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Soobin groaned as he woke up and noticed he couldn’t really breathe through his nose. He sat up and did a quick evaluation of his body. He noticed that he had a mild headache and his throat was hurting a little. Upon checking the pollen count and seeing it was rather low, Soobin came to the conclusion that he had caught a cold. Seeing as he didn’t have any of the usual discomfort that came with his chest colds, he assumed that he had caught a head cold and slowly got out of bed to get ready for the day.
Soobin is normally the first one awake, but today it appeared that Taehyun beat him. The leader found the second youngest in the kitchen getting started on breakfast. “Morning Taehyunnie.” Soobin said, somewhat grateful that his sleep riddled morning voice was able to mask his congestion a bit.
“Morning hyung. Do you think we should have eggs with breakfast today?” Soobin said yes before sitting down at the table and opening up his laptop to see if there had been any changes to their schedules. The other three members slowly came out of their rooms as the smell of cooking breakfast wafted through the dorm.
The five members were spread about the common space. Taehyun in the kitchen making breakfast, Soobin in the dining room, and the other three splayed across the living room furniture. Soobin was in the middle of writing an email to one of the producers, when he felt a tickle form in his sinuses. He tried rubbing his nose to make it go away, but it didn’t work. He quickly ducked his head to the side.
“Heh-stischh, hih-stsscxshh, hih-stsxshhh, heh-stieschhhh.” He shook his head a little before rubbing his nose then went back to his email.
“Bless you Tae. You better not have sneezed on the food.” Yeonjun called out.
“It wasn’t me.” Called Taehyun in response. The dorm somehow went even quieter.
“You sure it wasn’t you who sneezed Tae? You’re the only one in the group that doest scream when they sneeze.” Taehyun appeared in the living room a moment later.
“I didn’t sneeze hyung. I think I’d know it if I did.”
“Then who sneezed?” Beomgyu asked. The four members stared at each other for a moment when they heard a noise from the dining room, causing all of their heads to turn and look.
“Heh-stschhh, hih-stschh, heh-stistschhh, hih-stschhh.” They stared in stunned silence for a moment before one of them moved. Kai grabbed the box of tissues from the coffee table and approached the leader.
“Bless you hyung. Have some tissues.” Soobin turned to Kai and accepted the tissues, blowing his nose softly. Soobin seemed okay and Kai didn’t feel like asking about his weird sneezes, so the topic was ignored and the other three members helped get the table set up for breakfast.
The group was about halfway through breakfast, when Soobin pitched to the side with another set of soft sneezes. Silence fell upon the table to the extent that not even chopsticks were hitting the plates. Soobin looked up from his plate.
“What?” He asked as he grabbed his napkin to blow his nose.
“What’s with the sneezing, hyung?” Beomgyu asked
“I’m sick. Woke up with a cold.” Soobin said like it was the most obvious thing ever, still not fully understanding why his members are so confused.
“No, hyung. You normally have the loudest sneezes of us, but you’re currently rivalring Taehyun in quiet sneezes.” Beomgyu clarified. Soobin stared at the group for a moment, before speaking.
“That’s just how I sneeze when I’m sick. Did you guys not know that?” The four members shook their heads.
“Well now you know. I could’ve sworn I’ve had head colds since we became a group, but I guess not.” Soobin sniffled and went back to eating his breakfast and the group followed suit.
Once breakfast ended, Soobin informed the group that their vocal and dance practices had switched times, so they’d be doing dance first then vocal. The members then went to get ready for the day. Soobin made sure to pack some extra packs of tissues, because he knew that he’d be needing them.
Meanwhile the other four members were conspiring against the leader. They were currently in Yeonjun’s room talking while Soobin was getting his stuff sorted. “Okay so I think we’re all in agreement when I say that hyung’s sick sneezes are the cutest thing ever.” Beomgyu said. The others all nodded
“It’s kind of nice to not be the only non screamer right now.” Yeonjun, Beomgyu, and Kai all rolled their eyes at Taehyun’s comment. “Whatever hyung. All I know is I want to see more of hyung’s cute kitten sneezes, so I’m going to try to make him sneeze more.” Kai said. There was some non committal humming from the other members as they left Yeonjun’s room to get ready themselves.
The car ride to the company had been interesting to say the least. Kai, for some reason had, some axe body spray and brought it into the van and sprayed next to Soobin before any of his hyungs were able to notice. Fortunately or unfortunately, Soobin was so stuffed up and congested that he couldn’t smell the axe. It did however make his nose run, causing him to become more sniffly. The sick leader went through one pack of tissues in transit to the company, and he wasn’t sure why.
By the time dance practice started, Soobin had yet to sneeze again. The group got through their first round of choreography, and still nothing. Beomgyu was the one who decided to try to rectify this. During the break, Soobin had left to use the restroom and Beomgyu took a jar out of his bag and quickly went over to Soobin’s bag and opening it up. He pulled out Soobin’s towel and sprinkled the contents of the jar over it before shaking it out and putting it back in the leader’s bag. Ater Kai had stunk up the van, Yeonjun decided to try to keep an eye on his dongsaengs, so he did see Beomgyu messing with Soobin’s bag, but didn’t do anything to interfere because he wanted to see what would happen.
The group practiced a couple more choreographies before taking another break. This time Soobin went for his bag and grabbed his towel to wipe his face of the sweat that had formed. The effect was almost instantaneous. One moment Soobin was wiping sweat from his forehead, then the next moment he was burying his face in the towel to sneeze.
“Hih-stcshhh, heh-ststschhh-stieschhh-stshhh.” Soobin lifted his head up for a moment before once again bringing the towel to his face. “Hih-stschhh, heh-stschhhh, hih-stschhh.” The process repeated several times before they began to really worry.
“Beomgyu, what did you put on Binnie’s towel?” Yeonjun asked. Beomgyu looked guilty as he answered. “Just some sneezing powder that one of my cousins gave me. It didn’t really work on us, so I didn’t think it would do a whole lot to hyung.”
Yeonjun sighed as he grabbed a clean towel from a nearby cabinet before running over to Soobin and replacing the snotty towel the leader was holding with the clean one. He shoved the soiled towel into his own bag then led Soobin to the other side of the practice room where their dongsaengs were sitting.
It took a few minutes for Soobin's sneezing to die down, and the sick leader just slumped against the ground when it ended. "I'm tired" Soobin said after a moment.
"I bet, hyung. That was quite the display." Taehyun said. "I move that we ended practice early because it looks like Soobin hyung is about to fall asleep." The second youngest added when Soobin yawned.
"I second that"
"I'm not falling asleep" Kai and Soobin said in unison, although Soobin spoke through another yawn with his eyes shut.
"Yeah, no. We're going home, Soobin. You look exhausted and probably are after all that sneezing." Yeonjun paused as he placed his hand on the younger's forehead. "Plus, I think you might have a fever now. So it's time to get some rest." Soobin didn't have any energy to argue the matter, so he let his members pack up his things and help him get back to the dorm.
By the time their van pulled up to their dorm, Soobin was essentially asleep. He was just awake enough to sleepily walk himself to the couch, where he immediately crashed. The others decided to get their sick supplies together while the leader slept.
Soobin began to stir about an hour later. He really wanted to keep sleeping, but an annoying tickle in his sinuses had been what woke him up. “Heh-stschhh, hih-stschhh, heh-stschhh-stschhhh.” “Bless you, hyung.” Soobin opened his eyes and found Taehyun offering him some tissues. The sick leader sat up and accepted the tissues.
When he finished blowing his nose, Soobin noticed the members sitting around the living room. “How long was I asleep?” He asked as he tended to his nose. “You were only out for about an hour and Yeonjun hyung already spoke to manager-nim about giving you a couple days off.” Kai said as he moved a cup of tea over to Soobin. As he took a sip of the tea, Soobin noticed the guilty look on Beomgyu’s face.
“Beomie, what’s with the face?” Beomgyu solemnly stood up and placed a closed jar on the coffee table in front of Soobin. “I’m sorry hyung. It’s my fault you had the massive sneezing fit during practice. I put this powder all over your towel, but I didn’t think it would affect you so much. I told Yeonjun hyung that as an apology I’m going to do all the laundry for the next month.” Soobin nodded in understanding before what Kai had said had fully registered.
“I’m not that sick. I can go to practice.” Yeonjun shook his head at this. “You technically don’t have a fever, but after how tired you got from one sneezing fit we figured it would be better for you to rest. Plus the dance instructor gave clear instructions that they don’t want to see you until you’re certain you’re not going to fall asleep standing up.”
“In that case I guess I’ll get work on getting through that new Kirby game.” An indignant huff could be heard from one of the members, but Soobin didn’t care.
Soobin spent the next couple of days playing various video games. While the sick leader was perfectly capable of taking care of himself, the other members were still feeling apologetic about earlier, so Soobin was waited on hand and foot until he wasn’t feeling so tired and sneezy.