We've Got Him

Kihyun knew something was wrong the minute Changkyun stumbled into the kitchen in the morning, showered and clean but still clearly half asleep. He could hear moving around behind closed doors, meaning everyone else was at least awake and getting ready for the day, but Changkyun was the first to leave the confines of the hall of bedrooms, wearing a simple black sweater and pants. The answer came to him soon enough when Changkyun sniffled and wiped his nose on his sweater sleeve. Crap. He’d come down with a cold.

“Aish, Kyunnie, don’t use your sleeve.”

Kihyun ripped a tissue from the box on the island across from the stove and waved it in Changkyun’s face. The maknae took it with a grateful, sheepish smile. "Good morning, hyung."

“You feeling okay?” Kihyun asked warily, watching him crumple the tissue up.

“Yeah, hyung,” Changkyun replied. His voice was a little hoarse and nasally—not enough to raise alarm, but definitely noticeable. Kihyun raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, sure,” Kihyun bit out. He turned to the stove to fill a plate for Changkyun before sliding it toward him as Changkyun opened the drawer and pulled out a set of chopsticks.

“Thank you, hyung,” he murmured, folding the sleeves of his black sweater up. Kihyun watched him for a second. He didn’t look right; his cheeks were a little pink and his eyes looked a bit sunken and purple.

“You’re up early,” Kihyun commented absently. Changkyun glanced at him through his beautifully long eyelashes.

“It’s not that early. I just wanted to shower before everyone else. Besides, we have filming today,” he replied, stuffing some rice into his mouth and chewing slowly. Kihyun cringed at the roughness of his voice.

“Will you please let me take your temperature?” Kihyun asked pleadingly, leaning over the island onto his elbows.

Changkyun sighed. “I’m fine. It’s just a cold, if anything.”

“It could get worse.”

“I can’t miss filming today.”

“Let me take your temperature.”

“Fine.”

Satisfied that he won the small spat, Kihyun wasted little time in plucking the thermometer from its box in the medicine cabinet and sticking it under Changkyun’s tongue. The maknae looked at him flatly, but Kihyun ignored his expression and waited for the thermometer to do something. He pulled the device out of Changkyun's mouth when it beeped; the number 37.6 flashed in green on the little square display and Kihyun chewed his bottom lip.

“No fever,” Changkyun said brightly.

“A little one.” Kihyun corrected. “I want to keep an eye on it today.”

“Hyung, I’m not a child.”

“I know you’re not. I just care about you.”

Changkyun dipped his head before Kihyun could see his cheeks redden even more and stuffed some food into his mouth. Kihyun pretended he didn't notice the maknae's adorable flush, fighting a smile as he turned back to the stove. The maknae wasn’t unhealthy by any means. He didn’t get sick often—in fact, he was usually among the only members to avoid getting sick when something went around the dorm.

Furthermore, Kihyun had never really seen Changkyun properly ill. About a year ago, a vicious stomach flu had taken the group out of work for over a week, and Changkyun and Kihyun had been the only ones to dodge it. His maknae remained the only member of Monsta X he'd never seen really sick. Sure, they'd all had small colds—throat infections and the like—but aside from Hoseok, who had the remarkable tendency to pick up any bug, the group were luckily more on the healthy side.

But Changkyun had mentioned one night after Jooheon commented on his health that when he was sick, he got it bad. Kihyun didn't have any reason to doubt him, so he was growing increasingly wary. Kihyun held onto the small hope that maybe Changkyun would feel better later on in the day, once he woke up a bit more and walked around a little.

“Do you know what we’ll be doing today for Monsta X-Ray?” Changkyun asked around a mouthful of rice. Kihyun shook his head.

“They didn’t tell us. You don't have to do it today.”

"I want to, though. I'm not that sick." Changkyun pulled a face right as Hoseok and Jooheon wandered in, no doubt attracted by the smell of breakfast. Kihyun bit back a sigh and dropped the issue.

“Good morning,” Jooheon sang, sliding into the barstool next to Changkyun. Hoseok, sleepy and bare-faced, mumbled a greeting as arced around the island to waltz into the kitchen, opening the refrigerator and pulling out materials for his protein breakfast shake. Kihyun filled a plate with some breakfast and handed it to Jooheon, who accepted it with a squishy smile.

The next half an hour passed by quickly as the remaining members trickled from the bedrooms to the kitchen for breakfast. Despite Kihyun’s initial hopes that he’d feel better after moving around a bit, Changkyun didn’t look much better and had begun to cough, eventually garnering the attention of everyone else. Every small coughing fit caused another eyebrow in the dorm to raise and it wasn't long before everyone caught onto the maknae's apparent cold. When he ducked back into the bedroom to plug his phone back in, Hyunwoo approached Kihyun, Hoseok at his side.

“Is he sick?” Hyunwoo asked directly.

Kihyun sighed and nodded. “He doesn't think so but I disagree; I took his temperature already. It was only 37.6. A small fever.”

“Aish. It may not seem that bad but it might get worse,” Hoseok bit down on his thumbnail. “He doesn’t get sick often.”

Kihyun and Hyunwoo nodded in concurrence.

“Maybe we should try to convince him to sit this episode out,” Jooheon said, poking his head into the kitchen.

“I already tried,” Kihyun replied with another sigh. “He’s stubborn. As usual.”

“I wish he’d let us take care of him.” Jooheon whined, slumping his shoulders. “Isn’t that what hyungs do? I feel bad whenever he gets sick like this and we can’t help him.”

"He doesn't get sick often," Hyunwoo reminded, voice barely above a mumble.

"I know, but when he does, even if it's a small cold, he tries to avoid us knowing," Jooheon said dejectedly. "Even now, he still does it."

Kihyun knew what Jooheon was referring to. It wasn't something he liked to think about anymore.

“He doesn’t like bothering us. Or being a burden.” Kihyun nudged Jooheon gently.

“He’s not a burden.” Jooheon pouted. Kihyun petted his hair and watched as Hoseok and Hyunwoo shared a look.

“Hyung, I don’t know if we should let Changkyun come with us today,” Hyungwon called from the living room, then wandered into the kitchen, where everyone else was. His expression looked calm, slightly exasperated, even, but the crease between his eyes gave away his concern. “He almost fell over coughing just now. All he was doing was plugging his phone back in.”

“We know. He’s getting sick,” Kihyun rubbed his forehead. “But he’s an adult and he knows his own boundaries. We shouldn’t try to force him to stay home, even if we want him to.” Never mind the fact that Kihyun didn't agree with the words that came out of his own mouth.

“I wish the PD-nims would tell me what they have planned for today,” Hyunwoo murmured, scrolling through what looked like a text conversation on his phone screen. “If we knew, it would be easier to know if he should take today off.”

“Maybe the episode will be easy today,” Hoseok said hopefully. “If we’re lucky we won’t have to do anything super strenuous. He might be able to relax today.”

“We’re doing what now?”

Changkyun had to agree with Wonho’s shocked outburst. Looking around, he himself couldn’t believe what was going on. He and the members had been dragged out of the apartment, stuffed into the van, driven all the way from Seoul to the edge of the South Korean peninsula and then stuck on a boat, in the middle of December, to go fishing? All he could see for miles around himself was ocean, the color of sharp indigo, and the sky, grey and bleak with the winter air.

“You dragged us all the way out to the Yellow Sea in the middle of December for fishing?” Hyungwon complained incredulously.

“It’s freezing out here!” Jooheon whined.

If Changkyun had his voice he would have agreed verbally, but as his throat was already raw and the frigid air wasn’t helping, he settled for nodding instead. He muffled a cough into his sleeve and felt Minhyuk’s hand move to rest along his spine.

“The first one to catch squid is the winner. Then the winner will choose two others to have a squid dinner with.” PD-nim explained.

“Yah, I can barely move, I’m so cold. You expect us to fish for squid?” Minhyuk groaned.

“It’s part of the challenge.”

A biting breeze drifted over the boat and all of its inhabitants shivered, Changkyun himself included. He tried not to startle when someone’s arms—heavy and big, he guessed it was Hoseok—wrapped around his frame, but he welcomed the warmth without complaint. The coldness seeping into his bones even through the puffy jacket and other two layers was a painful reminder of how not-healthy he was at the moment.

The staff began to disperse to get ready for the challenge, momentarily pausing the cameras. All seven of the boys shuffled to huddle like a pack of penguins, and Changkyun ended up squished between Minhyuk and Kihyun with Hoseok still clinging to his back.

“None of us were prepared for this challenge but I never would have agreed to it if I’d known,” Jooheon grumbled, tucking his chin into his coat collar. Minhyuk and Hyungwon mumbled agreements.

“You don’t have to do this if you’re not feeling good,” Hoseok said lowly in Changkyun’s ear, the closeness of his voice sending shivers down Changkyun’s spine.

“I feel okay,” Changkyun replied, even though he totally didn’t.

Hoseok wasn’t convinced. “Sure you do. If we put up more of a fuss they’ll let you sit inside the deck with the heat on.”

“I’ll be fine, hyung, I promise,” Changkyun said stubbornly. He wasn’t really sure why he declined the offer; it was incredibly appealing. But he hated taking advantage of his hyungs and he didn’t feel comfortable being the only one inside with access to a heater. If his hyungs were going to suffer, so was he. Even if he was already worse off.

“Okay, well, will you let one of us know if you start feeling worse?” Kihyun pleaded, expression a little irate.

Changkyun winced internally; he didn’t want to be the cause of his hyung’s frustration. He nodded to appease the older. Kihyun didn’t really look like he believed him, but didn’t say anything else. Besides, Changkyun knew all of them could tell he wasn’t feeling one-hundred-percent. His eyes always managed to give away his true feelings, his real emotions. It had always been that way. Growing up, his older brother and closest friends always used to comment on his “honest eyes.” Once the hyungs had learned to read his eyes, it became harder to hide things from them.

It used to really bother him that he'd gradually become more or less an open book to his hyungs. But Changkyun was slowly starting to learn it was okay to let them care. It took time—hell, he was still learning to live with their love for him—but he got used to it. Everyone needed a little TLC once in a while, right? And if his hyungs were happy to give it, he supposed he could be happy to receive it.

Almost two hours later, Changkyun’s fingers were starting to go numb, even under two layers of gloves. None of the members had had any luck catching anything, let alone squid, and he could see his hyungs slowly getting more and more irritated, both from the situation they were in and how cold they were. He’d done a quick search on his phone while the cameras weren’t looking and discovered that, 1, it was barely 10 degrees outside, and 2, the Yellow Sea was becoming less and less populated due to overfishing. In his opinion, it was ridiculously unfair to place this challenge on them.

He also felt much worse than before. His headache had turned from an annoying, incessant dull throb at the base of his skull into genuine pain all around his temples and jaw. He’d gone through half a box of tissues alone in the last few hours and his chest ached both from the cold and from coughing. Faint nausea tugged at his stomach. He felt a bit too feverish for it to be seasickness, forcing him to accept the fact that he was, in fact, getting sick, filling his already nauseous stomach with dread. After finally making himself accept it, he’d given up on trying to hide how bad he felt. He knew by now the cameras had picked it up and after facing stern words from Hyunwoo, the staff had begun to leave him alone, instead watching the other boys struggle to complete the challenge.

“At this point I don’t even care who catches the squid,” Hyungwon whined, slumped in one of the seats. “Can we please go home? I’m so cold and hungry. I can’t feel my fingers anymore.”

“We’re all cold and hungry,” Minhyuk shot back. Changkyun flinched at the uncharacteristic harshness of his voice.

With how agitated his hyungs seemed now, Changkyun was beginning to doubt that this episode would air at all. They’d slowly started to become less and less friendly with the staff and, painfully enough, with each other. Changkyun knew it was just because they were cold, hungry, and tired, and also worried about him, but he still hated hearing them snap at each other.

At this point, Changkyun wasn’t participating much anymore. He'd occasionally put in a funny comment to try to lighten the mood, but that was all he found he could do. He stood on the top deck of the boat next to some of the producers, because that was where they had an electric heater going and it was the only thing even remotely cutting down some of Changkyun’s discomfort. Every once in a while he’d sneeze or cough or sniffle and get a sympathetic look from one of the staff members, who, really, weren’t looking much better themselves. He’d been told multiple times to be careful and watch where he was going, because the railing on the top deck only came up to right behind his knees. If he stopped paying attention, he could fall over the edge.

He looked up with a small smile when Minhyuk climbed up onto the top deck and put his hands up to the heaters. The mood-maker of the group smiled back, but once he found the cameras no longer on him, he leaned closer to Changkyun to talk to him quietly, away from the earshot of the cameras.

"How are you doing?" He asked, hands still suspended in the air by the heater.

Changkyun shrugged. Minhyuk tugged off one glove and put his hand to Changkyun's forehead. Changkyun weakly batted his hand away, casting an anxious glance in the direction of the production crew, but Minhyuk didn't seem to care.

"You're warm," he said under his breath. It didn't surprise Changkyun.

"Don't feel so good," he mumbled back, still wary of the cameras. Minhyuk frowned and cooed, pulling his glove back on. "'M tired. And nauseous."

"Kkukkung, we can tell them that," Minhyuk said softly, voice growing even quieter. It was strange to see him so serious; Changkyun searched his eyes for even a glimmer of humor, but there was none. Just worry. "If you're feeling too sick to continue, they'll take us back home."

We'll make them, went unsaid. There was genuine worry in Minhyuk's normally bright eyes, genuine concern for Changkyun's health and well-being. At that point, Changkyun gave up. He was feeling too sick to argue. He just wanted to go home.

"Okay," he nodded slowly. Minhyuk flashed him a sad smile—there his trademark grin was—and he turned away from the heater and began to descend the ladder to talk to Hyunwoo.

“I’m surprised the water isn’t frozen,” Kihyun piped up, looking out at the water with his arms folded tightly over his chest.

“I wish it was,” Jooheon muttered, fiddling with one of the fishing lines. “Then we could go home.”

The boat made a sharp dip. Changkyun winced at the sudden feeling of his stomach jumping.

“Okay, cut,” the director called, voice slightly muffled from behind his scarf. Everyone turned to him expectantly, Changkyun included. The director pulled down his scarf. “We’ll find something else to air instead. I’m sorry, guys. This wasn’t as fun as we hoped it would be. We weren’t expecting it to be so cold.”

There was a chorus of sighs of relief from the hyungs. Changkyun would have joined them if he wasn’t positive he’d break into a coughing fit.

The relief was incredibly short lived.

One of the PD-nims tripped over a camera cord and crashed sideways into Changkyun. None of them even had a chance to react. One second Changkyun was standing with his back to the water, the next he felt the icy metal deck railing touch the back of his knees and he buckled backwards, arms flailing. He felt and heard frigid wind rush by his ears and his lips parted in a yell.

Ka-splash!

Freezing water rushed at him from all sides, filling his mouth and ears. The shock of such biting water sent a zap of panic through his limbs. He struggled against the current, trying to pull himself up, but his limbs seemed frozen, like the water around him. The rush of water was quickly replaced by the sound of television static in his ears.

Then there was nothing.

Consciousness came like a sharp slap to the face, but felt more like he was swimming in mud. All he could register was the dull ringing of static in his ears, but slowly muffled voices began to surround him. The next thing he realized was that he was freezing.

“—kyun!”

He gasped, feeling his chest constrict. Voices faded in and out of the static. All he could focus on was his inability to move. What was happening? Where was he? Why couldn’t he breathe?

Am I dead?

The thought sent a surge of panic barreling through his veins. He felt something rise in the back of his throat and lurched to the side, coughing out a mouthful of salty water.

Someone behind him dragged him into a seated position. He coughed again, sea water splashing over his already soaked body. Whoever was holding him upright started rubbing frantically along his spine.

“—okay—it’s—kay—”

He sucked in a sharp breath, desperate to breathe, but it got caught in his chest and he was left hacking over himself, hanging weakly from whoever was holding up upright.

As he coughed out more water, his senses started to return, thankfully. The crisp, cold blue of the sky and the deeper indigo of the water were all he could register at first but then blobs began moving back and forth, in and out of his line of sight. Someone fell to their knees in front of him.

“Cha..yun—talk.. me—ease—”

He knew that voice. That sounded like Kihyun. Kihyun was good. Kihyun could help. Changkyun tried to move his lips, form words, but all he managed to do was groan.

“—say something—”

“F-f-freez-ing,” Changkyun stammered, using all his effort to get a single word past his lips.

Something warm and heavy landed across his back, followed by a strong pair of arms he recognized as Hyunwoo’s. The voices were getting louder, stronger, more recognizable. At least everything was coming back to him now. The moments of panic were not something he wanted to go through again. His heart was racing.

He felt fingers touch his face and tilt his chin up. He struggled to open his eyes and looked into Kihyun’s face, contorted into worry and fear.

“Back off,” Jooheon snarled at someone. Following the rapper's angry voice somewhere to his left, there came the scuffling of shoes on the slick PVC surface of the boat deck.

“Jooheon,” Hyunwoo’s stern voice warned in reply.

Kihyun kept Changkyun’s face cupped in his palms. Overwhelmed by the voices he heard around him, he tried to focus solely on Kihyun—Kihyun, his loving hyung who ate like a hamster, his older brother who took care of him. He raised a shaky hand to hold one of Kihyun’s and was startled at the iciness of his own hand against his cheek. He fought to control his breathing, his chest feeling heavy. His throat hurt so badly.

“Want-t to g-go h-home,” he mumbled, trying desperately to make his lips work. It felt almost like they weren’t even there.

“Okay, baby, okay,” Kihyun soothed, voice warm but fearful as someone wrapped him in another thick, scratchy blanket. It didn’t do much to cease Changkyun’s frigid shaking, but he appreciated it anyway. “We’re going home.”

The car ride back to the dorm was tense and silent, Hoseok’s playlist playing softly from the stereo where it was connected via Bluetooth. Changkyun wasn’t really conscious anymore, squished between Minhyuk and Jooheon and slumped against Jooheon’s chest, the older boy holding him close. The boat ride back to the shore had taken a little under an hour and Changkyun spent all of it laying down in the cockpit in front of the electric heater, wrapped in several blankets. He’d been stripped of his soaked coat and sweater and given three jackets and a spare pair of gloves and hadn’t been conscious enough for much else.

The production crew had tried to apologize by offering to take the group out to eat, but their offer had been rebutted by all six conscious members of the group and Hyunwoo had vied for the rest of the week off instead. The crew had agreed easily, a little intimidated by the oldest member. The healthy members were past trying to be polite with their frustration and were now openly angry with the production staff. Kihyun knew they would be reprimanded for it later, but he couldn’t bring himself to care much. The staff had known Changkyun was ill, they had known that the other members were tired and cold and hungry, but they kept filming anyway, even capturing the maknae’s obvious illness and discomfort. And then one of them had been so clumsy as to completely knock Changkyun into the bitter sea water, no doubt worsening his condition.

Kihyun still felt his skin buzz and prickle with the adrenaline rush and subsequent crash. He hadn’t been able to calm himself down until Changkyun was safely in the car. Kihyun was seated in the back, clumped next to Hyunwoo and Hyungwon, but he kept most of his attention trained on the maknae in the seat in front of him, absentmindedly picking at his cuticles. Through the silence of the car he could hear the maknae’s labored breathing. He bit his lip.

“Minhyuk,” he whispered.

Said boy turned his head to look over the seat at Kihyun, one eyebrow raised in question.

“Does he have a fever?” Kihyun asked.

“I’ll check,” the mood-maker replied quietly, then turned to press his hand against Changkyun’s skin. His eyes narrowed. “He does feel warm.”

Kihyun sighed in frustration, raking a hand through his hair. He wasn’t frustrated at Changkyun; never at him. But the exact thing he’d been trying to avoid ended up happening—Changkyun had gotten worse, and the production crew had had the nerve to be so unsympathetic.

His attention was again pinned on Changkyun when the maknae began to cough, sharp, hacking coughs that had him pitching forward with the force. Jooheon and Minhyuk immediately jumped to try to soothe him. Kihyun itched to do something to help, but he was rendered powerless in the backseat of the car. Next to him he heard Hyungwon sigh in concern, and he grabbed the younger’s hand. Hyungwon gave a thankful squeeze in return.

The fit finally subsided, but it left Changkyun shaky and breathing weirdly. Kihyun looked past the headrest in front of him at Hoseok, who was in the middle of passing a water bottle back to Jooheon, who opened it and then held it out to Changkyun. Kihyun sighed and slumped back against the seat. To his right, Hyunwoo curled an arm around his shoulder in comfort. He didn’t say anything, but Kihyun appreciated the older’s attempt at comfort anyway.

With rush hour traffic, the ride back to the dorm took almost two hours. Halfway through Jooheon announced Changkyun was totally asleep, but he suffered inconsistent fits of coughing the entire trip, each sounding more painful than the previous. By the time the van finally reached the dorm, Kihyun was thoroughly agitated, wanting to help the poor maknae but unable to do much.

With Changkyun mostly unconscious, it took almost all of them to get him up to the dorm. Eventually Hoseok resorted to carrying him, holding him bridal style while the other boys carried their belongings up. The clock read 4:48 PM when the boys finally staggered into the dorm and once Hoseok (with Hyunwoo’s help) had carried Changkyun into his room, followed by Minhyuk, Kihyun began to think about dinner. He was thoroughly exhausted and not in the mood to do much, but his boys needed dinner and he was the one to do them justice.

“Hyung, I’ll help you with dinner,” Jooheon offered sweetly, seemingly having had read Kihyun’s mind. Kihyun gave him a weak smile of gratitude.

“Let’s get to it, then.”

Jooheon was a great helper when he was willingly being of assistance. It took him and Kihyun half the time to get dinner spread out than it would have if Kihyun had tried to cook by himself, and the final product of their meal, which was ramyun with sides of rice, kimchi and seasoned broccoli, was a success for the hungry boys of the dorm. All of them sat around the dinner table, sans Changkyun, chatting and talking easily with each other. The one thing they didn’t talk about was the events of the day. It served as a good distraction, Kihyun found. Every time Kihyun thought about how the day had gone, he felt anger bubble in his core. At least his boys were his relief.

It was nearing seven by the time they cleaned everything up and the boys began to disperse, Jooheon and Hyungwon cuddling up to each other on the sofa in front of a drama while Hyunwoo retreated into his bedroom to read a little bit. Minhyuk stretched out on the sofa with his phone and Hoseok was helping Kihyun with leftover chores, such as the laundry he’d meant to do earlier in the week. Kihyun was grateful for the help he was receiving that night; usually it was a pain to try to get one of the boys to help him, so much so that it was faster and easier to just do it himself. The assistance with chores he normally spent hours doing was a nice change.

“We should wake Kyunnie up,” Hoseok said softly, pulling Kihyun from his thoughts. “I don’t want to but I think he should eat something.”

Kihyun nodded; he knew that. He was also briefly wondering if maybe they should try to take him to the hospital the next day.

“I don’t want to have to wake him up.” He replied honestly.

“I know,” Hoseok sighed, folding a t-shirt. “I don’t want to either.”

“He needs it, though,” Kihyun finished his thought for him, watching Hoseok nod in agreement, then poked his head into the living room. Everyone was where he’d left them; Minhyuk laying on his stomach, perusing Twitter, Jooheon and Hyungwon half asleep in front of a drama playing quietly on the television.

“Minhyuk-ah,” he called. Minhyuk lifted his head. “Can you wake Kkukkungie up? I want to have him eat something tonight. Ask Hyunwoo-hyung to help you.”

“Yeah, sure,” Minhyuk replied, then got up.

“Go get him something to eat. I’ll finish the laundry,” Hoseok ordered gently when Kihyun turned to finish folding the shirt he held.

“Are you sure? There's a lot.”

There was a lot; they'd been so busy over the course of the last week that the laundry had accumulated into three whole piles. They were only halfway through the first.

“Yes. He needs you.”

Kihyun shot his hyung a grateful look and turned to leave the laundry room, making his way past the living room to the kitchen. Hyungwon seemed to be fully asleep, Jooheon nodding off next to him. Kihyun sighed; he’d wanted them to fall asleep in their rooms, not the sofa. Compared to Changkyun, the older maknaes were heavier sleepers and therefore hard to wake up. It might not even be worth trying to wake them, considering how long it normally took. Maybe he’d be able to convince Hyunwoo to carry the two back to their beds, he mused as he tossed together a simple soup.

He’d just put the small pot of broth on the burner when Minhyuk entered the kitchen, followed by Changkyun and then Hyunwoo. Kihyun was dismayed to see the maknae still barely looked conscious.

“Hi, Kyunnie. How are you feeling?”

Changkyun made a noise that could have meant anything, slumping into one of the barstools and folding over to rest his elbows on the cool marble.

“He’s tired.” Minhyuk answered as Hyunwoo and Kihyun shared a look.

“I’m making you some soup. Are you up to eating anything?” Kihyun asked, then cursed himself for phrasing it like a question. He’d need Changkyun to eat some of it regardless of what he said. He couldn’t go hours without anything to eat.

“I can eat,” Changkyun replied, voice watery and strained. Kihyun suppressed a wince. Hyunwoo began fixing a glass of water and placed it in front of the maknae, who shot him a grateful look and sat up to sip at it.

About five minutes later, Kihyun slid a half-full bowl of soup at the maknae, followed by a spoon. The maknae looked at it curiously, stirring it a bit with his spoon. All Kihyun had put in it was chicken broth, bits of chicken, cut up carrots, and leftover noodles—something easy for his stomach.

“It's just chicken-noodle. Try to eat all of it. It’s okay if you can’t but I need you to try,” Kihyun expressed. Changkyun cautiously put a spoonful into his mouth.

“It’s good, hyung,” he said softly. "It's really good." Kihyun smiled.

"Aish. Such a good kid," Minhyuk pressed a kiss to the maknae's hair.

Hyunwoo, with Minhyuk’s help, managed to drag Jooheon and Hyungwon to their beds, miraculously without waking either of them up. Changkyun, to Kihyun’s delight, had eaten all the soup in his bowl before nearly falling asleep at the island, prompting Minhyuk to take him back to bed, where Kihyun assumed they’d fallen asleep together. Twenty minutes later, the clock read 8:38, Hyunwoo went to bed as well after bidding a warm ‘goodnight’ to Hoseok and Kihyun, leaving them alone in the kitchen and living room. Kihyun wrapped up cleaning and cooking while Hoseok finished the monstrous pile of laundry, half invested in the drama on the television. Almost two hours later, the only ones awake were still Kihyun and Hoseok.

That was why it startled Kihyun a bit when he heard the shuffling of socked feet on hardwood, prompting him to glance up from wiping down the island countertop. Changkyun sagged against the doorframe to the hallway, rubbing his eye with one hand. His blanket was draped over his shoulders like a cape and his hair, adorably tousled and messy, was bent enough to show the telltale glisten of sweat on his forehead.

As worried as Kihyun was about Changkyun’s condition, he did have to admit the maknae looked adorable, a little dazed with puffy cheeks and fluffy hair.

“Aish, Kkukkung, what are you doing awake?” Hoseok appeared behind Kihyun, closing the refrigerator door. “You okay?”

“Thirsty,” Changkyun mumbled, voice quiet enough that Kihyun wasn’t sure if he heard him correctly. Hoseok walked toward the maknae, pressing the back of his hand against his cheek. He clicked his tongue.

“You’re warmer than before,” he said, pursing his lips. With a hum of acknowledgement, Changkyun leaned his forehead on Hoseok’s shoulder and Kihyun and Hoseok shared an appalled look. Changkyun was never so clingy, even when sick. He must be feeling really unwell.

“I’ll get you some water and Ibuprofen. Hyung, take his temperature?” Kihyun said, abandoning his task of cleaning the counter and reaching for the cup cabinet.

Hoseok led the sick maknae to the island and Changkyun leaned against the counter next to the sink. Kihyun glanced at him over his shoulder as he rummaged in the medicine cabinet for Ibuprofen. He looked worse compared, to earlier. Purple pulled at his eyes, his skin unhealthily pale. He seemed half asleep, sagged against the counter, even as Hoseok stuck the thermometer in his mouth. The maknae usually hated being babied, having his temperature taken and the like. The fact that he was too out of it to put up any kind of fight caused the concern already pooled in Kihyun’s stomach to blossom.

The thermometer beeped and Hoseok pulled it out of his mouth, frowning at the number. He turned the device to show Kihyun as he approached the maknae with a glass of water and two pills cupped in his hand. 38.5 flashed in red. He tutted; Changkyun’s fever was up.

“Water, Kkukkung,” Kihyun tried to swallow his worry as he pressed the glass into Changkyun’s hand. Changkyun slowly sipped the water, but when he saw the little pills blinking up at him from Kihyun’s palm, his gaze turned wary.

Realizing Changkyun just wanted to sip the water for a minute, Kihyun placed the pills on the counter next to the sink and gave the maknae a small smile that wasn’t returned. Hoseok was using his thumb to massage between Changkyun’s shoulder blades, but Kihyun couldn’t tell if the ministrations were comforting based on the despondent look on Changkyun’s face.

Kihyun glanced at the clock on the stove as he picked up the discarded rag on the counter and finished rubbing away. 10:06 PM. The boys’ schedule had been cleared for the next few days, an apology gift for the boat incident earlier in the day, but Kihyun wanted Changkyun to rest as much as he needed. Maybe he’d wake up Minhyuk and convince him to sleep with the maknae that night. He highly doubted Minhyuk would need much convincing, though—Minhyuk was a Changkyun hog and would never pass up an opportunity for maknae cuddles, especially if Changkyun was too sick to do much about it.

The sharp clang of glass hitting metal and breaking had Kihyun whirling around. The glass of water, cracked from where it had apparently struck the edge of the metal sink, laid on its side on the counter, water cascading across the surface and dripping down to the floor. Changkyun’s blanket cape had fallen from his shoulders and coiled around his feet. He was hunched over the sink, hands gripping either side of the metal basin, chest heaving. His body rocked forward with an unproductive gag.

“Oh, Kkukkungie,” Hoseok whispered, reaching forward to hug the maknae from behind. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Kihyun again abandoned his place at the opposite counter and moved to stand at Changkyun’s other side, gingerly picking up the cracked glass and chucking it into the kitchen waste bin in one swift movement.

“Hyu-hyung,” Changkyun slurred. Kihyun reached up to hold his bangs out of his face. “Kihyunnie-hyung..”

“Shh, shh,” Kihyun hushed, trying to fight panic. “It’s okay, Changkyun. Don’t hold it in.”

Changkyun jerked with a silent heave, a mouthful of sick hitting the sink. Hoseok whimpered in sympathy and held Changkyun tighter. Changkyun wasn’t a loud puker by any means—his retches were nearly soundless as he brought up more of what he’d eaten that day. Kihyun winced; he’d have to clean the sink with bleach now. But it wasn’t the worst. Changkyun couldn’t help it. This wasn’t his fault.

Changkyun was left shaking and dizzy at the end of the vomiting episode and by the time he was done, Hoseok had taken on most of his weight, literally holding him upright. Changkyun kept his head bowed but Kihyun’s heart leaped into his mouth when he registered the sparkling tears on his cheeks. He didn’t care if it was tears of exertion or not, his baby was crying and that didn’t sit well with him. He took Changkyun’s face into his palms and kissed over his bangs, bent weirdly up and out of shape from Kihyun holding them back.

“Aigoo. It’s okay, honey,” Kihyun soothed, lips against Changkyun’s forehead. The maknae sniffled pitifully, allowing Kihyun to hold him, to Kihyun's surprise. It was rare that Changkyun ever let him, or anyone, hold him like this. He must be feeling really badly.

“Hey, Kyun, you should take a shower and brush your teeth before going back to bed,” Hoseok murmured. “I’ll help you, okay? Is that okay?”

Changkyun gave a small hum and a nod. Hoseok and Kihyun shared a sad glance before Hoseok began to lead Changkyun to the bathroom, eventually resorting to half-carrying him down the hall. Kihyun watched them go until their silhouettes vanished into the darkness. He watched as a light clicked on at the end of the hall before the door shut and cut the light off, swallowing the deep hallway in darkness again.

He looked at the mess in the sink, the water on the counter top, the thermometer still flashing the number 38.5 and the discarded Ibuprofen next to the metal basin. He sucked in a deep breath before running the tap in the sink and getting to work on cleaning.

Kihyun found that bleaching the entire kitchen was the only way to completely rid the space of the stench of vomit, but he happily took the sharp, stinging smell of disinfectant over the reminder of Changkyun’s sickness. By the time Kihyun was done cleaning, Changkyun and Hoseok were finished with their shower and Changkyun was brushing his teeth, sitting on the closed toilet seat while Hoseok stood behind him, hanging up their towels to dry, his own toothbrush shoved between his lips.

Kihyun took Changkyun’s temperature again. 38.3 blinked up at him in big red flashes; red for bad, red for danger. He sighed internally. Even with a lukewarm shower, his fever was already proving to be stubborn.

“I’ll finish up in here,” Hoseok mumbled, voice slightly muffled around his toothbrush. “You take him to bed. See if Minhyuk wants to cuddle him.”

“You know he’ll want to,” Kihyun said, a soft smirk playing at his lips. Hoseok smiled back and nodded. “Come on, Kyun.”

Changkyun wordlessly allowed Kihyun to help him to his feet and take him back to their shared bedroom. To their shared surprise, Minhyuk was still awake when they quietly entered the room, scrolling on his phone. He tossed his phone aside and sat up immediately when Kihyun and Changkyun entered, gaze sad and worried. He reached for the maknae and Kihyun watched him stagger toward their group’s sunshine before slumping into his arms. They laid back on Minhyuk's mattress together, Minhyuk immediately combing his hands through the maknae's freshly washed hair.

“How long have you been awake?” Kihyun asked lowly, wary of the still-asleep Jooheon in his bunk.

“I woke up when he got out of bed earlier, but I heard you guys with him and decided to wait,” Minhyuk said, still running his hand through Changkyun’s hair as the maknae settled against Minhyuk's pillow, closing his eyes. Minhyuk looked up at Kihyun, eyes narrow and sad and so unlike Minhyuk it absolutely threw Kihyun off guard. “He’s really sick, isn’t he?”

Kihyun nodded, bottom lip stuck between his teeth. “He threw up.”

“Poor baby.” Minhyuk sighed.

“Yeah. You’ll lay with him tonight, won’t you?” Kihyun asked. He knew what the answer would be, but he figured he’d ask. He wasn’t sure if Changkyun was asleep already.

“Of course I will.” Minhyuk replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world, not that Kihyun had expected anything else. Changkyun responded by humming and shifting slightly, curling closer to his hyung. Minhyuk bent forward to sniff his hair. “Yah, so clean, our maknae. Let’s rest, my Kkukkungie. You need it.”

Changkyun’s only response was another hum. Kihyun waited until they were settled to turn the light out and close the door. As he turned into the hallway he crashed into Hoseok, almost jumping out of his own skin when he collided with the older man's chest.

“Jesus, hyung, you scared me,” Kihyun hissed, trying to calm his racing heart.

“Sorry,” Hoseok mumbled, then glanced over Kihyun’s shoulder at the closed bedroom door. “Aren’t you going to bed?”

“I need to wash up,” Kihyun ran his hand over his face. God, he was so exhausted. He wanted nothing more than to turn in and sleep for the next twelve hours but it was already nearing eleven o’clock and he hadn’t done anything to get himself ready for bed, and he knew he’d sleep poorly if he tried to skip out on his nightly routine.

“Sleep with me tonight.”

The offer caught Kihyun off guard. He blinked up at the older, who was watching him warmly.

“You’ve done nothing but cook and clean and care for us and Kkukkung since we got home. Take a shower and then come lay down with me,” Hoseok said, voice soft and inviting. “You deserve to relax too.”

“Okay,” Kihyun agreed wearily, too exhausted to argue and also not really against the idea. Hoseok smiled and tugged Kihyun into a quick hug.

Kihyun didn’t rouse until around nine the next morning, later than he normally woke up but still earlier than everyone else. He’d taken his phone with him to bed when he finally did lay down with Hoseok, sometime around eleven-thirty, but he’d neglected to plug it in. The only way he was able to check the time was by picking up Hoseok’s phone next to his hyung’s sleeping body. The numbers 8:56 AM blinked back at him as weak, cold sunlight poured through the haphazardly shut blinds above Hyunwoo’s bed and flushed the bedroom in a wintry glow.

Kihyun sat up and Hoseok’s arm, which had been draped limply across Kihyun’s chest, flopped onto the bed, but the older man didn’t stir. Everyone else in the room—Hyungwon, Hyunwoo, Hoseok—remained dead asleep, and judging by the silence of the rest of the dorm, so were the maknaes and Minhyuk. Briefly Kihyun cursed his body’s apparent inability to sleep in, but, knowing full well he wouldn’t be able to make himself go back to sleep, he decided to get up and get moving.

Contrary to popular belief that Kihyun was salty about constantly taking care of his boys, Kihyun had great pride in being the “mom” of the dorm and took this role fairly seriously. He genuinely enjoyed cooking and cleaning was something that was already in his tidy nature. He didn’t really view it as a chore to look after the other boys. It was something he relished in. He liked doing it.

And besides, if he wasn’t going to do it, who would?

He peeked into Minhyuk, Jooheon, and Changkyun’s room as he walked by after brushing his teeth and washing his face. All three were still deeply asleep, much to his relief. Changkyun was wrapped snugly in Minhyuk’s arms and at some point it appeared that Jooheon had gotten up to join the other two. The way all three were squished into the same bed, which really only fit Minhyuk, was pretty comical and more than a little cute. Kihyun would have taken a picture if his phone wasn’t dead.

Instead, he made his way to the kitchen. The smell of bleach and disinfectant still lingered, though it wasn’t as strong as it was the night before. After looking through the refrigerator—he’d need to send someone grocery shopping later in the day—he decided on a breakfast of rolled vegetable omelettes, gyeran mari, for the boys and simple rice and toast for Changkyun. After the maknae’s bout of sickness the night before, Kihyun wanted to ease him back into eating to assess just how badly this illness was going to affect him. As he began cooking, he hoped to God Changkyun would be able to keep it down.

Before he got the stove going he padded back to Hoseok’s room to grab his phone and plug it in the speaker dock on the island, putting on one of his cooking playlists. Cooking and listening to music, even at a low volume, was something he’d done with his mother all the time as a child. He liked being able to share that experience with his boys. With that thought in mind he began cooking, humming along with whatever song played through the speakers as he tossed together the omelette mixture and snacking from the bag of baby carrots on the counter.

“Morning.”

Kihyun glanced over his shoulder at Minhyuk walking like a zombie into the kitchen, running his fingers through his mop of blonde, sleep-tousled hair.

“Good morning,” Kihyun smiled. Minhyuk plopped himself into one of the barstools on the opposite side of the stove and flashed Kihyun a big, lazy grin.

“You didn’t come back into our room last night,” Minhyuk stated around a yawn. Kihyun nodded and hummed, biting into a baby carrot.

“Hoseok-hyung wanted me to rest with him.” He replied, turning back to the stove and stirring the omelettes. “How was last night?”

“Fine. Kyunnie slept through the night,” Minhyuk sighed, stretching his shoulders. Kihyun nodded, relieved to hear that. “At some point Jooheon got into bed with us. I think that’s why I woke up. That bed is only big enough for me on a good night.”

Kihyun giggled and rolled his eyes playfully as he handed Minhyuk a handful of baby carrots.

“I left them snuggled together. It’s really cute,” Minhyuk grinned, biting into a carrot with a loud snap.

“I’m sure,” Kihyun smiled as he flipped the omelettes.

“I took a picture.”

“I’d expect nothing less.”

“What are you making?” Minhyuk asked, standing and arcing around the island to come up behind Kihyun and snake his arms around his waist.

“Gyeran mari and black bean rice for you and the others, and rice and toast for Kkukkungie,” Kihyun answered, leaning back into Minhyuk’s chest.

“Yum,” Minhyuk reached to pinch a bit of the black bean rice and pop it into his mouth. Kihyun smacked at his arm and Minhyuk danced out of the way with a grin.

“Yah, go away. It’s not done yet,” he teased, shooing Minhyuk away as he giggled.

The next half hour was relatively peaceful. Minhyuk hijacked Kihyun’s phone while it was docked in the speaker-charger hybrid and had begun to play the Spotify playlist of popular music, filling the kitchen's corners and crannies with BTS’s Fake Love. Minhyuk danced along in a lazy and uncoordinated manner, almost knocking the bowl of black bean rice all over the floor, but Kihyun managed to stop that disaster before it could happen and threatened to kick Minhyuk out of the kitchen. So Minhyuk resorted to helping Kihyun finish preparing breakfast, and by the time ten o’clock rolled around, they’d made more than enough food for the morning. Both of them looked up as they heard soft footsteps approaching the kitchen.

“Aish, what are you kids doing up so early? Did we wake you up?” Minhyuk admonished the two maknaes as they walked closer to the island. Jooheon definitely looked more awake than Changkyun, but to Kihyun’s dismay, Changkyun really wasn’t looking much better than he did last night.

“It’s not that early,” Jooheon mumbled, arm wrapped firmly around Changkyun, who was swimming in a sweatshirt that was definitely not his—Hyunwoo’s, Kihyun concluded upon closer inspection.

“It’s early for a day we don’t have anything going on,” Kihyun said, eyeing Changkyun warily. “How are you both this morning? Hungry, I hope.”

“Good. Hungry.” Jooheon replied, letting Changkyun sit down first before taking a seat in the barstool next to him. "Ooh, gyeran mari! What's the occasion?"

"What, can't I make you all a nice breakfast?" Kihyun wrinkled his nose at Jooheon.

Changkyun didn’t offer a response. Kihyun didn’t exactly expect him to, but it worried him all the same. He turned down the heat on the stove and then pulled open the medicine cabinet, fishing the thermometer out of its box. He turned back around as he pressed the button to power on the thermometer and saw that Jooheon and Minhyuk both had hands in Changkyun’s hair as he leaned forward onto the island countertop.

“Open,” Kihyun ordered softly, and popped the thermometer in under Changkyun’s tongue after the maknae opened his mouth obediently. As they waited for the thermometer to finish, Kihyun got a good look at the maknae’s face. He really didn’t look better, aside from the fact that he seemed less feverish, apparent by the lack of red that had donned his cheeks the night before.

The thermometer pinged and Kihyun pulled it out to look at it. 37.4. He felt a wave of relief wash over him.

“Your fever is down,” he said, turning to rinse the device under the tap. “How are you feeling? Be honest.”

Changkyun sniffled and made a vague gesture towards his throat, then his hand formed a thumbs-down. Minhyuk cooed in sympathy.

“How about your stomach? Do you feel up to eating?” Kihyun asked. He wasn’t quite sure why he asked. He’d need Changkyun to try to eat something regardless.

Changkyun shook his head and buried his face into the hood of the sweater he wore. Minhyuk and Jooheon shared a glance over his head.

“Are you nauseous?”

A nod. Kihyun bit his lip. He needed Changkyun to eat something, but he didn't want to make him if he wasn't feeling up to it.

“I’m making you some rice and toast. I’ll make tea for your throat. Do you think you could try that?”

A shrug. Kihyun took it as the closest to a ‘yes’ he’d get from the poor boy.

Feeding Changkyun turned out to be a little bit of a struggle. It seemed he was more nauseous than he’d expressed, because he barely ate half of his plate, and all he had been given was a bowl of rice, two pieces of toast, and a mug of tea. He only had a few bites of the rice, half of one slice of toast, and maybe three sips of tea. Minhyuk resorted to trying to feed him himself, which only worked for four or five more bites until he held a sixth spoonful of rice to Changkyun’s lips and the maknae pulled away.

“One more bite, Kyunnie?” Minhyuk prodded gently, pushing the spoon closer to Changkyun’s mouth. Changkyun suddenly reached up to grasp Minhyuk’s wrist, holding it still, a pleading look in his eyes. This was all it took for Minhyuk to relent. “Aigoo. We’re done. My poor puppy.”

Minhyuk offered to get Changkyun situated on the couch with Jooheon’s help as Hyungwon stumbled into the kitchen, still clearly half asleep. He woke up a bit, however, when his sleepy gaze landed on Changkyun, shaky and bundled in a sweatshirt that was too big for him and a blanket cape similar to the one he’d worn the previous night. Hyungwon watched in concern as Minhyuk and Jooheon helped him settle on the sofa in front of the living room before entering the kitchen, his eyebrows furrowed the way they did whenever he was worried. Kihyun wordlessly handed him a plate of food, countering Hyungwon’s anxious expression with a knowing look.

“This looks good, hyung. Can I eat in the living room with him?” Hyungwon asked.

Under any other circumstance, Kihyun would have said no, out of a desire to keep their living space nice. However, he could understand where Hyungwon was coming from. So he nodded.

“Just this once,” he said, even though he knew he probably wouldn’t be so firm if there was a next time either. Hyungwon smiled gratefully at him.

“You should eat too,” he said, glancing at the other three vegetable omelettes still warming on the stove. “You’re really good at forgetting to feed yourself when you’re busy.”

While Kihyun knew this, he was momentarily taken aback by Hyungwon’s thoughtfulness. It wasn’t that Hyungwon wasn’t observant, it was just that normally his observations tended to be more focused on the maknaes rather than the hyung line. Hyungwon was a strange case as he more or less straddled the hyung line and the maknae line, being right in the middle. Kihyun gave him a soft smile and waved him off.

“I’ll get some, don’t worry. Go be with the kids,” he said, trying not to let on to how touched he actually was at Hyungwon’s words. Hyungwon smirked, then turned and left the kitchen.

Kihyun waited a few more minutes before deciding to just plate the other three omelettes and leave them out for the two oldest hyungs to find when they did decide to wake up. He thought about eating one of them quickly, but decided against it in favor of spending time with the kids in the living room and stuck his omelette in the refrigerator to heat it up later. It was nearing noon—soon enough it wouldn't be appropriate to eat breakfast. He hoped Hyunwoo and Hoseok would wake up soon.

He found Changkyun, Hyungwon, and Minhyuk in the living room, watching a drama on the television. Changkyun was leaning against Minhyuk, the older’s arm draped across his shoulder, and Hyungwon sat on the floor in front of them, lazily eating his omelette.

“Where’s Jooheon?” Kihyun asked, perching himself on the arm of the sofa.

“He went to take a shower before Hyunwoo-hyung and Hoseok-hyung wake up,” Minhyuk replied easily. “I think he’s just avoiding watching this drama, though.”

Kihyun’s lips pulled into a side smile. “Why’s that?”

“It’s a paranormal drama,” Hyungwon answered around a mouthful of egg. “Ghosts. Haunted houses. Jumpscares. All the things he doesn’t like.”

“Then why put it on?”

“It’s the new one starring D.O-sunbaenim. Changkyun wanted to watch it, right, Kyunnie?”

The maknae made a small noise of confirmation, but he didn’t look or sound like he was fully conscious.

The room fell into easy silence for a few minutes as D.O's character approached the suspicious house at the top of the hill. Kihyun wasn’t paying much attention to the drama on the television, though; his attention was mainly on Changkyun, whose cheeks looked pinker than he’d seen them last. Without really thinking, Kihyun reached over to press his hand to Changkyun’s forehead. He cursed internally; he was definitely warmer than before.

“Your fever feels like it’s back up again,” Kihyun murmured.

“Your hand feels nice, hyung,” Changkyun whispered in reply, his voice hoarse and crackly. Minhyuk winced.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Minhyuk asked gently. Changkyun looked up, eyes questioning. Asking for clarification. “About being sick. We could have kept you at home yesterday if we tried hard enough.”

“You never tell us hyungs anything. Always hiding how you’re doing, aish,” Kihyun tutted with a gentle smile, just so Changkyun knew he was teasing.

Changkyun glanced sideways at him, eyes already slipping shut. “I didn’t have much of a chance to hide it from you yesterday. I woke up with a cold and was knocked off a boat, like, four hours later.”

“Kihyun’s point is, we’re here to take care of you because we want to and we love you,” Minhyuk cooed, combing his fingers through Changkyun’s hair.

Hyungwon didn’t say anything, but began rubbing Changkyun’s shoulder to show his support for Minhyuk’s statement. Changkyun’s eyes closed.

It wasn’t clear if Changkyun believed Minhyuk. Kihyun honestly didn’t know if Changkyun would ever believe them. This conversation was one they’d had often, as sad as it was. They knew their maknae by now; they knew how to tell when Changkyun was feeling sick or sad—his eyes were an easy way to tell—but they also knew that it really was best to let him come to them. It was just a matter of if he’d come to them, and not when. When he didn’t ask them for help, then they needed to figure out how to help him.

Their third anniversary was approaching soon and even though they’d had a rocky start, they all knew Changkyun was comfortable enough around them to come to them if he needed them. Changkyun still had a hard time allowing himself to be vulnerable around his hyungs, but Kihyun didn’t see that changing. It was who he was. It had been a long process, but Kihyun felt that they’d achieved a relationship with their maknae that was strong, based on love and support. Changkyun was part of their family. All they wanted was for him to know that.

Hyungwon had gone to get showered and dressed a few minutes after Changkyun’s breathing evened out, leaving Minhyuk and Kihyun alone in the kitchen for the next half an hour. Kihyun was busy writing out a grocery list based off of what he couldn’t find in the refrigerator or pantry, and Minhyuk had earbuds stuffed into his ears as he watched a K-drama on the iPad at a low volume.

A choked cough followed by the sound of liquid splattering on hardwood signaled a very sudden turn of events, and had Kihyun and Minhyuk drop what they were doing and rush from the kitchen into the living room. Kihyun’s heart dropped as he registered the situation. Changkyun was leaning off the couch, a small puddle of sick on the floor under him.

Kihyun reacted without really thinking, and so did Minhyuk. Kihyun snatched the wet rag off the counter before making a beeline to Changkyun while Minhyuk reached for the maknae himself, crouching next to him to pull his hair out of his eyes.

“Woah—”

Hyunwoo and Hoseok approached from the hallway at that moment and both of them froze, staring with similar expressions of shock and horror at the scene before them. Kihyun wasted little time in getting their attention.

“Trash bin, now,” He snapped his fingers, crouching in front of the maknae. Hoseok turned and darted back down the hallway.

A sickly cough had Kihyun turning back around to face the maknae. His skin was a scary shade of white, eyes red and teary. Minhyuk had one hand running up and down his spine, the other in his hair, and was whispering to him gently.

“Can you sit up, baby?” Kihyun asked as Hyunwoo began to approach, hands outstretched in concern.

Changkyun didn’t answer, taking slow and measured breaths. Kihyun glanced at Hyunwoo, who had moved to stand behind the couch and leaned forward to place his hands on Changkyun’s shoulders. His face was twisted in worry.

“Hyunwoo-hyung is gonna help you sit up, okay?” Kihyun said, and this finally elicited a reaction out of Changkyun, as he nodded slowly.

Hyunwoo’s hands moved under Changkyun’s arms and slowly pulled him backwards, moving carefully and gently until Changkyun was seated upright on the sofa. Kihyun moved to sit next to him, holding the wet cloth to his lips. Changkyun placed a shaky hand over the one that held the cloth to his face.

At that moment Hoseok returned empty handed and shot Kihyun an apologetic glance. Kihyun didn’t care, really—if Changkyun was going to be sick again it was fine. There was already a mess on the floor, he’d have to clean it up anyway. In retrospect, leaving Changkyun alone in the living room without a waste bin after he’d complained of nausea had been a dumb decision on Kihyun’s part. An apology burned on the tip of his tongue. Changkyun still sat with his head bowed, but Minhyuk’s hand holding his bangs back showed the sallow color of his skin and the sweat beading on his forehead.

“Aish, baby,” Hoseok murmured as he approached. “How did you get so sick?”

Again, there was no reaction. Changkyun’s lack of responsiveness was starting to worry Kihyun. Aside from nodding when told Hyunwoo was going to help him sit up, he hadn’t given any kind of acknowledgement of their presence and was sitting incredibly still, eyes closed and one hand still over Kihyun’s, holding the cloth to his lips.

It was then that Kihyun noticed his throat bobbing rapidly. He recognized this tactic; it was a way of not throwing up, and he’d seen all the maknaes do it at some point. Hell, even Kihyun had done it. But he didn’t want Changkyun to be afraid to be vulnerable, even though in the deepest corner of Kihyun’s mind he knew the maknae probably always would be.

“Let it up, Kyun-ah,” Kihyun whispered. “You won’t feel better unless you get it out.”

Kihyun didn’t know if his encouragement helped or if Changkyun simply couldn’t hold it back anymore, but his entire body flinched with a harsh retch that had him doubling over as liquid splashed against the hardwood floor. Changkyun gripped the cloth tightly, squeezing it out of Kihyun’s grip, and Kihyun let him take it, using both hands to join Minhyuk and Hyunwoo in rubbing along his spine, trying to provide any form of comfort to him.

After several long minutes of inconsistent gagging, he sat back up, breathing strangely.

“I-I’m sorry,” Changkyun coughed miserably. Hyunwoo reached out to stroke his sweaty hair. “I-I ma-made a mess—”

“It’s okay, honey, it happens,” Kihyun soothed. “Are you done?”

“No—”

Hyunwoo jumped into action immediately, pulling the sick boy off the couch. Hoseok hurriedly took Changkyun’s other arm and the two oldest led the youngest quickly in the direction of the bathroom, eager to prevent more of a mess and provide Changkyun some privacy.

Minhyuk stared at the puddle of sick on the floor with dread. Changkyun’s condition had deteriorated in such a short period of time Kihyun felt like he’d gotten whiplash. This time yesterday it was only a small cold, a sore throat, a stuffy nose. Now he was sick to his stomach constantly and not able to keep down even rice and water.

“He’s gonna be okay, Min,” Kihyun breathed, also staring at the pool on the floor. He didn’t know who he was trying to convince; Minhyuk, or himself.

Hyungwon walked back into the living room just in time to see Kihyun get on his knees behind the coffee table, scrubbing at something on the floor. Then he noticed the pungent smell, and the bottle of cleaner on the glass coffee table. If Kihyun noticed Hyungwon standing in the hallway threshold, he didn’t say anything, continuously rubbing at the hardwood. Hyungwon glanced around. Minhyuk was nowhere to be seen, a horrible smell hovered in the room like a fog, and the sofa was wrinkled and messy, but other than that, everything looked, well, normal. Cold sunlight fell through the open windows, draping the hardwood floors in soft yellow. It was almost eerie.

“What happened?” Hyungwon asked Kihyun wearily, not quite sure if he wanted to know.

“Changkyun was sick again,” Kihyun replied monotonously, not looking up as he scrubbed away.

“On the floor?”

“He couldn’t help it. It was my fault.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Hyungwon mumbled, feeling concern spike through his body. “What do you mean it was your fault? He’s sick, that’s no one's fault.”

“I left him alone in here without a waste bin or anything,” Kihyun muttered.

“Hyung, it’s okay.” Hyungwon paused for a second, unsure of what to say to further placate his frazzled hyung. “It wasn't on purpose, was it? We’re all worried about him.”

“I know.” Kihyun sighed as he sat back on his knees. “Come help me for a second?”

“Where is he?” Hyungwon asked as he moved to help his hyung.

“Spray the floor,” Kihyun ordered, placing a bunched up ball of wet and slightly discolored paper towels in a plastic bag next to him. “Hoseok- and Hyunwoo-hyung are with him. In the bathroom. He’s still sick.”

Well, that would explain the murmuring and coughing Hyungwon had heard behind the closed bathroom door as he walked by the bathroom on his way back to the living area. His heart sank even more. He nodded and wordlessly began spraying at the spot on the floor that Kihyun had gestured to.

At that moment, Minhyuk returned with a bottle of air freshener and began spritzing different corners of the room with it, effectively ridding the area of the smell and replacing it with the slightly less suffocating scent of lavender. To Hyungwon, it wasn’t much better than the smell of sick, but it seemed to appease Kihyun and Hyungwon knew it would have less of an effect on Jooheon. He was probably the most phobic of sickness of the group and would likely react badly to the smell of vomit. At least one of them would fare better with the fake lavender fragrance.

“Manager-hyung just called me,” Minhyuk mentioned offhandedly as he pulled open one of the curtains. “He told me he forgot about an interview today and needs us to go do it.”

Hyungwon snapped his head up in shock. When he saw Minhyuk obviously wasn’t kidding, he felt his face flush in anger.

“Are you serious?” Kihyun demanded, whirling around to face the moodmaker of the group. Minhyuk shook his head dejectedly, expression despondent as his hair swung back and forth.

“He said he tried to cancel it but he couldn’t because it was too late. I asked him why the hell he hadn’t told us until today, but all he said was that he forgot and that he was sorry.”

“When is it?” Kihyun stressedly ran a hand through his hair, looking about as frustrated as Hyungwon felt.

“He said he’d send a car to come get us around 3. He offered to take Kyunnie to the hospital while we do the interview but I said, ‘hell no.’ He didn't argue.”

Hyungwon didn’t blame Minhyuk for being so sharp with their manager. The idea of leaving Changkyun with someone who wasn’t them, especially in a medical environment, alone, was enough to make Hyungwon dizzy with nerves. It was a known fact that hospitals made Changkyun nervous. He didn’t get as panicky as Jooheon did, but Hyungwon didn’t know anyone who liked going to the hospital and Changkyun had had his fair share of less-than-fun hospital experiences. And given how angry Hyungwon still was with their production staff, he wasn’t ready to let one of them take Changkyun to the clinic without one of the members with them.

“So now what?” Hyungwon asked, at a loss. He was 100% unwilling to leave Changkyun alone, with manager-nim or without. That was not an acceptable scenario. They had to do something to fix this.

“We discuss who’s going to go to the interview and who’s going to stay here with Changkyun,” Kihyun mumbled.

“The others aren’t going to be happy about it.”

“I know, Hyungwon. I’m not, and neither are you. But we have to figure this out as a group,” Kihyun got to his feet and took the bottle of cleaner from Hyungwon. “As pissed as we all are, we can’t just not show up for the interview. That would reflect badly on us. On our image.”

Fuck the image, Hyungwon wanted to shout. He could think of a million other things more important than their image in this scenario. Changkyun had gotten so sick in such a short period of time he didn’t know what to do with himself. Changkyun didn’t get sick like this often. Even in a dorm like the one they lived in, with Hoseok-hyung and his remarkable tendency to catch colds and other small bugs, Changkyun always managed to stay miraculously healthy. To see him so ill had thrown Hyungwon for a loop, and he wasn't sure what to do. His hyungs seemed to have the situation under control, but it left Hyungwon (and Jooheon, by extension) feeling restless and anxious and, well, a little useless.

He felt a strange protectiveness begin to wash through him, coming in waves, each stronger than the last with every thought about Changkyun and his condition. It made him uncomfortable to think about how little time he'd spent with the maknae lately—maybe that was why he'd been so grumpy as of recent. Changkyun was a gift from God who loved his hyungs and Hyungwon felt his chest ache every time he thought about snuggling with him. Caring for someone who was ill wasn't exactly Hyungwon's forte, but if it was for Changkyun, he could do it. If it was for Changkyun, he could do anything.

“Can Jooheon and I stay with him?” He asked.

Minhyuk and Kihyun looked at him in surprise, two sets of dark eyes turning to pin themselves on him. He tried not to waver under their stares. They weren’t accusatory or suspicious, but the way they were looking at him was their Hyung Stare, as Jooheon had taken to calling it. It was a deep stare, almost like they were looking through Hyungwon and not at him, meant to squeeze out true intentions and lies. It was a tactic all four of Hyungwon’s hyungs used. He didn't understand it at all; all they were doing was staring at him. And yet, whenever they did it, he found himself unable to lie.

“You all have been taking care of him the entire time. You need a break,” he explained. “And Jooheon and I want to take care of him too.”

“I don’t know, Hyungwon,” Kihyun sighed, then ran a hand through his hair for the third time in a period of ten minutes.

“Don’t you trust us?”

“Aish, of course I do. You know that’s not what I meant,” Kihyun admonished, letting his arm flop to his side.

“We can take care of him.”

“What if something happens and you end up having to take him to the clinic? What if his fever spikes or he passes out again?"

"So you don't trust us."

"Hyungwon-ah," Minhyuk warned softly. Hyungwon looked down and bit hard on his lip, trying not to feel like a chastised child.

"I’m not trying to be mean, Hyungwon," Kihyun said, tone even. "This isn't about whether or not I trust you enough to take care of him. You know I trust you both. But Jooheon gets so nervous in hospitals. I know that you know how to handle it and I know Jooheon does too. That’s not what I’m worried about. I'm concerned that if things get worse, it will affect more than just Changkyun. I’m concerned about Jooheon.”

Hyungwon paused. Kihyun had a point. The biggest scaredy-cat of the group, Jooheon had a long list of things that scared him. But hospitals were among the only things that could cause him to have a genuine panic attack, or worse.

“You’re concerned about me? Why?”

All three turned to look at Jooheon standing in the hallway, eyebrows furrowed with his hands on his hips. His hair, still damp from his shower, glittered a little in the winter sunlight streaming from the windows, the same sunlight that made the situation seem bright where it wasn't. Jooheon glanced between the three before him as if trying to read them, lips pursed in a pout.

“We have an interview to go to later. Apparently we can’t miss it, but we can’t take Changkyun with us.”

Jooheon’s face screwed up in frustration. “God. They knock Changkyun into the freezing water in the middle of winter and can’t even give us a day off?”

“I know, Heonney. This situation is bad.”

“So why are you worried about me?”

Kihyun sucked in a breath. “Hyungwon-ah wants to stay home with Changkyun and you during the interview.”

“Okay. You don’t trust me?”

Kihyun took a deep breath, trying to retain patience. “No, Jooheon-ah, it’s not like that. I trust both of you. You know that. But you’re not the best with hospitals, and I’m starting to worry that Changkyun might need one. I don’t want to upset you if something happens and you end up needing to take him.”

Jooheon was silent at that, but even in the weird light of the living room Hyungwon could see his face pale slightly. He couldn’t deny the truth behind the words and neither could Hyungwon.

“I can be brave,” Jooheon tried weakly. Hyungwon smiled sadly. He knew Jooheon’s effort was genuine.

Kihyun seemed to realize this too, because his expression of exasperation faded into understanding. “We’ll talk about it, okay? Let’s wait for the hyungs to finish helping Changkyun and get him in bed.”

“Where is he?” Jooheon asked innocently.

Minhyuk’s expression screwed into a sad look. “He got a little sick. Hyungs are with him in the bathroom.”

Jooheon’s face fell, and he cast a sullen look in the direction of the bathroom. Hyungwon bit his lip.

“Easy, easy,” Hyunwoo mumbled in Changkyun’s ear, tightening his arms around Changkyun’s chest. He had the maknae bent ninety-degrees at the waist over the toilet—it was a position Hyunwoo knew was hard on him, but Hyunwoo’s grip on him was the sole reason he was still standing. He wasn’t throwing up anything more than bile and saliva at this point, but he continued to dry heave helplessly, his entire body shaking with every retch and gasp for breath.

“Kkukkung, there’s nothing left in you,” Hoseok soothed, running his hand through the mop of sweaty black hair on Changkyun’s head. “Come on, babe, you have to breathe.”

Changkyun took in a shaky deep breath, and exhaled. He started to sink in Hyunwoo’s arms, legs too unstable to continue holding him up, and the older man gently helped him down to his knees. The maknae's body was sticky and hot and still trembled viciously, though Hyunwoo wasn’t entirely sure it was just because he was ill. In addition to the fever chills and the horrible experience of throwing up, Hyunwoo knew the maknae was anxious with them there, in his presence while he was so vulnerable. He wanted more than anything to provide Changkyun with the comfort he wanted, but leaving him by himself just wasn’t an option.

Hoseok swooped in with a cold cloth and draped it across the back of Changkyun’s neck, eliciting a harsh shiver from the younger. Hyunwoo carded his fingers through his maknae’s hair, grimacing a bit at the sticky sweat clinging to his black locks.

A few minutes later Changkyun was breathing normally again and Hoseok had coaxed him into sipping from a glass of water. He was sitting on the floor on his knees, not quite leaning on Hyunwoo but definitely not sitting upright by himself. He kept silent, kept his head down to avoid the concerned gazes of his hyungs. Hyunwoo shared a look with Hoseok.

“How are you doing?” Hyunwoo asked the maknae quietly.

Changkyun paused before answering. His voice, when it came, was scratchy and hoarse. “I'm okay.”

“Let’s brush your teeth, okay?” Hoseok said, reaching for the boy’s toothbrush. Changkyun nodded shakily and made to stand, but Hyunwoo helped him up.

“Sorry,” Changkyun whispered. Sadness tugged at Hyunwoo’s heart and he saw Hoseok’s face fall a little.

“You don’t have to apologize,” he murmured back, even though he knew Changkyun didn’t believe him. “It’s not your fault.”

Changkyun wordlessly took his toothbrush and lethargically dragged the minty paste across his teeth, still not looking either of them in the eye.

“Do you want a shower?” Hoseok asked kindly. Changkyun shook his head.

“Tired,” he mumbled around his toothbrush, then spat into the sink. Hoseok nodded.

“Kihyun will want you to eat something,” Hyunwoo warned slowly. Changkyun shot him a helpless look through the mirror.

“Please don’t make me,” he begged, catching Hyunwoo entirely off guard. His heart thumped to his stomach.

That tone of voice was only one he’d hear when cameras were out. Changkyun usually went out of his way to avoid weighing on the hyungs behind closed doors. He loved Changkyun to pieces, but Changkyun wasn’t the annoying, funny baby of the group that most other maknaes seemed to be. Hyunwoo didn’t necessarily have a problem with that; it was just how Changkyun was and he loved Changkyun no matter what. What nagged at Hyunwoo, a little voice in the back of his mind, was that he was quite sure a little part of Changkyun was still scared of the other members hating him.

He knew their actions in and around No.Mercy had taken their toll. Hyunwoo wished he could say Changkyun knew he could depend on them, wished he could be assured that Changkyun wasn’t afraid of them and their feelings anymore. But he couldn’t. And Hyunwoo didn’t know what else to do to convince their maknae they loved him.

“I know, babe, but you need to try to keep your body nourished.” Hoseok said, eyes glimmering. “We’ll let you lay down for a little bit and see what Kihyun wants to do, okay?”

Changkyun nodded mutely, rinsing his toothbrush off under the tap. He let Hoseok take his hand and lead him from the bathroom to the bedroom, leaving Hyunwoo to clean up by himself.

When he finally finished up and stepped out of the bathroom with a sigh, wandering into the living room to find the rest of his boys, four sets of worried eyes from various places in the living area landed on him. He opened his mouth to speak, to try to assure them that Hoseok was with Changkyun and that he was okay for the time being, but Minhyuk beat him to it.

“Manager says we have an interview to go to today,” he blurted. “We can’t miss it.”

Frustration coiled an irate snake in Hyunwoo's gut. He rolled his eyes back to look at the ceiling, sighing heavily. Are you serious?

“When?”

“He said he’d come get us around three. He asked if we wanted him to take Changkyun to the hospital while the six of us did the interview.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Hell no.”

Hyunwoo raked a hand through his hair, suddenly unbelievably stressed. He exhaled heavily, trying to figure out a way around this.

“Hyung,” Kihyun said carefully. “If it helps, we were already discussing ways to go about getting through this. Changkyun is too sick to be left here by himself.”

Hyunwoo nodded, agreeing.

“As much as I’d like to ask Changkyun what he wants us to do, I don’t know if we can trust him to make the right decision for what's best for himself,” Kihyun continued, worrying at his bottom lip.

“We need to talk about it as a group,” Hyunwoo replied, glancing over his shoulder at the hallway and nodded his head in that direction. “Come on. Hoseok-ah is with him now.”

The members followed Hyunwoo to the bedroom and he pushed the door open after knocking once. Hoseok, perched on Changkyun’s bed, looked up as the boys entered the bedroom, hand mid-stroke through the sick boy’s hair. Changkyun was curled up on his bed, a waste bin on the floor by his head, tucked under a layer of blankets. He was drenched in a sweatshirt that was definitely not his, given how big it was—Hoseok’s, maybe?—with his hands lost somewhere in the length of the sleeves, arms loosely looped around his stomach.

“We have an interview today,” Hyunwoo said bluntly, too irritated to try to sugarcoat it. “We can’t miss it.”

Hoseok’s expression twisted into disgust. “Are you kidding me? I thought our schedules were cleared this week.”

“Manager-nim cancelled everything,” Minhyuk sullenly supplied. “It was just today’s interview he didn’t manage to cancel in time, or something.”

Hyunwoo felt someone’s hand slip into his and glanced down to see Jooheon staring at Changkyun, dread splashed across his perfect features. He gave the younger’s hand an assuring squeeze and smiled a tiny bit when he felt Jooheon squeeze back.

“We have some options,” Hyunwoo murmured. “Option one, we can take him to the interview with us.”

This option was met with furious shakes of the heads from everyone around him; Hyunwoo put his hands up in surrender, because he’d expected this. “Or, we can leave him here—”

“Please don’t leave me alone.”

The small cry came from Changkyun so suddenly Hyunwoo did a double take, and instantly regretted his words once making eye contact with the maknae. His eyes glittered with pain.

“I can do the interview,” Changkyun mumbled, trying and failing to sit up. “I’ll be okay, I promise—”

“Changkyun-ah, no,” Kihyun gently pushed the maknae back onto the bed.

“You’re too sick, love.”

“You need to rest.”

“Please don’t leave me here by myself,” Changkyun whimpered miserably, taking Kihyun by the wrist.

Kihyun shot Hyunwoo a helpless look, a look that screamed “do something.” Hyunwoo felt his heart shatter, eyes fixed on the distraught expression on Changkyun’s face. He’d never seen Changkyun act like this; he’d never seen Changkyun allow himself to be so vulnerable. It was so out of character Hyunwoo had to admit it scared him a bit. But right now he needed to be brave; he needed to be the strong one. They were all counting on him.

“Let Heonney and I stay here with him,” Hyungwon begged Hyunwoo, tugging on his arm. His eyes glistened with desperation. “Please, hyung.”

“I don’t think we can get away with missing three members, Wonnie-yah,” Hyunwoo answered honestly, hating himself for having to be the bearer of bad news. “Believe me, I would let you stay with him in a heartbeat, but—I don’t think that’s going to go over well. If we’re not taking Changkyun with, or leaving him alone or with Manager, then it needs to be just one of us.”

“I’ll stay,” five voices replied immediately.

Hyunwoo resisted the urge to drag his hands across his face again as he looked around the room at every member, each staring back at him with similarly pleading expressions. Arguably, Kihyun was the best candidate—he was already the mother of the group and had been the one tending to Changkyun from the get-go. But Hoseok was also a good choice because of his natural attentiveness to the maknae’s feelings and his knowledge of dealing with sickness. On the other hand, he didn’t want Hyungwon and Jooheon to feel like he didn’t trust them, and Minhyuk was the best at getting Changkyun to fall asleep in any scenario. All of them were fully prepared (and readily equipped) to care for the youngest.

It was moments like this when he cursed his position as leader. He loved the boys with every bit of himself, cherished them and his role among them, but in times like this, it was his job to be the voice of reason, the mediator, the decision maker. And though he’d never trade his role in the group for anything, he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t hard on him sometimes. All he ever wanted was to do what was best, but it was never, ever that simple.

“Hyung,” Kihyun spoke up then, his voice even. “We need to go to the store today anyway. After the interview, two or three of us can go straight home while the others go to the store with Manager-nim.”

Hyunwoo thanked every God there was for having someone like Kihyun. He was exactly what Hyunwoo needed—logical and reasonable nearly to a fault, the perfect rock in times like these.

“Okay,” Hyunwoo murmured, flashing him a grateful smile. “Hoseok—you stay here today with Changkyun.”

Hoseok nodded. Hyunwoo didn’t miss the way Hyungwon’s shoulders dropped ever so slightly and fought the urge to apologize. He truly did think that Hoseok would be the best for the given situation—he treated Changkyun with gentleness and was knowledgeable on how to help him. As much as he loved and trusted Hyungwon and the others, Hoseok was the best option for now. He’d make it up to Hyungwon later—maybe let him sleep with the maknae for a while.

“Hyungwon-ah, do you wanna go to the store after the interview or come home?” He asked.

“I’ll come home,” Hyungwon said absently, eyes fixed on the maknae. Hyunwoo felt bad, he really did. But it was already nearing one o’clock and the only ones who had showered were Hyungwon and Jooheon. No one else was even remotely ready for an interview.

“I’ll go with Manager-hyung to the store,” Kihyun volunteered.

“Me, too,” Jooheon supplied. Hyunwoo smiled at them, then glanced at Minhyuk.

“I’ll go with them,” their group’s sunshine said after a moment of thought.

Hyunwoo nodded; that meant he and Hyungwon would go home after the interview and he could think of some way to make it up to the tallest member. For now, though, they needed to take things one step at a time. The next step was getting ready for the interview, even if none of them wanted to do it.

The boys began to disperse—he heard Kihyun and Minhyuk start bickering about the shower as they left the room—and left Hyunwoo in the room with Hoseok and Changkyun. Hoseok had taken Changkyun to his bed, which was closest to the bathroom—a smart move, Hyunwoo mused to himself. The maknae, at some point, had fallen asleep, but he wasn’t a very deep sleeper even when not sick and Hyunwoo moved silently for his clothing, not keen on waking him up.

“What’re you gonna tell the interviewers about where we are?” Hoseok asked quietly, still rhythmically stroking Changkyun’s hair.

Hyunwoo shrugged, fishing a shirt out of the closet. “We’ll lie and say you’re both sick,” he said easily.

This seemed to placate Hoseok, for he nodded and fell silent. When Hyunwoo glanced back over, Hoseok had slid down to lay on his side next to the maknae, gently rubbing up and down his arm. The gesture was so gentle and sweet, so Hoseok. Hyunwoo’s heart melted a little.

The best way Hyunwoo could describe the next couple of hours was ‘hectic in a silent way.’ The boys who were going to the interview were scrambling to get ready and Jooheon and Hyungwon kept peeking back into the room to check on Changkyun, who remained restlessly asleep the entire time. Eventually Hoseok shooed them out, but then Hyunwoo found Kihyun in the kitchen half dressed with barely dried hair writing out a grocery list and had to send him back to the bedrooms to finish getting ready. All of this had been done in the most silence they could manage—which, really, wasn’t a lot, and Hyunwoo was surprised Changkyun slept through it all.

By the time their manager had shown up, looking unbelievably apologetic, they were already a few minutes late and as Hyunwoo herded everyone out the door, Kihyun hurriedly threw over his shoulder that he’d left a list of things he wanted Hoseok to do around the house taped to the refrigerator. Hoseok had responded from where he stood in the hallway threshold with an eye roll and a begrudging nod.

Five minutes into the journey to the building, Kihyun exclaimed he’d forgotten the grocery list and forced Hyunwoo to text Hoseok, asking for a picture of the list, which had been carelessly left atop the kitchen counter. It had taken about fifteen stressful minutes, but finally Hoseok read Hyunwoo’s text and messaged a photo of the grocery list to Kihyun. The five boys weren’t really mentally ready for the interview, and Hyunwoo knew their stylists would spend too much time fretting over their looks, but Hyunwoo really couldn’t care less. He was already irritated with their staff for multiple reasons. Once all of them were in the van on the way to the interview, their manager had started to apologize—and really, Hyunwoo knew he should at least treat the poor man with respect, but he wasn’t really in the mood and neither were the others, so the apology went mostly disregarded. Their manager did confirm that they had the rest of the week off, which was a plus that Hyunwoo thanked him half-heartedly for.

As he expected, their stylists were horrified with their appearances and they didn’t begin the interview until fifteen minutes after it was supposed to begin. Hyunwoo tried really hard not to blame their manager—while the other members were (rightfully) angry with him, he knew the poor man had a hard job—and told his boys to cooperate for an hour, maybe more, and then they could go home. They all seemed more receptive to the idea of returning home to Changkyun than actually going through with the interview, which Hyunwoo could entirely relate to.

He suppressed a sigh as the cameras turned on and forced a smile along with the rest of his boys. The end of the interview couldn’t come fast enough.

Changkyun was drowning.

He was trapped. He couldn’t move; his arms and legs felt rooted in place, like someone had sewed them to his body and tied him down. Bitter, salty water had lapped against him, tickling his limbs—it had been soothing at first; calming, relaxing, steadying.

But then it began to swish over his face with a sudden violence, worm into his nose and ears and sting his eyes. Then it forced itself into his mouth; tendrils of frozen liquid gripped his throat and clutched his lungs. He tried to scream, tried to breathe, but only managed to inhale more water. A weight settled on his chest, a rock on his ribcage, crushing his lungs and breaking his ribs. Slimy, icy water gushed down his throat and pooled in his stomach, clogged his airways and he choked, desperate for help, desperate to breathe—

“Changkyun!”

The horrified voice echoed through his head, banging around the sides of his already throbbing skull. He instinctively sucked in air and, finding he could breathe, choked on it, and jerked upright, flailing on whatever fabric he was laying on. He felt the back of his hand sting as it connected with something soft and fleshy, but he didn’t hear the soft grunt that followed before a set of big, strong, warm hands settled themselves on his shaking arms, effectively pinning him to the softness of whatever was beneath him. The feeling of the warmth against the iciness of his own skin sent a shock of electricity through his body. His mouth opened in a scream. He was drowning, he was dying, someone help him—

“Changkyun, please—”

The voice came again, though softer and pleading, rather than sharp and jarring, like it had been the first time. He wanted to go to the voice. He wanted his hyungs. He hated this. He hated this. He hated this—

One of the hands went away, and then he felt it land gently on his cheek, a thumb stroking under his eye, brushing away a tear he hadn’t felt trickle from his eye. He felt his heartbeat in his ears and behind his eyes, pulsing to the beat of his headache. He felt his chest rise and expand and air—air, not water—flooded his lungs and nose. Air.

He forced his body to relax, so relieved he’d managed to regain control of himself that he nearly started crying. When he forced his stinging eyes open, blinked away the bleariness, and stared up into Hoseok’s face, he really did start crying—before he knew it, hot tears squeezed out of his eyes and began gliding down his face.

“Oh, oh, baby,” Hoseok crooned and Changkyun let the stronger man gather him up before clinging to his hyung, breaking into heavy sobs. He could feel Hoseok shaking against him and felt so guilty.

Even through the haze of fever and the cloudiness of his awareness, he still felt his cheeks burn with humiliation. He hated that his mind still prevented him from being vulnerable in front of his hyungs. They loved him, damnit, and they reminded him of it every day—why couldn’t he just believe it?

“Are you back with me now?” Hoseok asked shakily, reaching up to cup the back of Changkyun’s head.

“Ye-yeah.”

“God, baby, you scared me,” His hyung mumbled against his hair, and Changkyun smushed his face into the crook of Hoseok’s neck.

“I-I’m sorry,” Changkyun choked out, and fuck, why was he apologizing?

“Don’t apologize,” Hoseok’s voice cracked, his hand cold against Changkyun’s fevered skin. “It’s not your fault.”

Despite that both of them were trembling and Changkyun was absolutely freezing—a painful reminder of the nightmare he’d just had—being wrapped up in his hyung’s arms was a wonderful feeling. Hoseok was so strong but he was equally as gentle. He was safe. He was home.

“Your skin is so warm,” Hoseok breathed. “I came in here to wake you up so you could eat something but—you were, like, shaking—”

“I had a nightmare,” Changkyun replied weakly, not prepared to go further than that. The terror of feeling like he was drowning and the loss of self control—he couldn’t talk about it. Not yet.

Thankfully, Hoseok seemed to recognize this and smoothed back his hair. “It’s okay now. You’re at home. I’m here.”

They stayed like that for a while; Changkyun wasn’t really sure how much time had passed. Everything hurt—his chest, his head, his throat, his body. He cried a little more, just enough to feel a bit better, before copying Hoseok’s breathing to calm himself down. Hoseok didn’t go anywhere, holding Changkyun tightly and letting him cry. It was a while before either of them spoke.

“You have to try to eat something,” Hoseok whispered into Changkyun’s hair. “You’re sweaty and feverish, so you need a shower, but after that you need to take some medicine and I don’t want you to do that on an empty stomach. I know eating is probably the last thing you want to do right now, but can you please try? For me?”

Changkyun’s already uneasy stomach turned over at the idea of putting anything in it—God, he’d rather do anything else—but the desperation in Hoseok’s voice proved just how ill he was. He couldn’t keep trying to pretend he was okay. He wasn’t okay. He felt like death warmed over and they all knew it.

Why couldn’t he just let them take care of him?

“Okay,” he sniffled. “I’ll try.”

Hoseok cracked a teary smile. For him, Changkyun decided it was worth it.

The shower had been extremely unpleasant and cold, given how high his fever had been, but he felt cleaner and less achy afterwards and had changed his sticky, sweaty clothing for a fresh pair of pajamas. He was currently curled up on the sofa under one of Jooheon’s fluffy blankets—it was Changkyun’s favorite because it smelled just like him and was just as soft as Jooheon was—nursing a cup of tea. His body ached less after the shower but now his nose ran and every time he sneezed or had to blow his nose, his head thumped louder, feeling like an over-pressurized balloon. At least he felt less nauseous than he had earlier. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been properly ill like this—it had to have been before he became part of Monsta X, or he would have remembered it. He didn’t want to think about being so sick during the era of No.Mercy or Trespass.

“Open,” Hoseok ordered gently, then from where he stood behind the sofa, stuck the thermometer under Changkyun’s tongue. Changkyun waited sleepily for it to beep, and when it did, Hoseok gave a relieved sigh at the number. “38.2. Not great, but better. The shower helped, huh?”

Changkyun hummed in reply, sipping from the tea. The warmth of the sweet liquid felt great on his throat, but only briefly before it stung again with the act of swallowing. He exhaled slowly through his nose, tired of being tired.

“Your soup is almost done. You don’t have to eat a lot, just enough to take some Ibuprofen with,” Hoseok said. “Then we can watch that drama you wanted to see, hm?”

Changkyun nodded. The idea of cuddling with his hyung while watching a drama sounded very pleasant.

He remained on the sofa for the next five or so minutes, trying valiantly not to drift off again. Even though he’d slept for a while earlier, he hadn’t felt rested after waking from the horrible dream. Part of him was keen to go back to sleep but another part of him was more than a bit scared. That fever dream had been one of the worst experiences of his life, undoubtedly, and not one he felt he’d be forgetting any time soon. The feeling of drowning on water that wasn’t even there, feeling so alone, out of control—just thinking about it sent shivers of panic down his spine.

Eventually Hoseok brought over two bowls of soup—one less full than the other—and handed the less full one to Changkyun. He wasn’t really in the mood to eat, not wanting to make himself nauseous again, but Hoseok was watching him expectantly, so he put a spoonful in his mouth.

“Did you make this?” He asked curiously. It was pretty good.

Hoseok laughed. “No. I reheated some of what Kihyun-ah made for you last night. There’s only one person in this dorm who can cook as good as this tastes.”

Changkyun couldn’t disagree, humming in pleasure. The soup was warm and tasty, but Changkyun could only handle so much before he had to stop. In his defense, he’d eaten a good bit of it, so much so that Hoseok looked pleased. He tried not to preen at his hyung’s pride.

“Here,” Hoseok leaned over the arm of the sofa to get the bottle of Ibuprofen off the side table, then placed a little white pill in Changkyun’s open palm. He took the pill painlessly, but then Hoseok held up the bottle of liquid acetaminophen—fever reducer for adults, Kihyun had explained, but Jooheon more accurately described it as a bottle of death—and Changkyun curled his lip. “I know, I know. But Kihyun-ah might kill me if he finds out I didn’t make you take it. It’ll help your fever, kid.”

So Changkyun took the medicine and tried to ignore how it burned going down and sat heavily in his stomach. Satisfied that he’d done everything Hoseok had asked of him, he relaxed into the sofa and turned his attention to the television. Hoseok settled next to him, throwing an arm over his shoulders and, in a rare act of affection, mostly because he was freezing and craving his hyung and his warmth, Changkyun leaned into Hoseok and melted against him.

“What time is it?” He asked blearily, already fighting sleep again.

“Four-thirty,” Hoseok replied.

“When will hyungs come back?”

“I dunno, babe. Kihyun, Minhyuk, and Jooheonney are going to the store, though. Hyunwoo-hyung and Hyungwon-ah will be back before them.”

“Are you gonna take me to the hospital?”

Hoseok paused, his hesitance causing Changkyun’s nerves to climb.

“Please don’t,” Changkyun begged, voice wheezy. “I’m okay.”

“But you’re not, baby. I don’t know. It depends on how you’re doing later. Your fever is down for now but there’s nothing to say it won’t spike again. I won’t take you right now, by myself, but we need to see what Hyunwoo-hyung and Kihyun-ah want to do. I’m positive you have the flu, hon. The most they’ll do is give you some antiviral medication and you and I both know those aren’t all that effective. But I don't know if it's the flu; hell, it could be pneumonia, and if that's the case, then you'd be much better off at the hospital than here. If you get worse between now and tomorrow, then we might have to take you.”

Changkyun rubbed his eyes, not liking any part of that answer. Hoseok’s hand ran soothingly up and down his arm, his thumb massaging the sore muscles beneath his skin.

“I’m exhausted. Which is stupid because I haven’t done anything all day.”

Hoseok sighed, his chest rising and falling under Changkyun’s head. “Baby, you’re sick. It’s okay. Please don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize for existing.”

“I dreamed I was drowning.”

The statement startled both of them. Changkyun didn’t know if he was really ready to talk about it, but here he was. Hoseok whimpered in sympathy and pressed his lips to the crown of Changkyun’s head. His breath started to quicken.

“I’m sorry, baby. That must have been really scary.”

“It w-was just like yesterday. I—I couldn’t breathe, and—and you weren’t there—”

“Hey, ssh. I’m here now,” Hoseok pulled Changkyun closer, so Changkyun was nearly in Hoseok’s lap. He could feel himself begin shaking again, and appreciated the pressure of Hoseok’s arms around him. It grounded him, kept him down to earth.

He gave up on trying to stay awake and fell asleep against Hoseok, relishing in his hyung’s warmth and softness. His hyung would keep him safe.

“What is that?” Jooheon asked inquisitively, craning his neck to look at the bottle in Kihyun’s hand.

“It’s Pedialyte,” Kihyun answered, and handed the bottle over so he could inspect it. “An electrolyte drink. An American brand, I think. For keeping someone hydrated.”

“Isn’t that something people use for babies?” Minhyuk wrinkled his nose playfully. Kihyun grinned.

“Changkyunnie is a baby,” Jooheon replied seriously. Kihyun stifled a laugh.

“No he isn’t. Not literally, at least.” He said, plucking the bottle from Jooheon’s fingers and placing it on its side in the grocery cart. “But I’m hoping if he’s able to keep it down, it’ll help him stay hydrated.”

“What else should we get him?” Jooheon asked, scanning the shelves of medicine. Kihyun had already thrown in a new bottle of Ibuprofen and fever reducer, along with other things they’d needed in terms of food groceries and snacks.

“We’ve gotten everything on our list,” Kihyun said, skimming over the picture on his phone. He glanced at the little clock at the top of the screen and winced; almost 6 pm. They'd stayed out much later than he'd intended. “I don’t think we need anything else.”

Jooheon wrung his hands anxiously. Kihyun felt for the boy; he knew he was worried about Changkyun, but what was more likely influencing his nervousness was the idea that they might have to take Changkyun to the hospital.

Minhyuk moved forward and began pushing the cart further down the aisle, humming to himself as he scanned the shelves. Their manager followed him quietly; he hadn’t said two words since the four of them got into the car and drove to the store. He was the one paying this time, since Jooheon, Kihyun, and Minhyuk were decked out in hats and face masks to keep themselves unrecognizable, but Kihyun didn’t feel bad about their manager paying. Not this time, at least. He and Jooheon followed at a slower pace, Kihyun’s hand itching to take Jooheon’s.

“You okay?” He asked instead, voice soft and slightly muffled behind his mask.

Jooheon’s cheeks squished up slightly and Kihyun could only imagine the weak smile he must be giving him. “Yeah. I think I’ll be better when we can get home and see Kkukkungie, get some medicine into him.”

Kihyun nodded in agreement; he understood that feeling entirely. He’d felt that way through the entire interview. The interview itself had gone okay, but even after they explained that Hoseok and Changkyun were at home sick, the interviewer seemed to know something was wrong and the whole interview was awkward and weird. Kihyun knew their editors would fix it with weird and funny sounds and screen edits, but it had been an uncomfortable experience, and not one he was keen to go through again.

He tried to play off the way he jumped when his phone began to ring loudly, buzzing frantically in his jacket pocket. Blushing a little at Jooheon's amused giggle, he pulled his phone out.

“Who is it?” Jooheon asked.

“It’s Hoseok-hyung,” Kihyun replied hastily, then pressed the little green icon to answer it. “Hyung?”

“Kihyunnie, I’m taking Changkyun-ah to the hospital.”

Kihyun’s heart stopped.

Changkyun and Hoseok had been dozing peacefully on the sofa when Hyunwoo and Hyungwon walked in, the clock under the television reading 5:27 pm. Hoseok had woken up easily, but Changkyun remained deeply asleep, so Hyungwon traded places with Hoseok so the two oldest could complete Kihyun’s chore list because Hoseok had completely neglected the entire thing in favor of caring for Changkyun.

As Hyungwon settled against the soft cushions of the sofa, Changkyun pressed against him, he could hear the older two talking in the kitchen, but they weren’t being loud enough for Hyungwon to listen to them properly and he gave up trying to eavesdrop, letting himself relax with his maknae in his arms. He'd been regretfully dozing off to the sound of the dishes being done and it wasn’t until Changkyun had started whimpering in his sleep that Hyungwon noticed his body was warmer than it had been earlier.

“Kyun-ah? You okay?” He mumbled into Changkyun’s hair.

Changkyun didn’t answer, giving a breathy moan instead. His voice sounded weird and wheezy, like he was struggling to get a breath in. Hyungwon pressed the back of his hand to Changkyun’s soft cheek and winced. His skin was hot and sticky.

“Hyung?” He called uncertainly.

“Yeah?” Hoseok replied from the kitchen.

“Something—”

He didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence as Changkyun jerked upright and began tugging at the blanket over him, obviously only barely conscious.

“Hyungwon-ah?” Hoseok called.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Hyungwon swallowed, ignoring Hoseok as he helped Changkyun pull the blanket off. “What is it? What do you need?”

“I can’t breathe,” Changkyun wheezed, and Hyungwon’s heart stuttered heavily in his chest as the maknae staggered to his feet, Hyungwon not far behind.

“Hyungwon, what is it?” Hoseok wandered out of the kitchen, rubber gloves on his hands wet and sudsy. Hyunwoo peeked over his shoulder.

Changkyun swayed and Hyungwon gasped as his knees buckled. He lunged for the maknae as he tipped sideways, grabbing at Changkyun's sweatshirt, but Changkyun dropped to the floor like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Hyungwon couldn’t help the yell of horror that tumbled from his lips.

“Changkyun!”

Hyungwon had a secure grip on Changkyun's sleeved arm, but he had not been fully prepared to catch him. Both of them hit the floor with a thud that seemed to shake the apartment. Hyungwon landed hard on his hip, sending sharp pain billowing through his lower back, but the feeling was nothing compared to the ice in his veins as he registered that Changkyun had just fainted, Changkyun was unconscious, Changkyun couldn’t breathe, something was wrong with Changkyun.

“Are you okay?” Hoseok yelled, throwing the still wet gloves to the side as he and Hyunwoo came running. Hoseok sank to his knees on the unconscious maknae's left; Hyunwoo crouched next to Hyungwon on Changkyun's right. Changkyun was sprawled gracelessly on the floor, his head having landed halfway in Hyungwon's lap thanks to Hyungwon's desperate attempt to keep him from hitting his head, at the sacrifice of his poor hip.

Hyungwon didn’t answer him; he couldn’t. His tongue and lips wouldn’t work and all he did was stare in horror at Changkyun’s face, pale and sallow and slack.

“Hyungwon!”

Hyunwoo’s voice, stern and loud, snapped him out of it and he jerked his gaze up to look at the oldest, who was watching him warily, eyebrows pinched.

“Are you hurt?” He asked, his tone calm but urgent.

Hyungwon swallowed, his throat dry, and forced himself to shake his head. It wasn’t entirely a lie—his hip was definitely going to bruise, but other than that, he was fine. Aside from being sick to his stomach with worry for their maknae. Hyunwoo nodded.

“Hyung, we have to take him to the hospital,” Hoseok mumbled, voice lilted with desperation, one hand against Changkyun’s forehead and the other on the maknae's chest. “He’s burning up. His heart—it’s racing, hyung, I don’t think he can breathe.”

“Get him onto his side. Try to wake him up, get him to talk to you,” Hyunwoo ordered, getting to his feet. “There’s no time to call manager-hyung. We’ll take his car.” He shot a sympathetic glance at Hyungwon. “I’ll drive.”

Hyunwoo’s hand came to rest on Hyungwon’s shoulder. “Hyungwon-ah, look at me.”

Hyungwon did, bottom lip crushed between his teeth until copper pooled on his tongue.

“He’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna get him help,” Hyunwoo said, his voice strong and assuring, though Hyungwon could see the stress lining his face. “Help Hoseok-ah try to wake him up, okay?”

“Changkyun,” Hoseok was saying softly, gently patting at the maknae’s face. “Changkyunnie-ah. You need to wake up, okay?”

Hyungwon’s hand found Changkyun’s hair and rested in it gently. It was soft, recently conditioned, but sweat was beading on his scalp and his cheeks were starting to flush.

“Sh-should we move him to the couch?” Hyungwon asked, surprised he’d managed to get his voice working.

“No, Wonnie, we need to get him to the car. Can you help Hyunwoo-hyung get stuff for us? A bag, masks, shoes?” Hoseok asked kindly.

Hyungwon, relieved to be told to do something, nodded fervently and made to stand. His hip shrieked in pain and he tried not to wince, but Hoseok noticed anyway.

“Your hip?” He asked, watching in concern.

“I’m fine,” Hyungwon mumbled back, limping a bit as he walked away, trying to shake it off. His feet carried him to the kitchen, where they kept the med masks in a cabinet above the stove, but all he could focus on was that the sink tap was still running, the cupboards were open where Hyunwoo and Hoseok were trying to organize them, and tupperware containers of leftover food were strewn about the countertops, the fridge door hanging open. The kitchen was more of a mess than it had been when they first got home.

Hyungwon picked anxiously at his nails, pacing aimlessly around the kitchen after turning the tap off. His hands were shaky and he felt a little sick. This was the second time in two days that things had gone so badly so quickly. Running a hand through his fluffed hair, he let out a breath to calm himself, but it didn’t work and he slammed the fridge door shut with more force than was necessary, scared and unsure of what to do.

“Hyungwon-ah.”

He whirled around at Hyunwoo’s voice. He was standing in the kitchen doorway, expression sad. He was holding a bag of stuff and a pair of shoes.

“Come on, Won-ah,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“We need masks,” Hyungwon protested weakly, gesturing to the cabinets. Hyunwoo nodded slowly, then glanced at the cupboard above the stove where Hyungwon knew there were at least three boxes of disposable med masks. Hyunwoo left the kitchen as Hyungwon fished four masks out of the open box in the cupboard, then closed all the cupboard doors and shut the tap off before anything could overflow. The kitchen was still a disaster, adding to the irrational stress, but soon enough the anxiety thrumming through his veins turned into adrenaline and he followed Hyunwoo.

Changkyun was cradled bridal-style in Hoseok’s arms when Hyunwoo and Hyungwon approached the foyer. Hyungwon handed a mask to Hyunwoo, who placed it on Changkyun’s face, before helping Hoseok put his on. Once he and Hyunwoo were also wearing masks, they left the dorm hastily, leaving a mess behind.

Hoseok called Kihyun as soon as Hyunwoo pulled away from the parking lot of the Starship building where their dorm was. Hyungwon was with Changkyun in the backseat, cradling the maknae close to his chest as he listened to Hoseok’s half of the conversation.

“Kihyunnie, I’m taking Changkyun to the hospital,” Hoseok started out the call by being so blunt about the situation Hyungwon would have face-palmed if his arms weren’t full of a feverish Changkyun. Despite himself, he bit back a grin as Hoseok winced and held the phone away from his ear as Kihyun began yelling into the phone. “Kihyun-ah, please calm down. Yes, Hyungwon-ah and Hyunwoo-hyung are with me.”

A pause.

“His fever spiked. He fainted, we think he’s having problems breathing. We’re in the car right now, about twenty minutes from the E.R. Do you wanna meet us at the hospital or at home?”

Another pause. Changkyun shivered in Hyungwon’s arms, prompting Hyungwon to pull his attention away from Hoseok. He stroked Changkyun’s hair, pressing the wet cloth against his cheeks and forehead. Changkyun groaned breathlessly.

“You okay?” Hyungwon asked quietly. "Are you awake?"

Changkyun mumbled something that Hyungwon couldn’t understand. Hoseok kept talking on the phone. Hyunwoo periodically glanced between Hoseok, the rearview mirror to make eye contact with Hyungwon, and the road, doing an excellent job at multitasking. Hyungwon was comforted by Hyunwoo’s unnerving calmness. It could be a little irritating at times, but in times like this, it was stabilizing and exactly what Hyungwon needed.

Changkyun shifted again. Hyungwon rubbed his hand up and down Changkyun’s arm, still clad in the black sweatshirt he’d been wearing since they left the house three hours prior. He briefly wondered if they should try to take it off, if that might help with his fever. He didn't know anything about caring for someone so sick, though. He'd never seen Changkyun this way and in all honesty, was terrified of making this worse for the maknae. Shaking the thoughts away, he glanced up when Hoseok sighed and hung up with Kihyun, slipping his phone back into his jacket pocket.

“Kihyun said they’re gonna meet us at home,” Hoseok recited. “They have groceries and also Jooheon. They’ll come to the hospital if we’re not back by ten o’clock.”

Hyungwon nodded, really hoping that they wouldn’t be out that long. It was already a quarter past six; he was hoping that the hospital would be ready to treat Changkyun and give him some medicine so they could get him back home into the comfort of his dorm.

Changkyun mumbled something again, a little louder, and Hoseok turned to glance over his shoulder. From the way he was sitting, Hyungwon couldn’t see Changkyun’s face, but Hoseok could.

“Can you hear me, Kkukkungie-yah?” Hoseok asked, reaching back to cup Changkyun’s cheek. “How are you doing?”

Changkyun responded by trying to sit up. Hyungwon tried to protest, tried to keep him laying down, but then Changkyun gagged and Hyungwon felt his insides freeze.

“Shit, hyung, pull over,” Hoseok said hastily, already unbuckling his seatbelt. Hyunwoo, white-knuckling the steering wheel, swore under his breath and flicked the blinkers on. Changkyun flinched with another gag and Hyungwon instinctively moved to pull Changkyun’s mask down and cup Changkyun’s mouth with his hand.

“Hang in there, baby,” he whispered, struggling to unbuckle Changkyun’s seatbelt and his own with one hand as Hyunwoo started to pull off the road. Changkyun’s hand, clammy and shaky, rested on top of Hyungwon’s, pressing the palm of Hyungwon’s hand to his lips.

As soon as the car stopped on the side of the empty road, Hyungwon fumbled to open the door and Changkyun pulled away from Hyungwon and staggered out, pitching forward with a quiet retch. Hoseok hurried around the car and moved to take Changkyun by the waist, holding him upright as he bent forwards over the grass, his stomach rejecting what he’d little eaten earlier. Hyungwon winced at the sounds; Changkyun sounded absolutely miserable, white-knuckling the sleeves of Hoseok’s jacket as he choked up bile, mucus and water.

Hyungwon glanced over his shoulder, feeling a presence beside him, to see Hyunwoo standing to his right, a bottle of water clenched in his hand. He shot Hyungwon a sad look, one that Hyungwon definitely returned. He knew this wasn’t carsickness, because Changkyun didn’t get motion sick unless he was on a plane, and that made the situation worse because if he couldn’t keep down even water and light broth, then what could he keep down?

The drive to the hospital took way too long, in Hyungwon’s opinion, but that was probably because he was the one stuck in the backseat with Changkyun. After the maknae’s bout of sickness, Hyungwon was all too aware of his labored, wheezy breathing, pitiful moans, and burning skin, and each tiny noise the maknae made sent a shiver of fear trickling down his spine. He kept the maknae cradled close to his chest throughout the entire ride to the hospital, save for the second time throughout the drive Hyunwoo had to pull over so Changkyun could be sick again. Just like the first time, Hoseok had held him by his waist while Hyunwoo had waited with Hyungwon by the car with water and a cloth to clean him. He coughed out mouthfuls of mucus and saliva, crying in earnest by the time he was finished. By the time they got to the ER’s parking lot, Hyungwon was absolutely worn out, nerves shot from the constant worrying.

Unlike the journey to the hospital, checking Changkyun into the E.R. was fairly painless, all things considered. Hyungwon thanked the God he didn’t believe in when the nurse mentioned they weren’t busy for the time being and as soon as Hyunwoo completed filling out the papers she thrust into his hands, the staff whisked the sleeping maknae to a room. A nurse immediately stuck him with an IV, explaining that it would work to lower his fever. Hyungwon knew that under any other circumstances, having an IV put in would definitely have freaked Changkyun out. But it seemed that the poor boy was well and truly unconscious—even though Hoseok held his hand and Hyunwoo gently turned the maknae’s head away from the view, he didn’t react at all to the needle.

“We’ll need to take his blood, too,” The nurse mentioned offhandedly, and Hyungwon felt bad for being grateful Jooheon wasn’t there. He knew Jooheon cared deeply about Changkyun—hell, they were arguably closer than the other boys in the group—but he also knew that no matter how he tried, Jooheon wouldn’t be able to handle this. Thankfully, getting blood taken was done just as painlessly as getting an IV was. Changkyun remained heavily asleep the entire time, breathing still labored and sharp.

“Uh, he’s been kind of out of it since he passed out earlier,” Hoseok was explaining to the doctor, who was listening intently. “An-and his breathing has been like that for about a day. He’s thrown up quite a bit, too. We think it started out as a cold, but the-then he fell into the Yellow Sea and now he’s—well, now he’s gotten worse.”

The doctor, Dr. Kang, a tall man with disproportionate features—a wide smile and narrow eyes—nodded along. “Given the way he’s breathing and coughing, it sounds like pneumonia to me. A blood test will further prove that, and we’ll be able to give him some antibiotics. Vomiting and nausea isn’t uncommon with pneumonia, despite what most people believe. The IV drip will keep him hydrated and also lower his fever. You brought him in at the right time.”

“Was—was it a mistake to not bring him in sooner?” Hyungwon asked wearily.

“Well, if you’d brought him in earlier, this would have been easier to treat, but there’s no use in lamenting on past decisions and it sounds to me like you did all you could to keep his fever down, keep nutrients in him. Usually by the time an individual develops pneumonia, they're in pretty bad shape, which usually requires medical attention. You were right to bring him here when his fever spiked again. There’s a chance he ingested some bacteria from the water, which a blood test will catch, but this looks like a case of pneumonia and most people can’t get rid of that particular bacteria on their own. You all did the right thing.” Dr. Kang explained with a kind smile.

The words placated Hyungwon, but only a little. The nurse left a stack of weird, kidney-bean shaped trays on the bedside table next to Changkyun’s sleeping body, checked his IV drip again, then nodded to the doctor and left swiftly. The doctor picked up his clipboard with another easy smile.

“I’ll be back to check on him soon, hopefully with a diagnosis,” he said, then bowed and left the room.

Hyungwon couldn’t keep his eyes off the plastic breathing mask on Changkyun’s mouth, which had been placed over his face pretty much as soon as he was brought into the room. His breathing sounded much better with the ventilator on, and that bothered Hyungwon—it scared him to know that it was obvious Changkyun needed it. With the cup over the lower half of his face, Changkyun looked more at ease, like it wasn’t taking all of his energy just to make sure he could get air into his lungs. Hyungwon didn’t think the sound of Changkyun’s heavy, strangled breathing would ever fade from his memory. It had traumatized him, just a little.

Hyungwon turned his attention to the stack of three or four strange pink kidney-bean shaped bowls on the bedside table. He glanced questioningly at Hoseok.

“What are they?” He asked, nodding in the direction of the weird bowls.

“They’re called emesis basins,” Hoseok replied coolly. “The nurse probably left them in case he gets sick again or needs to spit out mucus. If it is pneumonia he has, he’ll be coughing out nastiness in his lungs for a while.”

“Nastiness in his lungs?” Hyungwon repeated, horrified.

Hoseok nodded solemnly. “That’s what pneumonia is; it’s a buildup of fluid in the lungs. That’s why it’s so dangerous. I can’t believe it took me so long to figure this out.” He ran a hand over his face.

Hyunwoo rested a placating hand on Hoseok’s arm, and Hyungwon was grateful for the older man's calming voice. “Hoseok-ah, you did everything you could. None of us saw this coming, remember? He got very sick in a short period of time.”

“And he also didn’t start breathing weirdly like this until earlier, right?” Hyungwon supplied, trying to help soothe Hoseok. "You did everything you could, hyung."

Hoseok nodded, but he still didn’t look convinced.

Hyungwon opened his mouth to continue, but then Changkyun’s breath caught in his throat and he coughed suddenly and harshly. It seemed to startle him awake because he was suddenly trying to sit up, trying to cough into his elbow and clawing at the mask on his face in confusion.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Hyungwon rested his hand firmly in the space between Changkyun’s shoulder blades, wincing at the roughness of the deep coughing. The maknae's entire torso rocked with each harsh cough, rippling his spine under Hyungwon's hand grotesquely.

“Baby, stop,” Hoseok reached out to take both of Changkyun’s hands, stopping him from tearing the plastic mask off his face. “It’s helping you breathe, honey.”

Changkyun yanked one of his hands away from Hoseok and tried to hold it over his mouth.

“Are you gonna be sick again?” Hyunwoo asked hastily. Changkyun nodded, still coughing, and everyone jumped into action.

“Hold on, babe,” Hoseok stood up sharply and swiftly removed the mask from Changkyun’s mouth. Hyunwoo held one of the emesis basins to his face and Changkyun spit up a glob of yellow stickiness.

Hyungwon smoothed Changkyun’s hair back, but lost his grip on his soft black locks when the maknae pitched forwards, retching softly as he ducked into the emesis basin. Hyungwon put his hand back in Changkyun’s hair, rubbing his back with the other as Changkyun panted through the nausea.

“You’re okay, baby,” Hoseok soothed. “Just breathe.”

“I hate this,” Changkyun whimpered. Hoseok cooed in sympathy.

“I know, kid. It’ll be over soon,” Hyunwoo murmured.

Changkyun retched again, and Hyungwon felt like a startled cat, his hackles raised and the hair on the back of his neck standing upright. He didn’t understand how Changkyun had more to bring up. It looked solely like saliva and mucus at this point.

Finally Changkyun leaned backwards into Hyungwon, still breathing irregularly. Hyungwon kept rubbing his back, just trying to let the maknae know he was there. If there was a chance that Changkyun was half as scared as Hyungwon was, he wanted to provide as much comfort as possible.

“My heart is racing,” he moaned, voice gravelly and thick. Hyungwon wrapped both arms around the maknae to give him some stability. Changkyun leaned back more, resting his head in the crook of Hyungwon’s neck. Hyungwon pressed his cheek to Changkyun's and, for the first time that night, was pleasantly surprised to discover his skin was cooler than it had been earlier.

Hoseok helped Changkyun wipe his mouth, then held the breathing mask back up to his face. Changkyun took a few deep, stabilizing breaths, his tense body relaxing slightly into Hyungwon.

“You okay?” Hoseok asked, taking one of Changkyun’s clammy hands. Changkyun blinked slowly and nodded. “Keep breathing, okay? The doctor thinks you have pneumonia. The mask is gonna make it easier on you to breathe.”

Changkyun nodded again, then warily eyed the IV in his arm and mumbled something.

“Come again?”

He repeated himself, gesturing to the IV, and this time Hyungwon caught more of it.

“They put that in while you were sleeping earlier. You took it like a champ,” Hyungwon explained, and Changkyun gave a lazy grin at his attempt to be humorous. Hyungwon grinned too, relieved at the tiny smile he saw on Changkyun’s face.

Eventually Changkyun relaxed more, and his breathing evened out, signaling his slip back into unconsciousness. Hoseok strapped the mask back to his face so he didn’t have to hold it there, but Hyungwon kept clinging to Changkyun, sitting sideways on the bed so the maknae could lean on his chest. Hyunwoo put the used emesis basin on the floor further away from the bed.

Fifteen uneventful minutes passed before there was a brisk knock on the door, and the doctor from earlier sidestepped into the room, a different nurse following.

“How are we doing?” The doctor asked as he slipped the medical files out of his clipboard.

“He was sick again,” Hoseok said. “It looks like it was mostly mucus.”

The doctor nodded somberly. “The blood test came back; I’m sorry to say this looks to me like pneumonia. Pneumonia is an infection of the lungs, so a cold or flu will irritate the lungs and create an environment for the pneumonia bacteria to grow. It’s not contagious but is unfortunately a long-lasting illness compared to others and will require some antibiotics to clear up.”

Hyungwon’s heart sank at the news. He kept his attention solely on Changkyun, repeatedly combing his hair back with his nails. The maknae slept on, blissfully oblivious to what was going on around him. Hyungwon almost wished he could join him.

“Hoseok-ah mentioned earlier he fell into the Yellow Sea yesterday. Did the water itself have anything to do with it? At all?” Hyunwoo asked.

“Cold weather and water have nothing to do with catching a disease like the common cold, flu, or pneumonia. These are all caused by germs, either viruses or bacteria in most cases. That being said, you will certainly feel worse if you get cold or wet when you have a cold or the flu. If he got this bad in a very short period of time, then it’s possible the coldness of the water or a bacteria in it lowered the efficiency of his immune system, and that would be why the flu he had spiraled into pneumonia. The blood test didn’t exactly show the bacteria itself—rather, it showed a higher count in white blood cells, indicating that his body is actively fighting an infection, hence the high fever. A chest x-ray is best for determining pneumonia, but I don’t see any point in that, based on what you’ve told me about his behavior and the blood test.”

“And the nausea and vomiting is normal?” Hoseok asked. “Is there a chance this is just the flu?”

“Vomiting isn’t exactly normal, but it’s not uncommon, either. In his case, I think the nausea is caused by the buildup of fluid in his lungs, so vomiting is an efficient but unpleasant way to get rid of it. I don’t think he has the flu; the main differences between the flu and pneumonia is that the flu tends to affect the whole body, while pneumonia is a lung infection. Sometimes, when an individual contracts a virus, the circumstances sometimes pave the way for a secondary bacterial infection.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Hyunwoo commented; his face was calm but Hyungwon could see the lines between his eyebrows. Hyungwon silently agreed, head spinning slightly with all the medical information being thrown at them.

“Pneumonia is just the name of the symptoms. It isn’t the name of the causative agent, which would be a bacteria by the name of Streptococcus pneumoniae. It sounds to me that he had a viral infection, probably a common cold virus, before falling into the water, and thus he became vulnerable to the bacterial infection he’s suffering from now. Based on further research, I’ll hopefully be able to send him home with medication.”

“He’ll be okay, though?” Hyungwon couldn’t help himself from asking, having comprehended very little of the information Dr. Kang had just dumped on them. The doctor glanced at him, something akin to pity or sympathy in his eyes.

“Once we find an effective medication for him, yes; he’ll be alright. Like I said, you made the right choice bringing him here.”

“Can you explain the fainting?” Hyunwoo mumbled, voice a bit strained.

“Well, with as strained as his lungs are for oxygen, it’s likely a combination of that and general malaise.”

“Does he need to stay here tonight?”

“I’ll give him a dose of antibiotic—amoxicillin, specifically—and check back in an hour or two. If he responds well to the medicine you can take him home tonight. If not, we’ll keep him here to test more.”

“Okay. Thank you, doctor.”

He left swiftly and with a gentle smile. Hyungwon could feel himself start to calm down. He was exhausted.

“I’ll call Kihyun, give him an update,” Hoseok announced, moving to get his phone.

“Put it on speaker,” Hyunwoo murmured, gently stroking Changkyun’s arm. Hoseok nodded as he dialed Kihyun’s number.

At some point the sweatshirt, which Hyungwon realized was actually Jooheon's, had been taken off the maknae so the nurses could take his blood and put the IV in. It was only after he’d lost the sweatshirt that Hyungwon realized how badly this illness really was affecting Changkyun; his shirt hung from his frame, signaling that he’d lost a little weight—probably from throwing up—and his skin, though cooler than it had been, was still pale, sticky and pasty. Hyungwon sighed. Hyunwoo took his hand, gave it a gentle squeeze.

Hyungwon could tell the leader felt bad for picking Hoseok over Hyungwon earlier but honestly, Hyungwon was glad he did. He loved the maknae and always wanted to take care of him, but he couldn't lie about his lack of experience caring for someone who's ill. He'd come to the conclusion that Hyunwoo had made the decision because he thought it would be best for Changkyun, and he was probably right. Hyungwon met the leader's eyes and gave him a soft smile to let him know all was forgiven.

Hoseok's phone rang twice before Kihyun picked up on the third ring.

“Hyung,” he greeted tiredly.

“Hey, Kihyun-ah. How are you all?”

“Okay, I guess. Worried.”

“Yeah. The doctors just diagnosed him, kind of. They think he has pneumonia. They’ve got him on an IV drip to keep him hydrated.”

“Is he okay?”

“Well, I guess. He's alright now. He threw up twice on the way to the hospital and then again when we got here but he was mostly asleep for the doctor’s evaluation and has been since.”

“Poor baby.”

“Yeah. The doctor is pretty positive it’s pneumonia. He just gave Kkukkung a dose of some antibiotic. I can’t remember the name of it—it’s something super long and complicated—but we’re gonna see how it affects him. If he responds well they’ll give him more and send him home but if his condition doesn’t change in reaction to the medicine then they want to keep him here tonight.”

“Shit, for real?”

“Ye-yeah. They told us it was good we took him in when we did and that we did everything else right. It wasn’t our fault.”

“Mhm.” Kihyun took a breath. “Do you want us to come to you?”

“No, stay there. I’ll update you in like an hour, maybe longer. Like I said, it’ll depend on how Changkyun-ah is doing. We can go from there.”

“Yeah, okay. For sure. I’m about to start dinner. Do you have any requests?”

Hoseok paused, a playful grin coming to his lips.

“..If you say ‘ramyeon’ I’ll kill you.”

Hoseok laughed. “Okay, okay. Nah, you can make whatever you want tonight. Thanks, Ki.”

“No problem. Keep me updated, okay?”

“Will do.”

Hours later, it was nearing 9:45 and Hyungwon was trying valiantly to stay awake. Hyunwoo and Hoseok were both still wide awake, whereas Changkyun had been sleeping for the past few hours, and Hyungwon struggled between wanting to remain awake in case the doctor came back or join Changkyun in the black, peaceful world of sleep. To his relief, Changkyun seemed to be faring better after the dose of medication, as his breathing sounded easier and steady. What was even better than his steady, even breathing was that his fever had slowly been going down, and now rested at a stubborn 38.2, which, while not great, was much better than the 39.8 it had been pushing when they’d first brought him in.

A gentle knock on the door startled Hyungwon awake and the doctor stepped back in, the same easy smile on his face.

“How are we doing?” He asked.

“His breathing sounds better,” Hoseok supplied. “His fever, too.”

The doctor nodded, his smile widening a little as he performed a quick checkup. Satisfied, he began to fill out discharge papers and a prescription request from the pharmacy across the hospital.

“Follow the dosage instructions on the bottle. Amoxicillin is an antibiotic, and pneumonia is a longer lasting illness, so make sure he takes all the pills in the bottle. Once he’s taken them all, bring him back in for a final checkup. The drug might make him a little spacey or drowsy as a side effect, so don’t let him drive or anything like that. If at any point the medication seems to stop working or give him worse symptoms, bring him back and we’ll try something else,” The doctor explained. “I’ll also prescribe him an inhaler, which will loosen the fluid in his lungs to help him breathe easier. I would administer a puff or two of the inhaler before bed at the very least, and maybe once or twice every six hours or so.”

With that, the group was sent to the pharmacy. Changkyun woke up briefly to walk down the stairs and read his prescription papers, then fell asleep again when they sat down in the pharmacy waiting area, slumped against Hyungwon’s shoulder with Hyungwon’s arm wrapped around him. He rubbed his hand up and down Changkyun’s back, relishing in the coolness of his skin.

Hoseok was the one to go up to one of the pharmacy kiosks when their number was called, and ten long minutes later he wandered back over to them, holding two boxes, an inhaler in one and a bottle of antibiotics in the other.

The drive home had been easier than the drive to the hospital. Changkyun was asleep and remained that way through the entire drive, only waking very fleetingly to ask for some water and fall right back into sleep. Hyungwon was also half asleep through most of the drive, but found himself unable to fully relax and resorted to trying to listen to the quiet conversation Hoseok and Hyunwoo were having in the front seats. The roaring of the highway rolling under the car tires and the maknae's gentle breathing in Hyungwon's ear prevented the majority of the conversation from reaching Hyungwon. He heard his name a couple of times, but it seemed that the topic of their discussion was Changkyun. He didn't catch much else.

The clock on Hyungwon’s phone, hanging on at a determined 9%, read 10:52 PM when they finally reached the dorm building and carried Changkyun inside. They were greeted at the door by Kihyun and Minhyuk.

“Just take him to bed,” Kihyun whispered, eyes immediately landing on Changkyun’s sleeping form, curled up in Hoseok’s arms. He entered the dorm first, slipping off his shoes before asking Kihyun to take off Changkyun’s. The mother of the group did so, working at the laces of Changkyun’s sneakers as Hyunwoo entered the dorm behind Hoseok, Hyungwon following.

“He needs a dose from his inhaler first,” Hoseok replied quietly as Minhyuk shut the door behind Hyungwon, toeing off his shoes in the foyer.

“Where’s Jooheon?” Hyunwoo asked, grunting as he placed the heavy bag they’d taken to the hospital with them on the floor next to the shoe rack and stretched out his shoulders.

“He’s laying down in our room,” Minhyuk replied, taking the two boxes of medication from Hyungwon. “He had a little bit of a breakdown after Hoseok called to tell us you took Changkyun to the hospital.”

Hyungwon winced. “He's okay?”

“He’s fine now, just sleeping. I think he’ll be better when he sees Changkyun.”

“We’ll take him in now,” Hoseok said. “Come on, my arms are getting tired. Bring the inhaler. We can give it to him while we get him ready for bed.”

Hyungwon, Kihyun, Minhyuk and Hyunwoo followed Hoseok into the dark apartment, and Kihyun hurried to open the bedroom door for Hoseok. The darkened room was clean, probably Kihyun’s doing, and even before Minhyuk turned on one of the lights, Hyungwon could see Jooheon’s silhouette stretched out on his bed, the sound of his even breathing filling the room.

Hoseok placed Changkyun on Minhyuk’s bed and winced as he stood back up, rubbing his arms. Even though Hyunwoo was a close second, Hoseok was undoubtedly the strongest member of the dorm, but it was understandable that even he would be strained carrying around another grown man. Hyungwon said down next to Changkyun, Hyunwoo on his other side, as Kihyun fiddled with the bottle of antibiotics and Minhyuk struggled to open the inhaler box.

“Changkyun-ah, you need to wake up now,” Hyungwon murmured, wary of Jooheon still remarkably asleep in the other bed. “Come on, baby, just for a few minutes, then you can go back to bed. Up up up, Kkukkung.”

Slowly but surely Changkyun woke up, though whether or not he was fully awake was debatable. He groaned, questioning why he was awake.

“Sorry, babe, but you need some medicine and then you need to brush your teeth,” Hyunwoo murmured, as calm and collected as ever. Changkyun gave a hum of acknowledgement, leaning backwards into Hyungwon’s chest. He still had a band-aid over his arm where the IV had been and when he noticed, he picked questioningly at it.

“Hey, don’t play with that,” Hyungwon scolded softly, putting a hand over Changkyun’s fingers. “That’s where they put the IV in.”

“He’s already gotten a dose of the antibiotics. I can't remember what it's called but the doctor said it might make him a little spacey so we shouldn't let him do things like cook or drive by himself,” Hoseok explained from the dresser against the far wall, pulling out a new pair of pajamas for Changkyun. “The doctor recommended we give him a few puffs of the inhaler every night before bed and every couple of hours as he needs it.”

Changkyun eyed the inhaler wearily, then looked up at his hyungs through lidded, baggy eyes that lit up a little when he recognized who he was looking at. Minhyuk ruffled his hair in greeting.

“Oh, hi hyungs,” he mumbled dozily to Kihyun and Minhyuk, flashing a lazy smile. Hyungwon’s heart melted, and judging by the smiles he received from Kihyun and Minhyuk, theirs did as well.

“Hi, baby,” Minhyuk said, finally giving Kihyun the inhaler to deal with as he petted Changkyun’s hair.

“How’re you?” Changkyun asked. Hyungwon realized with a goofy smile the medicine he was given earlier was probably making him feel a little giddy, as the doctor had warned. He shared an amused look with Hyunwoo.

“Oh, I’m okay,” Minhyuk played along, lacing his long fingers through Changkyun’s hand. “How are you? Was your nurse pretty?”

“I didn’t really look at her,” Changkyun replied honestly. “Hyunwoo-hyung was pretty, though.”

Hyunwoo turned bright red at the unexpected compliment, a shy smile coming to his lips, eliciting laughter from the other boys.

“He is very pretty, isn’t he?” Minhyuk grinned. Changkyun nodded sleepily.

"The prettiest," Changkyun agreed.

“Okay, I think I got it,” Kihyun said, holding up the inhaler in one hand and the instructions in the other. He began to read aloud from the small slip of paper. “‘Hold the medicine in your lungs as long as you can, then breathe out. If you don't get enough air in the first breath, wait 15-to-30 seconds and try again. Shake the inhaler again before the second puff.’”

Kihyun knelt down onto the bed as Changkyun sat up. Changkyun’s shaky hand moved to take the inhaler as Kihyun shook the device, but suddenly his breath hitched and he began coughing roughly, each ragged cough making it sound like he had rocks in his chest. Suddenly Changkyun’s coughing turned into gagging and Hoseok came out of nowhere, running forward with a waste bin just as Changkyun retched, pitching forward into the plastic basin. Nothing came up except for mucuous and spit, but he heaved helplessly over the bin anyway until he was left wheezing for air.

“Oh, buddy,” Hyungwon cooed, voice strained in sympathy as his long fingers worked along the maknae’s spine.

Hyunwoo shot to his feet when Changkyun swayed and tilted precariously to the side, swiftly catching him by the shoulder to keep him from falling over.

“I'm so dizzy,” Changkyun slurred, leaning into Hyunwoo’s arm as the oldest tried to sit him back up.

“I know, baby. I’m so sorry.” Minhyuk whispered, watching sadly from behind Kihyun.

Kihyun brushed back the maknae’s bangs and held the inhaler to Changkyun’s mouth. Changkyun reached a trembling hand up to hold the inhaler.

“Nuh,” he gently batted Changkyun’s hand away. “Let me do it, baby.”

Changkyun groaned but either didn’t have the will or the strength to argue and instead leaned back into Hyunwoo’s chest, letting his mouth fall open to allow Kihyun to administer the inhaler.

“Breathe in. Slowly,” Kihyun said, then pressed down on the catch. There was a soft whoosh as the medicine left the device, and Changkyun’s chest expanded in a deep breath as he inhaled the mist, holding his breath for five seconds before exhaling slowly. “Good, Kkukkung. Do you need more?”

Changkyun breathed for a second, then nodded slowly and parted his lips again. After waiting for fifteen seconds and shaking it, as the instructions explained, Kihyun administered the inhaler again, sitting back in satisfaction when Changkyun’s chest rose and fell rhythmically in response to the medicine. Kihyun reached up to brush back his bangs again, mainly to feel his temperature but also as an act of comfort.

“Better?” He asked kindly.

Changkyun nodded and hummed, tilting his head to lean into Hyungwon’s neck. He then mumbled something, voice so quiet even Hyungwon didn’t catch what he said.

“Say again?”

“I'm so tired of feeling like this,” Changkyun sighed.

His voice still didn’t sound right, but at least he was breathing better. Before anyone had a chance to respond, though, there was a sleepy noise from the other side of the room and everyone looked over as Jooheon sat up in bed, his head of black hair akin to sea urchin, locks of hair sticking up in all directions. He stared around in confusion, eyes squinted as he came to, struggling to catch up with what was happening.

“Hi hyungie,” Changkyun smiled dopily, his demeanor having changed entirely. Jooheon’s face, puffy with sleep and confusion, relaxed into a soft smile at Changkyun.

“Hey babe,” He said, climbing out of the bed.

“I’m so tired,” Changkyun whined, reaching for Jooheon. The second youngest took his hand and kissed over his knuckles. Hyungwon smiled at the soft action.

“I bet,” Jooheon replied, placing himself on the bed next to Hyunwoo. “You scared me earlier. What did the doctors say?”

The question was directed at Hoseok, who placed the folded up pajamas on the bunk above Minhyuk’s bed where Changkyun was currently seated.

“Pneumonia,” Hoseok replied. “A bacterial infection, long term. The inhaler is to help break up the fluid in his lungs, antibiotics to kill the infection. He needs to take every pill in that bottle before we take him back to the hospital for a checkup.”

“Manager-nim said he got our schedules cleared for the rest of this week, but we’re back in action starting Monday,” Kihyun said, organizing the pill bottle and the inhaler on the nightstand. Hoseok shook his head.

“Not Changkyun-ah. There’s nothing short-term about pneumonia, even in mild cases. I was doing some research in the car earlier. He’ll be out for a week, at the very least.”

“A week?” Changkyun, who had been steadily falling asleep, jerked awake at the news. “I can’t miss more than a week, hyung, I can’t—”

“Hey, hey, chill out, it’s okay,” Minhyuk and the other boys were quick to soothe him. “Your health is more important.”

“I’m sorry,” Changkyun whimpered. Six hearts collectively broke.

“We don’t blame you for anything, Kyun-ah,” Kihyun chastised him gently, rubbing along his arm. “You’re working yourself too hard and what happened on the boat was entirely an accident. You just need to rest more, baby.”

“Don’t be sorry, honey. You just need to rest.”

It took a while to get Changkyun to relax again after that, the medicine making him weirdly responsive to certain things. The boys definitely did not mean to keep Changkyun up longer than that, but the clock read 11:36 by the time they managed to calm Changkyun down enough to get him to consider falling back asleep. Before falling asleep again, though, he’d asked for a shower, and none of them had wanted to leave them alone so Hoseok had showered with him. The maknae was almost asleep on his feet when they finally got done, so he’d slowly brushed his teeth, perched on the toilet seat, as Kihyun dried his hair and the other boys got their room ready for bed. As they pulled him into the bedroom, however, he stopped them again.

“I don’t want to go to bed,” he whined petulantly.

Hyunwoo sighed softly, a little confused and trying not to be irritated. Changkyun was a gift from God who did everything his hyungs told him to do, even when sick like this. He wasn’t sure why Changkyun was acting this way.

“Baby, it’s late,” Hoseok tried to reason. “You need to sleep.”

“All I’ve done all day is sleep,” Changkyun argued.

“Your legs are shaking from being upright, Changkyun. You fainted earlier, even. You need to rest,” Kihyun shot back, his tone a little harsher than it should have been, but Hyunwoo knew he was just concerned.

Changkyun appeared to mistake the concern in his tone for anger, though, because to their horror, his eyes began to fill with tears.

“Ah, baby, no,” Kihyun jumped to fix it. “Aigoo, I’m not angry, baby. I just want you to relax.”

“I want to stay with hyungs,” Changkyun mumbled, voice watery as he rubbed furiously at his eyes. “I’m tired of feeling like this. Don’t leave me in there alone. I just wanna be with hyungs.”

“Aish,” Kihyun sighed, pulling Changkyun into his arms, biting his lip as Changkyun started to cry softly into Kihyun’s shoulder. Kihyun glared at the floor, no doubt beating himself up for making their already worn-out maknae cry.

“Okay, here we go,” Jooheon suddenly emerged from the bedroom—Hyunwoo hadn’t realized he’d left—holding the blankets from his bed and Changkyun’s bed, dragging the fluffy fabrics on the floor. “Sleepover in the living room.”

Without waiting for anyone to agree or refute, Jooheon marched past everyone else and dumped the materials onto the sofa and the floor before beginning to spread them out, unfolding them to lay them across the couch and using the pillows to make a sort of fort. He looked over expectantly at the hyungs and Changkyun, who was watching him through glassy eyes.

“Are you gonna help me or not?” Jooheon asked, exasperated. “If he doesn’t wanna be left alone, then we’ll sleep with him.”

Changkyun choked out a tearfully relieved laugh.

Twenty minutes later, it was almost midnight and the giant fort—well, it wasn’t really a fort, more just a heap of blankets and pillows—was finally completed. None of the boys let Changkyun do any of it. Instead, Kihyun had perched the maknae on the sectional with a cup of Pedialyte. Changkyun obediently sipped at the grape-flavored electrolyte drink as he watched the other boys unfold blankets across the sofa and the floor, toss pillows at each other and shuffle through movies and dramas to play on the television. By the time they were finished, the cup was empty and Kihyun was thrilled.

“Hopefully he’ll keep it down,” Hoseok murmured, half to himself and half to Hyunwoo. Hyunwoo nodded fervently in agreement.

Changkyun fell asleep as soon as he laid down, before they’d even had the chance to start the drama—a testament to how exhausted he truly was. Hyungwon passed out next, followed by Jooheon, and then Minhyuk. Hoseok wasn’t really paying attention to the show while Kihyun began nodding off, lazily stroking Changkyun’s blissfully cool skin, and Hyunwoo gazed around at his boys, his family.

He’d spent the last hour trying to ignore his own exhaustion, but now that he was safe, Changkyun was safe, and he was surrounded by his family, he let himself be lulled into peaceful sleep.

Something that the boys realized fairly quickly over the next four or five days is that when Changkyun is ill—like, truly, properly sick—his anxiety skyrockets. As the hours crept closer to Monday, the day the boys would have to go back to their schedules without him, Changkyun grew clingier and desired to spend less time alone and more time with them, even if all he was doing was sleeping. Changkyun was known, of course, for enjoying his time to himself, so this behavior was incredibly uncharacteristic, and threw them all off a little. Jooheon wasn’t complaining, though—Changkyun never got like this, and he loved the feeling of the maknae’s arms, despite their wiry stature, around his chest.

But Jooheon would be lying if he said he wasn’t feeling at least a little helpless. He spent a lot of time between Wednesday night and Sunday night wrapped up with the maknae somewhere—snuggled together on the sofa, at the kitchen table, or in bed, or on the sectional watching Minhyuk throttle Hyungwon at Mario Kart. Changkyun seemed perfectly content to just lay with any one of them. As long as they were nearby, he was fine. He definitely loved the maknae’s unusual clinginess, but Jooheon was worried about what Changkyun would do when Monday morning appeared and the boys would have to go to work without him.

On Monday morning, he got his answer.

Changkyun watched from the sofa in the living room as the boys trickled one by one in and out of the bedrooms, into the kitchen, back to the bathroom—all working around each other to get fully washed, fed, and dressed before they had to leave at 9 am. To his credit, Kihyun had tried valiantly to get all of them to be quiet, because when his alarm went off at 6, the maknae was still sleeping peacefully. But Changkyun hadn’t stayed asleep for long and soon enough, he was awake like everyone else. And there he sat, on the sectional, watching them all move around with such a look of dread on his face Jooheon didn’t know if he’d be able to leave the dorm that morning at all.

“Aish, jagiya, why are you looking at us like that?” Hyungwon finally asked, plopping down on the sofa next to him. Changkyun blinked at him, his bottom lip stuck between his teeth. “Come on, jagi, you can tell me.”

“I want to go with you,” Changkyun mumbled. Jooheon watched him sadly.

Hyungwon sighed. “Aegi, you know the answer to that. You’re not healthy enough yet.”

“Can I come with you tomorrow?”

Hyungwon shot Jooheon a slightly distressed look over Changkyun’s shoulder. “Probably not, Kkungie. Remember last week? Hoseok-hyung said there’s nothing short-term about pneumonia. The hyungs want to take you to the hospital again to get the doctor to clear you for practice.”

“I won’t practice. I’ll just sit there with you,” Changkyun protested.

The rest of the group chose that moment to emerge from the bedrooms and bathroom, the four of them wandering into the living area all at once, all dressed and clean and smelling blissfully like their characteristic colognes and scents. Hoseok made a beeline for Changkyun, picking the blanket up off the other sofa to drape over the maknae, curled up in the corner.

“What are you discussing in here?” Minhyuk asked, handing Jooheon his phone. Jooheon flashed him a grateful smile; he hadn’t realized he’d left the device in his room.

“Changkyun wants to come with us,” Jooheon replied uneasily, already anticipating the response.

“Kyun-ah, we went over this last night,” Kihyun said, voice soft but also firm, leaving no room for argument. “You’re not in any condition to come with us.”

“I’m not saying I’ll dance or anything,” Changkyun mumbled. “I just want to tag along.”

“Sorry, baby. Not today,” Hoseok bent over the back of the sofa and kissed the top of Changkyun’s head.

They left without much incident a few minutes later. Every healthy member individually said good-bye to him in their own way, and Changkyun watched with a pitiful expression over the back of the sofa as they left.

Going to practice as 6 instead of 7 was weird, but not anything they hadn’t done before. To Jooheon, it was a constant cycle—doing a headcount, only counting 6 people, realizing someone was missing, trying to figure out who, and then remembering who was absent and why. Dance in particular always seemed strange as well, because not only was the formation different without the seventh member, it was an overall weird experience to be down one. Changkyun generally didn’t speak a lot or make his presence known, especially during something as strenuous as dance practice, but something just felt missing when there were only six of them.

The day passed slowly. The dance portion went by normally but Jooheon spent a few dreadfully slow hours in the studio and barely got any work done. He chalked it up to Changkyun being missing, leaving an empty spot next to him, the desk chair seat wrinkled and slightly sunken where Changkyun would have been sitting. Jooheon always did have an easier time writing when they were together. He sighed to himself, putting away his notebook as he locked up the rest of the room. He wanted Changkyun back by his side sooner rather than later, but they all knew that would only happen if he let himself heal.

The boys came home to find Changkyun sleeping deeply in Jooheon’s bed, one hand swallowed in the fabric of his sweatshirt, which was actually Minhyuk’s, and the other wrapped loosely around the inhaler he’d been prescribed not even a week prior. It was a bit worrying to find Changkyun like that, but Jooheon put his ear close to the maknae’s chest to listen to his breathing, and thankfully didn’t hear any signs of distress. He just plucked the inhaler from the younger’s fingers, put it on his bedside table, and got changed around him, moving delicately and silently to avoid waking the younger boy up.

Changkyun hadn’t slept in his own bed in a while, still not quite strong enough to climb up to his bunk. Besides, there’d been a couple of occasions when he’d woken up in the middle of the night needing to be sick or use his inhaler. It was just easier, if necessary, for someone to tend to him when he wasn’t on a top bunk.

To fix this issue, the boys had come up with a system. Changkyun rotated between the bottom beds in the apartment: Minhyuk, Jooheon, Hyunwoo, and Hoseok. Usually whichever member he swapped with would sleep in the bed with him but occasionally, when Kihyun or Hyungwon, who both had top beds, wanted the maknae for the night, one of the four boys with bottom bunks would take one of their top bunks. Like last night, Hyungwon had wanted to rest with Changkyun, so Hoseok had taken Hyungwon’s bunk while the tallest member and the maknae had Hoseok’s. It was an interesting and slightly complicated system they’d come up with, but Jooheon thought it worked nicely, like a fun little game of Pass-The-Maknae.

Kihyun and Hoseok whipped up dinner in record time, but Jooheon couldn’t bring himself to wake Changkyun up, so he bullied Hyunwoo into doing it and instead helped Minhyuk set the table. The maknae and the oldest were greeted with smiles when, after ten minutes, Hyunwoo re-emerged from the bedroom with the maknae in tow, wearing Jooheon’s blanket like a cape. Jooheon scrunched up his nose at the cute scene as Changkyun slid into his seat next to him.

“What did you do today, Kyun-ah?” Kihyun asked as he passed a bowl of bulgogi around the table.

“I slept,” Changkyun said quietly. “And I… slept more. And I worked on a song.”

“Not for too long, right?”

Changkyun shrugged. “I couldn’t think long or hard enough to write anything good.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Jooheon said proudly, puffing a smile at the younger. He was fully prepared to turn whatever Changkyun had come up with into a song if it meant it would boost the maknae’s confidence.

“Did you eat anything today?”

Kihyun asked right as Changkyun began drinking from his glass of water, so the maknae held up his hand and pinched his index finger and thumb together. “A little bit,” the message conveyed.

Kihyun regarded him for a moment, seemingly formulating a response. Jooheon expected him to nag, as was characteristic of the group mom, but Kihyun just clicked his tongue and said, “Well, something is better than nothing. I’ll leave out some leftovers for you tomorrow, okay? You should get up every now and again to get your blood flowing, but don’t overdo it.”

Changkyun nodded easily and began eating as Hyunwoo spooned some of the bulgogi over his bowl of rice.

After dinner, Changkyun seemed hesitant to be left alone. Jooheon was going to try to work a little more on some music now that Changkyun was in his proximity, but the maknae pouted quietly on Jooheon’s bunk while he tried to write at the desk in the room, and eventually, knowing Changkyun was unhappy, Jooheon relented.

“Okay, maknae-yah, you have my attention,” Jooheon sighed without any real malice as he laid down on his bed. Changkyun still sat upright, fixing him with a tired stare.

“Can I come with you tomorrow?” He begged.

Jooheon sighed through his nose. “What do you wanna do? There’s no way any of us are going to agree to you dancing, and I think Kihyun would flip shit if you—”

“Language,” Changkyun said cheekily, surprising Jooheon, and despite the rasp in his voice, Jooheon couldn’t help but grin.

“Oh, come on. Like you don’t curse, too,” Jooheon laughed, and Changkyun giggled wheezily.

They laughed together for a moment, and Jooheon relished in it, but eventually Changkyun’s laughter tapered into grating coughs that had Jooheon leaping to his feet to find the nearest inhaler. After Changkyun administered it by himself—he batted Jooheon’s hand away when he tried to help—he slumped against the pillow at the foot of Jooheon’s bed, slowly catching his breath. Jooheon watched him warily, but Changkyun wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“That’s why I don’t think you should come with us,” Jooheon chastised gently. “I know you’re restless here, but the only way you’re gonna recover is if you let yourself. Your body can’t heal if you don’t let it, Kyun-ah. Give yourself a break.”

Changkyun fixed him with a blank stare that still managed to wrench Jooheon’s heart. Truthfully, Jooheon knew that if left without anything to do, Changkyun got nervous. It had been almost three years, but Changkyun still felt the need to contribute a lot to the group’s activities in order to feel satisfied with himself. He was somehow still of the mindset that he had to prove he belonged in the group in order to stay, and Jooheon just didn’t know how they were supposed to change that if they hadn’t managed to already.

“Tell you what,” Jooheon said, taking one of Changkyun’s hands. “You told me you worked on a song today, right? Why don’t you work on it a little bit more tomorrow—but don’t go overboard—and show me what you come up with?”

Changkyun nodded slowly.

“Cool,” Jooheon said, knowing that that’s the best he’d get. “And Kihyun will make you some delicious food for tomorrow. Brain energy.”

Changkyun cracked a smile. Jooheon counted it as a victory.

“Hey, hyung?” Jooheon poked his head into the living room. Five heads turned to him expectantly. Jooheon grinned.

He and Changkyun had stayed in his bed for another hour or so, chatting about random things, until Changkyun had drifted to sleep. Jooheon was glad he’d finally fallen asleep for a couple of reasons: he was hungry and needed to pee, and Changkyun needed to rest more. He’d left the maknae on the bed as quickly and carefully as he could have, but not before draping his blanket over the sleeping kid.

“Changkyun told me he wants you to make galbi for him tomorrow,” Jooheon lied.

“Galbi?” Kihyun repeated, incredulous.

“Are you sure you don’t want Kihyun-ah to make galbi?” Hyunwoo said with an eye smile.

Hoseok and Minhyuk laughed as Kihyun rolled his eyes. Jooheon grinned sheepishly. He should have known he couldn’t lie to his hyungs.

“Either way, galbi will be too hard on his stomach. I’ll make him some dak juk. And you can’t have any,” Kihyun bit out, but Jooheon heard the smile in his voice.

“He’s sleeping now,” Jooheon pouted. “I’ll eat anything he doesn’t.”

“He’s sleeping?” Minhyuk asked as Kihyun stuck his tongue out at Jooheon. “It’s early.”

“He needs to rest,” Hoseok reminded.

“Yeah, he kept asking me if he could come with us tomorrow,” Jooheon sighed, plopping onto the sofa next to Hyungwon.

“What’d you tell him?”

“I told him that he couldn’t come with us, but that if he really needed something to do, he could work a little more on the song he told us about earlier. I did tell him not to overdo it, though,” Jooheon added, catching Kihyun’s warning glance.

Kihyun nodded. “I’ll make him some juk before we leave tomorrow. He’s not going to let up on coming with us until we let him, though.”

Jooheon knew that. Changkyun wasn’t going to let it go until he could come with, and he and the other members were prepared to do whatever they could to keep him at home. He just dreaded the day they’d run out of excuses.

It was Friday, and after repeatedly assuring the six of them that he felt good enough to be out of the apartment for a day, Changkyun was with them. Of course, he wasn’t dancing at all—everyone had vetoed that—but Changkyun had become so adamant about coming along that Hyunwoo was starting to get a little worried about leaving him at home by himself. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Changkyun, because he absolutely did. It was that Changkyun had started to display such obvious signs of separation anxiety, Hyunwoo doubted that he was resting at all when they left him at home. Of course, Changkyun was too stubborn to tell them that he was nervous without them, but it got to a point where Hyunwoo had to be the one to make a decision. Against Kihyun’s protests, Hyunwoo relented and allowed Changkyun to come with them to practice, and Changkyun still wanted to come even after being told he wasn’t allowed to do anything. It was Hyunwoo’s hope that being around them for the day would ease his stresses, at least a little.

As the group ran through each track on their album, dancing as 6 and not as 7, Changkyun watched from where he was curled up in the corner of the studio, swaddled in one of Hyungwon’s sweatshirts, leaning his head sleepily against the wall.

Every so often Hyunwoo would look at him through the mirror, and he could see a change in the maknae’s eyes. He kept his face stony, but his eyes were mistier, heavier, every time Hyunwoo snuck a glance at him. It wasn’t hard to tell he was mentally going down a dark path. Hyunwoo had seen that glaze over Changkyun’s eyes enough times to know exactly what it meant.

Someone important had once said that the eyes were the window to the soul, and when it came to Changkyun, Hyunwoo knew it couldn’t be more true. Over the last two or so years, everyone had become a sort of expert in the art of Reading Changkyun’s Eyes because that was the only way to tell if and when something was wrong.

The healthy members were halfway through Shine Forever when Changkyun, pale and shaky, staggered to his feet with a hand over his chest, making for the door to the studio.

“You okay?” Kihyun called over the music. Everyone’s eyes were on the maknae.

Changkyun responded as he stumbled out of the studio, but the music was too loud to hear what he’d said and before anyone could stop him or ask him to repeat himself, he was gone.

Jooheon and Hyungwon both stared to relax, intent on following him, but their choreographer clapped his hands, snapping them back to attention.

“Keep dancing,” Their choreographer said.

“I’ll go find him if he’s not back in a few minutes.” Hongsik assured them.

The rest of their run-through of Shine Forever was sloppy, but for once, their choreographer didn’t call them out on it.

Changkyun wheezed out a sob as he collapsed against the sink in the Starship bathroom, only barely holding himself up, his hands white-knuckling the porcelain basin. His chest felt too heavy, like a hundred-pound snake had wound itself around his lungs, and he couldn’t tell if it was the oncoming panic attack or the remnants of pneumonia that had him gasping for air.

He stumbled away from the sink and into a stall, trying to force himself to breathe. Instead his breath got caught in his throat and he coughed before gagging, spitting up a little of what Kihyun had forced him to eat that morning. He moaned, tears springing to his eyes, and sank to his knees as panic overcame him.

He gripped at his arms, the soft fabric of Hyungwon’s sweatshirt being the only barrier between his prickling skin and his nails. His head swam, the small confines of the stall spinning dizzily and he shut his eyes.

I can’t breathe!

His hands came up to grip at his hair and he pulled at it, sharp pain tugging his scalp. A choked cry tumbled from his mouth, echoing in the bathroom like a bomb going off. His pulse raced, heart thumping in his ears.

His stomach jumped to his lungs and he heaved, throwing himself over the toilet bowl as he threw up. It was all he could do to keep his head in the bowl as he was sick over and over until his torso screamed with pain and his stomach, wrenched dry, gave up.

He slumped back against the stall and cried until he could breathe again, cried until his face was a mess and his wheezes were soundless and his chest ached.

The burning in his skin tapered off into a dull buzz wherever the fabric of the sweatshirt touched his arms. The tears finally stopped, leaving his face sticky and his eyes stinging. Dizzy from the intensity of the attack, Changkyun didn’t know how long he sat there after it was over, focusing all of his attention on just breathing.

Inhale. One, two, three, four. Exhale. One, two, three, four.

Over and over again.

The door to the bathroom opened as Changkyun wiped his mouth with a wad of toilet paper. His heart jumped, nerves spiking again. He hoped no one had heard that.

“Changkyun-ah?”

He recognized the voice instantly. It was Hongsik, the group’s favorite manager. Changkyun inhaled shakily, tossed the toilet paper into the toilet. Scrubbed his hands, sticky with sweat, over his face.

“Are you in here?”

Changkyun didn’t answer; he couldn’t find his voice after the attack he’d just had. With trembling fingers he flushed the toilet.

“If it’s you, I’m gonna stay until you come outta there.”

After a beat of silence to ensure the manager wasn’t leaving, Changkyun pulled himself together long enough to stand up, unlock the stall and step out into the harsh light of the bathroom where Hongsik was standing by the sinks, eyes narrowed. His gaze softened remarkably once taking in the sight of Changkyun.

“Oh, kiddo… You alright?”

Changkyun weakly shook his head, feeling more tears build up behind his eyes, and hunched over himself. Eyes painfully worried, Hongsik looked him up and down for a second. Changkyun was sure he must have been a sight, and a glance in the wall mirror above the line of sinks told him he was. Hyungwon’s sweatshirt, drenched in sweat, hung from his shoulders. The mirror relayed just how pale Changkyun’s face was, his hair mussed and tousled from having grabbed at it. His body was still visibly trembling, his legs starting to feel too weak to hold himself up.

Hongsik wordlessly wrapped an arm around Changkyun’s shoulders. Changkyun let him.

“I’m gonna take you home, okay?” Hongsik said softly.

Changkyun nodded. That was fine with him.

Kihyun bit down on his bottom lip when Jooheon returned to the dance studio without Changkyun, shaking his head helplessly.

“I don’t know where he went,” Jooheon whispered.

Kihyun had almost followed the maknae when he left the room almost twenty minutes ago, but he hadn’t, and he didn’t know why. At first he’d thought maybe Changkyun had just needed to use the bathroom. But now that Minhyuk, Hyunwoo and Jooheon had each gone on individual trips throughout the building to track him down and come back alone every time, Kihyun was starting to wish he’d had followed Changkyun. The boy had left everything behind; his phone, earbuds, charger—it was all there, all in the corner of the room he’d been sitting in.

The door to the studio opened and their manager, Dojin, came inside, face pinched in worry. It wasn’t Hongsik, like he’d expected, and Kihyun felt more uneasiness pool in his stomach at the expression on their manager’s face.

“Are you looking for Changkyun?” He asked.

“Yes,” Hoseok answered first. “Do you know where he is?”

“Hongsik-ssi just took him home. He found him in the bathroom down the hall. One of the trainees came and got us after he heard someone having a panic attack, and we figured out pretty quickly that it was Changkyun-ah. Poor kid had been in there for almost half an hour before Hongsik found him.”

Kihyun suddenly felt sick, nausea twisting sharply in his stomach. Almost a half hour, Changkyun had been alone, dealing with a panic attack while still ill. And they were just down the hall, totally oblivious. He felt like the scum of the earth.

“W-we think when he’s sick, his anxiety starts to climb,” Hyunwoo said, his voice shaky.

Dojin nodded solemnly. “I think that makes sense. I have more bad news, though. I’m sorry to have to tell you this but I wanted to be the one to tell you rather than have you find out on your own.”

Kihyun held his breath. Dojin’s expression was sharp with frustration and concern.

“It’s come to our attention that someone on our end captured Changkyun’s fall last week on video and leaked it at some point in the last twenty-four hours. It’s gone viral on Twitter. He’s trending number one.”

His blood turned to ice, his knotted stomach dropped to his shoes. What?

“Are you kidding me?” Hoseok growled, but his eyes looked wet and red with emotion.

“I wish I was, Hoseok,” Dojin sighed.

“Why would someone do that to him?” Minhyuk asked weakly, looking about as sick as Kihyun felt.

“We don’t know. Rest assured, as soon as we find out who did it, we’ll fire and blacklist them from the company immediately. But until then…” Dojin trailed off with a sigh, then swept an earnest look around the group. “Look, if you leave right now, there’s a good chance you’ll get in trouble. But.. Changkyun needs you. If you decide to go home to him, I’m not gonna stop you. He needs you, all of you, right now. If the higher-ups don’t recognize that then I’ll take the hit for letting you leave, okay?”

Kihyun’s ears rang as he packed up their stuff. The entire dance room was silent as they all prepared to leave. The only time anyone spoke was when Hyunwoo gave a mindless ‘thank you’ to Dojin and then to their choreographer when he offered to pack up the music stuff, allowing them to leave early.

Dojin drove them back to their apartment, and even as he tried to lighten the mood and assure them that everything would be okay, Kihyun couldn’t stop thinking about how badly they’d messed up this time.

The dorm was silent, as expected, when the group walked through the door, but Jooheon’s ears immediately picked up the sink tap running. For a horrified minute, he thought Changkyun was up and doing the dishes or something, but then manager Hongsik-hyung poked his head around the corner, wearing dishwashing gloves that dripped soapy water onto the floor. He gave the group a soft smile and nodded towards the hallway.

“He’s in your room,” Hongsik said quietly and disappeared back into the kitchen. A second later, the tap turned off.

After kicking off his shoes and placing them neatly next to Hoseok’s on the rack, Jooheon shucked off his jacket and crossed the apartment, his destination being their room.

“What are you doing our dishes for, hyung?” Jooheon heard Kihyun ask their manager tiredly.

“I thought I’d do a few of the dishes for you until you came home to keep him company,” Hongsik explained. Kihyun said something in reply, but as Jooheon walked further down the hallway, the voices grew inaudible.

He knocked gently on the door before pushing it open gently. He immediately saw Changkyun curled up on Minhyuk’s bed, one of the stuffed animals from his own bunk squashed under his arms. He was wearing a new sweatshirt--upon closer inspection Jooheon realized it belonged to Kihyun--and laid half under Minhyuk’s blankets. He appeared to be asleep, but as Jooheon approached the bed and crouched next to him, his tired eyes slid open.

“Hi, Kkukkungie-yah,” Jooheon whispered. Changkyun blinked blearily at him.

“Hi, hyung,” He mumbled back, voice dreadfully hoarse. He cleared his throat. “I.. I’m sorry I left. Had a panic attack.”

Jooheon leaned forward to rest his forehead against Changkyun’s. “I know, aegi. I’m really sorry you had to go through that alone.”

He didn’t bother asking why Changkyun hadn’t told them. He already knew Changkyun would say that he hadn’t wanted to disturb them. Changkyun had the terrible tendency to act like he wasn’t the youngest member until it became obvious he needed help. Granted, they’d managed to lessen that habit quite a bit through almost three years of proving they loved him, and Jooheon was proud of their progress with him, but as so many times before, he knew they had to be patient with him. By nature, Changkyun was selfless and shy and quiet, and that aspect of his personality coupled with his knee-jerk impulse to stay out of his hyung’s way was exactly what put him in the position he’d been in earlier today—unwell, vulnerable and in desperate need of help, but completely alone.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Changkyun continued and Jooheon winced; his voice was shot. “I-I was going to.. I know I should have. But I..”

Jooheon’s brain autofilled the sentence as Changkyun trailed off and even though he knew what the maknae would have said, it still hit Jooheon like a kick to the chest. He knew that there was a chance Changkyun still didn’t trust them enough to ask for help. He didn’t like confronting that particular demon and knew nobody else did either. But sometimes their maknae left them no choice.

“You don’t have to explain yourself,” Jooheon paused to climb into Minhyuk’s bed and situated himself so he was spooning Changkyun on his right side. “But trust me when I tell you this, baby. We love you. And we want you to trust us.”

“I do trust you,” Changkyun said weakly, shifting around anxiously. Jooheon put his hands on Changkyun’s shoulders to ease him back down onto the mattress. “I do. I promise.”

He trailed off again, mouth open like he wanted to say something else, but then he closed his mouth. He swallowed. Jooheon put a gentle hand to Changkyun’s forehead. Warm, but not boiling.

“I don’t even know why I panicked,” Changkyun said, voice so wheezy Jooheon had trouble understanding him for a second. “I.. My chest was hurting and I was going to wait until the song was over to ask you for my inhaler because I hadn’t known where Kihyun-hyung had put it. I was going to tell you. I really was. But then the music got too loud and I..”

“..Had to escape?” Jooheon finished the sentence. Changkyun nodded slowly.

Jooheon understood. Panic disorders were, unfortunately, not uncommon among idols and Jooheon himself wasn’t a stranger to panic attacks. He wasn’t unused to the feeling of needing to flee, even from a situation that wasn’t inherently bad or dangerous. Changkyun’s attacks tended to be a bit more violent than anything Jooheon could remember himself or the others experiencing, but that wasn’t Changkyun’s fault nor was it something he could control. All they, as his hyungs, could do was learn how to help him and become accommodated to his needs. He felt like they’d failed that today. He nuzzled his face into Changkyun’s soft black hair, smelling wonderful and still slightly damp from what Jooheon assumed was a shower.

“I just want to say we’re sorry,” Jooheon mumbled, lips against Changkyun’s hair. “We didn’t do a very good job of taking care of you this week. We’re gonna fix it, okay?”

“It’s my own fault,” Changkyun sniffled. “I.. when I’m sick, I get.. Anxious. I miss you when I’m here alone and it makes me panicky. But I’m also not ready to come back to work.”

“And we’re gonna figure out how to deal with that,” Jooheon said, mind already beginning to whir with possible solutions to the truth Changkyun had just revealed to him. “I promise.”

It wasn’t often they managed to get Changkyun to open up like that and when they did, it was usually just to one hyung who was then tasked with informing the others. He normally preferred being by himself and kept his feelings private. Jooheon could remember exactly two group talks where Changkyun had opened his heart to all of them at once and both of those group talks ended in tears all around the table. They’d learned over time how to read him and his body language, how to get him to talk to them. He generally did better with one-on-one talks, because then the other person could make themselves equally as vulnerable.

Besides, Jooheon could relate somewhat to the bit about separation anxiety. At this point he knew the boys better than he knew himself and was closer to them than he was with his own family. The discomfort he’d felt the last three days knowing Changkyun was sick and home alone was always a constant, always there in the back of his mind. He understood Changkyun’s desire to be around the people he loved when he wasn’t feeling his best.

Changkyun shifted and surprised Jooheon by nuzzling into his chest. Jooheon immediately wrapped his arms around the other, cradling Changkyun’s head close to the crook of his neck.

“I’m sorry,” Changkyun whispered, breath hot against Jooheon’s neck.

“Hm? For what, baby?”

“I.. for this. For not telling you I didn’t feel up to Monsta X-Ray last week. For not telling you I was too anxious to want to be alone. It’s just, you tell me you love me and that I’m your baby and sometimes my brain isn’t convinced.”

“Of course you’re our baby. We’ll tell you that until your brain understands,” Jooheon soothed, running one hand along Changkyun’s arm. “Would you be angry with me if I tried to hide the fact that I’d injured myself from you?”

“I.. no. I wouldn’t be angry. I’d be worried.”

“That’s how we feel when you try to hide things. You’re a good liar, jagi, even if you don’t particularly think so.”

“But you know how to read me.”

“That’s true. But it hurts us more to know you need us, and watch you avoid telling us.”

Changkyun didn’t appear to have a response to this, so Jooheon kept talking.

“I’ll tell you this over and over until you believe it, baby. You’re not a burden to us. It’s okay to need our help, right? We’re a team. A pack. We’ve got each other. If we had to stop practice today to talk you down from a panic attack, that’s not the end of the world. Honestly, we’d stop in a heartbeat to help you out and we wouldn’t start again until we were sure you were all right. You’d do the same for me, hm?”

“Yeah,” Changkyun whimpered. Jooheon felt wetness against his neck before Changkyun’s body shuddered with a suppressed sob, and held Changkyun tighter, squishing the maknae into his body.

“You’re okay, aegi. I’ve got you.”

The maknae cried for a little while. Jooheon let him; he could feel Changkyun’s skin was warmer than he knew it should be, but that would be dealt with after Changkyun was calm again. He held the maknae through his tears, only directing his attention to something else when the door moved and Kihyun peeked into the room through the crack in the door. He turned right on his heels when he registered the situation though, and Jooheon was glad for the older’s consideration for Changkyun’s vulnerability.

“I’m trying,” Changkyun hiccuped after a bit. “I really am.”

“Hm?”

“To be better,” Changkyun continued, “about telling you when something is wrong. I thought I was doing okay.”

“You are, jagi. Of course you are,” Jooheon whispered. “You’ll get there, okay? I know you will.”

“We’re the worst.”

Kihyun remained silent, but he had to agree with Minhyuk’s dejected statement. It seemed nobody else had the heart to disagree either, because the mood in the kitchen was terribly somber. He scrubbed tirelessly at the dishes in the sink, trying to release his frustration with himself without taking it out on anyone else. He’d kicked Hongsik out of the apartment without much protest from the manager, though he’d made his appreciation for the older man known. Hongsik had just smiled and nodded before leaving.

“He was crying when I went to check on him and Joo,” Kihyun spoke up, tone despondent.

“Do you think he knows about the situation on Twitter?” Hyungwon asked, cradling his chin in his hand, elbow propped up on the surface of the island. He’d spent their whole car ride back home scrolling through the social media platform to confirm that Changkyun was, indeed, trending as ‘the idol who got pushed off a boat.’

“If he doesn’t already, he’ll find out soon enough,” Hoseok replied. “It would be unfair to Changkyun for us to try to keep it from him. If he asks, we should tell him outright.”

“What if he doesn’t ask?”

“We have to let him come to us.”

“But he doesn’t come to us, hyung,” Minhyuk bit out, his voice and expression suddenly very uncharacteristically frustrated. “That’s the whole reason behind what happened today. It’s not ‘when will he come to us’, it’s ‘will he come to us at all?’ For God’s sake, hyung, he left the dance studio today pale and holding his chest and sat in the bathroom alone for thirty minutes after having a panic attack. He didn’t tell us anything, he didn’t ask for help, he just left and we watched him go.”

Hosseok didn’t seem to have an answer to that. He stared absently at the floor, face reddening with oncoming tears.

“I don’t disagree, but instead of feeling sorry about it we need to think about how to do better. Changkyun deserves more than that.” Hyunwoo said softly. Despite himself, Kihyun felt a sad smile creep onto his face. That was the Hyunwoo he knew.

“Hyung is right.” Hyungwon said. “We can try to talk to him about it, but.. We might have to come up with something else.”

“I don’t know what else to do to prove to him that we love him,” Minhyuk whispered, his exasperation having been replaced with sadness in a flash.

“I think this situation is more complex than that,” Kihyun piped up. “I mean.. I know he knows. I hope he knows that we love him. We’d never let him forget. But we know that his impulse is to escape when his thoughts trick him into thinking he’s a burden on us. We have to learn to combat that, and he does too. If it takes a few more trips to our therapist, or he needs to spend a little bit of time on anxiety medication, then so be it. But we have to remember that this isn’t his fault.”

“Yeah, and I think just being able to read him isn’t going to cut it anymore,” Hyungwon added. “At this point, we can all tell when something’s wrong and we know he doesn’t like it when we approach him directly but honestly, if he lets himself get this bad because he won’t come to us, then we need to go to him. What happened today can’t happen again, hyungs. We can’t let him do this to himself anymore.”

Kihyun knew Hyungwon was right. Respecting Changkyun’s wishes to let him come to them only worked if Changkyun would actually do that. All Kihyun wanted to do was help the baby. He knew Changkyun still struggled with his place in the group and feeling like he had to prove he was worthy of being in the group. Kihyun wanted to help the maknae learn that he was loved by them, despite how their relationship had started out. No Mercy had taken a lot out of all of them, but they all knew their actions and words had been a little traumatic for the maknae. Now, they were approaching their third anniversary, and they’d all accepted that it had happened and that they’d moved on. That didn’t stop him from wishing he’d been kinder. He just wanted to save the maknae from himself.

The next morning, Hyunwoo woke up to a text from Hongsik explaining that he’d cleared their schedules for the morning but that they had dance practice in the afternoon, before dinner. When asked why, Hongsik replied, ‘You’re a family, and you need to be there for each other. Just take the morning off.’

Hyunwoo didn’t know what to say other than ‘thank you.’

Kihyun came into the room almost as if on cue, and whispered, “Hyung, it’s time to get up.”

“We have the morning off,” Hyunwoo mumbled, still a little sleepy. “Practice at two.”

“Oh, really? I guess I should tell Minhyuk and Jooheon to go back to bed, then,” Kihyun said, more to himself than Hyunwoo, and vanished again. Across the room, Hoseok rustled awake as Hyunwoo sat up, rubbing his eyes.

“No practice? What?” Hoseok asked, poking his head out from under the covers. Hyunwoo smiled affectionately at his hair, spiky and fluffed by sleep.

“We have the morning off. We have dance practice at two, and vocals at four.” Hyunwoo clarified.

“Nice,” Hoseok gave a groggy smile, and then flopped back in bed.

Hyunwoo and Kihyun were similar in that once they were awake, it wasn’t easy for them to fall back asleep, so Hyunwoo wasn’t particularly surprised to see Kihyun in the kitchen when he wandered out of the bedroom. Kihyun greeted him tiredly.

“How did you sleep, hyung?”

“Fine.” Hyunwoo said around a yawn. “How about you? Any issues with Kyunnie?”

To his relief, Kihyun shook his head. “He slept in Jooheon’s bed with him and as far as I’m concerned he slept through the night. I hope he’s hungry when he wakes up.”

Hyunwoo hoped so, too. He and Kihyun enjoyed each other’s company for a little bit, Kihyun working his way around the kitchen and Hyunwoo helping out whenever asked. Eventually they were joined by Hoseok and then Minhyuk, each sporting their own messy bedheads and puffy faces. The clock read 10:03 am when Changkyun wandered into the kitchen, alone, but wearing a sweatshirt that Hyunwoo guessed belonged to Kihyun, given by the smile that split his face when his gaze landed on the maknae.

“Good morning, Changkyunie,” Minhyuk cooed.

“Good morning,” He mumbled back, sliding into the barstool next to Minhyuk. Minhyuk started to stroke his hair affectionately.

“How are you?”

“I’m hungry,” He said. Hyunwoo shared a surprised glance with Hoseok.

“Good,” Kihyun smiled again, and Hyunwoo was able to detect hints of relief in the lines of his face. “Hyung and I made a lot. Have all you want.”

Changkyun brightened as Kihyun gave him a plate and motioned towards the banchan he and Hyunwoo had put together. They had made a lot of food—a breakfast banchan with rice and seasoned vegetables and sides of bread and coffee. It wasn’t often that Kihyun was able to cook like this for the members and Hyunwoo knew he enjoyed it.

Hyunwoo laughed when Minhyuk and Hoseok turned matching puppy eyes to Kihyun.

“Yeah, you two can have some,” Kihyun pretended to admonish, but Hyunwoo heard the fondness in his tone.

“Wait, I thought you were making juk for him?” Jooheon’s voice had everyone turning around to look at him, and he was meandering towards the kitchen with sleepy eyes, and a barely-awake Hyungwon was following him.

“We don’t have any practice or anything until later today,” Kihyun said. “I’ll make some later, before we leave.”

“Aish, and here I was panicking because I thought we were late,” Hyungwon grumbled. He moved to stand behind the maknae and rested his chin on Changkyun’s head. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m good,” Changkyun said, then stuffed some rice into his mouth. Hyunwoo was really glad to see the return of his appetite. He hadn’t eaten a lot throughout the week, claiming he wasn’t hungry most of the time—which, really, was probably true, considering he was recovering from a serious illness—and Hyunwoo was more than a little relieved to see him eat more.

The morning flew by, to Hyunwoo’s disappointment, and eventually they had to leave the maknae at home when Hongsik came to get them. Though Changkyun seemed a little nervous to be left at home, Hyunwoo recognized he was trying to be brave, and he couldn’t resist kissing the maknae’s forehead before heading out the door.

Later in the day, their manager announced they had to start preparations for their comeback, scheduled for March of 2018, after the upcoming winter Olympics. While Hyunwoo wasn’t particularly surprised by the news, he was shocked to learn that the basic idea and chorus for the title track for their next album had been penned by Changkyun.

“Remember when he told us he worked a little bit on a song over the week?” Jooheon said proudly, in response to Minhyuk’s wide-eyed glance. “I told him I’d turn it into something we can use. And he came up with some great stuff.”

“What’s the track called?” Kihyun asked, sounding amazed.

“Jealousy,” Jooheon grinned.

“That’s right, boys,” Hongsik said proudly. “Time to get ready for The Connect.”

Changkyun rejoined them for schedules the very next Monday after two more full days of rest and to Hyunwoo’s pleasant surprise, Changkyun eased himself back into practice and didn’t rush full-throttle into learning the dance just because he was a little bit behind. He took breaks when breathing got harder for him and he drank lots of water, and while his voice wasn’t quite the way it was before he’d gotten sick, he paced himself well, and Hyunwoo was really, really proud of him.

Later, when they were alone in the living room, simply enjoying each other’s company, Hyunwoo brought it up. Changkyun’s ears turned adorably red.

“I’ve just decided I want to take better care of myself,” He said shyly. “If not for me, then for you.”

Hyunwoo smiled and Changkyun returned it. Hyunwoo wasn’t a man of many words, and frankly, neither was Changkyun. With his arm tossed around the maknae’s shoulders as they relaxed on the sofa, they were content to lay there together, a drama playing on the television.

“You know,” Hyunwoo murmured, “I’m proud of you.”

“Stop it, hyung,” Changkyun pouted without any real bite, his neck and ears red. He leaned on Hyunwoo’s shoulder despite his words.

Changkyun was precious to them, and Monsta X wasn’t complete without him. Sometimes, he forgot that. It was a good thing he had such caring hyungs to remind him when he needed it.