The remainder of that day went pretty much exactly as I had expected. However, when I woke up the next morning, I actually felt like I was dying. As consciousness was returning to me, I was keenly aware of how heavy my head felt. With a groan I squeezed my eyes shut, reaching up to cover my face. Suddenly I felt a hand fall on my wrist, the touch gentle and comforting. Cracking open one eye and peeking between my fingers, I caught sight of Taehyung’s intense, narrow eyes peering at me. Moving my hands, I blinked a few times to clear my vision. Taehyung was crouching at my bedside, his face only visible from the nose up. Even with just half his face, his eyes were sufficiently expressive to convey his worry. Full Brows raised and knit together, his dark eyes rapidly flicked over my face. I forced a weak smile as I placed a hand over his, “Hey Taehyung,” I managed to speak, my voice weak and distinctly frog-like. Regardless, this seemed to please him, his face relaxing.

“Ah, she’s finally awake,” Hobie’s voice came from nearby, and I struggled to sit up. “Easy, now,” he appeared beside Taehyung, and hand suddenly gripping my shoulder, “Kookie told us you had your vaccines yesterday.”

I groaned again as I managed to right myself, leaning against the wall as I sat on my cot, “I feel like my brain has been replaced by cotton balls,” I grumbled, rubbing at my face again.

Hobie laughed, his incredibly wide smile accentuated by the expression, “An oddly specific description, but I know how you feel.” His grin still held a touch of concern. I glanced between him and Taehyung, who had also stood up from beside my cot. “I hate to leave you like this, but TaeTae and I need to go make rounds. He refused to leave until he saw you alive and awake,” he spoke with a chuckle on his voice, and I myself couldn’t help but smile just a little. “Jin and Jungkook are at the MedLab, and Namjoon has another date with the government today, but you have Yoongi here,” he explained.

“I’ll be fine,” I waved a hand at the pair, “Go on ahead.” Reluctantly, Hobie pulled Taehyung away from my bedside, the pair giving me sad little waves as they left through the whiny front door.

“I swear I’m going to have to pull that door off its hinges,” Yoongi’s low mumble carried through the now otherwise empty room. I looked over to his cot, where he was laying on his front, writing furiously in his little tan notebook. He paused, looking up at the wall in front of him, “Too bad Jimin’s not around, he’d help me no problem.”

I raised my eyebrows at him. Despite the discomfort, I felt compelled to speak, “That’s the first mention of Jimin’s name that wasn’t like Voldemort from Harry Potter.” The analogy might have been a bit extreme, but it was true- every time the missing Jimin was mentioned, it was like walking on glass eggshells.

Yoongi snorted, glancing at me from over his shoulder, “Well, Jungkook thinks he’s dead, Namjoon thinks he’s being tortured in a dungeon somewhere, so,” he didn’t bother to continue, opting instead to return his attention to his little notebook. The room settled into a comfortable silence for a while, and I allowed myself to just rest against the cool concrete, which for once felt nice against my feverish back. My eyes fell closed as I focused on my breathing, which felt like I was trying to inhale against a wet cloth. What had they done to me? Judging by how Jungkook had talked about it, this was normal and expected with no cause for concern, but as the one who felt like I was drowning in my own bodily fluids, I couldn’t help but feel just a touch of worry. “You’re not contagious, you know,” Yoongi’s voice called out again, and when I looked to him, it was clear he had been watching me for a little while. He gave a little nod towards the space next to him, presumably as an invitation.

I considered the proposition for a moment, meeting his even gaze for a long moment from over his shoulder. With a groan, I hauled myself out of my bed, my head pounding. “You’re one lazy er to make me move,” I grumbled as I shuffled down the line to the spot on the floor next to his cot. The journey had seemed much longer than it actually had been, and I immediately regretted my decision to listen to Yoongi in the first place.

As I settled on the ground, I caught sight of his gummy smirk; his normally downturned eyes squinted into mere crescents from the smug expression. “You’re right, I am,” he answered nonchalantly, clearly unconcerned with my well-being.

I sighed, letting my head rest on the frame of his cot once I had settled on the cool concrete floor, glancing at the notebook still in his hand. “Poetry, huh?”

“It’s not technically a lie,” he pointed out, his eyes still fixed on the pages of the book as he continued to write, still laying on his front, propped up on his elbows. “And don’t bother asking me to read them to you.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” I challenged, letting my eyes close, waiting for the pounding sensation in my head to die down. “Just because you were famous doesn’t mean I would actually like your music.”

“You would,” he countered quickly. I couldn’t help but smile a little to myself. Yoongi was always confident. If nothing else, it was refreshing. “Does knowing about BTS change anything for you, anyway?”

It was a question I had asked myself the night before, with an easy answer. “No,” I replied, eyes still closed. I took a deep breath, smirking. “Pretty much all I got from it was seeing what Jimin looks like and what the rest of you look like with way too much eye makeup on.”

I heard him laugh, low and quiet, “Hey!”

“Pop stars,” I grumbled.

“Hip-hop,” he corrected indignantly, “And we were going for angsty concepts!”

“Bleach blonde in a military uniform? Pretty sure that’s not in regulations,” I continued, unabated, ignoring his continued interruptions. “What do you have to say for yourself?” Cracking one eye open, I peered at him, caught off guard by the revelation that he was looking directly at me, no longer writing in his little book. His face was alarmingly close to mine, with a smug little smile on his pale face, accented by his dark eyes, nearly obscured by his unkempt, black hair. I turned slightly to face him better, both eyes open.

With a dull thud, he snapped his notebook shut, eyes fixated on mine. There was a tense silence before he finally gave me a slow wink, bit his lower lip, and then spoke in an even lower register than normal. I found myself totally drawn to him in that moment, but then he said only one word, “Swag.” The right side of his mouth pulled up into a lopsided smirk.

The noise that erupted from me was neither graceful nor ladylike- some awkward combination of a snort, scoff, and a laugh. It sent me into a fit of coughs. “Seriously?” I managed to choke out between gasps.

“Yah, don’t hurt yourself,” he was laughing at me, but I saw his smile fade a little in concern.

I managed to catch my breath, “Who even says that?” I finally was able to speak again, looking him in the eye again. He looked pleased, and I was exceedingly glad to see he was enjoying the banter.

“I do,” he said matter-of-factly, looking quite proud of himself. “I am Min Suga, BTS’ master of swag.”

Covering my mouth to cover my giggles, I shook my head. Once composed, I managed to speak again, “That’ll be the first thing I Google if I ever get out of here.”

“When,” his voice was suddenly serious, no trace of his grin left. Yoongi’s voice dropped again when he spoke, “When you get out of here.”

We looked at each other for a long, heavy moment, the poignancy of his words hanging in the air. I mustered a weak smile for the gesture, “Yoongi,” I started meekly. I hadn’t thought him the overly optimistic type.

He held up a single finger, interrupting my objection, “Don’t Yoongi, me, Zoey.” Falling quiet for a moment, he searched my face, his own eyes narrowing slightly. “Why didn’t you ever get US citizenship?”

I blinked once, totally thrown off by the question. “Uh, well, my parents let me decide when I was a teenager. Despite being totally white, both of my parents encouraged me to keep up my Korean language fluency, so I thought I might go to colle