"Here you go, one bowl of chicken soup."
"Thank you."
Michael took the bowl of soup and was surprised at how good it smelled. Maybe it was his hunger or maybe it truly was that good, but Michael thought he could drink at least 4 or 5 bowls.
Bringing the bowl to his lips, Michael took a small sip of the soup.
A shock went through Michael's body. Even though the soup had just come out of the cooking pot, the soup didn't burn his lips but was just hot enough to fill his body with warmth. The chicken flavor in the soup had a slightly spicy, tangy, almost curry-like taste, probably caused by some of the seasonings, while the vegetables gave the soup a small crisp plant-like taste which balanced out the soup. The chicken itself was also cooked very well; not too chewy while also not being too hard to chew.
Michael could see why Elizabeth's and Lily's faces glowed when they saw the cooking pot, the soup that Kim Yeong made was very, very good, and since Michael was staying with them for a couple of days, he was hoping his other food was too. Before long, he cleaned out everything in the bowl and was still very hungry. He saw that the other three also wanted more.
"Do you guys want some more soup? We got enough for all of us to eat 3 or so more bowls."
"Yessir!" Elizabeth, Lily, and Shiratori all jumped out of their sitting positions and handed Kim Yeong their bowls. After filling them up, Kim Yeong turned to Michael.
"If you ever want more, just grab one of the ladles and fill at much as you want." Kim Yeong pointed to a bag of cooking utensils and other cooking items.
"Alright, thank you."
Michael grabbed a spare ladle from the cooking bag and came back to fill up his bowl. Filling his bowl, he went to sit down and started enjoying the soup once again. Watching the 3 kids having fun drinking their soups and joking around with each other, Michael felt a bit of attachment to them. Even though he was probably going to get split up from them when 'The Invasion' happened, he still felt a bit of joy when hanging around kind people.
As they got caught up in the good vibes and tasty food, an hour flew by in an instant.
"It's time to clean up! Bring your bowls here and we'll wash 'em tomorrow when we head to the lake!"
Kim Yeong called over the 3 kids and they all put their bowls inside of Kim Yeong's. Michael did the same thing.
"Alright, tomorrow, we head to the lake. Now get some sleep, we leave early in the morning!" After finishing cleaning up everything, Kim Yeong called lights out.
But, before Kim Yeong even finished, Elizabeth and Lily had already grabbed their sleeping bags and slipped into them. Kim Yeong chuckled a bit before telling Shiratori to grab a bag for Michael.
Shiratori fumbled through their backpacks before finding a spare bag they brought in case one broke. Giving the bag to Michael, he sat beside him while watching the campfire slowly losing life as the wood burned into ash.
"I'm sure the young master has already said something like this before, but it's okay to be scared of us. I mean, I was quite shocked when he walked out of the forest with someone trailing behind him. I thought he was being held as a hostage or something. But now that we've got to know you a bit, our fear has settled quite a bit. So don't worry, we won't do anything to harm you. Now get some rest, we got a lake to see tomorrow!"
At that last part, Shiratori let out a big grin as he went to his own sleeping bag and prepared to sleep.
'Ha...they are all good kids, I'm gonna miss them when we separate.' Michael climbed into his sleeping bag and as the last embers started to dim, so too did Michael's sight.
---
"Hey come on, hurry up slowpokes! I trained you guys better than this! How can you be slower than someone who is about to die of exhaustion?!"
Michael felt a mix between praise and insult thrown his way, but what could he say? He truly was literally on the floor panting out of exhaustion. He had no clue how he wasn't tired on his way down from the lake, the only thing he could think of was the huge fucking backpack he was carrying.
"Huff, huff, words hurt, you know...And you ain't carrying shit, you bastard..."
"Yeah, Master! How could you be so cruel!"
Still on the floor, Michael glared at Kim Yeong who was walking without carrying anything. He looked at the other three and saw that even though they weren't carrying as much stuff, they still had huge backpacks.
'Where the fuck did all these backpacks come from...They weren't this large yesterday...' Complaining to himself, he gradually got back to his feet and saw that Kim Yeong was already zooming ahead of them. Not wanting to lose him, he took one slow step at a time and just counted '1, 2, 1, 2', and the next thing he knew it, he was in a rhythm.
Seeing Michael almost collapsing and still walking, the other 3 kept their complaint inside their heads and caught up to Michael. Before long, they reached the lake.
"Ugh, I'm never doing that again." Michael was lying with his back on the floor, feeling like his whole body was on fire. The other 3 weren't faring so well either, with Lily just face planting into the dirt.
"I'm going into the water first! Y'all can join in whenever you want!" Kim Yeong could be seen swimming in the lake as all 4 of them just stared at him with anger. Even Lily looked like she wanted to punch him.
"Grrr, I swear, Young Master is going to face our revenge. Alrighty then, I guess I'll set up some towels and stuff. Elizabeth, Lily, go change over there. Michael, do whatever you want, just don't go peeking at the girls. Shiratori laughed at his own joke and went to set up towels and a couple other things people used when they went to the beach.
Micheal, of course, wasn't going to just gonna sneak around and watch girls changing, especially under-aged ones. He wasn't a pervert. Instead, he just sat there, as he was bigger than Shiratori, but skinner than Kim Yeong, so he had nothing to wear. And he was perfectly content with just sleeping.
And so he did.