"Stable Room" Xiumin/Kai

Xiumin and Luhan practically staggered off their horses after riding up to the stable yard late in the night, only one torch light blazing. It cast long shadows across the mud, and Xiumin hollered loudly when his boots hit the ground with a squelch. Beside him, Luhan echoed similar disgust.

“This place is a pig sty, Xiumin! Say, what are you even paying your servants for?”

“Shhhhhhhhhh, not so loud!” Xiumin yelled theatrically. “You'll wake the stable boy!”

Luhan paused dramatically, his head cocked to one side, mouth hanging open. “But... isn't that the point?” 

Xiumin stopped to think about, and then he nodded. “Hey, what do you know. You're right!”

“And we're drunk! Come on, I need a place to crash for the night.” Luhan started trudging off through the mud, not even caring that his horse was still unattended. 

Xiumin hollered some more, waiting for the kid to come out and take the reins so he could let go, never mind the fact that he was using the horse as leverage to remain standing. His legs felt like jelly, his head floated in the clouds. He giggled randomly, and then started yelling again when a figure actually emerged from the tiny quarters next to the stables, one confused and terribly sleepy looking young man who dashed forward at the sight of his young master stumbling about.

“Took you long enough!” Xiumin complained as he threw the reins, took one step and promptly tumbled into the muck. He squirmed when the man leaned over to pick him up, tossing off the help indignantly and huffed as he took himself off to the mansion to pass out somewhere.

--

Come morning, however, Xiumin felt miserable. A headache that was unaffected by any drink or food he put in his mouth, his arms were limp, his knee bruised from some kind of rock he must have fallen down onto the night before. As soon as he was able, he determined to blame the stable boy for not being fast enough. That seemed like a logical course of action. Servants were there to serve, and it wouldn't do to keep lazy workers around the estate, especially if they'd happened to witness the young master's embarrassing fails. Xiumin tried to keep his drunken escapades a secret from his father, and likewise that his partner in crime was always Luhan. No one in his family approved of the other man's flighty lifestyle and deemed him quite inappropriate company for the heir to the estate, but Xiumin never bothered with their opinions. At least not to their faces. And that was why he decided to strike some fear into the stable boy. If the kid acted haughty, he would fire him on the spot for... some reason. He was sure he could find one. And if the boy didn't seem like the type to keep his mouth shut, well then... Xiumin would find a reason to make him. 

Rubbing a hand to his temples, which still ached, Xiumin marched around the horse pen. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his riding jacket as he approached the boy's quarters, kicked at the door once with the toe of his boot and when no one answered, he rapped sharply on the door with his fist. 

He heard a feeble and panicked, “Yes!? Coming!” but Xiumin was done waiting. He opened the door on his own and went right in, oblivious to the sudden gasp from the stable boy who'd been so slow the night before, and was still being slow right now. Xiumin sighed loudly in disdain as the boy - who'd still been in his bed long after the risen sun - scrambled out of bed in his just his trousers, no shoes and not shirt as of yet.

“Still sleeping? I see?” asked Xiumin with a cheeky little laugh. 

“I... I'm sorry, my lord! I...” He coughed just as Xiumin scoffed loudly.

“'My lord?' Please, that's what they call my father. Why are you still in bed? Don't you know there's work to be done? Slow as dirt in the mud, that's what you are. What's your name anyways?”

“K-Kai,” said the boy, before he covered his mouth with the crook of his elbow and coughed once more.

The smirk on Xiumin's face fell a bit when he realized the boy, Kai, actually didn't look very well. He took a step back just in case it was contagious. Meanwhile Kai coughed and coughed while searching for his shirt which was at the foot of the bed, and when he finally did come up for air and tried to put it on, he sneezed loudly instead, using his shirt as a rag.

Xiumin grimaced, and Kai looked embarrassed. He quickly turned his back and used the shirt to wipe his face and then, because he evidently didn't want to put it on dirty, he just stood there. Xiumin couldn't help noticing how toned were the muscles along his back, damp slightly from sweat. The air in the room was musty and there were no windows to even vent the place. Kai had probably been lying in his bed all night trying to sleep and be sick, and Xiumin felt a twinge of pity as he remembered last night. 

“You're sick?” he asked, even though the answer was obvious. Xiumin faltered because he had no idea what to do anymore. Sick people were not his forte. Not even close. 

“Just a cold, my lo- uhm, sir.”

Xiumin put on a stern face, even sterner than he meant to be. “The horses need attention. Are you able to do your job or not?”

Kai looked like a whipped puppy the longer he stared at him, hovering between indecision and his obvious desire to just pass right out on his bed again. Also, perhaps Xiumin had been hanging out with Luhan too much because compared to his friend's skinny frame, Kai looked kind of robust, even in his weakened state. 

“I- I can do it. Please, forgive my late morning. It won't happen again.” He actually gnawed his lower lip in worry, and every bit of Xiumin's resolve was lost.

“Do what you can. I'll have the house send down someone else to help you for today only.” He found something else to look at in the tiny room, because the sight of Jongin was actually a little distracting. 

“What? Oh, please, no you don't have to!” Kai instantly cried, but Xiumin brushed him off with a wave of his hand, suddenly embarrassed at how he felt like blushing himself. The shirt Kai was holding onto slipped to the ground and he startled like it was a bomb going off and just a piece of fabric hitting the cold dirt floor. Kai seemed to panic before his eyes, apparently frozen by Xiumin's look of disgust. He probably didn't realize it wasn't because Xiumin was sickened by the stable boy's carelessness, and more to do with his own sense of regret.

“It's no problem,” he said lightly, snapping his head away from the sight of Kai bending over to retrieve the article of clothing. “Just... do me a favor, will you?”

“What?” Kai lurched back upright. “I mean, yes!?” 

Xiumin was already backing out of the room. “Just... don't mention to anyone that I came home drunk last night, please?” Instead of demanding the favor, Xiumin's voice shook, even to his own ears sounding less defensive and more... pleading. “I'll send someone to help you. I hope... you get better soon.”

And then he abandoned the room before the sight of Kai shirtless could confuse him any further.

**Drabble included originally as an unfinished fic within my story, 'Write Me Into Fiction, Hyung'