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Jeno’s Docs are waiting by the door when he toes his Converse off, which is the first sign his evening isn’t about to go the way he expected. But when Renjun opens the door to his apartment, it’s all quiet inside, the way he’d left it this morning.
“Jeno?” he calls out, shrugging his coat off and hanging it up. “Are you here?”
He follows his gut through the apartment to find Jeno’s rucksack laid forlornly in their bedroom doorway. Renjun pauses, picking it up by one strap, and pushing the door open into the dark bedroom.
There’s a Jeno-shaped lump in their bed, and Renjun steels himself.
“Hey, honey,” he says, putting Jeno’s bag down properly by the bedside table and sitting down on the edge of the bed. “Is everything okay? Why are you back a day early?”
He reaches out to put a hand on Jeno’s shoulder, who intakes a shaky breath. He rolls over to face Renjun, and…
“Oh, angel, what is it?” he asks, leaning back to grab the box of tissues. When Jeno blinks his eyes open, a few stray tears leak out, running down his face. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” he says, thick voice betraying a blocked nose. “It was really nice.”
“What?” He reaches out to gently wipe Jeno’s face dry, and for the first time, feels the heat radiating from his boyfriend. “Jeno—do you have a fever?”
He places the back of his hand to Jeno’s cheek—and as his eyes adjust to the dark, he can tell his boyfriend’s face is flushed, and his skin is burning.
“I feel really warm,” Jeno says redundantly. “Just now…”
Renjun discards the tissue box and pulls the bedsheets down from Jeno’s body. He’s shed his jeans on the floor, but is still in the hoodie he’d taken away with him.
“Nooo,” Jeno moans, reaching out for the sheets miserably. “I want to go to bed.”
“Not with those on, you’re too warm. Take your hoodie off, and let me get the thermometer.”
He goes to the kitchen to do just that, filling up a glass of water while he’s there and bringing back a packet of paracetamol.
Jeno, now just in his tshirt and boxers, reaches out for the water half-heartedly when he returns, but Renjun places it to one side. “After I’ve taken your temperature, baby. I’m guessing you’re back home early because you got sick? Why didn’t Chenle come to keep an eye on you? Or why didn’t one of you text me?”
“He’s got it too,” Jeno rasps, and Renjun takes his chin in hand, opening his mouth and pressing the thermometer under his tongue.
“You mean Chenle is just as sick as this?”
“We weren’t this sick when we left, I swear! It came out of nowhere.” The tears are running again, and Jeno sounds positively desolate. “It’s so typical. The one time I get to spend a weekend with him, we decide to cut it off early because we both get sick.”
When Renjun takes out the thermometer, Jeno lets out an abrupt cough, one that rattles around his chest. Renjun pats his arm absently, frowning at the number on the thermometer. 39.2C. He’s completely baffled at when he’d gained a boyfriend this sick with the flu – he seemed completely fine when Renjun waved him off to spend a weekend with his other boyfriend just two days ago.
“We need to cool you down puppy. Have you heard from Chenle? He could’ve come here, I can handle both of you.”
“He’s called Jaemin, he’ll be fine,” Jeno says mournfully, rolling over onto one side.
“Wish you could look after him instead?” Renjun asks, kissing Jeno’s bare arm. So hot to the touch. “Sorry, baby. I know how excited you were to spend the weekend with him.”
“This is what I get for leaving the house.”
“No, this is what you get for not leaving the house. There’s a reason your immune system picks up anything that so much looks at you.” He puts down the thermometer and picks up the glass of water. “Sit up further. Come on, shuffle up.” He fluffs up the pillows behind Jeno with one hand, and Jeno groans and coughs a few times more as he pushes himself up, upright enough to satisfy Renjun before he hands over the water.
“How am I supposed to sleep sat up?”
“Your cough will bother you all night if you sleep horizontal like you were. You can sleep anywhere, I’ve seen you.”
Jeno continues to grumble into his glass of water, and Renjun rearranges the sheets around his legs so that he only has a thin sheet over him, the rest moved away from his burning skin.
“I’m going to get you a wet cloth.”
When he comes back, Jeno’s eyes are running again, so Renjun starts there, cooing and wiping his face down, and Jeno sighs into it. Renjun presses the cloth along his forehead, down the back of his neck, into the junction between neck and shoulder. Dips into his shirt’s neckline to wipe across his chest, then makes his way to Jeno’s forearms, then thighs. Then back up to his cheeks, starting again on forehead.
“Thank you,” Jeno mumbles, eyes closed, leaning into Renjun’s touch.
“When did you get back?”
“Ten minutes before you did. I thought I’d be able to get up again and put my stuff away before you got back.”
Renjun scoffs. “Didn’t you realise how bad you were?”
“I was holding it in,” Jeno mumbles, and Renjun hums softly.
“Holding it in for your new boyfriend? Don’t want to ruin things for him?”
“Of course I didn’t want to ruin things,” he mopes. “We still had a really great time—we got to see the movie we wanted and go to the big arcade and we had nice food. But it’s our first time going away somewhere together. I was really worried, the first night, that I was gonna ruin our whole trip.”
“You’ve been feeling unwell since the first night?”
“Just a sore throat. But I didn’t sleep too well, and I think I kept him up too.”
Renjun shakes his head, testing Jeno’s temperature again with the back of his hand again. It certainly feels like the cloth is helping.
“I’m glad you still had a good time together. I told you it would be good. You like spending time with Chenle, even if it means you have to leave the house.”
“I do,” Jeno agrees, cute little smile on his face. “Can I tell you something?”
“Of course.”
“I kissed Chenle this weekend.”
“Oooh,” he says, and can’t stop the smile on his own face from growing. “How was that?”
“It was nice.”
“Just nice?”
“It was really nice.”
“You need to give me more than that! Where was it? What was the situation? Who went in first?”
Jeno looks down at his lap with a shyly, and Renjun is glad to see the sickness tears be replaced by a small, sweet smile.
“It was when we got back to the hotel. He laid on the bed and I laid on top of him, I don’t know, to be funny or something. Just to see if he’d push me off. But he smiled at me and leaned up to kiss me. So I kissed him back.”
Renjun hums softly. He can picture it—Jeno has done the same to him before, and he likes it when Renjun huffs and tries to wriggle away.
“You’re smiling,” Jeno comments. “I thought you’d kill me.”
“Why?”
“Because I already knew I had a sore throat at that point.”
“So you got him sick, is what you’re saying?”
“He already knew too, and he kissed me!” Jeno says indignantly, but his voice starts to scratch the higher it gets. Maybe he’ll be losing it next.
“You’re both so stupid,” he says fondly, patting Jeno’s side. “But I can’t blame him.”
“No?” Jeno asks with a cheeky smile.
“No. However, I won’t be kissing you until you’re better, and I won’t be cuddling you until I’m sure your fever is down, I’m afraid.”
Jeno pouts, burying himself further into his pillows out of protest. “Not fair. Chenle wouldn’t do this to me.”
“No, and look where that’s got him now. One of us has to have a brain. Are you hungry? I could put on soup.”
“Not right now.”
“Shall I put more water on the cloth?”
Jeno catches his wrist as he goes to pull away. “Is it really… okay?”
“Of course, the bathroom isn’t exactly—”
“I—I meant about kissing Chenle,” Jeno rushes. “I know we talked about it before, but I also know things can change when this stuff actually happens, so I just wanted to know, you know, if it’s really okay…”
“It’s completely, totally fine with me,” Renjun says, folding the cloth into his hand and raising his hand to Jeno’s hair. It’s sweaty, but he doesn’t really care, tidying it up and neatly clearing it away from his eyes. “You know I’ve wanted the two of you to get it together for ages. I’m truly happy for you. You don’t need to worry about anything.”
Jeno nods. He knew this, but it’s never a bad thing to hear it again. “I love you. Missed you.”
“I missed you too. I’m glad you had a good time despite it all.”
“Me too,” Jeno says, settling back into his pillows with a sigh. “We already started planning our next one. I better not be sick then, too.”
"You won't be if you get some proper rest now, puppy."
"But you won't cuddle with me?"
Jeno flashes him what truly can only be described as puppy-dog eyes, and Renjun gives him a long look, sighing.
"I might as well lie down while I treat your temperature..." He kicks off his own jeans and climbs further into the bed, settling against the pillows as he continues his work with the cloth.
Jeno rests a hand lightly over his arm as Renjun traces his features, steadily driving out his temperature. Looking at him, Renjun thinks about his boyfriend and his boyfriend’s boyfriend in a hotel room, kissing despite knowing they’d share a sickness.
“I hope it’s worth it,” he says. “Your first kiss could’ve waited.”
Jeno just smiles, his happiness shining through despite his illness. Renjun rolls his eyes, dabbing the cloth over Jeno’s forehead in place of an affectionate kiss. Maybe it couldn't wait. He gets it, after all. He gets it.