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“Are you out of your fucking mind, Jaebum?” Mark growled at him and scoffed in disbelief. Jaebum on the other hand sighed heavily. He made his way over to the couch and leaned against its softness. “I don’t want to take that as a sign that you’re going to sit there and do nothing.”
“I am feeling really stressed out right now.” Jaebum glared at the older with his anger radiating around him. Mark looked skeptical. He sat himself on the couch too and breathed out of frustration.
“You have to tell him.” Mark broke the momentary silence. Jaebum cringed at his words and slowly settled himself back onto his feet. He felt even more pressured after hearing those words, but he knew that he was right.
“I know, Mark.” Jaebum responded, but his dry throat made his voice rough. “I didn’t tell you this to hear obvious statements from you.”
“What the hell did you expect me to say?” Mark retorted. “You should have controlled yourself, but instead you decided to go fuck someone else.”
Jaebum scowled at the older, thinking he went too far this time. It was bad enough that he was putting himself into shame and to have Mark make him feel worse didn’t cut it for him. His phone had vibrated, but Jaebum disregarded it. There was no way he was going to check what it was for.
“Is it Jinyoung?”
The sudden question ticked Jaebum off. “I wouldn’t know.”
“You can check your phone, you know.” Mark caustically said to him. “You’re angry. I know you are, but you really don’t have any other option here. You have to tell him about Jinyoung.”
Jaebum kept quiet until Mark got annoyed of the silence. He let out his breath and tugged out his keys from his pocket. “I honestly don’t know how else to help you.”
Before he was able to leave, they were both disturbed by the ringing that came from the door. Jaebum walked over and unlatched the locks, only to be taken aback by Youngjae suddenly visiting him. He was supposed to be in bed, tucked away from his fever. Jaebum approached him with his hand reaching out. His palm made contact with his forehead, and Jaebum could feel his heat from the touch.
“You’re supposed to be getting rest.”
Youngjae looked at Jaebum with his dull eyes, and a smile faintly showered over his face. “I couldn’t sleep so I thought I would come visit you.” He could see how surprised Jaebum looked and was confused for a moment. “Were you able to see my text? I sent you one to let you know.”
“I didn’t look at my phone.” Jaebum admitted apologetically.
Youngjae tilted his head to the side and noticed Mark was also present in the room. “I am so sorry. I hope I didn’t interrupt you guys.” He frowned a bit, clearly upset about not thinking about his visit through. He probably should have waited until Jaebum replied to his text.
“It’s alright.” Jaebum smiled at him to lighten the mood. Mark eyed him, but he would turn to look the other way when he saw Youngjae looming over.
“I’m gonna go now.”
Youngjae brought his hand to his throat and rubbed it vigorously while coughing. Jaebum couldn’t help to feel sympathetic toward him. It had been a week now and Youngjae wasn’t feeling any better. Jaebum sat Youngjae down and made some honey mint tea to better help his throat.
“Here, drink this.” He handed Youngjae the tea and watched him blow lightly at the top.
“Thank you.” Youngjae took a sip of the drink and wrinkled his nose. He wanted to cry, but instead stuck out his tongue to cool it.
“Idiot.” Jaebum chuckled and rested his head on the set of laps next to him. He has seen every angle of Youngjae and to say the least, they were all perfect.
“I blew on it though.” He spoke while his tongue was still hanging at the edge of his lips. Jaebum was truly astonished by his way of thinking. Even though he was sick with a fever, he still had that unique personality of his. He stared at Jaebum lovingly, and this made him think that despite everything about Youngjae was perfect, his eyes did the most to him. The corners of his lips curved, causing Youngjae to do the same too.
“Youngjae.” Jaebum paused for a moment and came into deep thought. The walls of his apartment weren’t that thick. Ever since Youngjae arrived, Jaebum wondered if he was able to overhear his conversation with Mark. It was unlikely of course, but he was being paranoid. The thought of Youngjae hearing about what he had done made him panic. Jaebum fixed his improper gesture by sitting up.
“What’s wrong?” Youngjae was now the one in worry.
“Did you hear anything when you got here?” Jaebum kept his gaze elsewhere, though Youngjae didn’t bother to do that as well.
“No, of course not.” Youngjae answered in perplexity. “It seems like you had a serious talk with Mark.”
“Yeah, something like that.”
Youngjae could see that Jaebum wasn’t feeling reassured. “If I did find out about anything, I wouldn’t ask you about it because it wouldn’t be any of my business.”
“Even if it was about you?” Jaebum hesitated and thought about what he had said. He swore at himself for not saying it differently.
“Can we talk about something else? This is scaring me.” Youngjae laughed softly and gazed at the warm cup in his hands. Jaebum was feeling desolated as he stared along with him. For Jaebum, keeping a secret from Youngjae felt like he was drowning himself. It hurt too much that he just couldn’t breathe.
He slowly opened his eyes to the complete darkness. Jaebum felt something heavy resting itself on his shoulder while taking short breaths. He reached for his phone that was laying on the couch beside him and turned on the blinding screen. His eyes tried to adjust itself to the sudden light glistening in the dark.
It was past midnight and considerably very late. Jaebum felt pain in his back from every small movement he made.
“Youngjae.” He lifted his shoulder up to keep Youngjae upright, but his head kept finding its comfort back on his shoulder. As Jaebum was repositioning himself, he felt something moist blot onto his shirt. The slow breaths that Jaebum was hearing sped up kind of like an adrenaline rushing through. He was alarmed by the situation. “Youngjae.” There was still no sound coming from the other except for low painful groans. Jaebum cursed under his breath and reached his hand over to check his forehead again.
“Fuck, Youngjae wake up.” Jaebum sat up with his hands placed on his shoulder to keep Youngjae from leaning over. The heat he was giving off made Jaebum startled. Youngjae was slightly shaking, but it couldn’t be that he was cold. His forehead was drenched in sweat. Jaebum had to move him to the bedroom because the couch was not an ideal place
The sound of cold water running echoed through the bathroom. Jaebum squeezed the excess water from the towel and brought it over to place it on Youngjae’s forehead. Since he was asleep, this was all Jaebum could do. He stayed awake for a few hours to allow himself to constantly check up on him. By the time it was four in the morning, that was when he dozed off completely by the side of the bed.
The sun was beaming through the windows, but instead of being awoken by the bright light, Jaebum heard someone whisper his name which was also followed by fragile fingers lightly poking him.
“Jaebum.” The voice was low, but it also sounded genuine. Jaebum opened his eyes ever so slightly and tried to get used to the sun blurring his vision. He stretched to relax his muscles that were so tense and yawned. He looked over to Youngjae and immediately his worry came back.
“Are you alright?” Jaebum hovered over him. He realized that the towel was missing and his eyes frantically went searching for it.
“I’m holding it.” Youngjae swiftly moved his hand from under the blanket. He was holding onto the towel tightly with his slender fingers. He looked at Jaebum in a way that he never wanted to see again.
“Is something wrong?” It was Jaebum’s turn to ask him. The volume of his voice was almost inaudible. Youngjae blankly stared at him and mouthed an apology. Jaebum was confused and didn’t know what his intentions were by doing that.
“Why are you saying sorry?” He took the towel and went back to the sink to soak it again. There wasn’t anything different from the process before. He squeezed the excess water out and approached Youngjae to place it back to where it was. Youngjae however, moved away before he could.
“I haven’t caused you this much trouble before.” He sounded sad, almost like he wasn’t going to forgive himself. “I feel terrible.”
“You’re being ridiculous. There is no trouble at all, and if anything I think I should be the one to say sorry. I can’t even take care of you properly.” With this, Jaebum also thought about how he couldn’t even hold onto his Youngjae properly.
Youngjae chuckled and allowed Jaebum to place the towel on him. He leaned in deeper into the pillows and stared at the ceiling. His fever was still there, but since Jaebum was with him it felt like he was never sick to begin with.
Jaebum smiled at him and watched Youngjae drift off to sleep again. Unfortunately for the other, he couldn’t go back to sleep as he had hoped. Jinyoung had sent a message over to his phone, and Jaebum really wished he hadn’t read it.
“Are you coming over tonight?”
It was just like that, and he started to feel disgusted at himself again. There was no change in his morose expression. He immediately felt empty because at this point he knew there was no chance he could keep Youngjae. He sullenly looked at him with his heart aching. “I’m so sorry.”