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Sometimes, just sometimes, Seungmin wishes he had never woken up.
Whether that be because his roommate, Minho, was belting out lyrics at the top of his lungs at 7 in the goddamn morning or due to the fact his alarm was blaring into his otherwise silent room. Either way, Seungmin almost always wishes he could just go back to sleep where the world of psychology assignments and bills didn’t exist.
This morning was no different, if anything, it was worse than his usual complaints. While he didn’t have Minho melodically singing let it go outside his door, he did have the neighbours drilling nails into the thin, worn walls at 11…11?
“Shit!” Seungmin half yells, his original plan of screeching ruined when he felt just how dry his mouth was. That’s normal, right? It happens sometimes, it doesn’t mean he’s coming down with anything at all! That’s absurd.
Reaching out for his drink and knocking his phone onto the floor, Seungmin swallows a mouthful of the water that had been sitting there for at least a week. Rather than grimacing over the stale water, he wallows in pain at the pure burning sensation every time he downs another mouthful.
Not to mention how his head was pounding and his blankets were damp with just how much he had been sweating…
Okay, maybe this wasn’t just a case of the sniffles.
Sniffles or not, Seungmin had a presentation today that he would be damned if he missed; after weeks of slaving away in the library after hours just to get it perfect, no illness was going to ruin his hard work.
Getting up was easier said than done. Each and every time he tried to stand up, his legs simply didn’t want to cooperate with the rest of his body. As his butt made contact with his mattress for the second time, Seungmin decided that maybe an extra hour of sleep would be beneficial-
No.
No slacking, there are presentations waiting to be presented!
Peeling his pyjamas from his body, Seungmin tosses them across the room into the hamper that his mother had bought him before he’d even moved into the dorm. Truth be told, Seungmin values it a lot. However, what he doesn’t value is the fact his entire being currently smelt of stale, teenage sweat.
It was giving him horrid flashbacks to his teenage years spent in locker rooms with boys who didn’t know the existence of deodorant, he shivers at the mere thought of it. That’s what he tells himself anyway.
Before he leaves his bedroom, he has half the mind to crack open a window. Perhaps he just put on his winter blankets too early and that’s why he’s currently shaking out of existence, must be it.
Once he got his legs to function, his next destination was the bathroom. Narrowly avoiding his reflection, Seungmin splashes a decent amount of water to freshen himself up. He’d be good in no time, he’s sure of it. It’s probably just one of those mornings, surely he’d feel better with a cup of tea and a slice of toast.
As it turns out, Seungmin did not in fact enjoy his slice of toast. One look at the bread was enough for his body to scream to leave it alone, his stomach would thank him for that. For a moment, Seungmin thinks he sees the bread falling, he coughs out a laugh, delusional in his sickly state.
Then the door is open and out goes Seungmin into the world of presentations and early December snowfall.
~
“God, that’s freezing,” Minho mumbles to himself, toeing off his shoes at the front door, leaving a small puddle of water from the snow melting around his boots. It’d just be a problem for later, best hope that Seungmin doesn’t come at him with a spatula for leaving a mess.
He hangs his coat up, pausing when he sees Seungmin’s oversized coat still hanging up on the peg. That’s odd, he’s sure Seungmin said he has class today and wouldn’t be here in the morning. Minho remembers the conversation vividly, it was just before he had left to spend the weekend around his parent’s house, Seungmin had declined the offer to go with him in favour of studying for his upcoming exam.
It was a shame, his mother had been looking forward to seeing Seungmin again.
Regardless, Minho guesses Seungmin bought a new coat, he’d be insane to go out without one in this nasty weather.
He didn’t dwell on it for too long, there were other things to worry about such as grabbing his bag and getting the fuck to class. Minho wasn’t the best at being on time, more so when he really despised literature. Why he took it in the first place is beyond him, the only thing he particularly cared about was computer science plus the teacher was kinda cute…That was always a bonus.
Just as fast as he had entered the dorm, he was back outside where the snowflakes were starting to fall down a little faster.
“Hyung, Minho Hyung!” Minho turns his head, discreetly searching for the voice shouting his name at the top of his lungs. If he’s not wrong, and he rarely is, that voice belonged to none other than Lee Felix.
Just like he had thought, Felix comes running up behind him, the cold afternoon emphasised by the visible sight of his breath after chasing Minho for the best of 2 minutes.
Felix had always been one of his close friends ever since they’d ran into each other, quite literally, on the day of auditions for the dance club. No surprises, they both got in and since then, they’d been closer than ever. Felix knows too much about him, it would be worrying if the younger boy wasn’t literally a walking ray of sunshine.
“Oh, by the way, is Seungmin doing alright? He looks pretty rough,” Felix frowns, tugging on the sleeves of his hoodie to cover his hands.
Instantly concerned, Minho starts walking slightly faster, “I haven’t seen him. Why? Is something up?”
Felix struggled for words, he didn’t particularly know what was wrong with Seungmin other than the fact he looked like he was on his last legs, “Let’s just say I think he’s at death's door,”
Minho grimaces, “He’s sick?” Felix nods, sharing the same exasperated expression as Minho had.
When Seungmin gets sick, he doesn’t tell a soul unless he deems it absolutely necessary. He acts as if it’s the biggest inconvenience to his day which all in all is fair, nobody likes feeling as if it’s their last day on Earth.
It was fair to say that Minho wasn’t going to waste time in some dead-end lesson he didn’t even want to be at when he could be preparing for the longest night of his life. He walks straight to the pharmacy, ignoring the confused look from Felix when he marches by as if he’s on a mission. In hindsight, it feels rather like a mission.
The pharmacy wasn’t too far away from campus, at most, it was a short ten-minute walk. It was within a large supermarket which was quite convenient given Minho was also going to have to add some other necessities to his shopping list such as tissues, ingredients for soup, cough drops, peppermint tea and, of course, medicine. While he’s at it, Minho decides that adding ice cream would be nice.
“Minho! What brings you here?”
Momentarily, Minho forgets that Han Jisung, local campus dealer, works part-time as a pharmacist. Despite being friends with Jisung for years, Minho still can’t help but laugh at just how ironic it is. Handing out prescriptions in the daytime, by night he’s lurking in the alleyways (with lights on, he’s not into that sketchy business, thank you very much).
Minho leans on the counter, heaving out a loud sigh, “Seungmin’s sick,” Much like Minho had done earlier, Jisung follows suit, pulling a pained expression.
“Are you sure you can get him to take something?” Jisung questioned, blinking up at Minho who didn’t seem so self-assured in his ability to get Seungmin to willingly swallow a single pill, “Do you remember when he had food poisoning?”
Yes, Minho remembers vividly.
Seungmin had refused to stay in the dorm, let alone his bed. Feeling as bad as he did, it’s beyond Minho why Seungmin would even want to leave the premises of his bedroom, let alone be more than a few steps away from the nearest bathroom.
“I’ll find a way whether he likes it or not,” Minho supplies, paying for the medicine that Jisung had recommended with Minho’s limited details on what Seungmin’s symptoms actually were. The most he had to go off was Felix telling him he looked like death.
Jisung looks down at the box he’d just given Minho and peers back up with a childish grin, “Tell him they’re gummies, he’ll totally fall for it,”
Minho rolls his eyes, lightly smacking Jisung on the arm, “He’s not five,” Sometimes, Seungmin acts older than all his friends combined.
Jisung pouts, rubbing his arm, “It works when Chan Hyung says it,”
He knows very well it works when Chan says it, the reason being that Minho was the one who came up with that idea in the first place back when Jisung refused to take his tablets after a rather unfortunate turn of events regarding antibiotics and a horrible viral infection that went on for far too long.
By the time he’d left the supermarket, the sky was starting to cloud over and the skies had grown darker, yet it had only just gone four.
The shoes left abandoned in the middle of the entryway tell Minho that Seungmin is back from spreading the plague across campus. Although Minho finds himself relieved that Seungmin had finally gotten himself back, he can’t help but be worried about the placement of his shoes.
It sounds stupid, Minho knows it does, however, Seungmin was a neat freak. Before Minho met Seungmin, he was sure that he couldn’t possibly meet someone who liked things to be just as organised and clean as he himself liked them to be. Within the first day of rooming together, they had conducted all sorts of routines to make sure their dorm would stay clean at all times.
A match made in heaven.
“Seungminnie?” Minho calls out, poking his head into the younger’s bedroom only to feel a rush of ice-cold air hitting him, smack in the face. “Jesus Christ, what’s wrong with him?” He whines, pulling the window closed and cracking up the heater that Seungmin had located at the end of his bed.
Eventually, he finds Seungmin passed out on the couch, shivering with goosebumps all over his arms. Taking a trip to his own bedroom, Minho pulls his fluffy, red, knitted blanket off his bed and brings it over to Seungmin where he gently lays it over the boy making sure all limbs were covered.
It felt pointless getting a thermometer when he could feel just how much Seungmin was burning up simply by the touch of his hand against his forehead. Briefly, Minho wonders if this is when he should get a damp cloth like they do in the movies. He doubts it even does anything, with how hot Seungmin feels, a bath full of ice wouldn’t be enough.
Aimlessly watching Seungmin sleep wasn’t going to get him anywhere and the bag of ingredients waiting to be cooked wasn’t going to throw themselves into a nice, warm dish.
Talking about dishes, there were none waiting to be washed up which was unusual but, ultimately, it meant that Seungmin had gone without eating all day. His frown from earlier itches back onto his face knowing that Seungmin hadn’t felt well enough to handle food.
~
Seungmin groans, the pounding in his head had gotten far worse than before he’d fallen asleep. He doesn’t even remember falling asleep in the first place, somehow he’d acquired a blanket that smelt oddly like Minho (not that he was complaining) and there was now also a box of tissues at his side.
He appreciates the box of tissues, his nose was heavily contributing to his headache and the mucus building up was starting to make him feel a little sick.
“How are you feeling?”
Seungmin jumps, not expecting Minho to emerge from the kitchen. Well, that explains the blanket and box of tissues.
“Like shit,” He grumbles, not even bothering to hide the fact he was feeling ill, “I feel like my stomach is in the process of digesting itself,”
Minho cracks a small smile at Seungmin’s attempt at humour even while feeling miserable inside and out, “Well, how does your stomach feel about digesting some soup?”
In all honesty, Seungmin really doesn’t want to eat anything, not even something as mundane as soup. “Hyung, I-” Seeing Minho’s face drop and the slight furrow to his brow which only ever happens when he was concerned, Seungmin decides he can at least attempt a bit of soup.
“Soup sounds good,” Seungmin forces out a smile, dreading the idea of the warm, soupy liquid sitting in his unsettled stomach.
Immediately, Minho is out into the kitchen and poured Seungmin a bowl of warm soup that he had left to simmer on low heat while Seungmin slept. Not only did he come back with a bowl of soup, but he also brought along with him two tablets and a bottle of water.
Seungmin bites down his guilt, he knows Minho must’ve gone out of his way to get him medicine. As far as he knows, there wasn’t any medicine in there; when he looked this morning, all there was was a half-empty box of laxatives…He made sure to stay the hell away from those.
How did he know he was sick in the first place? He knows Minho is annoyingly good at reading people but even this was a bit of a stretch given they hadn’t seen each other since Tuesday and it was now Friday.
“Felix told me,” Minho says, sensing Seungmin’s questions, “Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve come home earlier,”
“It started this morning, I’m fine Hyung,”
He doesn’t look fine. His shaking had started up again and he was practically vibrating out of existence and not in a fun way. This was going to be a long night.
He takes the tablets without hesitation, anything that promised to take away his pain was a good enough reason to take it. He just hopes it kicks in soon. It was at times like these that Seungmin almost wished he could be a little like Felix, open and vulnerable with everyone but he couldn’t, not with everyone anyway.
When Minho waves a spoon in front of his face, Seungmin snaps back to reality, back to the soup currently sitting on his lap, steadied by Minho’s hands. On any other day, the soup would have looked irresistible like most of Minho’s creations but today, when his stomach felt like it was doing an endless cycle of roly polies, Seungmin wasn’t so convinced.
The first spoonful that went down his throat threatened to come back up, it was a horrible feeling that he wishes to push away and never think about again. Minho’s cooking was second to none, it was perfection, so much so that on their first night of staying together, Seungmin had genuinely thought Minho was studying food tech.
Though, despite Minho’s chef-like skills, Seungmin was beyond struggling to get it down. While he’s used to Minho’s soup having a variety of desirable flavours, this time it tasted nothing short of bland and plain. His taste always managed to escape when he fell ill, it wasn’t fair. Not only did he have to suffer feeling miserable and sick, but he also couldn’t even enjoy a simple meal without his illness tackling him to the ground.
The audacity of his immune system.
“Taste good?” Minho asks, his eyes boring holes into Seungmin’s own, watching every twitch and slight movement. He knows, Seungmin knows Minho knows. They’d known each other for long enough now, they’d been through enough together too.
To Seungmin, the soup was just a warm, uncomfortable liquid slipping down his throat and into his stomach that was only just accepting the meal. With every spoonful came another angry flip from his guts, it wasn’t surprising that halfway through he set the spoon down, giving up.
Minho was quick to take the bowl from Seungmin’s lap before it starts to burn through the blanket, subsequently burning Seungmin’s already pale legs that never get to see the light of day.
Before heading out to the kitchen, Minho turns back, “Did you need anything else? A cup of tea? Any more water?”
Seungmin hides his smile, faking a cough accompanied by a slight shake of his head, “No thanks, you really don’t have to baby me,” He says that but, in all honesty, Seungmin wants nothing more than to be doted on.
This was Minho.
This was the only person Seungmin felt comfortable enough to sit back and simply let himself be taken care of, no matter how embarrassing (okay, maybe just a little embarrassment). He guesses it’s the privilege of liking one another, even if they hadn’t physically stuck a label on it, they were something.
Between the drunken kisses in the dark and the longing gazes in the daytime, Seungmin knows they weren’t just friends. Did Seungmin want a label? Yes and no. While he didn’t want things to change between them, he also wanted some sort of validation.
The thought of Minho being like this with someone who wasn’t him hurt. It hurt so fucking much and if anyone asked if Seungmin thought about this on the daily (and maybe cried a little too) then the answer was irrelevant. That was between him and his panda plush, a secret never to be told.
Lost in his thoughts, Seungmin hadn’t noticed Minho leaning on the doorframe, observing him with a distant smile that quickly changed into a flustered splutter when Seungmin raised his head, accidentally making eye contact with the older.
“Shower- You should get a shower,” Minho stutters out, awkwardly pointing towards the bathroom, “Might clear up your nose,” He reasons, standing straight as if he wasn’t just an embarrassed mess at being caught staring.
Cute.
~
That night, before turning into bed, Minho decided to keep his door slightly ajar. He knows Seungmin and what he is one hundred per cent certain of is that if anything were to happen, Seungmin would try his absolute best not to wake him up.
Luckily, tomorrow is a Saturday which means the two of them could have a simple day inside, focusing on getting Seungmin better. The last time Seungmin was sick with food poisoning, the last thing he wanted to do was lounge around waiting to get better which, in all fairness, was valid.
Minho hated having to wait around for his body to decide it was well enough to continue existing, he knows how Seungmin feels but it was important that he got better before getting worse.
Minho falls asleep thinking about it all, his head just a whirlpool of Kim Seungmin like it was most nights.
~
Seungmin doesn’t know what time it is or how much time had passed but he swears sleep hadn’t come to him in the slightest. No matter how much he tossed and turned, how many times he’d tried to count sheep or create imaginary stories in his head, sleep didn’t come in the slightest.
The only thing that did seem to come was a horrendous onset of quite possibly the most painful cramps known to humankind. Okay, maybe he’s being over dramatic but it hurts. Sure, he’s had cramps before but nothing as bad as these.
These felt like a sharp pressure in his abdomen, slicing through every inch of him and leaving no time to recover. Seungmin’s starting to think he was right in thinking this wasn’t just a cold, did he really have to battle through the flu now?
Life was really inconvenient sometimes…
He’d just have to hope it doesn’t get worse.
~
Surprise, surprise, it got worse. Much worse.
Eventually, he had fallen asleep in spite of the pain but, in the early hours of 4 AM, he’d woken back up in excruciating pain, clutching his stomach and withering in pain. Not only was his stomach set on ending him this morning, but his temperature was also making his entire being shake so much that the bedframe was even slightly hitting the wall.
He dreads to know what the neighbours are thinking.
Seungmin wasn’t one for crying over being ill, he was oddly proud of his high pain tolerance and often liked to flaunt it however, this was even too much for him to cope with.
The one person he wanted was sleeping peacefully in the other room, happy and content, unlike Seungmin who felt as if these were his final days left to mope around feeling as if he had millions of knives piercing his being all at once.
He needs to get to Minho, he needs to be close to him. His attempts to climb out of bed were futile, no matter how hard he tried to get his body to walk, his stomach would only make him double over in agony.
At this point, it wasn’t even a case of wanting Minho (though it mostly was), Seungmin also desperately craved some pain relief. Whether that be painkillers or eternal darkness, one felt an awful lot closer than the other.
He whimpers in pain, falling back against the mattress with a quiet thud. From his bedside table, his phone meekly lights up before fading to darkness again. With shaky hands, Seungmin picks it up, blinded by the light pouring out of the screen and into his burning eyes.
Without a second’s hesitation, Seungmin clicks on the call button next to Minho’s name and listens in the deafening silence for the rings to sound out. There was something oddly haunting about hearing Minho’s phone ring in the middle of the night, knowing he was the one to set it off. Either Seungmin is too sick and in his head or the ringing was going on for a lifetime.
Until it came to an end, the automated voicemail response only served to make Seungmin’s eyes water even more. He doesn’t notice the first tear that falls, cascading down his cheek and dripping onto his disturbed blankets.
Ring…
Ring…
Ring…
“Minnie? What’s going on?” Minho roughly mumbles, sleep evident in all aspects of his voice from his gravelly tone to his hushed words coming through the speaker.
Seungmin tries to tell Minho, he tries to tell him that he hurts, that his stomach is being put through a life-sized shredder and that he doesn’t think he’s going to make it through the night. He’s sure Minho would make fun of him if he decided to say just that.
Regardless of his efforts, all that came out of his mouth was a small, choked sob that said more words than he ever could’ve put together. On the other hand, when Seungmin feels better, he’s going to replay this moment in his head for the whole of eternity in pure humiliation. For now, he’d just be thankful that he can hear Minho’s feet quickly padding across the floorboards and closer to his bedroom.
When Minho makes it to his doorway, dressed in a loose tee and some shorts that Seungmin recognises as Minho’s workout shorts, it just makes Seungmin feel ten times worse. The fact that Minho actually wore something to bed shows that he was expecting something like this to happen…The guilt was going to eat him alive at this point.
Minho wastes no time in flicking the light on and perching on the edge of Seungmin’s bed where he starts to softly thread his fingers through Seungmin’s bed hair as if it were instinct for him. Seungmin hates how comforting it feels, it kind of reminds him of his childhood.
“What’s going on?” Minho repeats, patiently waiting for a response from Seungmin who was on the verge of having a full-on breakdown in the middle of the night.
Much like the 30-second phone call, he just can’t get the words out. Minho knew him though, they never needed words when it came to each other and tonight was no exception.
Minho brushes his hair back again, lingering for a moment, “Will you be okay while I get you some more medicine?”
The thought of having to be alone again filled him with dread but the promise of more medicine was worth the pain of being alone for a few more minutes. Seungmin gives Minho a nod, already missing the warmth of Minho’s hand when he reluctantly leaves Seungmin’s side.
Minho jogs off into the kitchen, wasting no time standing around. As much as Seungmin didn’t want to be left alone, Minho didn’t want to leave him alone. The sound of the tap filling up the glass of water echoed in the dormant dorm, the noise bouncing off of the walls in the eerie silence.
He’d always hated being up in the middle of the night, ever since he was a young child, hiding under the blankets and keeping the closet door shut. It seems his fears had followed him into adulthood, even just a little.
The towels hanging on the hooks Seungmin had put up swayed side to side as Minho brushed by them, stifling a yawn as he grabbed some more medicine and headed out of the menacing kitchen.
“I’m back,” Minho softly announces in the lit bedroom, handing Seungmin the glass of water and pills which he takes with two shaking hands, “It’ll pass soon,” He whispers, not knowing how else to help. It was all well and good being able to get Seungmin medicine but what now? He couldn’t possibly just sit here and watch the person he lov- the person he cared about most struggling.
It wasn’t fair.
Seungmin tips his head back, swallowing down the pills with minor difficulty due to the pestering lump in his throat. He lets his head fall onto Minho’s shoulder, leaning his weight onto his side without a care in the world.
It had been a while since they’d sat side by side in one of their beds, laughing as the time ticked by without their knowledge until the sun was rising yet again. Seungmin misses those days. As the stress picked up from their classes, they hadn’t shared a moment like that in a few months.
Until now.
Minho peers down at him, wrapping his arm around his waist, “I found a kitten yesterday,” He says, smiling at the memory, “It was an orange one. As sassy as ever,” He giggles, remembering the way it had hissed at him for taking too long to stroke it.
Even with the stabbing in his stomach, Seungmin was able to let a small smile settle on his lips. Rather than focusing on the words, Seungmin pays close attention to Minho’s soft, melodic voice. When he wasn’t singing at obscene hours in the morning, his voice was something he tended to value.
Sometimes Seungmin wonders what his voice would sound like singing a lullaby or a slow-paced love ballad. It was embarrassing just how many times he’d thought about Minho’s voice but can you blame him?
Even the thumb that was wiping away the few stray tears that had managed to slip out was soft, nothing about Minho was rough (not that Seungmin could think of anyway).
Minho watches Seungmin, letting his hand linger for a second too long. They seemed always to find themselves in these oddly intimate moments but nobody would say a word, it was only Minho and Seungmin, no one could take them away from one another.
Feeling his cheeks heat up, Seungmin rolls his head onto his pillow, missing the warmth already. His cold pillow would have to do for now. He lets his eyes linger on Minho who’s pulling the blankets down, making sure it covers his feet and that they wouldn’t come untucked again.
The prospect of Minho leaving fills Seungmin with dread, whether it be because there wouldn’t be someone with him or because Minho would be out of his sight. He doesn’t know, or secretly he does but he refuses to acknowledge it.
“Stay,” Seungmin whispers, grabbing Minho’s hand before he could get too far away, “Please,” He begs, looking up at Minho with those big eyes that Minho could stare at all day. Felix had once told him he was whipped for Seungmin, at the time he’d glared but looking back on it, he had a point.
Minho lets his eyes settle on Seungmin’s hand held tightly around his wrist, preventing him from moving, “You…You want me to stay?” He imagines this is what those people in kdramas feel like when the camera is shooting the same slo-mo scene from at least ten different angles.
Seungmin gives him a slow nod, loosening his grip and shuffling along to make space for Minho in his single bed, made for one. He slides in, changing sides with Seungmin so he’s able to leave if need be.
A comforting blanket of silence fell over them as the sky was starting to break into pink and orange hues, after all, it was nearing 5 AM. Minho stares at the ceiling, gently linking his fingers with Seungmin’s own until they were holding hands under the covers.
“Get some sleep, Seungminnie,” Minho quietly says, comfortingly squeezing his hand, “I’ll be here, don’t worry,”
For the first time that night, Seungmin shuts his eyes and doesn’t feel like death. He doesn’t know if his heart is beating so fast from the side effects of the medicine or the fact that Minho’s thumb was softly running over his hand.
~
When Seungmin wakes up, the first thing he notices is just how tight his chest feels. It was a strange sensation like there was a weight on him that just wouldn’t budge.
The weight on his chest twitches ever so slightly, “Wha-” Seungmin grumbles, clearing his throat, stopping as soon as he notices Minho’s head resting on his chest, fast asleep.
His lips are slightly parted, letting out slow, quiet breaths and occasionally, if Seungmin listens close enough, he can make out a few words being muttered in his sleep. He hadn’t ever stood and watched Minho sleep (for obvious reasons) so he’d never noticed how his eyebrows would pitch together, it was kind of adorable.
Seungmin smiles, letting his cheeks puff up and if it weren’t for his congested nose and sore throat, he would feel on top of the world.
While he didn’t feel completely better, he did feel more alive than yesterday and that was a win in itself. However, now that he’s thinking about it, having Minho in his bed, sleeping on his chest probably wasn’t the best way to prevent germs…
If Minho gets sick then Seungmin would just have to suffer the consequences.
It didn’t matter anyway, at least he’d get to take care of him.
Seungmin decides, especially after last night, that he’d let Minho sleep in. He could lay there for a while longer, staring at the blank ceiling and running his hands through Minho’s soft hair as he starts to think about what could possibly happen today.
He’d just have to wait and see, either way, he’d have Minho at his side.
That was enough to make it worthwhile.