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Jimin wakes up disoriented and immediately wishes he didn’t, wishes he were still floating in the oblivion of sleep. He’s so tired, despite getting plenty of sleep after turning in early the night before.
He raises his head off the pillow tentatively. The room spins. He lets his head flop back and squeezes his eyes shut, breathing deeply through his nose.
Sounds of movement and clatter, which are no doubt what woke him up, assail him from beyond the bedroom door.
The noises feel closer than they should. The distance and the door offer no protection when the sounds seem to stem from inside his own skull, rattling around and leaving tender bruising in their aftermath. Flinching at the particularly sharp sound of a cupboard door slamming shut, he groans and curls tighter around himself, protectively.
Bunching the blankets up and over his ears, they offer him some small safety, a softening of the sound and muffling of the world beyond his bed.
It’s the reason he doesn’t notice the door swing open or the quiet footfalls that pad toward him even though he hears them. He’s still far too sound-sensitive, but all he notices is the reprieve these gentle sounds give him in comparison to the harsh ones before.
Fingers card through his hair and sweep it off his forehead. He blinks his eyes open and forces them into focus.
“Hey,” Jungkook murmurs, “I’m leaving soon. Is there anything you need?”
“Kiss,” Jimin slurs automatically, reaching towards him with a floppy hand. Though there will likely be a number of concerns he’ll find himself with soon, all he wants is Jungkook’s comfort and affection in the moment.
Jungkook comes to him easily, encircling his shoulders with a solid arm and cradling the back of his head, caressing his lips in a languid kiss. Jimin sighs contentedly, melting another couple centimeters back into the mattress.
“Bad health day?” Jungkook asks against his mouth, and Jimin hums his assent.
“Feel like five month-old fish bait.”
Jungkook snorts quietly at his grumbling.
“At least you smell better than fish bait.”
He nuzzles into Jimin’s neck, leaving a trail of kisses and light pleasure that chases down his discomfort, even if only fleetingly.
“You say that now. Don’t leave me out in the sun, whatever you do. Or you will be feeding me to the fishes then.”
“Never. I’m the only one allowed to eat you.” Jimin giggles and squirms when he feels Jungkook suck the top half of his ear into his mouth and nibble on it. “Mm, delicious,” he says, sucking on his ear one last time before releasing it with a wet plop.
Jungkook straightens and Jimin misses his warmth. Fatigue latches its persistent claws back into him in his partner’s place, leaving him rapidly deflating. He resists the urge to whine or call him back, knowing Jungkook really does have to leave.
“You have your water bottle here and I’ll bring you a banana before I leave,” Jungkook starts, gesturing at the nightstand. “Is your phone charged?”
Jimin digs his phone out from under his pillow where he’d shoved it after he’d fallen asleep reading webtoons on it the night before. Wordlessly, he passes it to Jungkook, who quickly checks it.
“Twenty-three percent. I’ll plug it in for you. If you need any extra help today– ”
“Call my mom or Taehyung to come over, got it,” Jimin interrupts him. It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate Jungkook’s concern, all that he does for him, but he doesn’t like being fussed over or told what to do.
It reminded him too much of the ex he’d left years ago now. Their relationship had been new and shiny when Jimin first started to fall ill. And maybe Jimin hadn’t taken his declining health all that well, struggling with himself and no patience left over for a partner. But.
His ex had been far too happy to jump in whenever Jimin began to struggle. Taking boxes from Jimin’s hands without ever being asked. Clinging an awkward arm around his waist whenever Jimin so much as wavered in his step, getting in his way and throwing him further off balance. Giving self-satisfied assurances of how well he would take care of him. He’d meant well.
Jimin had tried to set boundaries. He doesn’t always need help, had explained as much, and when he does need help he needs it on his terms. He knows better than anyone how to help himself, having had to constantly find solutions to ever-increasing hurdles.
When his ex had all but moved in, trying to dictate what Jimin should and shouldn’t do, from what he ate to how long he could spend lying down, he decided he’d had enough. There was no more working through their problems. His ex had called him ungrateful, that he’d done everything out of love, all for the sake of him ‘getting better’. As if eating raw garlic could cure chronic illness. As if he’d asked him for any of his burdensome interference in his choices.
Not long after the breakup, Jimin made the difficult decision to move back in with his parents in his hometown. He doesn’t regret it. He had no real choice at that point – out of work after being too sick to hold down a job and struggling to even meet his basic needs. Sometimes going too long without getting groceries, too long without showering, and so on because he was too tired, or dizzy, or...
It’d been a different kind of challenge living with the people who’d raised him from a baby, who couldn’t always see him as the autonomous adult he’d been for years. And challenging because he was at least partially dependent on them, whether he liked it or not.
As a result, he still finds it difficult to admit when he needs any type of help, to show weakness. Jimin has never wanted to leave himself so vulnerable to someone like his ex again.
On top of that, his head has begun to pound, bright spots of pain obscuring his vision, and he just wants to go back to sleep.
“Promise me,” Jungkook says, leaning over until their eyes are forced to meet, despite Jimin squinting through his headache. He hopes it won’t become a full-on migraine, which are often completely incapacitating for him.
Jimin just grunts in response.
“I mean it, Jimin,” Jungkook presses. “I know you. I don’t want to go to the hospital for a twelve-hour shift worried about whether or not you’ve decided you’d rather starve all day than ask someone to come over and help you. So, please, promise me you’ll call someone.”
Jungkook’s eyes are so terribly earnest. Jimin’s heart cracks open a little and fills with warm sutures. Jimin takes a deep breath in, reminding himself of the ways Jungkook is different. Jungkook is safe.
“I promise, Jungkookie.”
“Thank you,” he sighs in relief.
He walks to the door, presumably to fetch the banana he promised for Jimin’s breakfast, when Jimin calls after him.
“Can you bring me painkillers?”
“Migraine?” His face creases in worry and he takes a step back into the room.
“Just a headache for now,” Jimin is quick to reassure him. “Don’t worry.”
Jungkook’s obvious concern is the reason why he hasn’t brought it up sooner, but he’s promised him to ask for the help he needs today, so here they are. He supposes it beats dragging himself to the kitchen to fumble around for them once the pain inevitably gets too bad for him to ignore.
“Okay,” Jungkook acquiesces. There’s not much he can do if Jimin does get a migraine anyway. He still has to leave for the hospital.
He brings Jimin his banana and painkillers, but Jimin barely notices, having slipped back down into the murk that crowds the edges of his vision and fogs his mind. It’s not until Jungkook nudges him with his bottle of water and the pills he brought that he reacts.
He takes them groggily, murmurs his thanks, and breathes in the feeling of tender kisses across his face. He holds onto that anchor a moment longer before being swept away by the current, tides of vertigo and dull throbbing pain washing over and pulling him under.
He lets go and lets the undertow take him.
For the rest of the morning he’s in and out, caught somewhere between the home he shares with Jungkook and another reality.
He won’t be doing any translation work today, which is fine. He schedules his own work hours, and he’d done a decent amount yesterday. He just hopes he feels better in the next few days, or it’s going to be a nightmare trying to cram in the hours he needs by the end of the week, especially if he still feels like this.
He’s lucky he found flexible part-time work he could do from home. That had been one of his conditions for moving in with Jungkook.
Jimin knows he can be stubborn and prideful, but he’d wanted a job for his own sake. Something to focus his energies on. He’s found satisfaction in getting lost in the words, caught between two languages and needing to bridge the gap. But that will have to wait for another day.
When he finally surfaces fully from his sleep-haze, afternoon light fills the bedroom, shining harshly behind their blinds, bright and still merciless on his senses. He would roll over and try to slip back under, but his body has other needs that demand attention.
He braces his feet on the floor and stands. Everything lurches, pain beats through his head along with his heavy pulse, but he keeps a firm hand on the wall and staggers to the bathroom across the hall. Of all his senses, he trusts touch the most.
Even when he’s so dizzy he can’t tell up from down and pain blots his vision, he can hold onto something solid, find a constant in the chaos of his senses, ground himself.
Outside, navigating the world, Jungkook has often become that constant. But here, it’s the walls and furniture of their apartment, the very structure of their home. He doesn’t bother with lights at night anymore, so familiarized with the layout (freaking Jungkook out once or twice when he stumbled across Jimin in a previously unlit room).
Jimin finishes his business in the bathroom and drags himself back to bed. Fatigued from just this small exertion, he wants to go back to sleep, but he eats the banana at his bedside and drinks some water first, knowing he’ll only feel weaker if he doesn’t eat anything, even if he doesn’t feel particularly hungry.
He’s reclining on his pillows when his phone rings from beside him.
Warranted or not, he lets out a long sigh when he sees the caller but answers it anyway.
“Hi Tae.”
“Wow, don’t sound so excited to hear from me, Chim,” Taehyung says sarcastically over the line.
“Sorry,” Jimin mumbles, fingers massaging at his forehead, trying to reach the pain pulsing underneath, “I’m not feeling great today.”
He hears Taehyung’s deep hum as he admits, “Yeah, Jungkook said as much when he messaged me at lunch.”
“Is that why you’re checking up on me? Because Jungkook couldn’t even trust me to call you if I thought I needed it?” He can’t help the bitterness to his words. After all, he’d already promised Jungkook he would look out for himself and Jungkook has still meddled where it wasn’t wanted.
“It’s not like that,” Taehyung defended.
“Then what’s it like?”
For the second time that day, unpleasant memories flood Jimin of other unsolicited help that was forced on him. Jungkook and Taehyung haven’t done anything unforgivable, but he’s defensive and discontented, expecting better from his boyfriend and soulmate. The only thing that’s worse than people coddling him after finding out that he’s ill is when they don’t believe he’s sick at all.
“I texted him about our weekly gaming session tonight, and he mentioned that he might have to cancel depending how you feel later on.”
“Shit, is it already Wednesday?”
He feels the stirrings of guilt. He hates being controlled just because he’s sick. Because of how his illness can make him vulnerable, it’s all the more reason to be protective of his autonomy. And the people he’s let close to him do respect him, for the most part. And Jungkook has been so great. Concerned without being controlling. He shouldn’t have doubted Jungkook’s trust in him or thought that he would go behind his back to get Tae to check on him.
“Sorry,” he says repentantly.
He also needs to keep better track of his days or he’s really going to fall behind with work. They’ve been blurring together a lot recently. Probably a result of how shit he’s been feeling. Today is particularly bad, but the whole past month has been rough. Rougher than usual. He hopes the worst will pass soon and he’ll be able to enjoy walks in the park with Jungkook again, small gatherings at Tae’s with their other friends.
As it is, the light in his days, the clarity in a long stretch of fog, is Jungkook. Jungkook and his sweet words and gentle touches. His companion and his lover.
“It’s okay. How are you doing?”
Taehyung’s question, laced with concern, brings him out of his own thoughts again. He reminds himself that Jungkook’s not the only one who worries about him and that it comes from a place of love.
“I’ve managed to get up,” he says, “and I’ve eaten.” A banana. He’s eaten a banana, but he’s really not hungry, and he could do worse.
“Which means, in Jimin-speak, I should come over and bring my cuddles?”
Jimin chuckles at his best friend. Tae knows him too well and has for too long – he knows that as much as he’ll whine over small things, Jimin habitually minimizes the real struggles he faces, speaking only the positives out loud and leaving out the negatives.
“No, it means I’m okay. Really,” he insists when he hears Tae about to protest. “I’ll probably mostly sleep until Jungkook gets home, so there’s not much point in you coming over.”
“Okay,” Tae sighs, “but let me know if anything changes, yeah? I hope you feel better.”
Jimin promises him just as he’d promised Jungkook, they say their goodbyes, and Taehyung finally hangs up.
He drops his phone on the bed and covers his eyes with an arm. The light through the window still feels too bright for his headache. He’s straddling sleep, but Tae’s call has woken him up just enough to feel restless.
He twists, reaches over until he touches his laptop tucked on the bottom shelf of the nightstand. He struggles a little to get it set up next to him on Jungkook’s side of the bed because he does it all while lying down, refusing to get up again and risk making his head feel any worse.
He puts on a movie, one he’s seen before but likes enough to rewatch. Something he can listen to and easily follow while he keeps his eyes closed. He likes the soundtrack to this one too. He’s only about halfway through when he drifts off again.
When Jimin next wakes up, the setting sun paints his walls a warm orange, the light finally softening to something comforting. He’s still groggy, but he stretches and feels some of the fatigue leave his limbs. He sits up slowly, but his head no longer hurts, just a lingering discomfort behind his eyes. He’s finally feeling better. Taking the day to rest had clearly helped, though it doesn’t always. He’s grateful.
He checks his phone for the time. Six thirty-seven in the evening. He’s slept all day and has approximately half an hour before Jungkook gets home.
His stomach grumbles, so he gets up and shuffles his way to the kitchen.
He sucks on his teeth as he peers into the fridge. There’s not much beyond the basics and half a container of kimchi his mom had given them. They’re due for a grocery run.
He pulls out the kimchi and a couple of eggs. He gets the rice cooker going and gathers all the other ingredients and utensils he’ll need for kimchi fried rice and sets them all out on the cramped cupboard space.
Grabbing a chair, he sits down in relief while he drains the cabbage kimchi and chops it into smaller pieces.
He’s frying the kimchi on the stove when the rice cooker dings and he adds the fresh rice to the pan along with the drained kimchi juice, water, and gochujang.
He’s adding the finishing touches, sesame seeds, dried seaweed, green onion, and fried egg just as Jungkook walks through the door.
“Jimin? I’m home,” he calls from the other room.
“I made kimchi fried rice,” Jimin says by way of welcome.
“Smells good,” he says, wrapping his arms around Jimin from behind. “Almost as delicious as my fish bait.”
Jimin groans, leaning back into his arms. “What have I started? Please don’t make that your new awful pet name for me.”
“You mean you didn’t like it when I called you my second prostate exam?”
Jimin smacks him but doesn’t miss the shit-eating grin Jungkook’s giving him.
“You have to let that go.”
“ You were the mischievous little imp who decided to tease me about anal sex in front of your mom the very first time I met her.”
“I’m a fairy, not an imp, and relax. Mom has no clue how gay sex works. She never suspected I was talking about anything other than a medical exam.”
“I wanted to stuff you under the dinner table, but fuck that was funny.”
The memory never fails to make them laugh, and they both get caught up in their giggles, Jimin’s weight caught in Jungkook’s arms as he overbalances.
“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Jungkook says gently.
“Me too,” Jimin says into his chest where he’s turned and buried his face. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
Jungkook squeezes him in a tight hug. “We take care of each other. You don’t know how amazing it is to come home to you smiling after a long, stressful shift.”
“I thought you were gonna mention the kimchi.”
“That too, but you’re still my favourite snack. A whole meal. My sweet fish bait.”
“If I caught you, that makes you the fish,” Jimin retorts, but Jungkook keeps going with his nonsense undeterred, teasing. He should probably stop encouraging him with his giggles, but he doesn’t.
They do eventually eat the kimchi fried rice before it grows too cold, and Jungkook does get his game night with Taehyung, but they both indulge in each other just a little longer.
This is their tally at the end of the day, the sum of the bad days, the days when Jimin struggles to get out of bed and Jungkook works long hours with few breaks at the hospital. Somehow, despite everything, they always manage to come out with a net positive, love and laughter their currency.