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Yuchan shivered, pulling the airplane blanket tighter around his body as he heard the ding of one of the flight attendants coming over the intercom to let them know that they were beginning their final descent into Seoul. Yuchan was thankful that they were finally almost home; he’d started feeling sick towards the end of their concert in Calgary, with an obvious fever and a sore throat that felt as though he was trying to swallow a steel-wool brush. Yuchan had pushed through, finishing the show and then quickly medicating himself as much as possible without telling anyone that he felt sick. The last thing Yuchan wanted was to end up stuck in a foreign country, while the rest of his members were back in Korea participating in the last few schedules they’d planned to promote their newest song.
Yuchan had been careful to try and avoid letting anyone know that he wasn’t feeling well, pretending to sleep and heading to the plane’s bathroom whenever he needed to take more of the medication despite the fact that swallowing the pills without anything to wash them down was torture. The medication had helped keep his symptoms hidden well enough that he’d been able to make it almost all the way to Seoul, but he’d missed a dose while he was actually sleeping and he was completely miserable.
“Yah… Channie, you don’t look so good,” Donghun commented, as the older man put up his tray table. “Are you feeling alright?”
“Throat hurts,” Yuchan replied softly, following the older man’s lead and starting to prepare for their upcoming landing. The truth was that everything hurt, and Yuchan knew that he’d probably made a mistake trying to push himself to wait until they arrived in Seoul to seek medical treatment. His throat was so sore that he couldn’t even bring himself to try and swallow anything, and Yuchan knew that he was getting pretty seriously dehydrated given how long it had been since he’d been able to bear even sipping on his bottle of water.
Donghun reached out to press a hand against Yuchan’s forehead, pulling back almost immediately. “Aish… you’re burning up…” the older man commented, sitting up and grabbing Yuchan’s bottle of water. “Here, you need to drink…”
“Can’t,” Yuchan replied, shaking his head and pushing the bottle away. “Hurts too much…”
“Just try, Channie,” Donghun prodded, holding the bottle to his lips. Yuchan sighed, letting the older man help him take a small sip of the water, nearly crying out at how much his throat hurt before he pushed the bottle away again. “Aish… Channie, your neck…”
Yuchan reached up, feeling the tender, swollen lymph nodes there as well as the strange, bumpy texture of his skin. “What?”
“You have a rash…” Yuchan couldn’t see it, but he certainly felt it. He watched as Donghun pulled the blanket away from Yuchan’s arms, pushing back his sleeves so that they could both see the red bumps all across his skin. “How long have you been feeling sick?”
“I don’t know…” Yuchan replied, shaking his head. “I just wanted to get home…”
Yuchan closed his eyes, feeling Donghun move away from him quickly and hearing the older man’s seatbelt unbuckle. “I’m getting manager-hyung…”
“Hyung…” Yuchan began.
“Sir, the seatbelt sign is turned on… please return to your seat…” a flight attendant began, moving quickly towards them. Given the fact that Yuchan and Donghun were on the very front row of their section, it wasn’t all that surprising that the woman was there almost instantly.
“He’s sick…” Donghun began.
“Please just sit down,” the woman replied. “Does he need immediate medical attention?”
“I don’t know… he’s running a fever, and he says that his throat is really sore. And he has a rash…” Donghun began. Yuchan felt the flight attendant gently placing her hand on the side of his head.
“When did his symptoms start?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Donghun replied. “He didn’t really know when I asked…”
There was a brief moment of silence, before the flight attendant spoke up again. “I’m going to have the pilot radio in to have someone meet us at the gate… if anything changes, please just hit the call button and allow us to take the appropriate action to help him,” the woman commented.
The flight attendant’s presence seemed to have attracted the attention of others on the plane, and Yuchan could see Junhee leaning towards them from across the aisle once she was gone. “What’s happening?” the leader asked.
“Channie’s sick… like, really sick,” Donghun replied softly. “The flight attendant is going to have the pilot call and get someone to meet us at the gate.”
“Aish… is it that bad?” Junhee asked.
“He’s running a pretty high fever, and he can barely swallow. And there’s some kind of rash all over his arms and neck…” Donghun answered. Yuchan closed his eyes, sinking back into his seat and covering himself with the thin blanket provided by the airline. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t like what I’m seeing…”
“Switch seats with me…” Junhee began.
“No… if he’s contagious, then I’m already screwed. But you might not be,” Donghun replied. “Let manager-hyung know what’s going on, okay? I can take care of Channie.”
Yuchan felt the older man running a hand through his hair. “Mianhe…” he began.
“Shh… just rest, okay? We’re almost home.”
Yuchan was even more miserable by the time their plane landed, thanks to the changes in pressure and having to repeatedly force himself to swallow despite the pain in his throat to make the pain in his ears go away. Yuchan quickly slipped on a mask to hide his face, as the flight attendant moved back towards them while the pilot came over the loudspeaker to make an announcement. “We have a team of paramedics waiting on the jetway… we’re going to get you off the plane first, so that they can get you to the hospital as quickly as possible.”
“I can walk off the plane…” Yuchan began, wincing as he spoke.
“We’re still going to have you get off first,” the flight attendant replied. “We want to make sure that we get you the appropriate medical care as quickly as possible.” Yuchan nodded, knowing that it wasn’t worth arguing about it. He just wanted to get off the plane and get some kind of medication or something that would help him feel better.
“I’m going with him.” Yuchan looked up at the sound of his CEO’s voice, noting the worried look on her face.
“You’re traveling together?” the flight attendant asked, turning to look at Hyeim.
“I’m the CEO of his company,” Hyeim replied. “I have all of the information they’ll need about his health history, as well as his family’s contact information.”
The flight attendant nodded. “Of course. If you’ll both follow me.”
Yuchan felt his head starting to spin as soon as he stood, closing his eyes for a brief moment. “Aish… Channie!” Yuchan opened his eyes as he felt Donghun’s arms wrapping around him, realizing that he’d started to lose his balance. “Sit back down…”
“No… I’m okay…” Yuchan replied, once he’d gotten his balance again. It took Donghun a moment to let go of Yuchan, before the older man nodded and moved to get Yuchan’s backpack to hand it over to the flight attendant.
Yuchan didn’t like having everyone stare at him as the two women escorted him off the plane, with Hyeim keeping a hand on his back to make sure that he didn’t collapse on them again. Thankfully, it wasn’t too long of a walk before he was being ushered onto a gurney and the waiting paramedics were hurrying him off to a back room to be evaluated away from the prying eyes of everyone else on the plane.
***
“How long has it been since your first dose of antibiotics?” Donghun asked, leaning against the door frame. Yuchan glanced over at the clock next to Junhee’s bunk, squinting to see the numbers without his glasses. He didn’t feel like putting them on, given the fact that he had been drifting in and out of consciousness most of the afternoon due to sheer exhaustion.
“It was like six-thirty last night,” Yuchan replied, rolling back onto his back. His whole body was still sore, and his throat still hurt like hell, but he was already feeling better after spending a night in the hospital for fluids and antibiotics before being sent home that morning. He’d just missed his hyungs leaving for their episode of After School Club, which meant that Yuchan had been at home with just their CEO to watch over him for most of the day. Not that it had mattered all that much; he’d spent most of the day sleeping to try and avoid having to deal with the pain. “I don’t know why you’re so worried… you’re already potentially infected, anyway.”
Donghun shook his head, smiling and moving over to Yuchan’s bed, climbing in next to him and pulling Yuchan so that he could rest his head on Donghun’s shoulder. “But there was the slight chance you didn’t get me, and I’d rather not end up sick myself,” the eldest replied, stroking Yuchan’s hair. “You really have to go big when you get sick, don’t you?”
Yuchan shrugged. “I can’t help that I caught strep…” he began.
“True. But if you’d told us in Calgary, maybe it would have only been strep instead of a full-blown case of scarlet fever,” Donghun replied. “I’m not scratching your back for you when your skin starts to peel, you know. That’s gross.”
Yuchan smiled. “But hyung… you know that you would do anything for your favorite maknae…” he joked. Yuchan closed his eyes, relaxing into the older man’s embrace. “I’m sorry for worrying everyone. I just wanted to make it home… I was afraid that if I told you all that I wasn’t feeling well, I would end up stuck in Canada on my own because we had schedules here…”
“Your health is more important than our schedules,” Donghun replied. “You know you’re going to get an earful from Hyeim-ssi and manager-hyung when you’re feeling better. You scared the hell out of all of us.”
“I’ve already gotten a lecture from Hyeim-ssi this morning,” Yuchan replied. “She also told me that I’m going to be pulled from the rest of promotions, because I can’t sing until my throat heals. Plus the whole skin peeling thing…”
“But you’re starting to feel better at least?” Donghun asked.
Yuchan nodded. “My throat is still hurting, but it’s more bearable and I can take the pills without feeling like I’m swallowing knives,” Yuchan replied.
“Yah… hyung, you were supposed to wake him up and see if he felt like eating.” Yuchan opened his eyes at Byeongkwan’s words, smiling at the way the second maknae stood in the door with his arms crossed. “Why are you cuddling with him when he’s sick? We can’t have you out, too…”
“He isn’t contagious anymore… it’s a bacterial infection, he’s been on antibiotics for more than 24 hours,” Donghun replied. “Besides, if I’m going to get sick it’s already too late… I was next to him on the plane the whole way from Calgary, and I was the one taking care of him when he finally admitted that he was sick.”
Yuchan couldn’t help feeling a little guilty as he realized that if Donghun got sick, too, it would be the end of promotions for the whole group. Performing one member down was difficult but doable. But with two members out, it would be impossible. Yuchan was already banned from even leaving the dorm until the rash that had spread all over his body had cleared up.
“Come on, Channie… let’s go get you some dinner, okay? You need to drink some water, too, so that you don’t get dehydrated again,” Donghun commented, climbing out of the bed and holding out a hand to help Yuchan up as well. Yuchan let the older man help him out of the bed, following his hyungs out to the table.
Sehyoon was quick to put a blanket around Yuchan once he sat down, before pushing a bottle of water and a bowl of soup in front of him. “How are you feeling?” the older man asked, as the rest of the group moved to sit down and eat their own meals.
“Still tired,” Yuchan replied. “My throat is still hurting, but it isn’t as bad.”
Junhee moved to sit a couple of pills next to Yuchan’s bottle. “Make sure you take those after you finish eating, okay? We don’t want you to get any worse…”
“Thanks, hyung,” Yuchan replied, watching as the others started to eat before he lifted his own spoon. Yuchan couldn’t help smiling as he realized that someone had gotten him dak-kalguksu to eat. Yuchan’s mother had made it for him from scratch whenever he was sick as a child, and the first taste was heavenly. “Where did you guys get the soup? It’s delicious…”
“I’ll tell eomma you liked it,” Byeongkwan replied, smiling at him. “She brought it over while you were asleep earlier, so that we could heat it up for you. There’s enough for a few meals in the fridge, so you can have more tomorrow, too.”
“Thanks, hyung,” Yuchan replied. Although swallowing was painful, Yuchan did his best to eat as much of the soup as possible - both because he actually liked the taste, even if he wasn’t all that hungry, and because Yuchan knew that his body needed to eat. He hadn’t really eaten much of anything since they’d left Calgary because of his sore throat, and Yuchan knew that he needed the nutrition.
Yuchan made it a little over halfway through the bowl before he couldn’t eat any more and he put his spoon down. “You okay, Channie?” Donghun asked, reaching out to rub his back.
“Yeah… just tired,” Yuchan replied, closing his eyes. “I think I’m going to go back to bed…”
“Take your meds first,” Junhee instructed, as Donghun pushed the bottle of water closer to him. Yuchan did as he was told, even though the cold water didn’t feel all that great going down his throat. “Rest, okay? We’ll come check on you in a little while.”
Yuchan nodded, smiling at the older men as he forced himself to his feet and made his way back to his bed.