Chapter Text
For the most part, Jeongin was a fairly independent person. While he didn’t need someone to keep an eye on him or make sure he was alright most days of the week, unlike some people in his friend group who had a complete lack of regard for their personal wellbeing (he wasn’t going name anyone, Jisung) or just forgot to take care of themselves, he did appreciate the way his friend group had the tendency to dote and check in on each other not unlike a family would, even if he wouldn’t freely admit it.
If you could call the obnoxious, overly affectionate, and very loud group a family.
Eh, who was he kidding, they were practically family at this point.
But it was days like today where he found himself wishing a little bit that he didn’t seem so independent, where it was easier to accept the affection and well-meaning inquiries on his health, or the guilt of asking for help after pushing it off wouldn’t creep in and make him hesitate to ask or feel selfish for wanting it.
Days like today when he wasn’t feeling particularly himself, when he was feeling overwhelmed, and like he was catching a bug, his feet dragging as he walked and focus nonexistent.
Collapsing face-down onto the couch was the first thing he did when he got back home, backpack dropping down next to the couch with a thud as Jeongin let himself melt down into the cushions.
Maybe the couch would swallow him up like it did everything else and he wouldn’t have to worry about being Jeongin anymore, he mused.
Jeongin had just barely dozed off when the front door opened and closed, the sound of shoes being thrown off making him jerk awake. Quiet footsteps padded past the kitchen and into the living room, stopping beside the couch.
He managed to gather the strength to turn his head to the side, cheek squished up against the arm that was pillowing his head, to see who had come home and was looking at him. Minho stared at him, backpack and dance bag dangling from his hand.
“What?” Jeongin grumbled, turning his head back face-down.
A hand ran through his hair carefully. Jeongin would be lying if the touch didn’t make him melt and apparently it was obvious, Minho chuckling quietly.
Minho’s bags were dropped and older squeezed himself in between Jeongin and the back of the couch, Jeongin rolling onto his side slightly to accommodate the person invading his personal space.
Minho continued running his hand through Jeongin’s hair, lightly massaging his scalp, Jeongin closing his eyes and dozing off again, relaxing completely.
Eventually Minho’s hand stilled, his breathing evened out and deep, arm wrapped around Jeongin, holding him close.
~~~
Jeongin continued to feel unwell the rest of the week and into the next, until a Wednesday night found him wondering if he was going to make the walk home.
He stood just outside the building his last class had been in, having stayed in the empty classroom to study in the quiet for a bit, since the library was always too busy for his liking and the study rooms were almost always full. But the time had gotten away from him and now, it was dark, the streetlights having turned on already, the sky a deep blue-almost-black as the sun finished its descent.
But to Jeongin, it meant a cold, seven-block walk to the apartment with weak knees and a throat that had been burning all day, head stuffy and feeling hot and cold all over, and just generally miserable. The shuttle that had a stop that would’ve cut the walk in half didn’t run this late and no one was on campus to walk with him in case he did decide to just collapse.
With a pained huff, he made sure his jacket was zipped shut, hiked his backpack higher on his shoulders, and started putting one foot in front of the other.
~~~
He had made it about four blocks before tripping over an uneven section of the sidewalk, landing on his hands and knees with a yelp, unable to catch himself before he fell.
Now, he was sitting on the concrete, cradling a scrapped hand, and trying to not cry. It was stupid to cry over a simple trip, a little scrape, but he couldn’t help the tears threatening to spill.
He was cold, hungry, and miserable. He just wanted to be home and warm.
Jeongin fumbled for his phone when he felt it buzz in his coat pocket, blinking at the bright light that illuminated his face, opening the text message from Minho, wiping at his running nose, wincing when the motion pulled at the scrape on his hand.
Minho: we’re getting takeout for dinner, any preferences?
Before he could overthink it, Jeongin pressed the call button on Minho’s contact.
“You know you could’ve just responded to the text?” Minho said teasingly.
“Can you come pick me up?” Jeongin blurted out, knowing he sounded distressed, but unable to hide it any more, part of him not finding it in himself to care.
Jeongin heard a shuffling noise and the jingling of keys, then the sound of a door slamming shut.
“Where are you?”
Jeongin was suddenly very glad for Minho.
~~~
Minho’s car was warm and safe. It was also making Jeongin sleepier than he had been when he’d left the class building, but he felt too restless to doze off the short drive back to the apartment.
Unlike Chan, Minho didn’t really ask questions unless he perceived something was truly, dangerously wrong, his caring of others passive and more subtle than the majority of those in their friend group. Jeongin was grateful for this, but at the same time, he wanted someone to ask how he was doing. He wasn’t always one to just start talking about his thoughts and feelings without there being an opening or careful prompt, unlike Chan or Jisung or Felix. Even Hyunjin would sometimes just do a mind dump when things got too much and he couldn’t sort it out on his own.
After he parked, Minho grabbed Jeongin’s backpack before he could and helped the younger out of car, keeping an arm wrapped around him as Minho guided them up the apartment.
Changbin poked his head out of the kitchen, took one look at Jeongin, and declared he was making tea before he disappeared again.
“Do you feel up to a shower?” Minho asked quietly as they passed by the living room and headed down the hall to the bedrooms. “Or do you just want to change into sweats?”
Jeongin didn’t want to shower, but he knew he would probably feel better if he did.
“Shower,” he said, opening the door to his bedroom, flicking the light switch on, only to remember that the bulb had gone out that morning and he hadn’t had the time to fix it before classes, already having been running behind as it was.
One more thing to add to his list of responsibilities.
Minho peered into the dark room and carefully set Jeongin’s backpack beside the door. “Go shower, I’ll bring you clean clothes and take care of the light, okay?”
Jeongin protested for all of two seconds before Minho was shoving him to the bathroom that Jeongin shared with Changbin, the door closed forcefully behind him.
Staring at his exhausted face in the mirror, Jeongin was very, very glad for Minho.
~~~
Despite his exhaustion, Jeongin couldn’t sleep that night, his tired mind thinking about nothing and everything. It was oxymoronic in a way with how tired he was, yet he seemed too tired to fall asleep.
He finally got up and opened his laptop, crossing his legs underneath him on the desk chair, not sure what he was going to do, but anything was better than tossing and turning and getting frustrated with not being able to sleep.
Jeongin finally crawled back into bed when the sun was just starting to show her face over the horizon.
His alarm went off two hours later, another long day starting again.
~~~
Minho wasn’t sure where Jeongin had vanished off to. It was Saturday. There were no classes, no clubs, no university events that were occurring, so unless Jeongin had met up with friends or found a study room to hole himself up in, the youngest of their little friend group should be home.
As Minho stood in the living room of an unusually quiet apartment, his mind drifted to Wednesday, when Jeongin had suddenly called him and asked to be picked up, an event that rarely occurred without some kind of preceding plans or discussion. More concerningly, Jeongin had seemed under the weather, an event that also rarely happened, the younger’s immune system nearly beating out Chan’s with most colds and bugs.
Deciding to go on a hunch, Minho pulled out his phone and sent a quick text to Jeongin.
~~~
Jeongin cracked open bleary eyes when his phone dinged, notifying him of a text message. His head was pillowed on his crossed arms, which were resting on the table in the study room he had managed to claim in the name of studying and doing homework, but apparently the nap he hadn’t meant to take had lasted long enough that his laptop had gone to sleep. Rubbing a hand over his face, he reached for his phone and slowly read the text, feeling exhaustion deep in his bones.
Minho: I was going to cook dinner tonight since our two resident blackholes won’t be home. Are you going to be out late or should I cook for two?
The thought suddenly occurred to Jeongin that he couldn’t remember if he’d eaten that day.
Food, especially Minho Food, sounded appealing.
Jeongin sent a quick response back and began packing up, feeling a bit better than he had in days.
~~~
When Jeongin got home, the apartment was filled with the aromas of something good, leading Jeongin straight to the kitchen before he even completely registered it, like in the cartoons when the character followed the white cloud straight into a trap.
Little did Jeongin know, he had done exactly that.
A sneeze suddenly erupted from Jeongin, surprising both himself and Minho, reminding the younger that he was still not feeling well, even though his throat was mostly okay after a couple days.
“Go get changed and sit in the living room, I’ll bring dinner there,” Minho ordered, waving a wooden spoon covered in something that smelled good in Jeongin’s direction, already in his own sweatpants and comfortable hoodie, hair floofed everywhere from air drying from the shower he’d taken after texting Jeongin.
Jeongin didn’t feel like complaining, so he did what Minho told him to, flopping onto the couch and closing his eyes, drifting off.
He woke up again when Minho set down the skillet of food on top of an oven mitt on the coffee table, a bowl and silverware handed to him.
“I was thinking we could watch the third Pirates of the Caribbean,” Minho suggested, flopping onto the couch next to Jeongin once he got his food.
Jeongin shrugged, not really caring. One less decision he had to make. “Fine by me.”
At some point in the evening, after their stomachs were full and they had made their way onto another movie, Jeongin found himself curled up half asleep on the couch, head on Minho’s lap, the older lazily carding his fingers through Jeongin’s hair.
“You’re kinda warm,” Minho murmured, fingers settling lightly on Jeongin’s forehead. “You feeling okay?”
Jeongin grunted. “Not really.” Maybe it was the exhaustion that made him admit it. Or maybe Minho had drugged him with the food. Jeongin didn’t really know at this point, mind too overwhelmed and addled from everything.
“Just relax and go to sleep,” Minho’s voice encouraged softly, hand in Jeongin’s hair again. “You’ll feel better.”
And Jeongin did just that.
~~~
Jeongin woke up late the next day in Minho’s bed, feeling very comfortable and wholly unwilling to move an inch to get out of whatever nest Minho had built his bed into. The older had somehow managed to accomplish the same effect that Felix and Jisung did with their mountains of plushies, except with blankets and pillows.
He napped most of the day, until a growing headache and the call of nature finally forced him to emerge from his cocoon and into the state of mostly living but barely awake. Jeongin stumbled into the kitchen on the hunt for food, somehow surprised to see Minho cooking again, the older peering into a steaming stock pot.
It was chicken and dumplings, Jeongin belatedly realized, staring dumbly as his brain finally put the pieces together. His mom used to make it when he was little and sick.
Minho jumped in surprise when Jeongin suddenly hugged him from behind, having not heard the younger come into the kitchen. He patted the arms encircling his waist and didn’t say anything, content to let the younger cling to his back for as long as he needed to.