Chapter Text
Seungmin prided himself in being consistent, hardworking, and dependable. That meant 8 a.m. showers, breakfast with Jeongin, light reading, lunch with his members, and vocal lessons or free time. That would be followed by dinner outside, gaming, writing in his diary, and finally his nighttime routine.
When comebacks or tours came around, he had no time to think. Following a fixed plan wasn’t too hard. It took adjustments, but that was expected, and Seungmin was always mentally prepared to be on time.
Anyone could tell that Seungmin loved predictability.
But even then, he enjoyed living with a few screws loose, finding new ways to annoy his members each day. Chaos within his control — that helped Seungmin to thrive.
But that day, every little thing that ticked him off built up his stress, fuelling the knot in his stomach, the pressure on his chest, and the ache in his temple. Well, great. The sickness from the previous day had, in fact, stayed, he realised. And the only thing worse than waking up sick was waking up late too.
Seungmin somehow managed to sleep through his first alarm on the most important day in weeks, the annoying beeping failing to rouse him to the bright morning. Not that he registered anything other than the heaviness in his bones when he peeled the blanket off, as if gravity had a personal vengeance to take on him.
By the time he changed out of the loose pajama pants and into his trusty joggers, he knew that his body would not be kind today. Exhaustion clung to his frame, and his face was dotted with cold sweat.
“Seriously, what’s wrong with me?” the singer muttered under his breath as he climbed into the company van. It was just morning and he already felt antsy over nothing.
Was he coming down with something? Gosh, but now of all times? Chan’s gonna be mad if he finds out, he feared.
So, he waited until they reached the waiting room of whatever music show program they were scheduled for that day before discreetly popping a few painkillers into his mouth and giving himself a mental pat on the back for having had the foresight to sneak the small bottle with his belongings before leaving. He let the members do most of the interacting with the MCs and only chipped in at his part, reading off the short script from the staff, which he'd already memorised days in advance.
The words glided off his tongue easily, thanks to the mostly numbed pain in his temples.
He hadn’t felt much better after the car ride home yesterday, but a slow, warm shower followed by a full 8 hours of sleep luckily helped to stop the tingling on his scalp and remove the sweaty sensation from his skin. The headache persisted through the night, but it wasn’t severe enough to warrant reporting it to Chan or worrying his other boyfriends over it.
Maybe the painkillers worked too well, which was what led him to oversleep and push everyone’s schedule back by at least 10 minutes. Seungmin was just relieved that they still turned up on time for the group interview, although they had to push back the team's lunch until after the interview instead.
Then, the first comeback showcase stage that followed had been a mess. The past few weeks of drilling the choreo into his muscle memory was ruined by Seungmin’s pesky in-ear microphone. Every few moments on stage, he felt the constant bopping of the small mic that strained against his ear and smacked into his mouth one too many times. It distracted him from executing the tiny details that should have been perfect on stage.
Seungmin sighed, remembering how he couldn’t even school his expressions onstage for the majority of the recordings. He planned to monitor the stage and fancam when he woke up later and to find time to clean up some details with Lee Know and Hyunjin the next day.
Meanwhile, the stylists were mostly packed up and ready to leave, so Seungmin quietly handed his stage outfit over to them and bowed before he left. His head felt heavier than usual, and his shoulders drooped from exhaustion. He had to run a bit to catch up with Felix, who seemed equally exhausted as him.
The members trudged to the car park, mostly silent except for greeting other idols who walked by.
Bang Chan turned around and did a quick headcount before getting the members to shuffle into the black vans. Seungmin, Lee Know, Jeongin, and Felix sat in the first car. And Seungmin felt his tense shoulder slacken slightly as he settled down beside Felix.
His boyfriend immediately took out his phone, swiping away his fatigue on TikTok. The door slipped closed beside him, and Seungmin prayed that the journey back would end soon. He felt another bad wave of pain coming on, a constant pounding wrecking through his skull. It got stronger by the second, relentless even as Seungmin tried to regulate his breathing.
More painkillers now wasn’t an option; he’d read the label on the small white pill bottle, and it wasn’t safe to consume more until two more hours later. Thus, Seungmin opted for an alternative method to drown out his pain — music.
He dug into the small side pocket of his bag where his airpods always was, but to his dismay, it was empty.
Oh, right. He’d left the thing charging on his nightstand last night. Then, the haste of getting ready after having gotten up late that day caused him to leave the dorm that morning with the earpiece still in his room, plugged in.
He sighed softly, mentally beating himself up over his absentmindedness today. Just my luck, huh?
Instead, he slid open the main compartment of his slick backpack, plunging into the dark space and shoving his things around. His spare headphones had to be here somewhere.
A cap, a pill bottle, a mini bag for his lip balm, chewing gum, face mask, and fragrance spray, then a power bank, and — ah — the drawstring pouch that contained the wired earphones and charging cable he always kept on him. He pulled the pouch from being pressed under the power bank and pried it open with one hand. The other arm hugged around the bag as if holding onto a plushie.
He just needed to get his earphones out and plug it into the adapter and then into his phone, and get some calming music so that he could finally sleep away the headache that was slowly grating his nerves.
The idol blindly reached into the pouch before curling his fingers around the thinner wire, tugging at it experimentally.
An unknown frustration registered itself in Seungmin's throbbing skull. Come on, work with me, he mentally pleaded, using more force than necessary to get his darn headset free from the tangled mess in his pouch.
The only thing on his mind now was sleep, and the usually calm man found himself carelessly wrestling with his ancient earphones, his patience stretched thinner than a spider's silk.
Snap!
He froze at the sound, squinting into the dim backpack in part disbelief and part betrayal.
The head of one side of the earphones sat uselessly in his right hand, apathetic to the suffering of its owner. Great, just great, Seungmin thought.
In that short burst of annoyance, he’d managed to break his trusty old headphones that survived the past seven years of his idol life. Now, without a way to tune in to his lullaby playlist, nor a thread of sanity left to cling on to, Seungmin was at a loss for what to do.
He sighed again, the quiet breath leaving his lips before he could tamp down his frustration. It was barely an exaggeration to say that Seungmin thought his head would split open within the next half an hour if he didn't put himself to sleep soon.
Well, I guess that leaves me with taking a silent nap. Tragic. He almost sighed again as he realised that sitting in between Felix and Jeongin would make it impossible to keep his aching head still if he dozed off now.
Wait. Seungmin blinked slowly, almost hopeful, as another thought registered. He figured he could turn this rare instance of feeling genuinely unwell to fall asleep on Jeongin’s comfy shoulders; take this chance to snag a nice cuddling session. The maknae seemed to develop a soft spot for his pouty hyungs whenever they wrapped up a long day of schedules, so it may not be as improbable as any other day.
"Iyennie, can I lie on you?" Seungmin tried, surprising himself with how pitiful he sounded. The words were laced with more hurt that he'd expected from himself. His usually nasally tone took on a whiney note, but without a hint of playfulness. His eyes felt a little watery too, but he chalked it up to the blooming ache behind his eyes. It'd been there for the whole day, and dancing on stage hadn't exactly helped with the pain.
Maybe he was feeling worse than he let himself believe, both about the headache and the broken earpiece.
"Uh?" Jeongin quickly glanced up from his screen, now clearly distracted from whatever he’d been watching on his phone. Seungmin kept his eyes on his opened backpack, not moving for fear of worsening his headache.
The smallest, most irrational part of him also watered the tiny seed of doubt that his lover wouldn’t want Seungmin’s dirty hair on his clean shirt after performing Chk Chk Boom so many times that evening.
Sure, he didn’t fully believe that Jeongin would push him off if he did lean on the younger man, but it didn’t seem like an impossible scenario either. His mind was all sorts of jumbled up now, and he didn’t know what to think with the pain currently drilling a hole into his head.
Gosh, if only the pain would stop.
Felix and Minho had both peered over too, their attention successfully caught earlier by Seungmin’s weak voice in the otherwise silent car ride. It wasn’t unusual for their boyfriend to ask the maknae for affection, but his tone led on to something deeper. It wasn't the usual sing-song teasing that he used on Jeongin.
The words had sounded strained and desperate, almost like the singer was on the verge of tears.
Felix’s hand immediately snaked around Seungmin’s right arm when he saw the broken portion of the headphones in Seungmin's hand and the crestfallen expression on his face. He took the plastic from his partner's fidgeting hands and coaxed his fingers apart to intertwine their hands.
At the same time, Seungmin felt his head being gently pushed down to the left before resting fully on the maknae’s sturdy shoulders.
“Sleep,” came a mellow voice on his left. It belonged to his fellow main vocalist, and Seungmin smiled softly at the low volume that Jeongin had adopted as he slipped his eyes shut. The doubtful voice in the back of his mind quieted, but Seungmin subconsciously bit his lips as a pang of guilt took its place.
He was silently grateful for how quickly his boyfriends seemed to catch on to his discomfort and immediately held him through it. Despite the contact with Jeongin’s shoulders and Felix’s hands doing little to help with the headache, it calmed the singer’s nerves a lot.
He felt the anxiety that constricted in his chest slowly ease up, his heartbeat slowing naturally to fall in sync with Jeongin’s breaths. Seungmin wondered how his boyfriends could have such a calming effect over him, but decided not to say anything in favour of keeping his eyes closed and focusing on breathing through his mouth. Why did he even entertain the thought that his members didn’t care about him when all they did was prove the opposite?
He got jerked out of his thoughts a few seconds later by a coolness on his forehead. It was sudden, and Seungmin was too embarrassed to admit it gave him some relief.
He must have been dog-tired to melt into the touch right after. In the back of his mind, Seungmin knew that they would probably tease him lightly about it later on, but thankfully, no one mentioned it then. So, he let himself sink deeper into the warm feeling of his members surrounding him.
The hand on his head belonged to Jeongin, who spoke up, “Hyung, you’re running a fever.”
A deep frown etched itself onto the youngest member’s face, and Seungmin wanted to make it go away, but he couldn’t bring himself to move out of Felix’s hold just yet.
In his dazed state, he hadn’t registered Jeongin’s movement until he felt a nudge on his left hand. He looked down and loosened the arm that was snug around his backpack to intercept the plastic water bottle, muttering a small thanks to the maknae. The cap was already off, as Jeongin probably figured that his hyung wouldn’t want to remove his right hand from Felix’s hold.
Seungmin had always been weirdly stubborn about doing things by himself, especially when he was sick, so Jeongin let his lovely hyung take the bottle in his own hand and drink a few sips independently.
They had grown accustomed to his obstinance after years of surviving crazy promotion schedules together and figuring out how to best take care of one another. It wouldn’t be helpful to have a discussion in the car right now over Seungmin drinking water without his boyfriend pressing the bottle to his lips like a baby, not when the man looked so pale and sick. Jeongin felt very strongly that his hyung should learn to trust his lovers enough to accept help from them, but that was a conversation for another day.
Seungmin handed the bottle back once he was done, whispering, “Thanks again.”
“No problem, hyung.”
The car went silent again to let the boy sleep. Seungmin smiled to himself and closed his eyes to let the feeling of small hands massaging his shoulders coax him into the nap that he had been craving for hours.
The minutes gradually blurred together, the world fading into the background as Seungmin finally felt his consciousness slip away.