Promptober day 5 & 6: Forest & Camping
Was busy with a different writing project so I didn’t write yesterdays prompt, so I just combined these ones😅
Tamakoma camp bonding!(Hyuse does not want to be there)
Characters: Tamakoma 1&2, Yotaro
“So this is a Meeden forest?” Hyuse asked, his hand resting on his hip as he and the other members of tamakoma 2 stood before a sea of trees.
Yuma hummed and inspected it, his typical duck expression on his face. “It’s not that much different from others I’ve seen—barring a few..unique woodlands.” He observed.
Hyuse nodded, also thinking of some of the strange ones he’s seen during his travels.
“Well, it’s just a common one to serve our purposes, nothing special.” Jin laughed, walking up beside them. Hyuse scowled and ignored him.
“Oh, Jin! Where are the others?” Osamu asked, turning his head to face him. At the same time, Yuma crouched and poked a tree stump.
“So this is where we’re going to train for a few days? Hmmm…. It’s not bad.” Yuma nodded with his typical duck expression. He didn’t need it, but it would do well for Osamu and Chika to practice in different terrains.
Chika scratched her cheek and smiled shyly. “Um.. I don’t think that’s quite the reason we’re here.” She told Yuma, though now she was a little unsure herself.
Both Yuma and Hyuse turned to her. “It’s not?” They questioned simultaneously, their voices merging together. Clearly, both of them were under the impression that they’d be training.
Hyuse’s eyebrows furrowed. He gave up ignoring Jin and asked “Why am I here then? I have no interest in partaking in your little meeden activities if it has nothing to do with training.”
Jin opened his mouth to say something, probably something sleazy, but a voice came from behind instead.
“Because we-“ Reiji interrupted, hauling some bags over. “-can’t leave you home alone.” He finished, dumping a rectangular bag into Hyuse’s arms.
Hyuse scowled, annoyed that he was being forced into something useless. Yuma nudged his arm with his elbow and Hyuse glanced at him.
“Come on, it could be fun! Unless of course, you’re afraid you can’t match me in this terrain?” Yuma said haughtily, smirking.
Hyuse narrowed his eyes. “As if.” He disdained. They met eyes and sparks flew, they would have activated their triggers right then and there if the rest of the group hadn’t arrived.
“Phew!” Usami breathed out, wiping the sweat off of her forehead as everyone gathered at the entrance to the forest. “That should be everything from the car, everyone grab something so we can go find a camping spot!” Usami instructed happily.
Yuma blinked. “What’s camping?” He asked innocently. Everyone stared at him, minus Hyuse who also didn’t know.
After a brief moment of silence, Jin said that they’ll explain on the way so everyone gathered their stuff—except Yotaro, who failed to lift anything up properly and was sulking on top of raijinmaru.
They followed the trail into the forest, with Torimaru explaining in a few words what camping is.
“Ohh” Yuma hit the palm of his hand with his fist, “I’ve done that a lot then, during my travels. what about you?” He realized, then turned to Hyuse.
Hyuse nodded. “Same as you.” He stated, looking around the area. The general look and feel of this meeden forest is the same as most of the ones he’s been to in his world, but he doesn’t recognize the trees and plants species at all.
He wondered how sturdy the trees were.
Tamakoma took their time exploring, since this was just a fun outing they weren’t in any rush. They passed by all kinds of berry bushes and flowers, trees wrapped in vines and other flora, broken and knocked over logs that blocked their path, and many streams.
Yuma stopped and marveled at these things many times, joined by an excited Yotaro and a much calmer Hyuse. Yotaro took every opportunity he could to explain what things were, like the toad that hopped onto Yuma’s face.
Though he could barely get the words out without laughing.
They got to see many new species that were completely unfamiliar to them—even a twisting centipede that Chika handled gently. She showed it to the two neighbors happily, but they backed away quickly and tried to move on.
(When your around rotting corpse so often, you tend to develop a distaste for insects)
Konami had to knock unknown berries out of Hyuse and Yuma’s hands multiple times, the lecture of ‘don’t eat things you don’t know!’ going unlearned by the two.
They were hours into their hike when they came across a deep gully. There hadn’t been much rain, so it wasn’t too full of water—they could wade through it easily if they wanted too.
But Yuma spotted something funner.
There was a broken tree, disconnected from its stump but perfectly clearing the distance of the gap.
Yuma grinned and tugged on Osamu’s arm. With one look, Osamu could tell what Yuma wanted to do and hurriedly shook his head, refusing vehemently.
….to his misfortune, Konami noticed it too and pointed it out. No one wanted to get wet so..
That’s how Osamu found himself falling into water.
Everyone agreed to use that to cross, even Chika even if she was more hesitant. Yuma was the first one to jump on, followed by Hyuse. The two moved across it as if they were on the hardwood floors of the base, Yuma was even playing around by jumping on the few branches still attached to the trunk.
They made it easily to the other side. Osamu did not. He got a wobbly few steps in before he slipped and dropped off the log.
He hit the water with a loud splash, and everyone paused. Konami, Yotaro, and Yuma burst out laughing as Osamu pushed himself up.
He was drenched and muddy, plus his glasses were skewed. The appearance was too messy not to laugh at.
Osamu was tempted to collapse back into the water, but he was healed by Chika concernedly asking if he was alright.
By the time Osamu was fished out of the gully, the sun was high up in the sky and Torimaru suggested they find a place to set up camp and eat lunch, which Hyuse readily agreed to.
After a bit of searching, they found a small and level clearing that was perfect for setting up tents.
Hyuse…had no idea how to do that. Reiji told him that the bag he held contained one and asked him to set it up, but didn’t tell him how. The instructions were in Japanese too, so he could only rely on the pictures.
By the time the rest of the tents were set up, Hyuse had only gotten halfway through his. Even though he clearly needed it, he stubbornly refused Konami’s help making her stomp away while grumbling about ‘annoying juniors’
Eventually he managed to get it with minimal help from Yotaro, but he couldn’t escape Yuma’s teasing about it taking so long.
The two ended up running off while Torimaru and Reiji prepared lunch, not that anyone was worried. They’d be back for food soon enough.
Torimaru brought out a portable stove while Reiji sliced some meat he kept stored in a cooler. They also made some sandwiches and the meat was grilling. They were mostly for Hyuse and Yuma who has the biggest apatites, since the main lunch was most likely going to be enough for everyone else.
Awhile later, the smell of meat permeated through the forest and the two neighbors came trailing back, visibly more disheveled than they had been when they left.
Curiously enough, Hyuse also had some flowers tangled in his hair in between his right horn, leaving the flowers sitting on top of it.
Yotaro marveled at it while Konami, Jin, and Torimaru snuck pictures, but Hyuse was distracted by the food and didn’t answer when asked how he got them there.
They had to give it up, since Yuma just chuckled when they asked him and took some sandwiches.
Everyone settled down to eat lunch, and the food was gone quickly. After all the hiking they did, the group was hungrier than expected and Reiji had to make a couple more sandwiches to satisfy everyone.
After that, they explored around the area some more and did camping activities before the sun went down and they had to sleep.
Yuma and Yotaro took great pleasure in fishing for an hour, they even managed to catch a few that Yuma cooked up as something to go with dinner.
They also sifted through the river to see if they could catch any by hand or find other cool things, with the help of Osamu who was already wet.
Reiji sat on the edge of the gull with a beer in hand, watching them. Usami and Chika were out looking at plants and flowers, with Usami knowing some of them and explaining to Chika.
Konami had challenged Jin and Torimaru to some sort of game, it seemed to be going rather evenly so far.
Hyuse was roped into multiple things by Yuma and Yotaro, but when he got some alone time he drew. By the end of the day, there were multiple pictures of the scenery—and of tamakoma’s activities, thrown around on papers barely being held down by random objects.
They had dinner, another delicious and filling meal though this time it was made by Jin and Konami, then settled around a campfire to tell stories.
Konami insisted they be scary stories, as is the usual for this kind of thing, but after a few rounds and a freshly traumatized Yotaro, they unanimously agreed to never let Hyuse and Yuma tell horror tales again.
……or at least, they hoped they were just tales.
Yuma didn’t see what was so wrong with their stories, and even asked Hyuse to tell some more, so Konami shoved the two into the tent Hyuse set up and sharply told them to do it amongst themselves or get to sleep!
Those left outside mentally apologized to Yotaro, who was supposed to share a tent with the two.
Not long after, everyone else went into their respective tents and settled down for the night as well.
The crickets chirped loudly, and most of the group wasn’t used to that kind of background noise, but they were still able to sleep peacefully while looking forward to tomorrow’s fun.
