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The practice room smelled faintly of detergent and sweat, lit by the warm flicker of overhead fluorescents. Music pulsed through the speakers as the members flowed through the final steps of their routine. Theo moved with precision, breath measured, hair damp and sticking to his forehead. Jiung caught his eye in the mirror and gave him a small thumbs-up. They were close to wrapping, and the energy was still high.
"Let’s run it again, one last time!" Keeho called from the front, bouncing slightly on his toes. "Energy like it’s a live stage!"
Groans chorused from the others, but no one said no. Practice always ended on a high, especially when a comeback was near. Intak whooped dramatically, Jongseob made a face like he was being sentenced to death, and Soul didn’t say a word, just rolled his shoulders and reset his stance.
Theo laughed softly, rubbing at the back of his neck. His head buzzed, but he figured it was just fatigue. Nothing new.
They launched into the routine again, muscles burning with the kind of familiar ache that only came from pushing yourself a little too hard. Theo’s limbs felt a touch heavier than usual, but adrenaline masked the rest. The beat dropped, and his body responded, habit, muscle memory, discipline.
After the run-through, they collapsed into a loose circle on the studio floor, gulping water and trading lazy jokes.
“Remind me again why we agreed to do that one more time?” Intak huffed, flopping flat onto the polished wood.
“Because Keeho’s addicted to suffering,” Soul answered without hesitation, earning a loud cackle from Jiung.
Keeho clutched his chest in mock betrayal. “I bring passion to the room, thank you very much.”
Theo laughed quietly, but it faded into a cough he barely covered with the back of his hand. It burned a little deeper than he expected. He reached for his bottle again and took a long sip.
Jiung leaned over. “You good?”
“Yeah,” Theo said, offering a quick smile. “My throats just dry.”
Even as he said it, the edges of his vision felt a little dimmer.
They headed back to the dorm a few hours later, stomachs growling. Practice had gone long again, no surprise. Dinner was already on everyone’s minds, the promise of spicy stew and fried rice lifting moods. They bickered good-naturedly in the van: Jongseob arguing for fried chicken, Soul dead-set on ramen, Intak pushing for barbecue.
Theo leaned against the window, watching the lights of Seoul blur past. His body felt… heavy. Not sore, not tired, just off. There was a strange chill in his bones, and his skin was clammy despite the hoodie he hadn’t taken off since morning.
He closed his eyes for a moment and swallowed. Something was wrong. He didn’t want to say anything, and didn't want to worry them. Probably just a cold. Sleep would fix it.
Back at the dorm, chaos resumed as usual. Keeho turned the TV on full blast to a variety show rerun while Jongseob set the rice cooker. Soul was hunched over the coffee table rearranging puzzle pieces. Jiung and Intak debated adding hot sauce to the stew.
Theo slipped away to the bathroom, shutting the door behind him and gripping the sink. He stared at his reflection. Pale. Sweaty. His eyes looked glazed.
The chill was worse now.
He turned the tap and splashed cold water on his face, hoping to jolt something back to normal. His fingers trembled as he reached for the towel.
When he walked back out, no one noticed immediately. He sat quietly at the table, picking at his bowl with no real appetite. The conversation swirled around him like wind: familiar, distant, warm. He couldn’t focus.
Keeho looked up mid-laugh and squinted across the table. “Theo, you okay? You’re quiet.”
Theo blinked, tried to respond.
His lips moved.
The room tilted sideways.
And everything went dark.
It was Jiung who moved first.
“Theo?” he called, blinking as the chopsticks slipped from Theo’s hand and clattered to the table. His friend’s head wobbled slightly to the side before his whole body leaned too far, slow-motion wrong, and then—
Thud .
The room snapped silent.
“Theo?!” Keeho shoved his chair back with a screech and was at Theo’s side in seconds. The older member had crumpled to the floor like a marionette whose strings had been cut; his body limp, legs tangled awkwardly under him, his forehead inches from the table leg.
Jiung was already kneeling, hands hovering like he didn’t know where to touch. “He just—he passed out. I think he fainted!”
“Get something—water—no wait—blanket, maybe?” Intak’s voice cracked. He was already yanking open the nearest cabinet, his mind clearly going in too many directions at once.
“Call the manager,” Jongseob said quickly. “Now.”
Keeho fumbled for his phone, heart slamming against his ribs. He’d seen Theo tired before, exhausted, even, but never this pale. Never this still.
Soul crouched low beside Jiung, his hand already checking Theo’s forehead. The sharp intake of breath that followed said it all.
“He’s burning up.”
The words dropped like a bomb in the silence.
Everyone froze.
Keeho’s fingers trembled as he pressed the call button. Their manager didn’t pick up. The phone rang and rang. He hung up and redialed, too panicked to leave a voicemail. When it failed again, he cursed under his breath and crouched beside the others.
“Theo—hey, Theo, can you hear me?” he asked softly, trying not to sound as terrified as he felt. He gently pushed Theo onto his back. His skin was ghost white except for the unnatural flush rising along his cheeks. His lips looked dry, almost cracked.
Jiung hovered just over Theo’s shoulder, voice tight. “We should get him to bed.”
“We should get him to a hospital,” Soul shot back, uncharacteristically sharp.
“No, no hospitals yet,” Jongseob said. “Manager-hyung’s not answering, maybe let’s just try to cool him down and then decide? If it gets worse, we call emergency.”
Theo stirred faintly, breath hitching.
“Theo?” Keeho whispered.
A faint groan escaped his throat, but his eyes didn’t open. His entire body looked fragile. Shaky. Like one wrong move would shatter him.
“Get the ice packs,” Keeho ordered suddenly. “And towels. Now.”
Jiung and Intak rushed to grab ice packs from the freezer, running them under cold water to soften the frost. Soul was already stripping the couch pillows off to prop Theo up once they got him to the room. Keeho and Jongseob worked together to carry Theo, cautiously, his head slumped against Keeho’s shoulder, his body too warm.
Theo’s bed looked rumpled but untouched. They lowered him down and tucked the blanket away immediately. Covering him would only make it worse.
Keeho sat beside him, dabbing his forehead with a cold towel while Soul placed the softened packs under his arms and neck. It wasn’t enough. Theo was shivering and burning all at once, caught in the kind of fever that clung like a second skin.
“He wasn’t acting right today,” Jiung whispered, voice tight as he stood at the doorway. “At practice, he was quieter. I should’ve said something.”
“It’s not your fault,” Keeho said without looking up.
“Yes, it is. I saw it. And I didn’t say anything because we were all tired, and I figured he was just like the rest of us—”
“It’s not your fault,” Keeho repeated, this time with more force.
Jiung looked down. His fists were clenched at his sides.
“I’ll try calling the manager again,” Soul said quietly.
Time passed in strange rhythms.
Theo drifted in and out of consciousness, mumbling nonsense when he stirred. They tried to get him to sip water, he choked it back down. His fever climbed, peaked, trembled, and dipped again.
By midnight, Jongseob was pacing the hallway, muttering numbers under his breath. Soul had pulled his sleeves over his hands and was still perched near the bed, changing the towel every fifteen minutes like clockwork. Keeho hadn’t moved except to adjust Theo’s position or press the thermometer to his temple, hoping, praying for the number to drop.
Jiung sat in the doorway now, knees pulled up to his chest, a hoodie thrown over his head like it could hide his guilt.
And Intak hovered between the kitchen and the room, making tea no one drank, chopping fruit no one asked for, just doing something to keep his hands from shaking.
The manager finally called back around 12:30.
Keeho explained what happened, calm on the surface, voice brittle at the edges. The manager said to wait it out unless Theo started vomiting or struggling to breathe. It sounded like a reaction to something. Maybe food, maybe stress, maybe he’d been hiding a bug for days and finally crashed.
They thanked him and hung up.
“His fever’s down,” Soul said softly, checking the thermometer again around 1 a.m. “Still high, but lower.”
Keeho nodded. “Good.”
He stayed on the floor, legs crossed, watching Theo breathe.
It wasn’t until almost 3 a.m. that Theo stirred again, this time with a soft, coherent sound.
Keeho sat up straighter.
“Theo?”
The others shuffled closer, wordlessly, one by one. Jiung sat up fully. Soul was already by his side.
Theo blinked slowly. His face was still pale, but his lips moved this time, sound emerging as a whisper.
“…what happened?”
Keeho smiled tightly. “You fainted on fried rice night. Terrible timing.”
Theo groaned and tried to sit up. The second he moved, five hands landed on his shoulders and arms.
“Nope,” Jiung said. “Absolutely not.”
“You scared the hell out of us,” Soul murmured.
Theo looked around the room, then down at himself, taking in the ice packs and damp cloths and mess of blankets. “I… felt dizzy. At dinner.”
“You looked like you got run over by a fever truck,” Intak muttered.
“Don’t make him laugh,” Keeho warned gently.
Theo did laugh, a little. Hoarse. Warm.
“Thanks, guys…”
Keeho reached out, brushing Theo’s damp hair off his forehead with a gentleness none of them commented on.
“Rest,” he said. “We’ve got you.”
The dorm looked like a storm had passed through it.
Empty water bottles, scattered towels, and a faint scent of mint and fever lingered in the air. The living room lights had been dimmed hours ago, and the only sound was the low hum of the fan in Theo’s room, which now held every member in a soft pile of limbs, blankets, and half-asleep stubbornness.
It was 7 a.m., and no one had gone to bed.
Theo shifted slightly, still tucked under three layers of care. Someone, probably Jiung, had snuck his favorite hoodie onto him sometime during the night, and his head now rested against a fresh pillow. His fever had finally broken around 5 a.m., his skin cool and damp, but no longer scalding. His body felt heavy, like it had gone through war, but there was no sharp pain. Just exhaustion and warmth.
He opened his eyes slowly.
And saw Keeho first, sitting beside the bed, chin resting on his folded arms, dead asleep.
Then Soul, curled up on the floor by the fan, hoodie zipped all the way to his nose, legs twitching now and then like he was dreaming.
Jiung was lying beside Keeho, back against the wall, hand still half outstretched toward Theo like he’d been keeping watch until the last second.
Jongseob had passed out with his head on the foot of the bed, mouth open, one sock missing.
And Intak was on the floor next to a tray of untouched tea, surrounded by a fortress of tissues and empty vitamin bottles. Theo blinked again, slowly.
They’d all stayed. Every single one of them.
A lump rose in his throat. “…you guys,” he croaked.
Nobody stirred at first.
Then Keeho’s eyes cracked open, blearily, and fixed on him. In a second, he was sitting up straight, face stretching into the softest smile Theo had ever seen on him.
“You’re awake,” Keeho whispered, voice still husky from sleep.
Theo nodded faintly. “I feel… less like I’m dying.”
“That’s because we almost died for you,” Intak’s muffled voice came from the blanket cocoon. He sat up groggily and blinked at Theo. “Do you know how much tea I made that no one drank?”
“You made tea?” Theo asked, brow furrowing.
Keeho chuckled. “Like, twelve pots. For ‘vibe.’”
Intak held up a finger. “Presentation matters.”
Jiung sat up next, groaning as he stretched. “Theo, man, I swear if you ever scare us like that again, I’m tying a thermometer to your forehead.”
“You looked like a wax figure for five hours,” Soul added sleepily, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.
Jongseob cracked his back dramatically as he rolled off the bed. “I thought you were gonna start levitating at one point. You kept muttering random stuff like you were summoning ghosts.”
Theo’s laugh turned into a cough, but even that felt better now. “You guys are so dramatic.”
Keeho leaned in and gently adjusted the blanket around his shoulders. “Yeah, and you’re still on strict bed rest. No stage practice, no cooking, no cleaning, no fighting Jiung over cereal. Just sleep and eat. That’s an order.”
“I don’t fight over cereal,” Theo muttered.
“You threatened to fight me over the last almond granola bar last week,” Jiung said flatly.
“That was different.”
Jongseob looked at the tray by the door. “You hungry? We made rice porridge last night but no one trusted my salt measurements.”
“You put in brown sugar,” Soul grumbled. “It was like eating sad oatmeal.”
Theo grinned at them all, wide despite the rasp in his chest. His eyes stung, not from the fever this time, but something quieter, more emotional.
“…Thanks,” he said, voice thick. “For taking care of me.”
Keeho bumped his knee gently. “You’d do the same for us. Hell, you have.”
“And besides,” Jiung said, reaching for one of the juice boxes on the nightstand and handing it over, “you’re Theo. We don’t do this without you.”
Theo took the juice, fingers trembling faintly around the carton. “Still. I really thought I’d just sleep it off.”
“Next time you feel off,” Keeho said firmly, “tell us. No playing it down. No ‘I’m fine’ just to get through dance practice.”
Theo lowered his gaze. “I didn’t want to slow us down.”
“Slow us down?” Intak laughed. “Bro, you fainted on your kimchi. You stopped the whole earth.”
Soul nodded. “You made Keeho forget the lyrics to our new song.”
“For an hour!” Keeho added, pointing accusingly at Theo, but the smile tugging at his lips betrayed the fear that had since melted into relief.
There was a silence that followed. Not awkward, but comforting. A hush where everyone just breathed together. Where the worst had passed, and the day had begun, and the world felt like it was settling into its proper place again.
Theo blinked at them. “Can we all stay like this a little longer?”
Keeho nodded. “Of course.”
“Yeah,” Jiung said. “Let’s just chill today.”
“No practice,” Intak confirmed. “No schedule.”
“Just movies,” Jongseob said. “Blankets. Maybe some actual edible porridge.”
“Some of that tea I made,” Intak added hopefully.
Theo leaned back and let his eyes close again. Not because he was weak, not because he had to, but because it felt safe to. His fever was gone. His body was sore but calm. And his heart—his heart felt light.
They were loud, ridiculous, and awful chefs.
But they were his.
And right now, that was all he needed.