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Aeri might have to go. Like, genuinely.
She seriously thought her day could not get any worse. She woke up with an ache in the left side of her head, chalked it up to it being a side effect of staying up late the night before. Next, she had class, which was already unfortunate enough on its own because she had a presentation that doubled her headache. Then, she hosted a meeting with a few classmates to discuss an upcoming project since not one out of three of them was moving to get the project going. And now, curled up in bed, her headache has worsened and spread to the right side of her brain and her body is sore.
Alright. Tough luck. Jimin has fallen ill. Whatever, she can handle this. She's been sick before; it's nothing new. And she's already asked Aeri to come home with some soup for her throat and more medicine because they have none left.
To her dismay, and utmost annoyance, something came up and Aeri informed her that she would be home at night. Jimin chances a glance at the time—bad move, by the way. It makes her eyes strain and her head throb even harder—and finds out that it's only 3:00 pm.
So she tells herself that it's fine, that she can just sleep through the afternoon and when she wakes up, it will be nighttime and Aeri will be home with her soup and meds.
But as it turns out: no, she can't. She can't sleep because this headache is killing her. She gives up trying before her eyelids can even go lax. She closes her eyes, but she closes them with such force that she's figuratively screwing them shut with nuts and bolts. Not only do her eyes burn, but they also feel like they're hardening inside her skull. And it's not fun.
Jimin lays there wide awake, in pain both physically and mentally. Her glare spells out ‘Fuck You’ in various fonts on the ceiling. The blanket over her body is thin—courtesy of the sudden hot weather lately—and she's shivering just the slightest.
She will not get up to go get another blanket, will not rummage her closet or steal Aeri’s obviously more fluffy blanket on her bed. Instead, Jimin just stays lying on her side, breathing evenly, fever doubling bit by bit.
Sickness makes Jimin sensitive. Way more than she should be.
And she was almost asleep when a notification pinged her phone, buzz sending vibrations through her mattress and her pillow. Both the sound and the vibration woke her right back up.
“Oh, fuck me.” She reaches for the phone beside her pillow, grumbling under her breath, angered by what she thinks is the most valid reason for a crash out on this planet right now.
A text from Minjeong.
Jimin shuts her eyes and sighs, because the last thing she wants right now is to be bothered by a bratty little psycho.
The door swings open with a gust of wind that sends shivers down Jimin's spine. There's a faint shuffling that grows closer, louder until it stops right beside her. Jimin knows who that is, knows whose perfume that is that smells so surprisingly not awful.
Jimin opens her eyes right when Minjeong decides to speak.
“Aeri said you were sick.”
“Clearly,” She responds, unable to fight the need to still be sarcastic despite being halfway down the road to death. “Did you bring meds…?”
There's the rustling of a plastic bag. But Jimin doesn't risk glancing at it because she doesn't want an even worse headache.
“Sit up,” Minjeong's voice rings again. Jimin whines under her breath, slurring unintelligible gibberish about not wanting to and that Minjeong can't make her when Minjeong peels the blanket off of her. And then she's shivering.
Minjeong's touch is surprisingly gentle. So gentle. Maybe too gentle. And super warm. Ugh, Jimin can't get used to it. She probably shouldn't get used to it. She feels a teeny bit fragile with Minjeong's fingers wrapped around her wrists, soft hands tugging her up into a sitting position, and then said fingers combing her hair back on her sad, sweaty scalp.
Minjeong is taking a seat on the edge of her bed when Jimin forces her eyes open. A paper bowl in her hands that Jimin recognizes has the logo of her favorite food place printed on it. Her voice comes out nasally and speaking itches her throat. “...Food?”
“Yes, food.” Minjeong answers and Jimin just knows the blonde was holding herself back from making it sound snarky. “If you want meds, you're gonna have to eat first. So, open.”
It took her high-fever brain a solid second to understand what “open” meant, but her neurons powered up quickly once it clicked. “Are you attempting to spoon-feed me?” Jimin asks incredulously, like she's been told the most hilarious news in the world.
By the looks of Minjeong's grimace, Jimin can tell she's right and she bursts out laughing. Through a clenched jaw and gritted teeth, Minjeong mumbles. “I’m trying to be nice.”
“Well, stop trying,” Jimin laughs before adding on seriously. “No, like, actually stop. It's fairly unsettling.”
Minjeong doesn't react, just uses the time to blow on the soup and then brings the spoon close to Jimin's mouth. “Just eat, would you?”
Jimin halts. Minjeong is actually going to spoon-feed her? The elder’s eyes travel from Minjeong's glaring eyeballs to the spoon carrying soup just before her face. And then back to Minjeong's eyes as she reluctantly opens her mouth and the soup meets her tongue.
The soup is gone in six minutes. Jimin realizes just now that either she must've been starving or Minjeong was feeding her really quickly to get things over with. She can't decide because now, Minjeong's handing her two Tylenol caplets and a freshly opened water bottle.
Jimin purses her lips, “Thanks.” She figures she should at least be thankful if she was going to be weirded out the entire day from having Minjeong take care of her.
She watches as Minjeong cleans up. The empty bowl is shoved into the plastic bag. The plastic bag is tied twice before being chucked into the bin. And then Minjeong's leaving the room without another word.
Okay. Well, that's absolutely fine. Jimin can't and shouldn't expect anything else from Minjeong. Pretending to be kind to Jimin was probably already taxing enough for that girl.
Jimin tells herself that it's time to rest, and that the fever will go away once she wakes up later. But then Minjeong comes back inside when Jimin's already lying on her back under her blanket, holding another bowl—melamine, this time around—and Jimin finds out that said bowl is actually filled with water once Minjeong sets it down on her desk.
Freezing cold, to be exact.
“What are you–” Jimin jolts when the cold, wet cloth comes in contact with her forehead. “That is so cold!”
Minjeong tuts, “Be quiet. This'll help with the fever, dumbass.”
Jimin's not a dumbass. She knows what this is for, and she knows that it's basically routine for fevers. But it's Kim fucking “I hate you and your stupid face” Minjeong doing this to and for her, which is the sole reason why she's so close to losing her absolute shit. No one can blame her, at this point; not even Minjeong herself.
It's quiet for a moment. The only sound in the room being the ceiling fan and the water whenever Minjeong dips and squeezes the cloth over the bowl. And in the stillness, Jimin spends a handful of minutes staring at the oh-so-concentrated Minjeong.
Minjeong looks so calm and, dare Jimin say, pretty when she's focused. Not even normal pretty, but insanely. Jimin might shoot herself in the head if she ever thinks about that again but right this instant, she'll allow it. Because she's sick and she doesn't give a shit. And she's never witnessed Minjeong be this caring, and tender, and whatever to her. There are a few instances she can think of where Minjeong was, at the very least, thoughtful but never like this. Hell, Jimin thinks she should just keep being sick so she could keep on seeing this Minjeong instead of whatever she's stuck with on a daily basis.
Wait. No. No. No, that's not— That wasn't her. That was the sickness and the Tylenol. None of that was her.
“I’ll gouge out your eyeballs if you keep staring at me.”
Jimin blinks. Well, that's reason enough to stop staring. And thinking. “I was judging,” She mumbles as she turns her gaze up to the ceiling.
Jimin heard her before she saw her.
She'd been asleep then from the head massage Minjeong so generously gave her alongside wiping her face with cold water. Blissfully oblivious to her surroundings, Jimin was finally able to get some shut-eye since she'd fallen ill and all thanks to Minjeong, unbelievably.
But alas, she stirred awake to voices and not the ones she's familiar with. It took her a good while, blinking lazily at the ceiling with the cloth still balanced on her forehead and almost dozing back off into Dreamland, but her ears strained against her volition to pick up the words from the voices and that was when she realized.
Ahn Yujin is at her door. And Minjeong doesn't like it one bit.
Shit. Wait, shit– She turns her head, tries to pull herself up to sit but fails twice. The third time, she succeeds. But by the time she's already seated, she's already grabbed the attention of both visitors that are currently at the door.
“What are you doing up? Lie back down.” Minjeong scolds, almost motherly.
On the other hand, there's Yujin. “Unnie? Oh my gosh, I was worried sick about you.”
Jimin laughs but it's so forced and anxiety-ridden that she just ends up sounding constipated. “Hi, Yujin. What are you, uh.. doing.. here?”
“What am I doing here? Unnie, you weren't answering my texts and I was starting to get really worried because you'd always respond quickly.” Yujin explains, head poking into the room because it seems like Minjeong does not want her inside the room.
“Well, um,” Jimin clears her throat, painfully. “Now you know..”
Yujin gives her a fond smile. And Minjeong cuts in before she can get another word in. “Now that she knows, she can go.” The way Minjeong says it is meant to sound sarcastically friendly and she's holding onto that doorknob a little too tightly for Jimin's liking. She can only pray Minjeong doesn't slam the door shut on Yujin’s face.
Jimin grunts, “Minjeong, be nice.”
“You’re not my mom.”
“Unnie, you should've told me you were ill,” Yujin butts in before a full fledged cat fight can break out. “I would've come over here as fast as possible.”
Again, Minjeong responds first, smiling sweetly. “She wouldn't need you to.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’ve been excused for quite some time now.”
“You know, I wasn't talking to you in the first place.”
“I don't care. You’re unwanted here. Scram, please.”
De-escalating the situation wasn't too difficult, considering all Jimin had to do was complain about the noise they were making and act like it was worsening her headache. Not that it wasn't; it was making her headache worse, just not more than the worry she had on her chest about those two getting into a physical altercation.
Anyway, the problem solved itself after that. Yujin tells her she's leaving to let her rest, and Minjeong damn near runs back to tend to her. Life is great when you're sick and getting princess treatment!
“Can you quit being jealous of that girl?” Jimin asks when Minjeong has her hands in her hair, massaging Jimin's scalp deftly.
The hands stop. Jimin groans in response while Minjeong scoffs before picking up where she left off. “I am not jealous.”
The older girl sighs, “I'll believe you when you don’t try to pick a bone with her in my doorway.”
“She’s annoying.”
“She’s a friend that is worried.”
“She doesn't want to only be friends with you.”
“And why do you care about that?”
When Minjeong stays quiet, Jimin repeats herself. “Why should you care about the fact that she likes me in that way, Minjeong?”
And again, silence.
Jimin thinks this is the only time she's ever rendered Minjeong actually speechless. In spite of the still massaging hands in her hair, Minjeong hasn't breathed another word yet and Jimin mentally preens herself for it. Well, that is until Minjeong does say something.
“You can do better than that nuisance.”
Jimin sighs, “Oh my good god.”
It's nearing 8:00 pm, which means she's been asleep for a little over three hours. In the span of those hours, she's been woken up by Minjeong once to take medicine. It's safe to say that she feels human now. No headache, no nothing. On the downside, her body is still sore.
Jimin stretches. And it's at this moment that she finds Minjeong sitting on the floor beside her bed, laptop and books on her opened up foldable table, head on the bed, snoring away gently, one hand curled atop Jimin's on the bed.
Pause.
Let's rephrase that: one of Minjeong's hands is holding Jimin's hand, fingers doming over Jimin's palm, touching but just barely.
Jimin blinks, because what the fuck? This has never happened before. The only time Minjeong's held Jimin's hand willingly was when they went into a haunted house at a Halloween event back when they were in junior year and sophomore year respectively, and granted, she came out of that house—which wasn't even an actual house—with tears running down her cheeks. She cried in Jimin's arms on the side of the road for a whole hour while complaining about how “the scary long-haired lady chased after her” and that she was going to have nightmares. (Spoiler alert: yes, she did have nightmares. For a week or two after that. And Jimin knows because she'd been on the receiving end of Minjeong's wrath over it.) But that was the only moment Jimin can think of that wasn't unplanned or accidental.
Minjeong moves. Jimin watches as her hand twitches, as she stirs but doesn't wake up, as she curls her fingers inward and actually holds Jimin's hand. Her hand is warm and soft, like she's never had to do any rough work. Her hold is gentle but firm, subconscious.
And then she really wakes up. Again, Jimin watches. Minjeong sits up straight, yawns, and brings her arms above her head for a big stretch.
“Morning.” The elder says without needing to think.
Minjeong counters with: “Night.” But she moves the table aside to stand up. “What do you want?”
Jimin buffers, “What?”
“Food. What do you want to eat?” Minjeong reiterates clearer while rolling her eyes. “I’ll go get it.”
Sitting up, Jimin quickly butts in. “You don't have to. I'm feeling fine now.” She says it as she throws aside her blanket and her legs down the edge of the bed. She's about to stand when she feels Minjeong's hands on her cheeks; she freezes.
Those hands move to her neck, and then her forehead. Jimin just sits and takes it all, glancing up at Minjeong albeit flustered. “I guess you are.” Minjeong's sleepy eyes running all over her face has her ears burning for whatever reason, but she clears her throat to cover it up as soon as Minjeong retracts her hands.
“Yeah,” She mumbles under her breath.
Minjeong yawns again, and turns around to leave the room. “But I'm hungry. So we're still gonna eat. Let's go.”
Jimin hurriedly throws on a hoodie to cover her unkempt self up and rushes out the door to catch up to Minjeong's tiny legs. Her ears still burn even when they're already eating, even when she's already back in her room and Minjeong is in her own room, even when Aeri comes back and gets a pillow to the face because she made Minjeong take care of Jimin instead of coming back to do it herself.