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She’s at the beach again, sun shining brightly and sand flying everywhere as she runs along the shore with her arms in the air, happy and free. In the distance, she can see Yurim, Seungwan and Jiwoong splashing in the water—but that still leaves one member of their group unaccounted for.
As if in response to her thoughts, strong arms wrap around her from behind, lifting her clear off the ground. She shrieks in surprise before relaxing as she recognizes the familiar embrace.
“Got you.” Yijin’s voice is low and playful in her ear, sending shivers down her spine. Heedo enjoys the brief moment she’s allowed to spend in his arms before he sets her down gently. As she turns around, she waits for him to let go of her, back off quickly like he always does—but it never happens.
His arms remain looped around her, hands clasped together casually against her lower back as if he’s done it a million times—and that’s when she realizes this must be a dream.
Dream Heedo takes in the sight of him—hair blowing in the breeze, mouth curved into a secret smile just for her—and hugs him tightly around the waist before propping her chin on his chest.
She stares up at him with a teasing pout. “No fair—your legs are longer.”
He laughs, ruffling her hair before bringing his face down to hers, their noses just touching.
“But you’re a professional athlete, Heedo-yah, I think our advantages cancel out.”
She humphs against his chest, but there’s no real heat behind it. Yijin’s eyes are sparkling as he closes the gap between them, their lips so close she can feel his breath, and she’s thinking this is definitely a dream if he’s actually about to kiss her. Her eyes shut, body buzzing in anticipation, but suddenly a shrill voice cuts through the charged air between them.
“Yah!” Seungwan screams from across the beach. “Stop making me feel even worse about being single and get back over here!”
They jerk apart at the interruption and laugh, cheeks slightly flushed at being caught—then Dream Heedo is ducking out of Yijin’s arms.
“Rematch?” She tosses over her shoulder as she takes off towards their friends, cool and flirty in a way she would absolutely never be in real life.
She hears the sound of sand shifting behind her as Yijin’s feet begin to move. “You’re on,” he calls after her. “I’ll even overlook the head start you gave yourself.”
She giggles as she picks up speed, Yijin right on her tail. Just when she feels the heat of him at her back, he suddenly disappears. She cranes her neck backwards in confusion before scanning the rest of the beach. Her friends are gone, too—the coastline desolate and empty. She tries to stop running but finds she can’t control her limbs anymore. Her muscles burn and her lungs beg for air, the once pleasant sun now scorching on her skin.
There’s a loud banging all around her, causing the ground underneath her to shake, and she can hear someone shouting her name but she can’t tell who it is, can’t figure out which direction it’s coming from. The voice and persistent thumping get steadily louder the farther she runs, and just when her fear begins to spike, the sand beneath her feet gives way and she slips into darkness.
The falling sensation jerks her awake. She spends a moment trying to catch her breath, slowly coming to terms with the world around her. She’s burning hot, her clothes damp with sweat. And her head—God, it’s absolutely pounding. She looks blearily around her room before her eyes land on the alarm clock. It’s 4 p.m.
Crap, she was supposed to meet Yijin and the others at his house hours ago. She bolts upright but the room spins madly. She hears the banging from her dream again as she waits for the dizzy spell to pass. It takes her a moment to understand it’s real, that there’s actually someone at her front door. It only clicks when she hears Yijin’s panicked voice through the wood.
“Na Heedo, I know you’re in there! Please just let me know you’re okay. I’m this close to breaking the door down if you don’t answer me in the next minute.” He starts pounding again, and she stumbles out of bed, clutching her nightstand to stay upright. Her body aches terribly. She can’t remember the last time she felt this bad.
“I’m here!” she tries to call, but she can’t muster up enough volume for him to hear. Her throat is too scratchy and sore.
With a groan, she pushes herself forward, making it out of her room successfully, but then she bumps into the decorative table in the hallway and takes a tumble down the steps leading into the living room. She winces as the lamp sitting atop it clatters to the floor. Yijin hears it, too, stopping his incessant pounding to yell through the door again.
“What was that? Heedo-yah, are you okay?! Can you answer me? Please open the door!”
She can hear how stressed he is. He probably tried to call her when she didn’t show, and as the hours passed with no response he started spiraling, thinking something must have happened. He knows her mom is out of town this weekend, that she’s by herself.
He won’t be satisfied until he sees her in person, so she finds the strength to drag herself up from the floor, walking unsteadily the rest of the way to the door. She’s barely twisted the lock before Yijin flings the door open, barreling into the entryway.
“Na Heedo, why haven’t you been answering—" he cuts off at the sight of her, eyes wide and frantic as he rushes forward to catch her. She hadn’t even realized she was falling.
“Baek Yijin, I’m sorry,” she croaks as he props her up against him, “I’m not feeling very good.”
His face is alarmed as he presses the backs of his fingers against her forehead and then her flushed cheeks.
“Shit, Heedo-yah, you’re burning up. Why didn’t you answer the phone? I would’ve come sooner if I’d known you were sick.”
“Didn’t hear it,” she mumbles. “Was asleep.”
He sighs, still on edge, but she can see he’s a bit more relaxed now that he knows nothing serious happened to her.
“Okay,” he nods to himself, switching into responsible, protective Yijin mode—not that he ever really turns it off—except on those rare occasions like that night under the water faucets, where they played together like children, laughing and splashing around. The memory always makes her smile.
“That’s alright,” he continues reassuringly. “Hold on, let’s get you back to bed.”
Her world tilts for a moment as he sweeps her up into his arms, one hand under her knees and the other behind her back. He kicks the door shut behind him and sets off in the direction of her room.
As they pass the crooked table and lamp on the floor, Yijin’s features tense again.
“Is this what that noise was? Did you fall?” He looks horrified at the thought.
“‘M fine,” she murmurs against his chest, trying to put him at ease, but her garbled response doesn’t seem to make much headway.
They pass through the door of her bedroom and he makes a beeline for the bed, setting her on top of the covers carefully. He hovers over her afterwards, scanning her from head to toe, probably checking for signs of injury.
He’s looking her over so intently it’s hard not to let her mind wander, to wonder how attentive he’d be in other, more diverting circumstances. But then she remembers how terrible she must look right now, sweaty and flushed in her pajamas—one of her dad’s old t-shirts and a pair of shorts. Her hair is probably a rat’s nest. She’s not even wearing a bra—not that it makes much of a difference anyways. She crosses her arms over her chest and feels a perverse thankfulness for the fever. At least it’s providing the perfect cover for her red cheeks.
She startles at the feel of his hand cupping the back of her bare leg at the bend of her knee.
“Looks like you’re not as fine as you thought, Heedo-yah,” he admonishes. “You did hurt yourself when you fell. There’s a nasty scrape here, it’s definitely going to bruise.”
She honestly can’t feel a thing except his warm palm against her skin, which is currently causing her body temperature to spike even further.
“I’ll be right back,” he says, withdrawing from her and shuffling out of the room towards the bathroom.
She focuses on steadying her breathing while he’s gone, runs her fingers through her hair as best she can in an attempt to tame it but she feels too weak to do anything more.
He’s back in a flash, reappearing at her side and dumping bandages and ointment onto the bed next to her.
He grabs her leg again and she tries to manifest the calm and collected countenance of Dream Heedo as he starts disinfecting her wound, blowing on it when she winces from the sting. He tops it off with some ointment and a large band-aid before tossing the wrapper in the trash.
“Alright,” he claps his hands together. “Let’s check your temperature now. Open up.” He suddenly comes at her with a thermometer. Where did he even find that? She didn’t even know they had one.
He sticks it under her tongue and she can’t help but feel like a little kid at the doctor’s office as he stands there waiting for it to beep.
“38.5,” he reads with a furrowed brow. “What are your other symptoms? Are you in pain? Maybe we should go to the hospital. You fell earlier, almost fainted after you opened the door.”
She fights the urge to roll her eyes, secretly pleased by the way he worries over her.
“That’s because I was still half asleep,” she offers. “It’s just a cold. I don’t get sick often, but when I do it’s always like this. I don’t need to go to the hospital, stop worrying.”
Yijin looks completely unconvinced.
“If your fever hasn’t broken by the morning, we’re going.”
Does that mean he’s going to stay here with her all night? Her heart races at the thought, but she doesn’t dare try to confirm it, afraid he’ll reconsider.
“Okay,” she agrees, as if it was up for discussion. “It’s a deal.”
He stands there for a second studying the unfamiliar surroundings before the silence becomes a little awkward. They’re in her bedroom. Just the two of them. Alone. He swallows audibly and then clears his throat.
“I’ll go get you some water—and some cold medicine. I saw it in the cabinet when I was looking for the band-aids.” She’s amused to see he looks a little sheepish as he admits to ransacking her bathroom.
She’s too happy he’s here to tease him about it.
“I can’t take medicine,” she responds instead.
“Why not?”
“I could be accused of doping.”
His expression is indignant. “That’s ridiculous. Do they just expect you to suffer in pain?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “It’s the rules.”
He mumbles something under his breath about how stupid the rules are as he heads to the kitchen.
Afterwards, he helps her sit up to drink and she lets herself lean into him a little more than necessary. If he notices, he doesn’t say anything.
“You should get some rest, Heedo-yah.” He sets the water on her nightstand and pulls the covers over her before tucking them in around her sides. “I’ll be right outside.” He makes to leave, but she grabs his wrist before her mind has a chance to catch up to her actions.
“Wait!” she cries, wanting to shrivel up and die as she flounders for an excuse.
Stay with me.
It’s right there on the tip of her tongue. She could just say it—the truth. She doesn’t want to be alone. Her dad used to stay with her when she was sick, her mom always too busy with work. When he died, there wasn’t anybody else to take his place, no one else she even wanted to take his place—until now, until Yijin. But she can’t get the words out for some reason. They feel too raw.
“I—I’m not tired yet. Can you read to me?”
She can’t even look at him after she asks it, dropping his wrist like it’s on fire and studying her comforter as if she’s analyzing a fencing opponent. God, could she have been any more obvious?
Time seems to move in slow motion as she waits for his response, and she can’t help but sneak a peek at his face. What she sees there does nothing to calm her racing heart. He’s looking at her so tenderly, so soft—as if he can see right through her, like he knows exactly what she wanted to say and why she couldn’t.
It’s love. I love you, Na Heedo. I don’t need a rainbow. His confession on the bridge feels like a fever dream at times, like something she made up—but not right now, not when he’s staring at her like that.
“Yeah,” he responds fondly, lips tilting up at the corners. “I can do that.”
After they settle on a book, he drags her desk chair next to the bed and plops down in it. It’s almost comical how large he looks against the small frame, but he doesn’t complain. He just picks up the book and flips to the first page.
The sound of his voice is one of the most comforting things in the world to her. When he’d been in Pohang those 6 months, she’d played his tapes nearly every night before bed, missing him fiercely and hoping her support was reaching him. His physical presence beside her now is as good as any medicine, allowing her to drift off peacefully.
___________
Some time later she wakes up sweating in her dark room, kicking off her sheets. Her body feels like it’s on fire and everything hurts.
Yijin is asleep in the chair next to her bed, head tipped back and mouth slightly open. She checks her alarm clock again. It’s two in the morning.
She tries to sit up to grab the water off her nightstand, but it sets off a coughing fit. Her body heaves with the force of it and Yijin jerks awake at the sound.
“Are you okay?” His voice is thick with sleep but concerned. He brings a hand to her back and rubs slow, soothing circles across it as she wheezes.
“Water,” she croaks out after the coughing dies down. He’s one step ahead of her, already holding the glass. The cool liquid is a balm to her swollen throat as he tilts it into her mouth. She rests heavily against him as she drinks, head propped against his shoulder, this time because she actually needs to. She’s not sure she could stay upright without him.
The position brings her forehead close to his cheek. He leans down enough to press his skin against hers and hums uneasily at what he finds. “You’re really warm, Heedo-yah.”
He lays her back down after she finishes drinking, his anxious face swimming above her. She reaches towards him, wanting to comfort him, let him know she’ll be okay—but he’s pulling away all of the sudden, heading for the door. In her fever-addled mind, she can’t help but panic. He can’t leave her, she needs him. Her outstretched arm catches his shirt and she fists the material tightly and tugs, whimpering in distress.
He comes back to her immediately.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” He cups her face, thumb caressing her cheek tenderly. She nuzzles into his palm instinctively.
“Don’t go,” she slurs, tears pooling in her eyes. “Stay with me.” The sickness and late hour tear through her defenses, the words she couldn’t say mere hours ago spilling from her lips. She pulls on his shirt again as forcefully as she can manage in her weakened state. “Please, oppa.” She’ll probably be embarrassed by this slip-up tomorrow, but she can’t bring herself to care right now.
“Oh Heedo-yah,” he breathes, brushing the tears from her eyes and looking at her like she’s something precious. “Shh, it’s okay, I’m not leaving you, baby, I promise.” He sits on the edge of the bed next to her and continues his gentle ministrations until she calms down.
“Your fever is really high,” he says after a few minutes, sweeping the hair back from her face. “We need to try to cool you down or else we’re gonna have to go to the hospital. I need to grab a washcloth from the bathroom, but I’ll be right back. Just give me 30 seconds. I’ll leave the door open so you can see me.”
He only leaves after she nods her assent, her eyes following his departure reluctantly—but true to his word, he’s back within less than a minute, rag and bowl of water in hand. He sits back down in the desk chair, setting the bowl on her nightstand and wetting the washcloth.
He brings it to her face and gently wipes the sweat from her forehead, eventually moving it across her cheeks, her neck, even her arms. Her skin breaks out in goosebumps but it feels good, assuaging the fire in her veins.
Wanting to feel closer to him, she grabs the hand that’s not currently tending to her, wrapping her fingers around his and letting their joined hands rest against her abdomen. The last thing she remembers is his thumb brushing softly against the back of her hand before she drifts back into unconsciousness.
___________
She sleeps through the rest of the night, only rousing when a ray of sunlight peeks through her blinds and flares against her eyelids. She blinks slowly at the ceiling, taking stock of how she feels. She’s not completely better, but she can tell her fever has broken.
There’s something heavy against her stomach. As she tilts her head to look, a damp rag falls from her forehead, and suddenly memories of last night come to her in hazy flashes. Her tugging on Yijin’s shirt. Him touching her face.
Stay with me. Please, oppa.
I’m not leaving you, baby, I promise.
The words play on a loop in her mind as she identifies the weight on her stomach as Yijin’s hand. She’d grabbed onto him last night, trapped his hand there as she held it. She must’ve let go at some point during the night, his fingers now spread across her abdomen. She glances to the right and sees he’s hunched all the way over in her chair, head resting on the mattress next to her. Still asleep. He looks younger this way, features smooth and peaceful. She itches to touch him but doesn’t, feeling shy again in the light of day.
Instead, she turns her attention back to his hand. It looks so big against her. She can’t help but wonder how good it would feel without the barrier of her shirt, his calloused fingers tracing across her bare skin—the hollows of her ribs, the jut of her hips. The thought causes a warm fluttering in her belly and her breathing accelerates. She should get up now and stop torturing herself.
She’s trying to muster up the desire to move when he stirs next to her. He smiles sleepily at her as his eyes open, and she stares back at him like a deer in the headlights. There’s a brief moment where he looks confused at her expression, but then their current position must register because he goes completely and utterly still.
She expects him to pull away immediately—after all, this isn’t Dream Yijin—but to her shock, he doesn’t. As if in a trance, he sits up slowly and stares down at his hand on her abdomen. His eyes go dark like that time they stood in her living room together after she labeled their relationship a rainbow.
His hand rises and falls in time with her rapid breathing and he tracks the movement intently, jaw clenched and nostrils flaring. He looks a little…wild, for lack of a better term. Like a captive animal that just had its cage door unlocked. It sends a thrill through her, her body thrumming beneath his touch. He presses his hand down ever so slightly, increasing the pressure before splaying his fingers impossibly wider to cover more territory. His thumb is right at the edge of her shirt below her bellybutton, and his hooded eyes skitter down her bare legs before he forces them back up. She inhales sharply, causing her shirt to rise just enough to reveal the tiniest sliver of skin. She barely has time to anticipate what he might do next before her body betrays her.
Her stomach growls. Loudly.
They both jump at the sound, the spell broken, and he snatches his hand back, standing up and shaking his head like he’s trying to clear it. She moves, too, sitting up quickly and backing against the headboard, feeling both embarrassed and disappointed.
They’re both silent for several moments, but then she sees his mouth open out of the corner of her eye. She can imagine what he’s going to say. He’ll apologize, act like it was something wrong when it wasn’t. She doesn’t want him to, so she cuts him off and speaks first.
“I’m hungry!” she blurts into the tension filled room. He stares at her dumbly, mouth still slightly ajar from his failed attempt to speak.
She can see the wheels turning in his head, still weighing whether he should say something about what transpired between them, but to her relief, he decides not to.
“I’ll make you some food,” he states simply instead, giving her one last lingering look before he steps out of the room. He closes the door behind him this time.
She brings a pillow to her face and groans loudly, falling to her side on the bed. After a few minutes of lamenting her wretched stomach’s timing, she can admit it was probably for the best that the moment didn’t escalate further. Not because she didn’t want it to—God, did she ever—but because she’s still sick and he’s running on hardly any quality sleep. That’s not how she wants it to be when they take that next step.
Her belly still tingles where his hand was, and she rests her own there without thinking. She feels oddly at peace as she considers the past 24 hours. He loves her—wants her, too. Since his confession, she’d often wondered in what way he meant it, if it was that kind of love or something else. He’s always kept a careful physical distance between them, crossing his self-imposed line only on rare occasions, like when she gets hurt. She’d worried he might not be attracted to her, but now she knows he is. His caution is just his way of trying to protect her. It’ll probably take some time to convince him he doesn’t need to hold back anymore, but she can be patient. He waited for her, too.
Having worked through her feelings, she finally gets up, grabbing some clothes and heading to the bathroom for a quick shower. She feels gross after a night of sweating.
Yijin doesn’t turn at the sound of the door, but she sees him stiffen momentarily as he hovers over the stove, so she knows he’s aware she left her room.
“I’m gonna take a shower.”
He hums to let her know he heard her, and she steps into the bathroom determined to make things comfortable between them again once she gets out.
___________
She emerges refreshed in a new pair of pajamas to see Yijin’s set the table in front of the TV with food.
“Yah!” she exclaims as she plops down next to him on the floor. “You’ve been busy!”
“Or maybe you just take extraordinarily long showers,” he quips, and she can’t help the grin that steals across her face, delighted that he’s teasing her. She’d thought he would still be agonizing over what happened earlier, punishing himself. But he grins back at her, seeming lighter than when she left him. Maybe he’d done some thinking of his own.
“I guess you’re feeling better?” he asks.
She nods. “Mostly. Told you we didn’t need to go to the hospital.”
He sighs long sufferingly as she turns on the TV, settling on a random variety show. And just like that, they’re back to normal, eating in comfortable silence and occasionally laughing at something that happens onscreen. He finishes eating before her and takes his dishes to the sink. When he returns, he sits on the end of the couch.
She leaves her dishes on the table when she’s done—not as disciplined as Yijin—and climbs onto the sofa with him. She leaves a cushion between them, afraid to disturb their tentative return to normalcy.
She only makes it about 30 minutes before she can’t take the space between them anymore. He looks so comfortable on the other end of the couch, long legs splayed and arm slung across the back, the sight of him so warm and inviting she just wants to climb into his lap.
He’d stayed with her all night—rubbed her back when she coughed, pressed a cool rag to her feverish skin, gave her water when she was thirsty. He’d taken care of her so completely that it suddenly makes her want to cry, floods her chest with a sweet and overwhelming ache. It’s love, she realizes. She loves him.
Feeling bold, she curls into a ball on her side and rests her head in his lap. Without missing a beat, his hand falls to her head, carding softly through her hair as if he was just waiting for her to come to him. She doesn’t question his lack of hesitation, doesn’t think about how long it will last or how far she can push it.
She just smiles contentedly as she nuzzles further into him, sure that he can see it, but she doesn’t mind. She’s pretty sure he’s smiling, too.
They stay that way for what seems like forever, until her mom calls to say her flight just landed and she’ll be home in an hour. Yijin helps her clean up the kitchen, both of them silently agreeing it’s best he leaves before her mom returns and figures out he stayed the night.
When they finish, she walks him to the door and they both linger there, reluctant to part.
“Call me if you need anything,” he finally says, hands in his pockets. She nods, too afraid she’ll beg him to stay if she opens her mouth.
He walks outside, only making it to the top of the steps leading down to the gate before she caves and calls his name, bolting after him. God, she’s in so deep.
“Baek Yijin!”
He turns around right as she barrels into him, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist and pressing her body flush to his.
“Thank you,” she whispers against his chest. “For taking care of me, for staying.”
He cups the back of her neck and drops his chin to her head, looping his other arm around her lower back to keep her tight against him, and it’s better than any dream ever could be.
“Always,” he responds affectionately, steady as the rising sun.