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When Minghao was around 13, he had started getting dizzy whenever he stood up. At first, he thought nothing of it, but just over a year later, he passed out at the end of class when he stood up to leave.
It was a fairly big deal for the school. An ambulance was called, Minghao was hospitalized and as happened in all schools, gossip spread fast about the popular kid who had passed out in class.
When Minghao returned with his diagnosis of POTS, it was very safe to say that he was embarrassed. Instead of hanging out with the usual big group of popular kids, he stuck himself to Seokmin and Mingyu, using the six-foot tree as a hiding place in the corridors.
After a few weeks, all the gossip calmed down and Minghao started to emerge back into the school, although he still avoided the popular groups, choosing to hang out with Mingyu and Seokmin’s friends instead.
After Minghao’s first fainting episode, he started having a few more. They were few and far between at first, but soon became more often and worse.
It only took a year to get very used to his episodes, recognising the signs of them coming. His new friends got good at it too, using the pulse oximeter in Minghao’s bag to monitor him while he was unconscious and helping him to the nurse when he woke up.
Despite Minghao’s medication, it didn’t do much to stop his fainting episodes, so Minghao just accepted he had to learn how to cope with them instead.
POTS was a very frustrating thing to have. It didn’t just make Minghao pass out when he stood up too quickly, but it also made him dizzy, gave him headaches and stopped him from sleeping well.
His grades had dropped noticeably since his first fainting episode, since he was missing a fair few lessons to wait out episodes, or when he simply felt too awful to get out of bed in the morning. Minghao had started studying late into the night to try and catch up with all his work, which was only making his fainting episodes worse.
Time at school could be pretty anxiety-inducing for Minghao. There was a lot of walking to do around the campus, and standing up at the end of lessons had been the cause of several episodes.
Just on occasion, Minghao forgot to take his medication, and things could get a lot worse for the day.
Minghao lived half an hour from the school, so when he missed his meds one morning, he knew there was no chance he was going to be allowed to go home to get them.
They had barely reached recess by the time Minghao started feeling dizzy and tired, sitting down on a bench near the school building instead of joining his friends in their football game.
Minghao knew when he was going to faint, feeling much weaker and almost like his brain was getting foggy, fading away. He called out for Junhui, seeing the elder starting to run over before his vision turned dark.
———————
Minghao’s eyes rolled back and his body went limp just as Junhui got over to him, grabbing his body and guiding him down to the ground from the bench so he was just a little safer. Junhui gently pulled Minghao into the recovery position to help him wake up. Junhui next grabbed the pulse oximeter and clipped it to Minghao’s finger.
His pulse was a little low, but it seemed to be steadily rising again. Minghao still looked really pale and he wasn’t yet waking up, so Junhui stayed beside him as Mingyu and Wonwoo came over.
“Is he doing alright?” Wonwoo asked, kneeling on the other side of Minghao to check over him.
“Low pulse but he should be waking up soon. Hopefully, it won’t be too bad.” Junhui whispered back, brushing Minghao’s hair out of his eyes.
Barely two minutes after Minghao passed out, he started opening his eyes, wiggling his fingers to try and see how he was feeling as he woke. Junhui carefully raised Minghao’s head into his lap so he didn’t have to rest on the hard concrete, and took the pulse oximeter off of Minghao’s finger, tucking it back into his bag.
“You fainted two minutes ago, Hao. Take your time coming back. There’s no rush.” Junhui reassured him, smiling softly down at the sleepy boy.
Luckily, this episode didn’t seem too bad. He wasn’t scared and his body wasn’t going into fight or flight, he seemed to be coming around quickly and most importantly, he wasn’t either injured or overheating.
It took around five minutes for Minghao to fully wake up, but he was soon back up on his feet and followed Mingyu to their next lesson having drunk some water and eaten some mini pretzels.
———————
It was around lunch break that Minghao had his next, much worse episode.
They had all eaten their food together and were just heading out to the fields when Minghao passed out, dropping to the ground before anyone could grab him. It had just happened so suddenly.
Junhui, being the best at knowing what to do when it came to Minghao and his POTS, carefully moved Minghao, took his bag off his back to both get him lying down better and grab some equipment, and knelt down next to him.
Wonwoo helped, moving Minghao onto his back and raising his feet while Junhui got the pulse oximeter on his finger. His pulse was low, as expected, so Junhui listened close to his breathing. It sounded a little fast, but not too out of the ordinary for Minghao.
Junhui looked up at Joshua, who looked desperate to do something but with nothing to do. “Can you run and get some ice packs and towels from the nurse?”
Joshua nodded, quickly starting off to fetch what Junhui had asked for. Wonwoo was setting up a timer on his phone so they knew how long Minghao was unconscious for. It had already been at least thirty seconds, but why did it feel so much longer than that?
Junhui and Wonwoo sat there on the floor for a few minutes, almost three, waiting for either Joshua to return or for Minghao to start waking up. The others were simply standing around, looking concerned but not really knowing what to do. Soon enough, Joshua rushed down the long corridor with two ice packs in his hand.
He handed them to Junhui, who popped them and shook them to cool them down and wrapped them in the towels before pressing one to Minghao’s neck and the other to his forehead.
“He’s really warm right now,” Wonwoo explained to Joshua before looking up at everyone else. “Do you think you guys could just head out to the fields?”
Junhui nodded at them. “Yeah, this looks bad and I don’t want him to get overwhelmed.”
Everyone agreed, quickly leaving Wonwoo and Junhui with Minghao to wait for him to come around.
It took another few minutes before he finally let out a weak groan and started to move his eyes behind his eyelids. It wasn't much longer before Minghao’s eyes fluttered open, looking dazed and sleepy.
“Hey, HaoHao,” Junhui whispered, keeping his voice down to try not to stress Minghao more than he must have been.
Minghao didn’t seem to have heard it, clearly kicking into fight or flight as he tried to lash out at Wonwoo, although too uncoordinated to really do much. Instead, Wonwoo grabbed Minghao’s wrist and held it still.
“Hao, please don’t lash out. It’s Wonwoo and Junhui with you, no one else is here.” Wonwoo said, deep voice loud and clear so Minghao could hear him.
Minghao was still freaked out and clearly not completely back with them, trying to get up or lash out at his two friends for a few minutes until he calmed down and let Junhui sit him up and start feeding him some mini pretzels.
Minghao looked really embarrassed as he sat in the corridor and ate the pretzels he was given, his ears and cheeks flushed red. Junhui kept reassuring him that it wasn’t his fault and that he couldn’t control his body, which helped Minghao relax a little.
They were on the floor for almost ten minutes after Minghao really woke up before Minghao decided he was alright and got the other two to help him stand.
He seemed fine to walk, only a little off balance but Junhui and Wonwoo helped him with Wonwoo holding his hand and Junhui keeping a hand on Minghao’s back. They led him out to the field, Minghao wanting to spend at least a little of his break sitting outside.
Junhui stayed on the bench with him, watching the groups playing football and chatting as Minghao really collected his tired brain and prepared himself for class.
“Two episodes today. Are you sure you don’t want to go home?” Junhui asked, watching as Minghao looked absently at the field before them.
Minghao shook his head a little, “I’ll be fine until the end of the day. Just gotta eat lots of pretzels.” He said, voice soft as he grabbed some more pretzels and started eating them.
Minghao was fortunately allowed to eat his snacks in class after quietly whispering to his teacher that he had already fainted twice that day. Minghao was very thankful to the wonderful Korean teacher who ignored the rustling of the packet and checked up on Minghao halfway through the lesson to make sure he was feeling.
At the end of the day, Minghao met up with Junhui and Mingyu to head back home. Junhui, Mingyu and Minghao had lived on the same street for most of their lives, but they had only started hanging out after Minghao’s POTS was discovered. All of the others either took one of the two buses home or lived on the other side of the school.
It was a half-hour walk, during which Mingyu and Junhui asked Minghao how he felt every few minutes to make sure he wasn’t feeling faint again. Minghao couldn’t express how thankful he was for his friends.
When the three reached Minghao’s house, the closest to the school by barely two minutes, he waved goodbye to the other two and thanked them for their help, watching as they walked off down the street before letting out a sigh and turning around to his mother opening the front door, accepting the welcoming hug she pulled him into with a smile.