do. I tried meditating to it the other day, just repeating it over and over again.”

“Isn’t he the one that did ‘Two roads diverged in a yellow wood?’”

“Two diverged in a wood and I— /I took the one less travelled by, /And that has made all the difference. Robert Frost. Damn. I’ll be honest, those are the only two poems by him that I know, that and “Fire and Ice” because it was so short that everyone wanted to recite that one for class. And I don’t really know any other poetry.” He rolled over in Chanyeol’s lap. “It’s funny too, because I didn’t know either of the poems before I started the hike, but I kept remembering that line from high school, so I kept reciting it to everyone I met until someone could tell me the entire poem. And then he recited ‘The Road Not Taken’ as well and I loved that too. As soon as I get back to civilization, I’m finding every poem he’s ever written and I’m reading all of it. I don’t even like poetry. My trail name was almost Robert Frost. I think I would have preferred that, but the lumberjack dude gave me the name Bambi before I’d really fallen in love with that and I’ve been introducing myself as Bambi ever since so it’s kind of too late.”

Chanyeol stared tenderly down at him, his big hand covering a large space on Baekhyun’s chest, and Baekhyun caught himself holding his breath to push into it. “I’ll call you Robert Frost if you want.”

Baekhyun shook his head. “Call me Baekhyun. I’ve already trusted you with that. Or call me baby. Or darling. Or sweetheart—”

Chanyeol grabbed Baekhyun under the arms and hefted him to sit upright, leaning against his chest, his butt between his legs, wrapped him up tight in his arms, and kissed him, deep and warm and soft and everything he’d been dreaming of.

“Ugh. Finally,” Baekhyun murmured against his lips.

“Forget the woods, Baekhyun,” Chanyeol said back, and ran a hand up the back of his neck and into his hair, upsetting the red bandana headband.

“I can’t,” Baekhyun said.

“I’ll make you,” Chanyeol whispered, and hugged tighter, arms hard around Baekhyun’s back, lips soft and strong and Baekhyun tasted trail magic in the way a shivering warmth filled his ribs and curled his toes.

An hour faded away like that, surrounded by Chanyeol, wet, warm lips crushed gently together. Baekhyun thought about being Bambi, about lifting his shirt off and letting Chanyeol pull his pants down and finger him open and lock them together, but that felt like too much, too far, like a cheapening of the moment and like going too far to return, too far to remember without knowing they’d felt something before Baekhyun left and Chanyeol stayed, and so he didn’t.

Baekhyun fell asleep with Chanyeol’s lips still nipping lightly at his, responding more and more slowly as their tired minds gave in and let them down, and Baekhyun woke long enough to feel Chanyeol pull a blanket over both of them, and then drifted away.

They woke to rain. It dumped down the eaves and made waterfalls on the stony troughs into the small creek that tumbled past the house, a thin, frothy stream. The woods filled with grey veils and silver drops, bright green and dark brown, glowing orange pine straw, vivid in the wet. From where he lay in Chanyeol’s arms on the couch, Baekhyun watched a herd of deer stroll across the driveway, a buck’s antlers ornamented with glittering drops, coats textured and darkened.

Chanyeol woke warm and giggly, Baekhyun hugging his arm to his chest, wide eyes staring out into the rain, long hair feathered across the frayed couch cushion. The skylights blurred into dirty pine-straw, tree outlines, and sliding water, a rushing rumble against the shingles. Thunder echoed in the valley and shook the rocky mountain, and Baekhyun stretched against Chanyeol’s long chest and turned their faces together, inches apart.

“Going to start hiking today?” Chanyeol asked.

“No,” Baekhyun sighed, and let the dam break, drawing Chanyeol in with another kiss, “And take this off,” he tugged at the hem of his shirt, “You’re not going to need this today.”

Chanyeol looked good cooking with his shirt off. He looked good frying eggs with his shirt off and a splotchy red hickey darkening on his collarbone. Baekhyun looked good in just Chanyeol’s huge t-shirt, sitting on the counter, thin legs bare and still tingling from Chanyeol’s warm hands, prints of his lips all the way up his thighs.

“I’ve gotten pretty good at cooking out here,” Chanyeol said. “I got tired of missing Mom’s cooking, so I made it my personal mission to become a better chef than her. I succeeded, but…” He handed Baekhyun a steamy omelet, “I still miss her cooking.”

“You’re a good son, Chanyeol?” Baekhyun asked.

“The best! You know, except for hiding on top of a mountain and never seeing her.”

“Are you sure you like it up here?” Baekhyun asked. “You keep questioning me, but you should be looking at yourself.”

“I love this job,” Chanyeol said, starting his own omelet, “I love it up here. I just get kind of lonely with only the rangers and campers for company. During the winter I usually go home and play in a band.”

“Oh, so cool,” Baekhyun teased. “Does that pay the bills?”

“We do pretty well,” Chanyeol protested. “It’s hard when the best guitarist is away in the mountains most of the year. They advertise me as the wandering monk who returns every winter to share his worldly wisdom.”

“I thought monks were supposed to be celibate,” Baekhyun said.

“I usually am because there’s no one to fuck up here.”

Baekhyun spread his legs slowly on the counter, letting the hem of Chanyeol’s shirt ride up over his bare crotch, smirking at the way Chanyeol’s eyes flickered down, cheeks reddening. “You got someone to fuck now.”

“You can’t possibly be ready to go again that fast. Also, why did I let you up on my counter? That’s gross.”

Baekhyun laughed. “I’m still all sticky, but who cares. And I could go again, but it wouldn’t be that fun this soon. Give me an hour.”

“Give me two,” Chanyeol laughed.

They moved to the bed after breakfast, giggly and warm, Chanyeol’s computer open to some pirated new movie that Baekhyun had missed on the trail.

“This sucks,” Baekhyun decided, halfway through, rocking his hips just a little against Chanyeol’s thigh in a way he could almost pretend was accidental.

“That’s why I was so confused when you said you wanted to watch it. Jongdae and I went to see this in theaters and we almost asked for our money back.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t want to punish the poor, failing theater for some movie’s bad directing.”

“Fair.” He wiggled his hips a little more deliberately.

“I’m thinking Lord of the Rings marathon?” Chanyeol said, lovely deep voice rumbling through his chest against Baekhyun’s ear. “We have all day. It’s barely ten a.m.”

“Have we really been up for three whole hours?”

“Mhm.”

“Can we watch The Hobbit movies instead?”

Chanyeol flailed and knocked his computer off his lap. “Oh god, those are so sub-par though!”

“They’re fun fantasy action movies,” Baekhyun squealed, hanging on tight and trying to trap Chanyeol down. “They’re not the gorgeous classics of the originals, but I don’t want to watch nine hours of something as serious and beautiful as the original films. I want to watch something I can turn off without regret when you can get your dick back up! The first one is the best anyway.”

They got about forty minutes into the first film before Baekhyun was grinding shamelessly against Chanyeol’s thigh as Chanyeol’s huge hand groped his ass. Chanyeol paused the movie, pulled him onto his lap, and kissed him, hands slowing his hips and holding him down until he melted and let Chanyeol set a glacially lazy pace. By eleven fifteen, according to Chanyeol’s bird-watching themed clock over his bookshelf, Chanyeol finally took his pants off.

“Jesus Christ, old man. Gonna make me wait this long?”

“We have all day,” Chanyeol murmured.

“I’ve never gone this slow. It’s driving me crazy,” Baekhyun said, trying to reach down and grab Chanyeol’s cock, but he held onto Baekhyun’s arms and let them grind slowly together for a while, Baekhyun’s shirt getting caught between them.

“Just fuck me already,” he groaned, even though the heady, slow press of their dicks sliding together had begun to feel addictive and soothing. “My hips are getting sore.”

Chanyeol rolled them over and took charge. “You know, sex doesn’t have to be a mad dash to the finish. Orgasm is the destination, but what matters is the journey.”

“Shall we compare this to my hiking trip?” Baekhyun said, hoping the sarcasm was still apparent through the moan. “Self-discovery is my orgasm, the AT my foreplay and build-up.”

“Does that make your stay at my house the water break after the first blow-job?” Chanyeol asked, urging Baekhyun’s legs up and popping open a bottle of lube that must have been hiding somewhere.

“Something like that,” Baekhyun giggled.

When Baekhyun mumbled “Hurry up,” for the fifth time, fists knocking lightly against Chanyeol’s shoulders as Chanyeol worked three fingers into him, even though he was already prepped from that morning, Chanyeol stopped completely and lay down on top of him, head propped up on the middle of his chest, black hair sticking up every which way.

“Have you ever had sex just to have something to do? Like, not because you both want to have sex and get off with a lot of raunchy fun, but because you’re both there and you want something to pass the time and why not do something that feels good?”

Baekhyun shook his head.

“I’m serious about this not being about the destination,” Chanyeol said, “This is just like watching a movie, Baekhyun. There’s no goal. If neither of us come from this, it won’t even matter. We have time. I want to have slow, purposeless, soft, sweet sex with you. You don’t even have to move, baby, just stay still and let to work my magic.”

And Baekhyun did relax for two more hours until Chanyeol finally pushed him over the edge again and Baekhyun came, nearly sobbing, sore and used up and warm. He wondered, after he’d been cleaned up and carried out to the living room couch, if this was what sex would be like with a caring boyfriend that he trusted after they’d been together so long that sex just stopped being exciting and started being as careless an expression of love as doing the other person’s laundry.

“Grilled cheese?” Chanyeol asked, and Baekhyun nodded and watched the rest of the Hobbit movie in silence. He finished his sandwich with Chanyeol wrapped around him, his face pressed into his neck, protecting and cherishing.

“I want to go for a walk,” Baekhyun said when the first movie ended.

“It’s still raining though.”

“Yeah? I’ve got gear. My legs feel restless. I need to walk off everything we did this morning or I’ll be sore tomorrow when I get back on the trail.”

Chanyeol didn’t say anything, just kept Baekhyun clutched against his chest for a few more quiet minutes, rain dripping on the skylights, the gentle hum of the stove fan cutting through the quiet. “Okay. Let’s go for a walk.”

Chanyeol had a hiking trail right behind the house, and they put on their rain gear and traipsed up the mountain together. Baekhyun got lost again in the feeling of dirt under his boots, legs pushing his unusually weightless, backpack-less body up over roots and rocks, new stretches of path appearing like an unrolling carpet. After at least a mile, he realized he’d completely forgotten Chanyeol and turned around. Chanyeol was laboring up the path behind him, sweating and panting as he tried to keep up.

“Pretty up here,” Baekhyun said, smirking as he came up behind him.

“Can we…can we rest…for a bit?”

“Sure thing, big boy.”

Chanyeol sat down on the path and leaned against a tree. They could just see out across the valley through the thin, high-altitude tree-tops, some of the sublime swoop of the valley dulled by the foreground. The path looped away across the hill, headed for the ridge.

“You’ve got some cardio, baby,” Chanyeol groaned.

“A month of walking for, like, ten hours a day will do that, you know. And with a backpack. You need to get up off your ass more.”

“I have a job! I can’t.”

Baekhyun sighed sadly. “Yeah, you’re right. You’ve got it better. I wish I had a job.”

“Where did you work before this?”

“I told you. Shitty chain restaurant. Olive Garden. Can you imagine?”

Chanyeol flinched sympathetically.

“Always came home feeling like I was coated in grease. Being a hand-model is nice, but it just doesn’t pay the bills. I’d love to come up here and live. Well, maybe not. It’s a little lonely.”

Chanyeol stood and wrapped his arms around Baekhyun’s waist, nudging his sweaty face into Baekhyun’s hair. “There are enough friends up here to keep you sane. And just wait, when you get back to civilization after hiking the trail, you’ll want nothing more than to be alone. Solitude is nice, and sometimes kind of addictive if you have the capacity to enjoy it. I have a hard time with it. I can spend one lonely night up here and get to work two hours early in the morning because I can’t stand it. But sometimes I have a whole day to myself up here, and afterwards. I have to drag myself back to work in the morning.”

“It’s that whole introvert/extrovert thing, right?” Baekhyun said. “We’re both extroverts, right?”

“You know, that whole thing strikes me as kind of pseudoscientific,” Chanyeol said. “I always thought I was the world’s biggest extrovert, and then I got up here and developed some introverted streaks. I think it’s more of a sliding scale than anyone realizes. Lots of people are more solidly in the middle than off to either end, and it’s probably a lot more about learned habits and coping mechanisms than an engrained trait.”

Baekhyun thought of the many days on the trail where he had started the day craving company and ended it confusingly disappointed to share the shelter with someone, or back home when he struggled to get his friends together and then felt guilty about wanting to leave them at the end of the night. “You know, that’s kind of a relief,” he said.

“How so?”

“Since I think I’m an extrovert, I always beat myself up when I want to be alone, because I think it’s me being an ass to the people around me. Maybe sometimes being alone is just what I need.”

“You don’t need to define yourself as either, you know,” Chanyeol said, “Some people are way more in one direction or another, but a lot of people just need what they need, and that could be company or solitude at any given time. Don’t let perceived labels define your habits.”

“That’s why I decided to hike in order to sort myself out,” Baekhyun said. “I got tired of figuring other humans into my plans. I kind of miss it now.”

“Maybe you don’t need a full hike on the AT to figure yourself out. Maybe you just needed a month or two.”

Baekhyun snorted. “Stop trying to get me to leave the trail, Chanyeol. I’m determined to see this through. I don’t want the people who made fun of me at home to be right. I need to do this.”

“I’m just saying,” Chanyeol muttered, “If you came out here to learn to be happy, maybe you should stop when it stops making you happy. Keeping up with something that’s hurting you just to prove the people that care about you wrong isn’t going to teach you anything useful. Swallow your pride a little.”

Baekhyun closed his eyes and leaned into Chanyeol’s chest. The quiet rustle of the forest sounded different with another human body to lean on instead of just sitting there, surrounded and alone as the wilderness whispered around him, caring nothing about his presence. “I want to learn how to be alone,” he said, voice cracking, “How to be happy without someone beside me telling me how I’m doing. I want to learn to validate myself without help. How am I supposed to learn that if I don’t keep myself out here?”

“How are you supposed to learn that if you’re making yourself miserable just to prove someone wrong. They’re a hundred miles away, Baekhyun. Do what you think is best for you without taking their opinions into account. And when you go back down and they say ‘I told you so,’ just say you got what you came for and let them feel petty.”

“I haven’t gotten what I came for though! I can’t go back to waiting restaurants yet, Chanyeol. There’s nothing else for me down there. It’s this or misery! You keep talking like I have options, but I don’t.”

“Okay,” Chanyeol said, lips back in Baekhyun’s hair. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

Baekhyun angled his body completely towards Chanyeol, turning his back on the valley and wrapping his arms around Chanyeol’s chest, face pressed against his neck. “Thank you,” he whispered. Chanyeol hummed comfortingly and rubbed Baekhyun’s back.

They stood there until the breeze got to cold on the cooling sweat across his back. “Let’s go home,” Baekhyun said. Chanyeol let him take the lead, breathing heavily behind him as they wound their way down.

“You should get a dog,” Baekhyun said as they arrived back at the house. “Since you want company all the time.”

“Huh?” Chanyeol panted. “Yeah, I guess I should. I’ve thought about that. Or maybe I should just get a boyfriend.”

Baekhyun gave him a wink over his shoulder, then turned around and felt his cheeks light up. Way too forward. Sex was one thing, but Baekhyun’s future was way too uncertain to be making any kind of promises. The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.

“Shut up,” he muttered to his brain.

“I’m sweaty,” Chanyeol said as they walked inside. “Do you want to shower?”

“Are you offering me another chance to touch your perfect abs? You know me too well.”

Chanyeol cocked a strong eyebrow and a blinding grin at him, hiking up his shirt just a little, and then walked inside without glancing back.

“You’re a terrible tease, aren’t you,” Baekhyun said, following him in.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Chanyeol said, toeing out of his boots and nearly falling over. Baekhyun removed his boots more carefully, and then shrugged out of his shirt and started unbuckling his pants on the way to the bathroom. Chanyeol whistled.

Baekhyun had had shower sex before. He thought he knew what to expect after Chanyeol heated up the water while he pissed in the toilet right beside him, both of them naked, the most grossly and awkwardly domestic thing Baekhyun had ever done with anyone. He was ready to start getting hard the minute they stepped under the water, but Chanyeol wouldn’t stop actually bathing, scrubbing Baekhyun’s back for him and shampooing his hair. He stopped every few seconds to kiss Baekhyun’s lips while he eyes were closed. Baekhyun stood still, feeling like a happy puppy, and let Chanyeol wash him.

“Acoustics are good in here,” he said with a soapy hand between Baekhyun’s legs. “Do you want to sing?”

“Yes please.”

Chanyeol turned him around so he could rest his chin on Baekhyun’s head, and started some old Simon and Garfunkel song, and Baekhyun joined in. It was surprisingly easy to get over the feeling of Chanyeol’s dick against his ass and just enjoy the way the sound rang off the walls.

“Shower sex?” Baekhyun asked after the song ended. “I know you have lube in here.”

“Do you want to, or do you just feel like we should?” Chanyeol asked.

“We should,” Baekhyun said quietly, “I’ll be gone tomorrow.”

Chanyeol sighed and turned Baekhyun to lean on the cold bathroom tile, head tipped back on the long windowsill. He pressed a wet, lingering kiss to his lips, and then another, sweet and firm. “You’ll be gone tomorrow,” Chanyeol said, and then kissed him again, “should we waste our time having sex when we could be playing cards in the living room? Or baking a pie together? I’ve got Monopoly, Sorry, and Uno. How should we ruin our friendship before you go?”

Baekhyun smiled. “We could learn a duet together.”

“Not that,” Chanyeol said. “Not if you’re leaving tomorrow and I won’t be able to sing it with you again.”

“This is silly,” Baekhyun said, pulling away a little. “Just give me your number and I’ll give you mine, and I’ll call you as soon as I get off the trail. If I haven’t called by October, assume I’ve lost it, and then you can call me. Now get your dick in my ass. We have all evening to ruin our friendship over stupid games.”

To be fair to Chanyeol, playing cards later on in the evening did end up being a lot more fun, but that didn’t mean the shower sex wasn’t an absolutely incredible experience, until Chanyeol’s shower got cold and they had to power-finish and then rinse themselves off, giggling and shivering, in the cool water.

Chanyeol threw the few dirty clothes Baekhyun had accumulated over the past two days in with in own laundry and spent the hour before dinner going over how Baekhyun should feed himself in the wilderness, covering a notebook page in little tips while Baekhyun stretched out over his counter again. He made a delicious, rich pasta, even with Baekhyun attached to his hip, complicating the process with hugs and kisses.

“You should pick up hikers all the time,” Baekhyun said, feeding Chanyeol forkfuls of pasta as he reclined lazily on the couch, licking stray sauce off his lips. “Get cute guys to pamper you in your cabin. This could be a pretty glamorous life.”

“You should hike back and forth on this stretch of trail for the rest of the summer and stop in at my cabin to pamper me every time you pass.”

“Defeats the purpose a little, to have a specific destination besides forward,” Baekhyun said. “Same distance, sure, but it’s not even that it would just be seeing the same stretch of trail over and over again. It’s putting small bounds on the potential of the trail and hiking to a point that’s within reach instead of a point that’s just beyond my comprehension. The idea is that the distance feels impossible, but you do it anyway.”

“I was making a joke. You don’t have to make is philosophical,” Chanyeol said.

“And what if I want to,” Baekhyun said. “I’ve never bothered with philosophy before coming out here. It’s been fun. I like being an amateur philosopher.”

“Join the club,” Chanyeol said, “but please don’t start ignoring common sense because the lofty ideas are too exciting.”

Baekhyun pouted. “Rude.”

“But would you hike the entire AT to satisfy your own philosophy even though it makes you miserable?”

“Call me out, why don’t you. Come on! I’ll be miserable anyway! This is the lesser of two miseries! Hiking the AT will at least make me more employable!”

“Does it?” Chanyeol asked.

Baekhyun shrugged. “Theoretically. Employers eat that shit up.”

“Depends,” Chanyeol said.

“I want to be employed by someone that thinks that’s impressive,” Baekhyun said.

“Fair enough, but what if you just stayed here until you got what you wanted?”

Baekhyun snorted. “I’m not going to invade your house for that long, and what makes you think I’ll get what I want here? I want to do something. I want to move my feet. I want to go somewhere. I want to conquer that fucking trail and know that I can.”

“Okay,” Chanyeol whispered.

Baekhyun put their dirty plates on the coffee table and lay down on Chanyeol’s chest. Chanyeol’s warm hands rubbed over his shoulders. A fire burned lowly in the fireplace. The entire place smelled of pine and Italian food. “You know,” Baekhyun said, “this place is so post-card perfect. I always wondered if places like this actually existed outside of photo-shoots.”

“I have an Instagram account with a small but loyal following,” Chanyeol said.

“I’m going to need to follow that. I just post a ton of selfies on mine.”

“I’d follow that,” Chanyeol said, scratching Baekhyun’s hair. “I’d follow you anywhere.”

Baekhyun’s heart ached. “Anywhere?”

“Any social media,” Chanyeol sighed, smiling against his hair. “Maybe not out onto the trail. I’ve got a job. But I’ll keep track of you. I’ll come find you this winter. You can host me wherever you’re staying then. Have sex in your shower, maybe. You can make me dinner.” His hands brushed over the soft skin under Baekhyun’s shirt hem along the lower curve of his back. “I’ll miss you, you know, your sweet face, your lovely voice, all the amazing things you say.”

Baekhyun rubbed his forehead against his shirt and huffed in frustration. “What?” Chanyeol asked.

“I don’t know if I should trust that,” Baekhyun said. “Anyone who’s ever said stuff like that to me before has been trying to get into my pants, but you’ve already gotten there, and I’m just going to leave tomorrow, so why are you saying things like that? We hardly know each other.”

“You awesome!” Chanyeol said, chest jolting under Baekhyun’s head with the force of the exclamation. “Why wouldn’t I say so? I don’t find cute people out here in the woods. I need to cherish you while I can.” He huffed.

“Sorry,” Baekhyun muttered.

“Don’t be! I just need to give you more affection till you believe me.”

“Ugh, stop being perfect,” Baekhyun said, “It’s not fair. We haven’t known each other long enough to know about each other’s bad habits.”

“What are yours?” Chanyeol asked.

Baekhyun propped his chin up on his hand and stared up at Chanyeol’s face to what would have been an unflattering angle on anyone else, but looked downright majestic on such a gorgeous man. “This feels like a job interview. ‘My biggest flaw is that I’m a perfectionist.’ Don’t ever say that, by the way. It will not get you the job. Someone told me they lost the chance at a job by using that answer once.”

“I’m serious,” Chanyeol said. “I want to know.”

“Well,” Baekhyun said, tracing his fingertips along Chanyeol’s bare collarbones and the dip between his pecs, “I’m a flirt, but I tend to throw people away. I can be cold to people when I’m not thinking about it. I say mean things sometimes when I’m annoyed. I’m kind of self-absorbed. I’m so lazy. I tend to be that choir bitch that gets all the solos and thinks he’s better than the rest of the tenors. And I am a better singer,” he added quickly, “But that doesn’t mean I have an automatic right to judge them as people.” He sighed. “Someone pointed out that I did that last year and it really shook me up.”

“I was in band in high school,” Chanyeol said, “and we do the same thing. It’s like the top players are infallible and the lesser players are open for harsh criticism on every front, even when music is completely irrelevant.”

“Yeah, but what do you think of my flaws,” Baekhyun said.

Chanyeol snickered. “Impatient, self-absorbed, and dismissive, aren’t you?”

Baekhyun glared. “Yes.”

“Okay yeah. Sorry. I think I could handle those long-term,” and Baekhyun’s heart fizzled a little at the thought of long-term with Chanyeol. “I have a lot of the same issues. I also tend to let teasing get out of hand and end up being legitimately mean on accident sometimes. I’m demanding. I buy into the masculinity complex a bit too hard. I actually am a perfectionist where it doesn’t matter, like learning random instruments, and lazy where it does, like doing my work thoroughly.”

“Oh man, I feel that,” Baekhyun said, “but I still don’t believe you’re not perfect.”

Chanyeol giggled. “Oh shut up. Not as perfect as you.”

“Gross!” Baekhyun giggled. “Don’t make it gay.”

“Too gay for you?” Chanyeol said, wrapping his hands around Baekhyun’s hips and grinding up.

“No, that’s fine,” Baekhyun groaned, and flicked his tongue against Chanyeol’s nipple, who barked out a laugh, cheeks round above his wide, wide smile, eyes squeezing shut.

“Are we going to have sex again?” he asked. “My dick is about to fall off.”

“Nah,” Baekhyun said. “That would be a waste of our remaining time together. Let’s just cuddle.”

And the evening drifted too quickly forward, covered in the sticky after-feelings of Chanyeol’s lips on his skin, soft giggles and half-sung duets. Chanyeol beat Baekhyun at Sorry, and Baekhyun still wasn’t tired of him. His competitiveness didn’t ruin his fun for once. Chanyeol was just too funny, pouring over-exaggerated, smug apologies all over the board whenever he kicked Baekhyun back to start. It lasted hours. They were both relieved when Chanyeol finally won so they could collapse on the couch again and kiss each other until they got dizzy.

“Clouds cleared up,” Chanyeol said, late in the night when they both had hot chocolate made with peppermint tea in hand, and a big plate of homemade cookies getting crumbs all over their legs. “Let’s go look at the stars.”

They got out on the edge of the hill where they could see out over the valley the best, and hugged each other, wrapped in the afghan but still shivering and staring out at the sky. Baekhyun figured, when he started the trip, that he’d get used to the lightless sky sparkling with diamond dust. He hadn’t yet. He’d lost sleep too many times, spent too many late hours sitting up in his sleeping bag and staring at the sky. Sometimes he sang. Sometimes he cried.

“Oh look,” he said, “There’s Orion’s Belt.”

Chanyeol snorted. “Is that the only one you know?”

“Yeah,” Baekhyun said, blushing. People had tried to teach him other constellations on the trail, but he couldn’t pick them up.

“Me too,” Chanyeol said. “I think I’ve got a skywatching book in the house somewhere. We should learn.”

“I’ll try to pick up some tips out on the trail.”

“I’ll study. When we meet again we’ll both know the constellations. Deal?”

“You can’t see them in the city where I live,” Baekhyun said.

Chanyeol turned away from the sky and kissed Baekhyun’s upturned lips. “You’ll just have to come back here then. You’re always welcome.”

“Thank you,” Baekhyun whispered, and his feet had never felt so heavy, so willing to be anchored in the spot they stood, somewhere beautiful with someone who wanted him, well-fed, safe, and happy.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep. The woods are lovely, dark, and deep. The woods are lovely, dark, and deep.

But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.

Baekhyun woke with Chanyeol at six a.m. and pushed himself groggily into his clothes as Chanyeol got in uniform. He rearranged his backpack exactly like he did every morning out on the trail, layering all his freshly-washed clothes and food reserves the right way, packed his clean dishes, and filled his water bottle in Chanyeol’s sink. Chanyeol loaded all his stuff up in the back of the truck as Baekhyun tied his boots and tried to instill a sense of adventure in his heart, the same cheerful, can-do, lets-go-own-the-world spirit that he’d had at the beginning of the trail.

“Lots of people say that the ending of ‘Stopping by Woods’ is the persona thinking about suicide,” he said in the car to break the silence, and then kicked himself for bringing something so morbid into their last morning together.

“The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,” Chanyeol mused, “Yeah, I can see it.”

“I don’t like that interpretation,” Baekhyun said, “Even though it sounds right. I just like the more, I don’t know, generic emotion of longing for something beautiful and then having to move on and leave. Suicide is too literal and too dark.”

Chanyeol nodded. “Also a bit dramatic for the calm, mysterious feeling of the rest of the poem. I like your interpretation. It’s more open. Fits more situations.”

Baekhyun felt an odd lump in his throat. The woods felt so distant now, not like that close, possessive depth that he’d felt two days ago when he’d left it, that unexplored potential he’d come to feel over the month he’d spent there. Not lovely, dark, or deep. Now they just felt like a thicket of twigs standing on end, close together and floored with dirt. Just a forest. Pretty, sure, but a blank scene out the window of the car like they’d been when he started the trail. The feeling would come back within the day. By the time he spent one night in his sleeping bag, the woods would have claimed him again, and he would have no issue being back on the trail. Just one day until he felt good about this again.

Chanyeol got out of the car and walked him to the entrance of the trail. “You look really small under that backpack,” he giggled, adjusting Baekhyun’s bandana. “The cutest hiker.” Baekhyun grinned like a kid going off to his first day of school. “You have my number,” Chanyeol said softly. “Feel free to call me along the way. Don’t let your parents worry. Don’t forget to feed yourself. You have my page of tips, right?”

“Yup. Outer pocket where I can reach it.”

“Good. Um. Watch out for bears. Don’t forget that I’m coming to visit you in the winter.”

“Okay. Thanks for everything Chanyeol. I promise I’ll pay you back somehow. For so much.”

Chanyeol pulled him into a hug. “Good luck out there. I hope you find everything you’re looking for and more. And if it gets to be too much,” he took a deep breath and kissed Baekhyun’s hair, “Please don’t be afraid to stop.”

“Find more friends,” Baekhyun returned softly. “Say bye to Jongin, Kyungsoo, Jongdae, Minseok, and that old lady in the office for me.”

“You remembered their names!” Chanyeol said weakly. “Well, most of them. Her name is Karla.”

“Karla. Well, I’m sorry I didn’t get to see them again.”

“Next summer,” Chanyeol reassured him. “Take care of yourself, Bambi.”

Baekhyun gave him one last hug, a carefully final goodbye kiss, and started down the trail, feet picking up the old rhythm easily. He hoped he hadn’t been away so long that his feet would hurt as bad as they had the first week. It had been three days. Surely that wouldn’t be too much of a gap.

He’d call Chanyeol more than his parents, he promised himself. He’d call him at every chance until the end of the trail. Would he remember? Would the new acquaintances on the trail and all the fire-lit nights in the future smudge that little chapter of trail magic out of significance? Would he really call Chanyeol as soon as he got home? Would it matter by then, the feeling of leaving a lover behind? He suddenly regretted ever giving in and letting himself fall into feelings, just because it rained and he couldn’t stand one more day of sexual tension.

The trees still held their light green of spring, vibrant and young, bright morning light glowing cool through the leaves. Squirrels skittered across the path. Dew clung to the brush. His limbs warmed slowly with exertion as he pack-muled his life up another long slope. The trail had already begun to swallow him back in. He could do this. He could finish this trail and enjoy every minute of it.

The trail was a breathless adventure, the monotony of days and the slow change of landscape, the shifting weather, the people and places and wildlife, little pieces of magic and little moments of awe keeping the days rolling forward. Chanyeol’s clench on his heart would fade into the every-day beauty. Did he want that?

Another hill, more rocks. Chanyeol, Chanyeol, Chanyeol, sunshine and chattering birds, Chanyeol’s laugh. Sparrows pecking in the underbrush, a wide view opening into a new valley, tears in his eyes. How had he doubted this beauty? This was so much better than home. But the look in Chanyeol’s eyes. What about the evenings he spent alone in his tent, hunched over, bitterly alone? What about his lonely serenades to the cliffs? Chanyeol. The woods were lovely, bright, and warm. The woods were lonely, dark, and deep. Baekhyun stopped in the middle of the path and looked back.

Chanyeol got home after another twelve-hour shift. Jongdae, Minseok, and Junmyeon, the new ranger, had spent the day sneaking each other YouTube videos, giggling and cheerful. They’d wanted to hear all about Baekhyun. He’d told them everything, from the cute way he shrieked when he got a piece sent home in Sorry, to the way he sounded when he sang in the shower, to the way he could turn anything into a clever flirt with just the right chirpy tone and head tilt. He’d had to bite through the way his chest clenched whenever he said his name.

He’d been halfway home before the loneliness hit. It happened maybe once a week, the heart-clenching ache of emptiness and longing. He couldn’t even try to pretend it wasn’t because of Baekhyun leaving. For three days he’d had everything he’d always longed for, and he’d been the most interesting, incredible little person he’d ever met. He’d let him slip between his fingers, and though they’d said their promises, he’d come and gone so fast that it felt like he had only been there an hour, and Chanyeol wasn’t sure he’d ever see him again.

This would be one of the nights he drove back down the mountain after dark and slept on Minseok and Jongdae’s couch. Maybe one of them would give up a bed for him tonight if he whined hard enough. Minseok had let him sleep on his bed the last time Chanyeol cried.

His cabin looked almost haunted when he drove up, empty, windows like black holes. He’d definitely be driving down to Minseok and Jongdae’s place. The stars were just beginning to poke out of the sky, the sun still slanting golden through the trees and across his driveway. The chopping block was still over-turned from where Baekhyun had tripped over it that morning. He sat it back upright and stared out at the orange-tinted valley. Maybe he should take a walk up the path that he and Baekhyun had taken the day before for a better view.

Maybe he should just go make some tea and calm down. He walked up, turned the key and the lock, and grabbed the knob. The door didn’t open. Had he left it unlocked? He turned the key again and swung the door open.

Baekhyun was lying on his couch, bare legs kicked up in the air and crossed at the ankles like a poster of a carefree teenage girl, and Chanyeol felt a shock of pure affection right down his spine.

“I can pick locks, so I let myself in,” he said. He had one of Chanyeol’s Sudoku books open in front of himself. “I hope you don’t mind.”

Chanyeol blinked and his vision blurred. “Fuck, Baekhyun,” he said, wiping his eyes.

“Yeolie? You okay?” Baekhyun said, sitting up.

“Ugh, I’m just so happy to see you,” he said, turning around to wipe his tears away.

“Chanyeol,” Baekhyun murmured softly, and Chanyeol heard the couch creak as he got up. He turned around to gather Baekhyun into his arms and muffled his tears into the top of Baekhyun’s head.

“What about the AT?” Chanyeol said when he got his voice back. “I don’t want to be the reason you give up.”

“I don’t know,” Baekhyun said. “This was a really stupid decision. I’ve only known you three days. I’m pretty pissed with myself to be honest, but couldn’t make myself keep going. I just didn’t want to. And I missed you. I’ll start on the trail again when I get sick of you in two days.”

“Don’t say that,” Chanyeol said. “You’ll break my heart. What if you just walk right back here then too?”

“We’ll just have to see,” Baekhyun said, “I just didn’t want to force the decision while I still wasn’t sure what I wanted. I hope you’re okay with keeping me for another couple days.”

“That’s fine,” Chanyeol murmured into his hair. “That’s more than fine. Stay here as long as you need. And help me get a new lock for that door. I don’t want a lock that random hikers can just break into.”

“Can we have sex in your bed first?” Baekhyun asked.

“Dinner before that?” Chanyeol asked.

“Please. I’m hungry.”

“You’ve been here all day. You could have made something.”

“I only got here a couple hours ago,” Baekhyun said. “I’ve only done three Sudoku games.”

“Ugh. God. You’re so adorable,” Chanyeol said. “Let me make you dinner. I’m so glad you’re here.”

Two days passed. Minseok found volunteer work for Baekhyun to do, something about handling a technically-not-permitted discount for Jongin and Kyungsoo so the rangers wouldn’t actually be held responsible if higher-ups found out, and Baekhyun could just blame confusing instructions and the whole mess could get appropriately tangled up in bureaucracy and ignored. “It’s perfect,” Jongdae squeaked as Baekhyun filed it. “Thanks, scapegoat.”

“Always happy to help,” Baekhyun said, and began decorating a congratulatory card for the pair telling them exactly why their already minimal camping fees would be cut in half. They gave the boys the card at that evening’s sing-along campfire. Kyungsoo put on a show of being exasperated, but Jongin glowed and called him honey, and he smiled happily in the firelight. The entire group sang ballads to the sparks until midnight.

Baekhyun, who had planned to leave the next day, woke up in the morning with Chanyeol still happily beside him, gentle face gorgeous and open. He remembered the way Chanyeol had kept his arms around him at the fire, his easy joy around the rest of the guys, the way they’d sung together and cooked hotdogs for Karla, very tipsy on her fourth bottle of beer, the motherly matriarch. He went back to sleep. The trail could wait.

“Hi mom.”

“Oh thank god. We thought you’d been eaten by a bear. Are you into Virginia yet?”

“Actually I’ve gotten temporarily side-tracked. Don’t worry, it’s not too unusual for people to stay several days in one place while they’re out on the trail for, like, bad weather or convenience. Yeah, I found some really awesome park rangers at the top of North Carolina and I’m hanging out there for a while.”

Chanyeol was splitting wood down in the yard, muscles rolling over his shoulder-blades with every swing. “What mom? I wasn’t listening. They’re not murderers. I’ve been here over a week and I’m still alive. Mom, it’s fine. No, I’m not spending money. Chill. It’s my money, my equipment, and my time anyway. I can decide what I do with it.”

His mom was concerned, but Baekhyun didn’t care. Chanyeol stretched in the sun and put more wood on the block, and quite frankly, that was much more important than his mother’s concern about his timing, or her I-told-you-so’s.

“Love you mom. I think I’m doing exactly what I came out here to do. I don’t get graded on how well I hike this trail. It’s all up to me.”

Chanyeol grinned up at him and accidentally spilled water from his water bottle all down his chin. She was saying something else, maybe something about wasting money.

“I’m going to go now.”

“Baekhyun!”

“I’m doing fine, mom, thanks for asking.”

She sighed into the phone and he could hear her giving up. “Let me know when you leave there, okay honey?”

“I’ll see you later mom.”

“How are you feeling?” Chanyeol asked a little later when Baekhyun was helping him carry a few logs inside.

“Fine?”

“About not being on the trail.”

“Oh! Hm. Relieved?” That was only partly true. Thinking about the trail made his heart sink a little, like maybe this was something he’d look back and regret five or ten years down the road, maybe twenty when he was well-settled and happy, and knowing he had this chance to do something cool and got stopped a month in by a hot park ranger. “A little sad, but mostly I’m okay with it for now? Maybe I’ll get back on it in a couple weeks.”

Chanyeol nodded slowly with a smile, like he knew Baekhyun would never be getting back on that trail.

“You look adorable in uniform,” Chanyeol said.

Baekhyun looked down at his ranger’s uniform. “I look like a boy scout. I hate it. Why can’t I keep wearing normal clothes?”

Chanyeol snickered and wrapped a large hand around the back of his head, pulling him in and kissing him sweetly, fingers tangling in his hair.

“Gross!” Jongdae said as he walked past, which is what he always said.

For weeks, Baekhyun had been the one scruffy volunteer behind the desk in a t-shirt, hair growing longer and longer into his eyes, until Karla, the old lady behind the desk, had gotten him a uniform. Baekhyun felt so guilty that she had to deal with them all the time that he put it on, and now he looked like a ranger, and an idiot. Though it was nice to finally have a sense of official duty, proof that he was, in fact, doing something useful.

“The rest of us have to wear them, and we look great,” Chanyeol said. Baekhyun wrinkled his nose.

“Actually, you all look like chumps. So do I.”

Jongdae whined indignantly from the filing cabinets. Jongin and Kyungsoo were sitting on the couch with cups of tea, looking like that couple that sits in the corner of coffee shops and judges the people walking past. “Do we look like chumps guys?” Baekhyun asked.

“Well…I wouldn’t say that…” Jongin said, sounding like he would absolutely say that. Kyungsoo just nodded.

“Just file these,” Jongdae said, slapping a stack of folders into his arms.

Baekhyun rarely had much to do. He helped out a little, fucked with Chanyeol, wore the uniform, and gathered résumé material. Maybe he would come out of this summer with something to show for it besides a hella cute boyfriend.

They loaded into the truck to drive home mid-afternoon with the sun still high in the sky. “You know,” Chanyeol said, “The guys keep asking me to come spend the night. Turns out they’ve missed me showing up at odd hours craving company.”

“You’re going to start showing up again soon enough,” Baekhyun sighed. “I have to leave eventually.”

“When,” Chanyeol asked. It was late July. It had been three months.

“End of August,” Baekhyun said, “Maybe September.”

“Okay,” Chanyeol said, “That’s plenty of time. And you’ll have an apartment ready for me after I leave here in November, right?”

“Of course. I’m not living with my mom longer than I can help it. And hopefully I’ll have a job. Maybe I’ll do some hand modelling on the side for spare change. I always had fun with that.”

Chanyeol pursed his lips. “You should apply for a position here next year. Maybe we can pull some strings.”

“Maybe…” Baekhyun said. The deepening afternoon meant the leaves seemed a little darker, the shadows a little bolder. If he’d been out on the trail right now, he’d probably be…He wasn’t sure. Did he usually stop about now, or was it still a couple hours till the sun got that low? He supposed the days were a bit shorter now. Not by much? Maybe if he’d stayed on the trail and stayed in that close proximity to the way the days passed, what the clouds meant about the day’s weather, how long the sun stayed in the sky, he’d know now. It didn’t bother him that he didn’t.

“Do you feel like you’ve found yourself a little?” Chanyeol said.

“Remember when we were talking about Stopping by Woods,” Baekhyun asked in return, still propped half out the window like a dog enjoying the wind, “And I kept reciting it in my head over and over again? I think I was worried that me stopping by woods was like me stopping in life and wishing I could stay out of life forever, and realizing I couldn’t because I have so many obligations to myself. But this it kind of fits better as your house being the woods. And me thinking I had to keep going on the trail when I stopped here because of the promises I made to myself. I haven’t thought about that poem much at all since I came back. I ignored the promises, stopped in the woods, and haven’t regretted it at all. Well, not much. I know I’m happier here than I was on the trail. I think maybe I’m getting what I wanted here. It’s hard to tell though, since I never knew what I wanted to begin with.”

“Maybe you’re not out of the woods yet,” Chanyeol said, “Maybe hiking the trail was stopping by the woods on a snowy evening, you stepping out of life and doing something you didn’t like in a moment of indecision, because it looked so promising, and staying here was you continuing with life and keeping your promises to yourself by sticking with something that made you happy.”

Baekhyun smiled. “Still miles to go before I sleep then, huh? What is sleep in the end then?”

“Happiness,” Chanyeol said.

“I’m happy now.”

Chanyeol giggled cheerfully a little. “Job security. Satisfaction with how you are.”

“Death,” Baekhyun added dramatically, but he liked that. Satisfaction. What a rare prize. “Well then. The woods are lovely, dark, and deep indeed,” he said in a sultry voice, running a finger up Chanyeol’s arm, who cackled. “But maybe that’s why I have to leave in August or September instead of just applying for a job here now and never going back. I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I’m satisfied with my life.”

“Good for you, Baek,” Chanyeol said softly. “I’ll miss you though.”

“We’ll be fine,” Baekhyun said. “I doubt you’ll find any other cute hikers as cool as me. I’ve got no one better waiting for me back home. No one better anywhere on the fucking planet. You’re mine. I’m keeping you. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, or whatever. It’s only a couple months till I get you back. We’ll make it work.”

“I love you,” Chanyeol said, and it was the first time Baekhyun had heard it out loud, if he didn’t count the time Chanyeol had whispered it into his hair as they were both falling asleep.

“Good. I’d hate for this to be one sided after all the mental anguish I’ve gone through to stay here with you.”

Chanyeol smiled that blinding smile, and Baekhyun’s heart felt whole again, warmed, watered, and alive, Chanyeol his sun, his roots in the dark mountain dirt. He was loved. He was at peace. The world could throw what it wanted at him, and he had Chanyeol behind him to help him take it. The longest distance and the hardest falls couldn’t hurt him. He’d go back home and let life batter him again, figure out where he stood and start moving forward, but he wood always have Chanyeol and the woods, and reason to believe he could make it through. Had he found himself? Did he care? He was who he was, and that was enough. “Love you, Channy-boy. Thank you.”