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he’s halfway through their trip when the feeling begins to kick in fully.
waking up more fatigued than normal because he went to bed early the night before and got a little too much sleep is entirely normal as well as the fact that no matter how much he adjusts his costume, he still feels like it’s shrinking around him with intention to suffocate.
that’s all normal with his condition but…maybe still, he should’ve paid a little more mind to it. even just paced himself more.
“is your phone not beeping, sung?” minho asks across from him, just heard over the sound of restaurant chatter. minho shakes his phone a little, showing what he’s referencing to- his screen open to jisung’s blood sugar monitoring app. he pulls his own phone out to display its silence. “i’m in range,” he says, placing the phone face up on the table. “it shouldn’t be going off.”
“you’re shaking so i was just wondering if you needed some sugar,” minho explains as he puts his phone back down. jisung raises the hand not currently holding his fork to confirm he is actually shaking. it’s common, honestly. his hands always sort of tremble and maybe that’s not a good thing because he’s gotten used to ignoring it when it happens because it’s always happening.
he lays his arm back on the table, pushing his honey bbq chicken bites around the plate. “maybe you’re dropping,” jeongin adds in. jisung’s head whips up, unaware jeongin had even been listening. the movement makes his head throb for a second. “wouldn’t it alert you to dropping, though?” minho asks.
“not always,” jisung says absentmindedly. “if it’s dropping at a steady rate, it won’t pick up on the change until it’s considered low.”
“shouldn’t you at least eat something with sugar then? just in case?” jeongin’s expression winces as if he’s afraid to push jisung too much. jisung doesn’t blame him. he doesn’t really feel like being pushed but he nods anyway and lets jeongin take off to find something sweet.
he doesn’t really want anything sweet currently but maybe the sugar will give him some energy so he doesn’t feel like sinking down into the seat more. it’s only lunch and they’ve been at the convention for less than two hours and he still plans on coming out later for dinner and to walk around more. the sugar should give him enough boost to get back to the hotel room.
jeongin returns with a small slice of cake and slides it over. jisung realizes then and there that putting anything else in his stomach makes him feel nauseous. or maybe he’s just naturally nauseous. either way, he ignores it to shovel bits of cake into his mouth, not really tasting it and just making sure it goes down. the corset he has around his waist may look good with the costume but it’s hell on his insides. it feels like the circulation to his legs has been cut off and he’s sweating up a storm underneath the leather of it. he wants nothing more than to take it off but he can’t exactly do that out here or the whole costume will fall apart and he’ll end up carrying the pieces. he’s better off waiting until he can get back to the hotel room.
all of this combined should tell him something…but it doesn’t. or if it does, he ignores it.
well, until they get up to leave.
he swears he puts his head down for a second, but when he looks up the others are up and gathering their things and he’s still yet to throw away his trash. to be fair, nobody rushes him but he rushes himself. jisung gathers his trash and dishes and stands…then everything sort of- tilts.
his breath leaves him quickly, huffing out nothing but hot air from the humidity around him. he catches himself on a stumble, a sharp pain rupturing through his ankle as he steps down hard on it. someone grabs some stuff from his hands. they’re saying something but he can’t hear it over the ringing until- “-down. careful when you get your bag.”
jeongin walks away quickly to dispose of the trash he took from jisung while the latter takes a breath and tries to walk. he can tell he’s unsteady on his feet and tells himself it’s just the humidity. everyone entering the convention was warned to stay hydrated and rest when necessary because of how swelteringly hot it was going to get at the highest point of the day so maybe he’s just a little overheated in his costume. his later costume consists of a tee rather than long sleeves so hopefully it’ll cool him off a bit. besides, he can always carry his forearm crutches if he really needs the support.
he makes his way back to the table, feeling a little more steady the longer he goes until he makes the mistake of getting too comfortable in it. he leans down, bending at the waist to grab his bag off the ground, and stands back up straight to toss it over his shoulder. his heart hammers inside his ears the second he’s upright and minho pats him on the shoulder, guiding him out from under the covered eating area. the sun beams down onto his face and in an instant he just knows he’s gonna faint.
“‘m gonna pass out,” he calls, unknowing if anyone can hear him or if he said it out loud at all. he can still feel minho’s hands firm on his arm and upper back and the fact that all movement beside him stops must mean minho heard him. his vision spots black and he fumbles for minho’s arm to lower himself in the middle on the hot pavement. minho sits with him, bracing jisung on the way down and holding him as the shadow of another person- jeongin, most likely- jogs up to the pair of them.
jisung’s head spins and the pavement burns at his legs and all he can seem to feel is pain everywhere except the burning. minho places a hand back firm on jisung’s shoulder blade, massaging and shaking him a little- not enough to make the dizziness worse but enough to keep him conscious and calm. it’s not really that bad in all honesty, he’s definitely felt worse during an episode so he thinks maybe he just needs a minute.
“go around- yea, like that. block the sun,” minho calls toward jeongin before jisung is enveloped in shadow. jisung tilts, a huff leaving his chest as he balances his forehead onto minho’s shoulder. he winces at the movement, a short groan leaving his throat. “it’s okay. you’re okay, stay awake,” minho comforts.
“we gave him sugar. he should’ve had salt,” jeongin recalls. he sounds sort of…guilty? maybe just sad at jisung’s condition.
“it’s okay. salt might not have done much with all the movement and heat anyway,” minho hums from above him. he reaches for jisung’s wrist, turning it over gently to click on his watch. “heart rate is just in the 90’s from the previous 70’s and going down,” he speaks aloud to no one in particular. “you should be okay in a minute.”
it doesn’t last long, per minho’s estimate. a minute or two more of sitting and jisung pries his eyes open to find the world isn’t tilting under him anymore. he lifts himself from minho’s shoulder, only just barely swaying. “i’m okay,” he says in response to minho’s concerned look. “i can- i can stand.”
“can you?” minho asks, making sure he doesn’t get up too quick. “i can get jeongin to fetch a wheelchair.”
“no it’s-“ jisung gulps. he feels embarrassed and he shouldn’t. it’s not like it’s something he can control but he just knows that he caused some kind of scene with the people bustling around them. if he’d been down any longer or actually fainted, there’s no telling what kind of attention it would’ve garnered. “it’s okay. i don’t need it, just- i wanna go back.”
jisung turns his head out of minho’s chest to peer up at jeongin, his arms spread to hold his costumes cape out for a makeshift canopy. he laughs airily at him, shaking his head slowly in disbelief. “you look like an idiot,” he teases.
“hey! as long as i’m helping, i don’t care,” he teases back.
the whole ordeal gets mostly forgotten, lost in the midst of excitement and hard work putting cosplays together. once he’s off the ground and halfway carried by minho and jeongin back to the hotel room, he regulates back to what he could describe as “his normal” which probably still isn’t good, but it’s normal enough to be looked over for the most part.
he’s been fatigued since he got off the plane and into the hotel room yesterday. he was fatigued ever since thinking he should get extra sleep before the convention. all put together, it’s really not that bad, not as bad as it could be and he thinks he can make it. as much time, effort, and money as he put into this trip, he thinks he can make it just a little bit more and then let himself rest after he’s done. so, by the time he’s gotten into cosplay- and asked a million times if he’s sure about going again- minho places his forearm crutches in his hands and lets jisung leave back out of the hotel along with him and jeongin.
the venue crowding the lobby is a lot smaller than he had assumed it was going to be. though, most people tend to go in the cooler months rather than now because now it feels like the inside of an oven. even inside the main hall is hot, especially with all the people moving about.
the handles of the crutches are slippery in his clammy hands, so much that he has to wipe them off on his pants every time they have a chance to stop somewhere, but at least they effectively do their job. his ankle throbs and, after further inspection at the hotel, it’s a bit swollen from what he can only assume is stepping down on it so hard and bending it. he only felt it after the adrenaline wore off but now that he’s calmer and stabilized, it burns from the inside out. so, yes, the forearm crutches prove to be useful in this sense and he’s thankful for minho’s decision to make him carry them.
the other two stop up ahead, pointing out some artwork hung by an artist and starting up a conversation with her as jisung stops behind them. his muscles relax into a comfortable standing position and the loosening makes him realize just how exhausted he’s getting. they’ve barely even done anything and that’s one of the things he will always hate about being chronically ill. jisung sighs and lets his head fall, thumping jeongin’s shoulder lightly. jeongin is quick to turn and swipe his bangs away from his forehead.
“you okay?” he asks.
jisung nods. “just a little tired.” he lifts his arm, turning it to make his watch light up to show his heart rate. 81 isn’t bad at all, all things considered, but he has the gut feeling he should sit down sometime soon. he’s been standing and walking for god only knows how long now. minho taps him on the shoulder lightly and motions him forward so they can continue walking. he adjusts his grip on the crutches, ignoring the dull pain spreading through his shoulders to follow alongside them.
“oh! there he is!” jeongin calls, pointing up ahead. jisung follows his line of sight to one of their cosplayer friends- seungmin- who they were planning on meeting up with for photos and maybe some videos, whatever they decided to get up to. minho and jeongin make it to him before he does.
“hey, sung!” seungmin greets.
jisung smiles and gives a little dip of his head, readjusting on his crutches. minho gives him a look and takes a hold of his arm, coaxing him over. “here. sit on the windowsill,” he says, helping jisung down onto the plastic surface. the sun beams down on his back through the big glass windows but at least here he can rest his legs and lay down if he needs to.
“blood sugar problems?” seungmin asks, purely out of curiosity.
“almost fainted earlier. not blood sugar, pots episode,” minho explains. “he’s been fine since.”
jisung thinks that’s a funny statement. sure, he would say he’s fine but he knows he’s not- not really, anyway. is he ever? it’s kind of a constant thing, a chronic illness. multiple chronic illnesses on top of that. but telling the difference between what’s normal weakness and fatigue versus something he should be treating with a little more caution? well, that’s something he’s never quite gotten the hang of.
the sun behind him feels like a laser straight into his skull. even sitting down and slipping the crutches from his arms to rest beside him doesn’t do much to alleviate the lightheadedness. with sluggish movements, he leans over the bench and digs around in his bag as he feels his blood rushing. he comes up empty-handed just by his luck. the one time he forgets to pack something to eat.
“need something?” jeongin asks from his side. jisung sighs and thumps back into the window, immediately regretting that movement too. he groans before he responds. “you didn’t pack food, did you?” he asks, turning his head to the side. the image of jeongin doubles for a moment, like he’s viewing something frame by frame, slow motion.
“ah-“ jeongin turns to his own bag and comes up with nothing as well. “i can run and get something?”
jisung instantly shakes his head. “no, it’s alright. i’ll wait until dinner.”
“sure you can wait?” jeongin fidgets next to him, picking at his nails.
“i’ll be fine,” jisung huffs finally, letting his eyes close.
they let him rest for the majority of however long they’re here. he ends up on his side, head resting on someone’s balled-up jacket. he’s almost comfortable until minho taps at his shoulder and says something about they’re going to take pictures. he groans and pushes himself up slowly, hissing more at the pain in his right shoulder.
he goes to pick up his crutches and pauses. he should take them. who cares if they’re in the picture or not? who cares what people have to say about it?
but he convinces himself he can go without for a few minutes.
the others line up by a pillar, spreading out into places for their poses as jisung braces his palms on the windowsill and stands. he takes a couple steps that seem fine at first, not too quick and he still feels steady. he’s happy for a moment because maybe, maybe finally, he can get to do something without his health being in the way. seungmin greets him over, showing him where to stand…
then it hits.
all at once, jisung stops. he fumbles for the closest shoulder he can get to- jeongin’s- and taps as hard as he can, pounding his palm with the feeling of heaviness in the limb as everyone else stops around him, caught off guard by however he must look. “you okay?” jeongin asks. jisung opens his mouth to speak and feels as if he’s forgotten how to make words come out. all that comes out is a sort of wheeze before he feels the need for oxygen overtake the need to voice how he’s feeling. “hey, you okay?” jeongin calls louder. he hyperventilates louder, each dry gasp pounding at every inch of his chest and head, before stumbling into jeongin’s side.
“ okay, okay, alright-“
his vision is black for a second, nothing more than what could be a minute or two before voices seep back in.
“-119 but it’s going back down.”
“how long’s he been out?”
“just a minute. maybe a minute and a half.”
jisung’s chest aches. he pushes a groan out, head tilting back in an effort to fight off the constriction in his throat. his face scrunches and even with his eyes closed, he can still see the harsh sun stinging his eyelids. he grunts once more, louder, and drags a mostly numb hand up to block his face.
a hand caresses his side, shaking him gently. “sung, are you awake?” he groans in response and attempts to roll over, forcing a sharp sting of pain through his shoulder that makes all of his muscles jerk in response. “can you block the sun?” jeongin asks from above him. a shadow takes the place of the harsh sun. “yea, like that- okay, sung? can you open your eyes so i know you’re awake?”
slowly, but reluctantly, he lets his hand fall and blinks his eyes open. jeongin sits cross-legged next to his body, hand disappearing out of jisung’s line of vision to rub at his body and shake him awake. “hey,” he says. “at least i know you can hear me.”
“his heart rate is really unstable,” minho speaks from somewhere jisung can’t see, whispering as if he doesn’t want jisung to hear it. it’s not like he doesn’t know, it’s his heart that’s pounding and his chest that feels like it’s carrying the weight of a thousand rhinos. the second he pulls his attention to the feeling, a sort of fear response kicks in. his chest heaves a few times, gradually getting louder and louder until he’s bordering on hyperventilating again.
“no, it’s okay. you’re alright,” minho says, laying his hand alongside jeongin’s to run down jisung’s leg. his skin vibrates from his feet up, each place minho touches feeling like he’s reaching in and dispersing tiny little beads all around inside him. like he’s being squeezed like a stress ball or the way a beanbag chair feels and sounds. he closes his eyes for what he swears is a moment of rest until he’s being shaken again.
“don’t- can you stay awake?”
jisung feels his body begin to level itself out again. he manages a nod which seems to please jeongin. “alright. i just don’t want you falling asleep if you might’ve hurt your head.” he scrunches his eyebrows together, giving jeongin a confused look. hurt his head? he thought he’d grabbed onto jeongin.
“i caught you, don’t worry,” jeongin laughs. “just tried to lower you the wrong way and bonked your head a little bit.”
jisung manages a smile and a breathy laugh. he frowns instantly after, still feeling the sharpness in his shoulder. “do you wanna sit up? so i can make sure your shoulder is okay?” jeongin asks as he picks at jisung’s clothes, unbunching them from under his arm. jisung nods a little and lets both jeongin and minho maneuver slowly into an upright sitting position. he leans his head into minho’s shoulder, the others arm tucked firm around his waist while jeongin gently rolls his sleeve up.
“the joint might be a little swollen like his ankle and there’s a tiny carpet burn but it looks okay otherwise,” jeongin informs them. jisung inhales and exhales in audible pants. each breath feels like a chore entering and exiting his body and he can’t say that holding himself upright feels much better. at this point, he can’t deny that there’s a problem. as if he didn’t know the entire day that there was a problem, there’s definitely one now because as much as he should start feeling better now, he doesn’t.
“you gonna be alright?” minho asks, caressing jisung’s red cheek with his finger and brushing his hair out of his face. jisung rolls his head a little in an attempt to pick it up, but flops back into minho’s shoulder. he hums in some semblance of what should be a response. minho’s hand drops to reach across his own torso and caress up and down jisung’s inner arm, squeezing the tension from his biceps. “alright, sung?” he repeats.
jisung licks his drying lips and manages to shake his head. he wants to get up and go back to the hotel, get some food, anything but sit here in the middle of the convention with at least four other people crowded around him, monitoring him. despite how much he wants, he knows he can’t move now. something in his body tells him it’s not over yet and this time he listens.
“you gonna faint again?” minho asks just as gently, returning to pet his cheek. he manages a nod this time. “can you find an ice pack, maybe?” he speaks off to the side. then a pause, room for someone to reply out of jisung’s current hearing range. “i doubt there’d be one in his bag. it’s too hot. maybe someone has ice and a cloth?”
his arms lay limp in his crossed legs and, for a third time today, he feels dizzy all over again. he opens his eyes for half a second, blinks them closed, then falls forward into minho’s waiting palm.
there’s a coldness pressing to his cheeks and neck when his hearing starts to come back. he’s back horizontal- probably in minho’s lap but he can’t remember how he got there. “-a little sluggish usually, but he’ll come to and we’ll get him back.”
jisung swallows the lump in his throat, tilting his head back against something soft unlike earlier on the hard carpet flooring. the coldness moves, patting gently at the warmth of his cheeks. just faintly, a sharp beeping starts and he only wonders what it is for a second as it gets louder, then goes off.
“he’s dropping,” minho announces, a sound of defeat in his voice. “says he went from a blood sugar of 314 to 63 in the span of a minute earlier.”
“that’s probably why he isn’t staying awake,” jeongin mutters from just in front of him. “can you bring my bag? i think i have juice,” he asks to somewhere farther off. jisung can only assume seungmin is still here. he feels the panic of his blood sugar dropping along with the rapid pulse trying to fix both issues at the same time. he kind of wants nothing more than to lay here until it stops.
“alright, bud-“ jeongin grunts as he crouches down. fingers tap under jisung’s chin, rocking his head just slightly in an effort to wake him up. he’s more conscious now, enough to tell the softness under his head is actually minho’s lap, like he’d suspected. “you awake now?”
jisung hums in response, pulling his legs up to show jeongin he’s listening. “alrighty, can you drink something?”
minho’s picks pieces of hair out of his face, then lays his hand flat against jisung’s jawline to gently stroke his skin as he processes the question. he nods a little and cracks his eyes open enough to see jeongin smile at him and stab the little straw through the juice box. “i can hold it for you?” he says in a questioning tone that jisung nods his appreciation to. he angles his head forward slightly, enough to properly drink from the small carton.
jeongin pulls it away once he’s done and keeps his body in front of them, blocking out more of the sun. minho traces his jawline, then slides down to switch between massaging his arm and upper back. “are you actually awake now?” minho asks with a slight amusement to his tone to lighten the mood.
“yea,” jisung replies. the words feel thick in his throat but at least he can say them now.
“good,” minho hums. “when you’re up again, you’re going back to the hotel and i don’t wanna hear about it.”
“you shouldn’t have even been out in the first place,” jeongin huffs, not unkindly. jisung whines playfully. “i didn’t pay to come all the way out here for nothing,” he says, shaking his finger in jeongin’s direction. minho laughs from above him before slipping his hand down further to massage at jisung’s thigh in hopes of getting more feeling back into them, per usual.
“yea, well, when you end up in a hospital bed because you didn’t listen to us, don’t expect me to prop your legs up and bring you an ice pack,” jeongin jokes back.
“you would anyway,” jisung grins.
jeongin grins back at him, his features softening into the same look of fondness he usually has for jisung. “i’m mad that you’re right,” he says, though not actually looking all that mad. “come on. get up so we can go back to the hotel.”