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“Are you okay?” Felix shook his head at Mark’s question, taking as big of a breath as he could between coughs. Although he had been doing breathing treatments regularly the previous day, Felix had missed a couple of treatments overnight and his lungs were clearly not happy with him. “Do you need your inhaler?”
“Yeah,” Felix wheezed, nodding as Mark moved to grab the device from where Felix had left it on a table across the room next to the nebulizer he’d been using the previous night. Without the spacer it took Felix a bit longer to actually take the full dose of his medication, but he could thankfully tell that his lungs were reacting to it once he was done. “Thanks…”
“Did something happen to trigger an attack?” Mark asked, once Felix was able to breathe a little more easily.
“I missed a couple of treatments overnight…” Felix admitted, closing his eyes for a moment. Despite the fact that he’d gotten a good night’s sleep, Felix was exhausted from the effort of simply trying to breathe. “I need to get my nebulizer…”
“We left it out in the living room, right?” Mark asked. Felix nodded, as he started to get up. “Stay in bed, okay? I’ll get everything for you.”
Under normal circumstances, Felix would have protested that he was more than capable of taking care of himself. But given how difficult it was for Felix to breathe just sitting in the bed, he was honestly thankful for the fact that Mark was going to get everything for him. Felix really just wanted to go back to sleep, but he knew that would not end well. He’d already spent most of the previous day in the doctor’s office being treated for a serious asthma attack, and Felix really didn’t want to end up in the emergency room after all of the things they had done to keep him away from the hospital already.
Felix was honestly surprised at how quickly Mark was back with the bag containing Felix’s nebulizer as well as one of the vials of his medication from the fridge. “It’s just one, right?” Mark asked. “That’s what the box said…”
“Yeah,” Felix replied, nodding as he coughed a couple of times. “I’ll do another in a couple of hours…”
Mark nodded, starting to unpack everything so that Felix could set it up for the treatment. “Do you need anything else? I can text Chan and let him know you’re having a rough morning…” Mark began.
“It’s probably better if he hears it from me,” Felix replied, shaking his head as he worked. “He’ll stress out if you tell him…”
Mark smiled, nodding. “Yeah, you’re probably right… he does have a tendency to worry a bit too much,” the older man replied, sitting down at the foot of the bed. “I’ve always been sort of afraid that he was going to end up giving himself an ulcer, worrying about everyone else all the time. It makes him a good leader, but at the same time it also causes him a lot of unnecessary stress…”
“Yeah…” Felix replied, nodding as he was cut off by another bout of coughing. Although it wasn’t as bad as it had been before his inhaler, he still found the coughing fit exhausting.
“Hey… are you sure there isn’t anything else I can do?” Mark asked, once Felix had stopped coughing and was focused on catching his breath again.
“I’m okay,” Felix replied, shaking his head as he finally got the nebulizer set up. “It just takes a while… and a lot of breathing treatments sometimes.”
Mark nodded, standing up slowly. “I’m going to go make us some breakfast, okay? Let me know if you need anything,” Mark commented, leaving Felix alone so that he could focus on his breathing treatment and letting his own group know that he wasn’t going to be making it to rehearsal that day.
Felix was careful to make sure that he texted their managers and Chan first, before sending anything in the group chat; the last thing he wanted was to cause a ruckus at the dorms, and he knew that the leader and their managers would appreciate the head’s up about what was going on. Although their responses were obviously concerned, Felix was thankful that none of them made a huge deal about the fact that he was going to stay at Mark’s apartment and focus on resting and completing his breathing treatments.
The group chat was significantly less calm and collected about the news; Felix couldn’t help smiling as his members - minus Chan, of course - began to shoot an endless stream of concerned questions at him. It was kind of nice, being reminded that the others cared about him. Finally, Felix managed to reassure the whole group that he really was okay and just needed another day or two of rest, just as the nebulizer ran out of medication. HIs lungs felt better, although they still weren’t working as well as they should have been. Felix was just thankful that he only needed to go clean up the parts of his nebulizer and then he could just hang out and rest for a while - until time for his next dose of medication.
“I hope you don’t mind… I’ve never really gotten used to typical Korean breakfasts,” Mark commented, once Felix made it into the older man’s kitchen. He couldn’t help smiling at the incredibly unhealthy breakfast laid out before him - fried sausages, eggs, and toast, along with a bowl of kimchi on the side and a few other random Korean banchan. “The other guys think my food choices are weird, but I kind of like the combination.”
Felix nodded, smiling. “I get it… my parents were constantly mixing traditional Korean food with Australian stuff,” he replied, sitting down at the kitchen island and watching as Mark finished frying up the last couple of sausages. “A lot of my friends thought it was weird… but it’s a good mix.”
Breakfast was relaxed, with Mark making sure to add food to Felix’s plate whenever it got low as they chatted about everything and nothing. Felix enjoyed it, if he was being honest - it was nice to not have to stress about schedules or learning choreography, or any of the other things that typically took up his days. Even when they had days off, there were usually tasks they had to worry about - cleaning the dorms, doing laundry, and mentally preparing themselves for whatever they would be facing before their next day off. But to know that his only concern was going to be making sure he did his breathing treatments all day was relaxing.
“Want to play Call of Duty?” Mark asked, once they had finished eating. “We can play until your next breathing treatment, and then I can clean everything up while you’re working on that…”
“Please don’t feel like you have to entertain me, Mark-hyung,” Felix replied, shaking his head. “I’m sure you probably have better things to do than hang out with a sick dongsaeng…”
“Actually, I have the benefit of an entire week off… we don’t have any group schedules while Jackson’s out of the country this time, and I didn’t have any personal schedules on the calendar,” Mark replied. “That was actually one of my arguments for why I should get to be your host for the next few days - I can be home, in case something happens and you need immediate medical attention. Or just to make sure that you don’t get so bored that you push yourself to go back to rehearsals too soon. No one at the company wants to see you get hurt… we take care of each other.”
Felix nodded, understanding what the older man meant. “Thanks, hyung,” he replied. “I think right now, I probably just need to go lay down for a while and try to rest. I’d probably get too into the game and make things worse than they already have been…”
Mark nodded. “That’s fine… if you feel up to playing something later, feel free to come join me,” Mark replied. “Taking care of yourself is priority number one right now. Hopefully it won’t take too long for you to start feeling better.”
***
Felix forced his eyes open as he heard his phone going off, reaching out towards the device and pulling it a bit closer so that he could see what was going on. He couldn’t help smiling at the fact that it was the group chat blowing up, with various members of Stray Kids trying to fill him in on the day’s activities that he’d missed out on. It was kind of funny, trying to read through everything in a mix of languages; Seungmin, Jisung, and Chan were all defaulting to English for the sake of making it easier for Felix to understand, while the others were typing pretty much exclusively in Hangul - although there were occasionally things in English thrown in.
It took Felix a couple of minutes to scroll through everything he had missed while he was resting, reading over everything and chuckling at some of the things that the others had decided to tell him that normally wouldn’t have been that big of a deal. It wasn’t until he was close to the end of all of the messages that he noticed one particularly important piece of information that Chan had shared with him.
From: Chan
We’re starting to move out of the current dorm tomorrow. The company cancelled all of our schedules for the next couple of days, because the move is so short-notice and we’re going to be helping with some of it.
They’re going to get all of our clothes and stuff cleaned, but they want you to stay with Mark until all of that is finished.
Felix couldn’t help the sigh of relief as he realized that he would be able to go back to his group members sooner rather than later. Although he was enjoying staying at Mark’s apartment - it was quiet, and the older man was a good host - Felix already missed his members. He had gotten used to always having one of them around; he, Chan, and Jisung were almost always left at the dorm for Chuseok and Christmas because their families lived so far away, while the other members went home to spend a couple of days with their families. They didn’t give each other time to be lonely or sad about not being at home, which definitely made not being home for the holidays a bit more bearable. His members had become a second family for Felix, and he was surprised at how much being away from all of them was affecting him.
There was a knock at the door, before Mark slowly stuck his head in and smiled at Felix. “How do you feel about pizza for dinner? I’m not really in the mood to cook, and I’m sure you probably don’t feel up to doing it, either…”
Felix smiled. “Pizza sounds good… I’ll eat pretty much anything,” Felix replied, slowly forcing himself to sit up. He coughed a bit once he was sitting upright, but it was nowhere near as bad as his cough had been earlier in the day.
“You sound better…” Mark commented. “Breathing treatments are working?”
“Yeah… still feeling a little less than great, but my lungs aren’t tight and painful like they were earlier,” Felix replied. “Chan-hyung said that they’re moving the dorm tomorrow, but the company doesn’t want me to move in until they’ve cleaned all of the clothes and stuff like that…”
Mark nodded. “It’s good that they found somewhere so quickly. But you definitely don’t need to be there until they’re sure all of the mold is gone from your stuff,” the older man replied. “They’re replacing mattresses and stuff, right? Because those can’t be laundered…”
“I think so… they seem to be thinking of everything,” Felix replied. “I’ll ask Chan to make sure, but if they’re thinking about even having all of our clothes cleaned professionally, surely they’d think about the furniture, too…”
Mark smiled. “They are usually pretty good about keeping track of the small details,” he replied. “Supreme pizza sound good to you?”
Felix smiled, nodding. “Yeah, that sounds really good. Thanks, hyung.”