“Yongguk,” Daehyun croaks from the bed. He’s swathed in too many blankets to count, resembling a caterpillar more than a human.

Yongguk blinks at him from inside his half-on sweater. “What’s wrong, Daehyun?” His voice is muffled by fabric. He pulls his head through finally.

“I can’t make it to class today.” Daehyun sneezes emphatically, and feels as if the whole world suddenly erupted into too-bright colors. His eyes sting. “Can you please get my assignment from my professor?” The professor had warned them all that they should make their best effort to attend today, because he would be giving information about their term project. But Daehyun feels like he’s been pulled five feet underground, with only his head above the earth and his nose level with grass—and he’s allergic to pollen. The cold of the season has finally caught up to him.

“You sound terrible,” Yongguk points out, then seems to realize that maybe it’s not the best thing to say, and apologizes. Daehyun is just glad that he still has a voice. A day of rest will fix this sickness, but if he had lost his voice, he wouldn’t be able to participate neither in class nor at his job for nearly a week.

“Can you?” Daehyun repeats.

“Yeah, of course. Give me the room number and when the class ends and I’ll get it for you. Do you need anything else?”

Daehyun feels the headache pounding between his ears, feels the roughness in his throat and the dryness of his tongue. He notices the clogging in his sinuses and the lack of tissues by his bedside. The water is somewhere near the door, where he can’t even see it. He doesn’t know where he put his medicine. Daehyun says, “No.”

Yongguk eyes him, doesn’t even bother hiding the disbelief in his expression, but Daehyun is already muttering out the location of his classroom. Yongguk repeats it to himself twice, then the time, and nods. Daehyun sighs in relief and closes his eyes. He feels heat engulfing his entire body. Even his eyelids seem too hot. He falls asleep before Yongguk even makes it out of the room.

When he wakes a second time, there is a clear glass of water on the bedside table, two white tablets of aspirin, a box of tissues, and a soft purple crane. Daehyun reaches first for the bird.

#280: Take this and feel better.

Daehyun swallows down the pills, blows his nose, and lays back onto his pillow. He feels immensely better than before, which he can probably attribute more to the crane than the medicine. There’s a small twinge of disappointment in his gut—his friend had been in this room, had been right next to Daehyun, had taken care of him, and Daehyun hadn’t been awake to see him, or thank him.

Daehyun takes a moment to call in sick to the conservatory, and is out like a light within a few minutes.

The third time he wakes up, Yongguk has already returned, and presents Daehyun with a printed sheet of paper with instructions for the term project. Daehyun has to choose a partner with an instrument major and work on a duet song that they will both perform for a grade at the end of the year.

“Your professor also gave me this. Said that in case you don’t have anyone in mind to work with, Professor Dong, the piano teacher, has a student she wants to participate in a duet. His name and the schedule for her high level piano courses is on here.” Yongguk hands him an index card with a few lines of neat handwriting in black pen—likely Professor Dong’s script, then, because Daehyun’s professor’s calligraphy is on the wrong side of chicken scratch.

“Thank you—” Daehyun hesitates, swallowing around the word in his mouth, weighing heavy on his tongue. “Hyung. Thank you, hyung.” Yongguk grins at him, and Daehyun feels a cool, thin hand on his head, ruffling his hair.

“No problem, Daehyun.”

.

Daehyun thumbs his bangs out of his face and adjusts the thick glasses he has slipped over his eyes. A day of solid rest has done him a lot of good, but the shadows under his eyes regardless are dark enough that the cover-up he’s smeared on isn’t quite enough to hide the bags. Yoo Youngjae, printed clearly on a rectangle of white, circles in his hazy thoughts. That name is what has brought him here, to the entrance of Professor Dong’s class. He can’t see the teacher inside the lecture hall, though the seats are mostly full and the lesson should begin in just a few moments.

“Can I help you?”

Daehyun jumps and turns to find himself face to shoulder with a tall, lanky woman. Her hair is short and peppered with gray hairs, and the twinkle in her eyes is friendly. Daehyun takes a wild guess and assumes that this is Professor Dong. He offers a lopsided smile, tilting his chin up to meet her gaze.

“Uh, yeah. Professor Lee recommended that I ask one of your students, Yoo Youngjae, to pair up with me for our term project. I, um. I sing,” Daehyun says, perhaps a little unnecessarily.

Professor Dong chuckles. “I’ll call him out here to speak with you. Can I get your name?”

“Jung Daehyun.”

“Give me just a moment, Daehyun.” The teacher disappears inside the classroom and returns in a few minutes with a young male by her side. “I’ll give you boys ten minutes. Don’t think you have a free pass to skip my class, Youngjae,” she chides jokingly, and closes the door behind her.

Daehyun doesn’t mean to stare, but he can’t help himself. Youngjae is everything that Daehyun is not. They are about equal in height, but Youngjae’s shoulders are broad, his torso thick and his hips narrow. His skin is pale and clear, and Daehyun would bet money on its smoothness. Youngjae is dressed finely in a gray cable-knit sweater pulled over a white collared shirt, with fitted blue jeans hanging on his hips and tucked in thick-soled, laced boots. Daehyun shifts uncomfortably in his green turtleneck. Youngjae’s hair is a dark reddish-brown and ruffled like that of the models advertising Armani underwear on billboards. Daehyun meets Youngjae’s eyes last, just barely catching a slight flicker of panicked surprise. The emotion is gone quicker than Daehyun can discern it, and replaced with a strong gaze.

“Jung Daehyun,” Daehyun blurts for the second time in the last three minutes. He bows and stretches his hand out at the same time and can’t help the pink rising to his ears. He isn’t sure if it’s from embarrassment or something else.

Youngjae shakes his hand. “Yoo Youngjae. Professor Dong said you were interested in working on a project with me?” he poses it as a question, though he already knows the answer.

“Yeah. My teacher—um. Professor Lee suggested that I pair up with you for the term project that we have. We’re supposed to do a duet with an instrument major. You play the piano, right?” Youngjae nods. “Would you do the project? With me? I mean, if you haven’t started your own assignment yet. If that—that’s cool?” Daehyun stammers. He ducks into his turtleneck, shoulders tense.

Youngjae hesitates, and Daehyun feels his heart sinking into his stomach. Strangely, he can’t bear the thought of not working together with Youngjae now that he has met him.

“I—sure. I don’t mind.”

Daehyun bites the inside of his lip, remembers that he’s not supposed to smile too widely. “Cool. Awesome. Thanks. We should exchange contact info, I guess. Do you have a pen?”

Youngjae pulls out his cell phone in lieu of an answer.

“Right. Or we can use that,” Daehyun says intelligently as they exchange phones and numbers. “Do you want to meet up on Saturday? We can discuss our styles of music and do some planning and—stuff.”

“Sure. I’ll drop by in the afternoon?” Youngjae suggests.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.” Daehyun nods eagerly and bites back a groan as he wobbles on his feet. Although the congestion in his sinuses is better than the day before, rapid movements make the world bounce on its axis and his brain bounce inside his skull.

“I’ll see you later, Daehyun.” Youngjae smiles softly and Daehyun feels his breath catch in his throat. “Take care of yourself. You should rest if you’re sick,” he suggests, and slips back into his classroom. Daehyun flounders like a fish out of water and squeaks a belated “bye” after the door has already clicked shut.

It is later, in the safety of his room with no prying eyes to see, that Daehyun admits, with utter mortification, that he had developed a horrible, undeniable crush in the span of seven minutes.

a/n: I was so busy writing another attempt at angst that I totally forgot to update yesterday lol. I finally got my wifey to write something, though! :D better yet, we're doing a collab! (sorta) I'm soooo excited. I probably should have waited to put up the fic though, because I won't be able to update for about 1-2 weeks. whoops. xD;;

Love y'all!
-Jess