Chapter 1: The Sick Hyung Who Keeps Ignoring Youngjae (Ignored by the Sick Hyung).

"Great! I'm sick" - Jaebum thought as he almost coughed his lungs out.

"Great timing, too" - he thought to himself as he continued to cough. His coughs were loud and painful. With each cough Jaebum felt disgusting viruses coming out of his mouth and infecting the whole room Jaebum was in. On top of that coughing really hurt his throat, one of Jaebum’s main money makers.

Got7 was currently in the middle of promoting their first Christmas album plus the promotions for their mini album "MAD" weren't exactly finished either. Either way, their schedule was packed and catching a virus was not the best thing for Jaebum – the leader and main vocalist of Got7, or any of the other members.

"Jaebum, are you okay?" - Mark asked, concerned about his leader's health.

"I'll be fine" - Jaebum replied shortly after a long and painful cough.

Jaebum however didn't look fine. He looked like he was straight out of hell, to be specific. Dark circles under his swollen eyes, red and runny nose, and messy hair along with painful sounding non-stop coughs. Jaebum’s coughs were the type that made you want to drink several cough syrups after hearing it.

Even though Mark wanted to say "Get some rest, buddy" like a normal person would to his normal friend, he couldn't. They were idols after all. They couldn't just leave everything and 'rest for a few days until they felt better'. The thought was so ridiculous it made Mark laugh at himself for even thinking about it.

"I'll ask manager hyung for some pills" - Mark suggested. He didn't know what else to say or do. Frankly, what else can you do? Mark wasn’t a doctor; he couldn’t check Jaebum’s heart rate and immediately know what was wrong with him. Mark wasn’t a genie; he couldn’t say: ‘rub the bottle’ and then grant Jaebum’s wish to be fine and healthy in a matter of seconds. Mark couldn’t even drive Jaebum to a goddamn hospital because his driving license was past the expiration date.

Jaebum shook his head and tried to say something along the lines of "I'm okay" but was interrupted by his loud coughs.

"Okay then. You go sit there, and I'll help by at least waking Youngjae up." - Mark tried again, feeling useless and crappy for not being able to help his friend with anything else.

Jaebum wanted to refuse, but soon enough agreed because: 1) he was ready to black out at any given moment as his sickness up all of his energy and made him very weak and 2) by entering Youngjae’s room and waking him up he might give the damn virus to Youngjae, which would make Youngjae sound like a dying whale, as well.

What would happen to Got7's image if both of their main vocals started to sound like a horse that was giving birth to a hedgehog? A disaster, that’s what. Jaebum could just see the news article about Jaebum and Youngjae saying stuff like: ‘JYPE’s new boy band cannot sing’ or ‘JYPE’s new boy band is just a group untalented pretty looking boys’ or maybe even ‘JYPE’s new boy band is ’.

Youngjae was woken up by Mark, and not Jaebum, which confused him so much that Youngjae almost thought he was dreaming and went back to sleep. Youngjae wasn’t complaining, though. Honestly, Youngjae preferred Mark's method of waking a person up because he was gentle and humane while doing so. Jaebum's method included a lot shaking, punching, kicking and screaming. But still Youngjae was a bit disappointed to see Mark's face and not Jaebum's sassy, weird face he had gotten so used to.

"Hyung, did something happen to Jaebum hyung? Why are you waking me up?" - Youngjae asked still not completely awake.

"Jaebum's sick." - Mark said and left the room.

Hearing the news about Jaebum’s sickness got Youngjae all worried about him. Of course he would be worried. Jaebum was the leader and the main vocalist. Jaebum being sick was a big deal, big enough to worry at least. Also when sick, Jaebum instantly became meaner and pickier. And as his roommate, Youngjae had to endure Jaebum’s bipolar behavior as a sick person.

Plus Youngjae had this thing for Jaebum that he couldn't exactly explain. Youngjae's speculation was that he liked Jaebum, but maybe it was just the admiration for the leader for being such a good leader. Nobody knew, including Youngjae himself.

**

Almost a whole week passed by since Jaebum started to violently cough. Jaebum coughing left and right really annoyed the other members, but there was nothing they could do about it. Sickness was not something that could be easily controlled, and it wasn't even Jaebum's fault that he was coughing non-stop all the damn time.

But for some unknown reason, it especially disturbed Youngjae. Maybe it was the fact that they shared a room and he had to hear the unpleasant sound twenty four, seven or the fact that Jaebum's illness affected his singing and dancing skills and caused Jaebum's frequent mood swings. Whatever it was, it really got on Youngjae's nerves, which was the reason why they hadn't been interacting much lately or being their usual touchy selves. Youngjae was annoyed at Jaebum for coughing and Jaebum didn't want Youngjae, the only remaining main vocalist to catch his agonizing cold.

It was the day before they had to go to Hong Kong for the M-net Asian Music Awards. Their schedule for that day was especially packed. Plus they had to rehearse their MAMA set a few times before they left.

After giving the boring and typical interviews and performing one song over and over, Got7 was finally done with everything for the day except for the dance rehearsal for the upcoming huge music award show.

"Okay, guys, this is the last rehearsal before the music award, so let's all concentrate and perfect the moves. You can’t and mustn’t mess this up" – Got7’s choreographer hyung said.

Everything was going great, expect Jaebum kept getting things wrong and ing up the whole choreography, mainly because of his sickness. Normally, he was not the one to mess up; even if the world was ending at any given minute, he'd still finish the dance and the song. He was a perfectionist when it came to performing. But his illness was getting the best of him. That was for sure.

Attempt number 1924891 of trying to rehearse "If You Do" without anyone (Jaebum, to be specific) messing up ended with a fail. Jaebum fell as he was changing places with Youngjae, causing the whole song to start over.

"" - Jaebum muttered under his breath, getting into the starting position.

"Hyung, it is fine" - Yugyeom patted the leader’s back and smiled. Jaebum tried to smile back but he was too exhausted that his mouth muscles just refused to do their job.

About 5 hours Got7 was finally free to go as their choreographer decided to give up making the performance exactly perfect. It seemed that he in the end realized that Jaebum’s sickness wouldn’t let Got7 have a flawless dance practice at least once.

"I really hope ton of practicing pays off in the end" - Jackson mumbled arriving at the dorm.

"It will" - Jinyoung encouraged, or at least did his best to try and encourage him.

"Hope so" - Jackson sighed and entered his room to peacefully fall asleep on his bed he hasn’t lied on in a long time.

Youngjae and Jaebum also entered their room, quickly falling onto their beds.

"I am so exhausted. I don't even know if I'll be able to get up tomorrow morning. I guess I can sleep on the plane tomorrow, though. But still even then, it's not enough sleep. Ugh, why do they do this to us?"  - Youngjae kept on rambling about stuff that didn’t exactly matter that much. And with each word Youngjae dropped, Jaebum's head hurt. It really hurt.

"Youngjae, can you shut the up for a second, please? I'm sick and my head is about to explode!" - Jaebum yelled, making his headache stronger. Frustrated and sick, his hand automatically went through his hair.

"Please" - Jaebum said again, a bit softer this time.

Jaebum yelling at him had stumped Youngjae. In fact, it had shocked him so much that he froze in place, not knowing what to do, or what to reply. He didn't know what to do. How do you react in these situations? Do you apologize? Do you just exit the room? Do you yell back? What exactly do you do?

Youngjae would've just apologized and maybe left the room so that Jaebum could be alone if it was any other random day. But today was long and exhausting for everyone. Their practice lasted longer than it usually would; Got7 also had 834995 interviews at 63947 different locations along with 3934579 performances. So Youngjae was beyond tired and sleepy, which made him cranky and his roommate yelling at him for a reason made him really angry.

"You're sick, I get it. But you can't just yell at people because you're sick and annoyed! Jackson and Mark hyung are sick too! But you don't see them going up to people and yelling at them for no reason! , what if I don't want to shut the up? Huh? My head hurts and my body is really ing sore, just because you kept messing up at the practice earlier!" - Youngjae yelled back.

"What did you say?" - Jaebum was about to yell back and start a ‘war’ between himself and Youngjae.

"You know what, I can't even argue with you. Just leave me alone." – Jaebum seemed to rethink his decision and just let Youngjae slide as he was too worn out to have a pointless fight with Youngjae.

Frankly, Youngjae was expecting an explosion of negative emotions because: 1) he talked to Jaebum informally and 2) he cussed at him, which was something Youngjae has never done before and truthfully he would've never done it, if it wasn't for today. Jaebum not spitting back cusses and not screaming at him made, for some reason, Youngjae even angrier.

"Fine, I will." - Youngjae replied and left their shared room to spend the night on the living room couch.

***

The next morning was awkward, for Youngjae at least. Fighting and yelling at each other wasn't typical for Jaebum and Youngjae, mainly because they got along surprisingly well and were almost like brothers. Plus the rest of Got7 could always sense this unearthly connection between the two that wasn't standard for 'just friends'. They were always quite touchy and flirty with each other. And overall the two of them were extremely close not just as roommates but in general.

Youngjae was kind of expecting Jaebum to apologize to him for yelling at him the previous night and Youngjae was also ready to say sorry and make up. Youngjae had even rehearsed how he would say ‘sorry’ to Jaebum so that he could look prideful but apologetic. But Jaebum didn't pay attention to him all morning, as if he was ignoring the younger one.

But Youngjae didn’t want to think negative thoughts and ruin his mood. So he just assumed that Jaebum didn’t get enough sleep and that Jaebum wasn’t ignoring him. However everything became very clear when Got7 arrived at the airport to leave for Hong Kong. It became way too obvious that Jaebum was definitely ignoring Youngjae.

"So that's how it is." - Youngjae bitterly thought to himself while looking, well more like glaring at Jaebum, the guy dared to scream at him and then later on allowed himself to ignore Youngjae instead of apologizing and telling him how wrong it was for Jaebum to scream at Youngjae.

"Honestly, what the heck is your problem, hyung?" - Youngjae said out loud. Youngjae would’ve even thrown some cuss words if they weren’t in a public place and load of fans were surrounding them. But Jaebum didn't hear Youngjae’s bitter question as music was blasting through his pair of headphones.

Youngjae didn’t like that he was the one being ignored when it was actually Jaebum’s fault. Youngjae didn’t like that Jaebum thought he was rightful to just treat Youngjae the way he was treating him; which was why Youngjae decided to give him a silent treatment as well.

Youngjae purposely walked in another direction, making it very clear that he wasn’t going to apologize either. Nonetheless he wasn’t sure Jaebum knew that.

“It shouldn’t matter if he noticed or not, Youngjae. Just keep on ignoring him.” – Youngjae was trying his best to resist the urge to just go up to his hyung and hug him. Youngjae couldn’t stand Jaebum being upset with him but Youngjae knew that he should just at least for an hour pretend that Jaebum didn’t exist.

But no matter how much Youngjae wanted to ignore him and not give a damn about his argument with Jaebum, he couldn't. Youngjae just had to resolve the problem between him and Jaebum and he had to resolve it quickly. So Youngjae figured he should at least text Jaebum since Jaebum wasn’t exactly acknowledging Youngjae’s existence for Youngjae to talk to him in person.

"Leader-nim..." - Youngjae's text read, - "Why are you ignoring me?"

No response. Not even a ‘Piss off, Youngjae, you're annoying me’.

"Please, reply, Jaebum hyung."

"Jaebum hyung, please, I can't stand this tension between us anymore" - Youngjae tried again.

"I sound so desperate, though" - Youngjae's pride tried to take matters into its hands, but Youngjae didn't let it. His friendship/relationship with Jaebum was more important and precious than his pride. Plus Youngjae didn’t exactly have any left pride to treasure.

"Please respond." - Youngjae texted him once more. Youngjae was tired. Arguing with Jaebum really caused him to lose a lot of energy. Youngjae desperately wanted to sit somewhere but couldn’t find a chair so he just squatted down in the nearest corner, while leaning against a glass door that just happened to be there.

"Jaebum hyung" - Jaebum stared at the text message along with ten more messages from no one other than Youngjae.

It was no lie when Youngjae said that Jaebum was ignoring him. Jaebum was indeed doing so. Only he didn't know why. To be more precise, Jaebum did know why he was ignoring his roommate. Jaebum was doing it because of their childish argument earlier. It wasn't normal for Youngjae to yell at people like that, especially at Jaebum. Youngjae was a very positive and calm person, so after hearing Youngjae’s voice raise with his anger, Jaebum got really shocked. He wasn't even mad, he was just shocked. Plus for some reason Jaebum felt as if Youngjae had damaged his pride by yelling at him like that. So Jaebum just decided to ignore his roommate. But he just didn’t want to admit it.

"Please, Jaebum oppa..." - another text message from Youngjae disturbed Jaebum’s phone.

"What" - Jaebum replied bitterly, trying to find a place to rest his legs on but couldn’t as all of the seats on the chair next to him were taken by Bambam, Jackson and Jinyoung. So Jaebum just tried to adjust while finding a small corner next to the chair and squatted down, leaning against the wall.

"Can we talk about the reason why you're ignoring me?" - The next text from his fellow main vocalist read.

"I'm not." - Jaebum sharply replied back.

"You are and you know it. In fact everyone knows it." - Youngjae wrote back in a matter of seconds.

"I'm not" - Jaebum answered and ended the conversation ignoring Youngjae's following desperate messages.

After 7 texts Youngjae finally decided to top in order to let Jaebum cool off the steam from the anger Youngjae probably caused from over-texting him.

“It is what it is” – Youngjae calmed himself down, hoping for a quick recovery of their close friendship.

As soon as they got on the plane, every member fell asleep making it easy for the two to ignore each other successfully.

"Youngjae hyung, wake up, we're almost here" - Bambam gently woke Youngjae up after floating above the clouds for a couple of hours.

"Cool" - Youngjae muttered and fastened his seat belt, getting ready to land safely.

Immediately after landing Got7 saw that a camera crew was waiting for them to film a small ‘arriving in Hong Kong’ segment for the upcoming MAMA.

As the filming started, Jaebum carried on ignoring poor Youngjae, where as Youngjae tried to gain the leader's attention as best as he could. But even when Youngjae kept making several jokes, Jaebum didn't even twitch a single muscle.

"What is wrong with him" - Youngjae thought to himself as they left the airport and got on the van that would carry Got7 to their hotel.

Because of the angel by the name Jinyoung, Jaebum was seated next to Youngjae, giving the younger one the opportunity to fix whatever was happening between the two.

"Jaebum hyung" - Youngjae said softly. Jaebum didn't hear him because he still had his headphones on.

"Hyung" - Youngjae whined taking the leader’s headphones off his ears.

"What?" - Jaebum sounded annoyed just like anyone who had their earphones taken away against their will.

"Can we please talk about it? Whatever it is?" - Youngjae pleaded. Jaebum stayed silent.

"Why are you mad at me? To be honest, you're the one who yelled at me first" - Youngjae confessed, making the air between them even heavier.

"You're the one who was being annoying" - Jaebum replied, bitter that Youngjae was actually making a very solid point.

"What? I... Okay, okay, I admit it. I was being a little annoying" - Youngjae gave in, which didn't surprise Jaebum. Youngjae was the type of person to admit being wrong even when he is obviously right if it only meant fixing the problem. Youngjae’s willingness to abandon his pride to fix the bigger problem made his donsaengs really respect him and his hyungs really appreciate and like him. But Jaebum didn't want Youngjae’s generous and way too kind personality right now. Jaebum just wasn't in the mood to be grateful for Youngjae’s angelic mentality.

"Yeah, you were" - Jaebum replied sharply and put his headphones back, that he rudely snatched away from Youngjae.

"For Goodness' sake, hyung" - Youngjae said under his breath, closing his eyes and trying to think of something that would soften Jaebum’s attitude.

**

The 7 of them and the staff all finally arrived at the hotel they were staying at.

"Okay, so let’s settle the ‘roommates’ problem" - their manager said looking at the boys.

“Should we just go with the order we have back at home?” – Got7’s manager suggested, which made Jinyoung frown until he had ugly looking wrinkles all over his face.

“I want to room with Jinyoung. And Jackson will room with Bambam.” – Mark quickly assigned the members their roommates being the oldest in the band. Due to all of them being worn out from the flight no one cared to protest.

"And I’ll share a room with manager hyung” – Yugyeom quickly said, hugging his manager.

“Okay, then Youngjae and Jaebum are going to share a room like they always do" – the manager’s announcement caused Jaebum to frown. The last thing he needed was Youngjae as a roommate. But since he couldn’t really do anything about it, Jaebum just decided to clench his teeth and get through the 2 short days Got7 was going to spend in Hong Kong.

"Okay, kids, rest well and we have the MAMA nominees’ interview tomorrow really early in the morning. After that we have a dress rehearsal. Basically we’re going to be all over the place tomorrow so seriously try to sleep as much as you can. Now get to your rooms" - the manager said and handed them their room keys.

Youngjae and Jaebum silently entered their shared hotel room.

"I'll take the bed on the left." - Youngjae said and put his bag down on his bed, while taking off his coat and hat.

Although Jaebum heard him, he acted as if he didn't. As a matter of a fact he's been doing that ever since 'the talk' in the car previously. He put his headphones in and acted as if music was still playing but his trusted music playing friends weren't even plugged into his phone. However, Jaebum didn't really hear much, though other than Youngjae’s heavy sigh and "For Goodness' sake, hyung" and then followed with a lot of snoring, which made Jaebum smile.

Truth be told, Jaebum really liked Youngjae and anyone could honestly see it, apart from Youngjae himself. Youngjae was really stupid when it came to stuff like people having a crush on him. Youngjae’s disbelief in people actually liking him as a person was a result of a very low self esteem that started from Youngjae’s middle school years. Jaebum had been crushing on him ever since the debut but Youngjae still hadn’t noticed it. And it has been annoying Jaebum a lot lately, which was why he stopped being as close to Youngjae as before. And maybe that was another reason Jaebum was ignoring the youngster. Jaebum shook his head. He was thinking too much which made his brain overload and his head hurt a lot.

"Hyung, are you still mad at me?" - Youngjae asked careful not to make Jaebum even madder at him.

"Not really" - Jaebum said while scrolling through a Youngjae fan account. "They post really good photos" - Jaebum thought to himself shamelessly saving a few on his phone.

"Good." - Youngjae smiled. Jaebum couldn't resist the smile that was creeping up on his lips after seeing Youngjae’s bright smile that showed off his perfect teeth.

"Just don't scream at me like that ever again." - Jaebum said coolly.

"Of course, hyung" - Youngjae smiled even wider and went on to hug the leader.

"Weird kid you are, Youngjae" - Jaebum muttered and hugged Youngjae back, not wanting to ever let go.