Dongmin was exceptionally good at hiding ailments. He’d mastered the art of disguising fatigue, soreness, and illness when he was in public. It was a necessary skill when one was an idol- it was incriminating to show any kind of weakness. Dongmin knew this was nearly impossible, and an entirely unrealistic expectation placed on him and his fellow idols- but it was one he adhered to anyway.

Sometimes, though, there was a limit to what even he could hide. Especially when it happened before he could even make it out of the dorm.

He’d been feeling a bit off the entire evening, from their last vocal practice to the van, through the ride back to the dorm, even through dinner. A couple of the members could tell something was off- Jinwoo insisted that Dongmin take the first shower, even though Sanha had called dibs on it in the van. Dongmin had only put up a bit of a fight, hoping that maybe the steam of a hot shower would chase away whatever bug was trying to cling to him.

It seemed to help a little bit at first. He got out of the shower feeling cleaner, and must have mistaken it for feeling better. He got dressed in pajamas, said goodnight to Bin, and passed out. The next time he woke up, he wasn’t sure how long it had been, but he knew one thing- something was not right in his body. He felt like he was burning and freezing at the same time. He tried to croak out a call for Bin, because surely Bin was asleep in the bunk above him, but-

Oh. Bin was already there, standing at the side of the bed. “When did you get there?” Dongmin tried to say, but all that came out was a garbled mess of syllables.

“He’s too hot.” That was Bin’s voice. He sounded worked up, concerned.

“He’s going to be fine. The thermometer only says one-oh-two.” That sounded like their manager. Dongmin wondered if he could maybe convince him to take the lead blanket they had apparently added to his covers off of him. He knew his blankets weren’t usually this heavy.

“One oh three is when it gets dangerous, right?” Jinwoo was in their room, too. How strange, Dongmin thought. It was turning into a bit of a party.

“If he gets to one oh three we’ll put him in a cold shower,” their manager said. Dongmin tried to protest. There was little in the world he hated more than cold showers, even if they were good for your hair after you put conditioner in it. “If that doesn’t help we’ll take him to the hospital.”

“The hospital?” Bin shrieked, and Dongmin winced at the noise. A shiver wracked his body, and he shuddered. The act made him ache all over a little bit, and Dongmin groaned a bit.

A hand combed through his hair. “It’s gonna be alright, Eunwoo-yah,” Jinwoo said. “You’ve got a bit of a fever.”

Dongmin made a sound of acknowledgement. Or, at least, he tried to. The hand in his hair was soothing, something his mother had done when he was young and had gotten sick. It was enough to lull him back to a half-state of sleep where he was only vaguely aware of his surroundings. Noises filtered into his world, and sometimes he was aware of someone hovering over him. He wasn’t sure how much time passed between the hovering visits, but the next time he was awake it was because Jinwoo pulled his covers off and forced him out of bed, taking him into the bathroom and shoved him into the cold shower. 

He wasn’t sure how long Jinwoo made him sit in the shower, just that the water that was hitting him was freezing, but as it would roll out of his hair and into his neck, it had gotten closer to warm than cold. Somehow, Dongmin ended up sitting on the floor of the shower, water still raining down on his head. Jinwoo was there with him, sitting half in the shower and half out, holding Dongmin’s hand and the back with his thumb. Dongmin felt a surge of gratitude, and was fairly certain that he managed to tell Jinwoo while they sat there. 

He wasn’t entirely sure, though. His brain was a bit fuzzy.

An indeterminate amount of time later, Jinwoo shut off the shower water. He helped Dongmin up and out of the shower, then helped him change out of the sopping pajamas that he hadn’t taken off before being shoved into the shower.

Dressed in dry clothes once more, Jinwoo herded Dongmin back into bed. Dongmin laid on his side, and Jinwoo pressed a thermometer into his ear. There was a beep, and then Dongmin heard what sounded like a sigh of relief. Jinwoo carded his hand through Dongmin’s hair once more. “The shower helped it go down,” Jinwoo said, but Dongmin didn’t hear him. He’d already fallen back to sleep.

The third time Dongmin woke, he was wet again. This time, though, it wasn’t because of the shower- he’d sweat though his sleep shirt, and felt disgusting. Once again, Jinwoo was there. He helped Dongmin out of bed, gave him a cool rag to wipe off the worst of the sweat and clean pajamas again. As he changed, Dongmin vaguely thought that the sweat was a good sign- it meant his fever had broken, even if he was still feeling fuzzy-brained.

By the time he managed to pull on the clean clothes, Jinwoo had stripped the sweaty sheets off Dongmin’s bed and replaced them with clean ones. Dongmin crawled back into the bed with hardly a word, feeling physically exhausted. He dropped into sleep almost immediately after lying back down. 

Soft clicking noises were the next thing Dongmin woke up to. His transition from the sleeping world to the waking one this time was slow. The noises were the first thing he was aware of, and then he slowly started taking stock of other senses. He was still in his bed, tucked under blankets. He wiggled his toes a bit, then stretched his body out a little and huffed a breath at the general achiness of it. He kept his eyes closed, but he could tell that the overhead light of the room must be on- the darkness was incomplete. With another sigh, he slowly blinked his eyes open.

He was on his side, facing out of the bunk. There was a pile of blankets and pillows on the floor. Dongmin trailed his eyes along them, and found the source of the clicking noises- Jinwoo was sitting on the floor, near the bottom of the bunk bed, doing something on his laptop, oversized headphones around his neck. He was still dressed in sleep clothes, some oversized basketball shorts and a hoodie.

“Jinwoo-hyung?” Dongmin said, and was surprised at how feeble his voice sounded.

Jinwoo looked up and over at him, then smiled. “Hey,” he said, setting his laptop to the side and shuffling over to Dongmin on his knees. Jinwoo pressed his palm against Dongmin’s forehead. “You still feel a little warm,” he said, moving then to touch both Dongmin’s forehead and cheeks with the back of his hand. “Lemme go get you some water.” Dongmin nodded, and Jinwoo smiled before he left the room.

While Jinwoo was getting the water, Dongmin had the time to notice the blankets piled on the floor, as if Jinwoo had been sleeping there. “Where’s everyone else?” Dongmin asked when Jinwoo got back to the room, accepting the glass of water carefully and taking a slow sip. 

Picking up his laptop, Jinwoo settled cross-legged on the blankets on the floor. “Manager-hyungnim took MJ and the rest of the kids to practice,” he said. “Binnie wanted to stay, but he was just hovering and getting in the way.”

Dongmin felt his stomach drop a bit when Jinwoo said the others had gone to the practice room, and it was nothing to do with his fever. “Shouldn’t you be there too? You didn't need to stay-”

“And leave you here on your own?” Jinwoo interrupted, tisking. “They can get along without us for a bit.” Then he shuffled a bit on the floor, so his back leaned against the edge of Dongmin’s bed. 

Silence fell between them as Jinwoo started working on his computer again, and sleepiness started to settle back into Dongmin’s body. “What are you working on?” he asked in an effort to stay awake. 

Jinwoo hummed, then pulled the wire of his headphones out of the computer’s jack and hit the spacebar. The downbeat for a song started playing, and Dongmin listened carefully. “I like it,” he murmured, once the track had abruptly cut off, an obvious end of an incomplete song.

“Thanks,” Jinwoo said. He looked over his shoulder, away from the laptop screen and at Dongmin. “Try and get some more sleep, Dongminnie.” The use of the nickname, which hadn’t seen much light of day since their trainee days, made a rush of warmth that had nothing to do with sickness flood Dongmin’s chest. Jinwoo’s accompanying smile was soft and familiar, and when he reached over and carded his fingers through Dongmin’s hair softly it was all Dongmin could do not to arch into it like a cat.

Well, he would have, had his neck not been aching.

Instead, he burrowed a bit more into his blankets. “Don’t wanna,” he mumbled, and Jinwoo laughed in disbelief.

“The one opportunity you have to catch up on sleep and you won’t take it,” he sighed, shuffling a bit on the floor.

Dongmin huffed a laugh in agreement, but didn’t feel torn over not wanting to sleep. Quiet moments like this, even though it hadn’t been brought about in ideal circumstances, were rare. Dongmin wanted to enjoy it. “Can we watch a show?” he asked.

Jinwoo seemed a bit surprised, but it only took one pleading look for him to smile and pull up his internet browser with a shake of his head. “What’s that anime you like? The sports one.”

“Haikyuu,” Dongmin hummed, and in a few minutes Jinwoo had started it from the very beginning, because he hadn’t seen it. The rest of the afternoon passed easily- Jinwoo sat next to Dongmin’s bed, sometimes lying down when he got tired of sitting up. He laughed at all of the jokes, even the dumb ones, and Dongmin drifted in and out of his sleepy state, sometimes pulled into awareness enough to answer Jinwoo’s questions.

They were still like that when the other four got back, pouring into the dorm with shouting and laughter, and then tumbling into Dongmin’s room in a giant pack. Jinwoo shrieked about looking out for his laptop, Bin and Sanha complained about them spending the whole day watching anime. Minhyuk crawled into Dongmin’s bed, settling himself at the foot of it and sitting cross-legged, regarding the laptop screen (where the anime was still playing) with interest. Sanha, following suit, laid himself on top of Dongmin (“Yah! Do you want to get sick, too? Get down!” Myungjun had shouted). Eventually they settled down, watching the anime in a mess of sweaty limbs and Jinwoo got up, disappearing into the other part of the dorm.

He came back almost an episode later, carrying a bowl of porridge and nudging the other members out of his way with his foot. “Eat this, Eunwoo-yah,” he instructed, and Dongmin managed to sit up to take it from him. Jinwoo settled down on the floor again, shoving Sanha out of the way to make it more comfortable.

Chewing slowly, Dongmin looked around his room. Minhyuk was watching the anime with the utmost attention, and Bin was trying to sneakily climb into the bed, now that Dongmin was taking up less space. Dongmin decided not to say anything, just put another spoonful of porridge in his mouth and let Bin settle in at his side. Myungjun and Sanha were making comments about the show, and Jinwoo was quietly explaining what had happened in the plot so far. 

Dongmin leaned against the wall, clutching the warm bowl at his chest. Sure, they didn’t show weakness to the outside world. But here, in the safety of their dorm, they didn’t have to pretend. Dongmin could be sick and miserable, but s would crowd around him and do everything in their power to make him feel better.

Settling back a bit more comfortably, Dongmin put another bite of porridge in his mouth. He was happy.