I wake up with a dry mouth, headache, and blurred vision. I try to sit up and a pair of rough hands forcibly pushes me back down. The weight of the hands feel as if they’re trying to crush my chest inward and I nearly lose the ability to breathe. The hands move away and I raise my arm to wipe at my eyes. My arm feels numb and heavy as hell so I drop it to my chest that also feels numb. , don’t tell me I went and got sick last night?

“Don’t move too much Hyung.” After successfully wiping my eyes with my numb and useless hand I see Bambam’s innocent face peering down at me. I squint my eyes as if the person in front of me was going to suddenly change into a whole other person if looked at differently. He doesn’t. I groan at the massive headache that only seemed to grow, spreading toward the front and back of my head. “Want some water?”

I nod my head and he moves away from my blurry vision. I honestly want to question why the hell Bambam was in my house in the first place, but after careful thought I finally recall the events of last night. He comes back with a small cup full of water. He helps me sit up and I hiss at the pain in both my arms and shoulders. His hands feels as cold as ice.

“Slowly.” He instructs as he brings the cup to my lips. He tilts the cup enough for the heaven-sent liquid to fill my sandpaper like mouth. He takes it away after I try to gulp down the whole thing in one go. “How do you feel?”

“Like .” I grumble as I wipe my mouth. It was becoming clear to me that ‘’ was the perfect adjective to describe how I’m feeling 9 times out of 10 nowadays.

“You look like it.” Bambam comments and it was also clear that 9 times out of 10, that was the answer I would receive back.

“Fever?”

“103 degrees.”

“Damn.” I groan annoyed with the series of unfortunate events that have been befalling me since the first time I meet a GOT7 member. Well there definitely goes my chance of ever getting perfect attendance, again. “Where’s my mom?”

“She went to work. She was going to stay, but I told her I can look after you.” He smiles widely. “Think of it as repayment for letting me stay and cry my eyes out.”

I close my eyes with a sigh. You would think that woman would be concerned for her not only injured but also sick child. Then again, I would have felt crappier if I forced her to miss work. I guess it was a good thing that Bambam stood the night. “Thanks.”

“It’s no problem Hyung. I’ll go get you some medicine.” Bambam gets to his feet and I stare at his back as he heads for the door. If Bambam is going to look after me…that means he isn’t going to school…which would mean the others would still believe he’s missing…and if they find out he’s actually been with me all this time while they’re all worried sick…they will murder us both.

“Yah, did you call Im Jaebum?” Bambam freezes at the door and turns to look at me with a sheepish smile. He shakes his head while avoiding eye contact. “Junior?” He shakes his head again and I could already tell where this conversation was going.

“You didn’t call anyone did you?” He scratches the back of his head and his continued silence is the answer. “You need to call them!”

“When I get back.” He smiles and heads out the door before I can yell at him. I sigh and look around my room for my phone. It’s placed nicely on the small table in the middle of my room. I struggle to my feet and stumble to the floor. I pant at the extensive amount of energy I needed to just move a few inches. I scoot over to my table and take a much needed deep breath. , I really haven’t been this sick in a while.

I already know Bambam won’t call them when he comes back so I need to do it myself, or else it will never get done. I rub my grossly blurry eyes as I search my contacts for Jackson’s number. I can’t see too well, but I finally find it after a little struggle.

It rings for a few seconds and I hear a strange voice come through. “What do you want?”

“Jackson, you – “

“Jackson?”

I take the phone from my face to look at my screen. The name ‘Jerk’ greets me and I groan. “. I forgot I put your name as Jerk.”

“You put my name as what?” Im Jaebum is not amused.

“It doesn’t matter. Hang up.” I command and I can hear him make a sound of disbelief.

“You called me you ing bastard!”

“Hang up.”

“Not until you tell me why the hell you’re bothering me.”

I clear my dry throat. “That’s not the tone of voice the guy who found you dearest little (demon) brother should get.”

The line goes quiet for a second and I expect him to be thrilled, however he ignores my comment. “Are you okay?”

I put my hand to my burning forehead. Did he not hear me? Wait, did I accidently speak in English and not Korean? “Yah, Im Jaebum. I just told you I found Bambam.”

“I ing heard you.” He hisses with impatience. “You have a fever, don’t you? So Junior was right.”

“Wait…why the hell aren’t you happy? You guys should – “ And that’s when I feel really stupid. “You ing . He told you didn’t he?” Why do I always fall for the simplest tricks by these damn demon brats?

I can hear Im Jaebum chuckle to himself and it only made me want to chuck my phone at the wall with all the strength I knew I did not possess at the moment. “He called this morning.”
Bambam is dead meat as soon as he walks through those doors. “I’m hanging up.”

“So now you wanna hang up?” He’s teasing me and I’m not in the ing mood to deal with any one of them. I always feel like some toy that they find fun to poke at over and over, not caring that I did in fact have feelings.

“Go yourself.” I move the phone from my face, but I can still hear his voice come through the phone.

“Calm the hell down you drama queen, it’s not that serious.”

“I don’t need to listen to you.” My voice comes out a bit slurred and I wonder if it’s from the fever or the fact that I suddenly feel like passing out.

“That’s it, we’re heading over there.” Im Jaebum states firmly and I could already tell that whatever I had to say back, meant nothing after this point. Too bad I’m not a quitter.

“If you even dare to step as much as a toe in this house, I will kill you.” I threaten and he snorts.

“I’ll like to see you try.” The line goes dead and I throw my phone across the table, it skids across the smooth top and makes a soft thud as it hits the floor on the other side. Whenever I finish talking to that I always have a headache. After a few minutes of deep breaths I try to get to my feet, but quickly realize that without someone to help me up, I’m stuck.

It takes Bambam 10 minutes to get back and by then my brain feels as if it were frying into a fuzzy haze of black dots.

“Hyung? Hyung! Did you fall? Are you okay?” Bambam throws the bag of medicine to the floor and rushes over to my side. I grab at the front of his shirt with as much force as I could muster up. His eyes search my face for injury.

“You ing brat, you lied to me.” I grumble as the strength leaves my hand and it falls to my lap. “You called Im Jaebum.”

He avoids eye contact with me. “D-Did he call you?”

“I called him.”

He looks at me with a smile that could only mean his next words were either going to be a smartass comment or something that would make me want to spit in his drink the next chance I could get. “Oh, so not only Gyeom? JB Hyung too?”

That’s it, he’s dead. I’m going to kill him! “If I had the strength, I would strangle you right now.” I lean my head against my bed. I give up. “I’m tired, go home.”

He doesn’t tease me anymore or even make a comment on my words. Instead, he helps me back onto my bed. He lays me down carefully and goes to fetch the bag of medicine he flung to the floor earlier. “How can I possibly leave you when you’re this bad Hyung?”

I don’t feel well enough to reply and with my silence he worries at my worsening condition. He puts the thermometer into my mouth. “I owe you Hyung. You really helped me last night. I always thought I was wrong to have any ounce of care for my mother, but your words really helped me to realize I was wrong.”

A soft smile makes it across my lips and he takes the beeping thermometer from my mouth. His eyes widen and he looks at my face with his mouth agape. It makes me begin to panic.

“W-what?”

“This is bad. It’s at 106 now Hyung.” He gets to his feet and fishes his phone out of his back pocket. “We need to get you to the hospital as soon as possible!”

No wonder why I feel worse than I did earlier. Urgh, I’m sick and tired of hospitals, last time I was in one for my injuries made me annoyed with the sight of one. “If I rest and take some medicine…I’ll be fine.” I insist.

Bambam ignores me. He puts the phone to his ear and I can slowly see the black dots from earlier reappear. They start to cover the corners of my vision until they completely cover Bambam and leave me in a mass of darkness. I can faintly hear Bambam talking on the phone somewhere around me, but I lose consciousness before I can understand a word he’s saying.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

“Go back to your own country, foreigner!” A little boy spits toward me and I timidly take a step backward. My trembling hands grip the straps of my oversized grade school book bag as I stare at the ground.

“Look at his ugly face! He’s not even Korean!” Another boy joins and throws a rock at me. It bounces off of the ground with enough force to hit my leg. I crouch to the floor to rub at the now bleeding flesh.

“How gross! Do you see he’s crying!” A girl makes a face while laughing and it brings to my attention that I’m surrounded by them. A horrid of nasty, evil, dark faced monsters disguised as my classmates.

“I bet his mother doesn’t even love him! She never comes to pick him up!” A boy adds while pointing his finger at me like I was some freak show.

“I bet he’s an orphan! He doesn’t even have a father!” Another girl adds while pointing her finger at me as well. “Who could love a dirty foreigner like you?”

I want to stand up to them all, but I can’t. I’m so scared that I’m a crying shaking mess. That’s when he appears. The kid who always came to save me.

“Leave him alone!”

The group of kids back off as the boy who pushed his way in front of them all clenches his fist and glares at them. “Not you again! You’re not even a 3rd grader!” A boy retorts.

“I’m a fourth grader so you all better listen to me!” He roars loudly and they all seem to tense at his loud voice. “And you all are just stupid and jealous because Mark can speak three languages and looks 10x better than all you pigs.”

All the girls make faces as if they were going to cry, a few even run away. The guys look pissed off and ready to comeback with a few words of their own. “We’re going to tell the teacher you’re picking on us!” A few yell back.

“I’m not scared of no teacher!” When his confidence doesn’t flatter they all start to shrink away until it’s just the both of us alone at the entrance of the school. He squats down and puts a comforting hand on my head. ”Don’t listen to them Mark.”

“But what if they’re right?” I sob a bit and he smiles while messing up my hair. It makes me a little dizzy, but it gets me to stop crying.

“Who’s the Hyung?’ He stands up with his hand extended out toward me. I take it as he helps me to my feet.

“You are.”

“That’s right, so Hyung is always right. No matter what.”

I stay silent and he puts his arm around my shoulder and shakes me a few times until I give him a weak smile. “So who’s always right Mark?”

“Zico Hyung is always right.”

“What?”

I blink my eyes open and Jackson is staring at my face as if he’s never seen it before. Was that a dream? It really felt as if I had taken a step back into my childhood. Even Zico Hyung was there…I almost forgot about him. I guess with me trying to forget my bullied past I even pushed the thought of him away. Wait…why do I feel like I heard someone say his name recently?

“Nothing. Where am I?” I look around the odd styled room around me. There were clothes hanging from the wall and a window nearby. My vision is still blurry as hell, but I wasn’t stupid enough to believe I was actually in the hospital. Where in the world?

“Oh, you’re at our house.” Jackson smiles and touches the sides of my face. “Wow, you’re still burning up.”

“Wait, what?” Did he just say…?

“At our house.” Jackson repeats as if it clears up any confusion that I may have, which of course it doesn’t. “You’re actually in my room right now. Don’t worry it’s not my bed. My bed is over there, you see that black area, yeah there. I have no roommate so it’s easier to put you in he – “

“Jackson, why the hell am I at your house and not the hospital?” Not that I wanted to be there in the first place, but it makes more sense to be there!

“We have our own private doctor. He already saw you and said that – “

“Huh?”

“Our private doctor just saw you.” Jackson laughs his hyena laugh as if whatever was happening was the funniest thing in the world. I was not in the least bit amused. “Man, that fever must have messed with your hearing.”

I forgot these damn demon brats were loaded. It would make sense seeing as their father owns the whole music world in Korea. I sigh and try to get up, Jackson is quick to put a gentle hand to stop me from moving. “Don’t get up Dimsum. You really need to rest.”

“I could of rested at the hospital.”

“No way, our doctor is the best in Seoul!” I hear Junior say as he enters the room with a bowl of hot soup in hand. “It’s time for you to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You have to eat regardless. You didn’t even eat dinner from what Bambam told me or breakfast.”

“Bambam talks too damn much.” I make a mental note to kill him after I kill Im Jaebum. Junior takes a seat on the edge of the bed. Jackson leans closer to us both with his arms out to take the bowl of soup away from Junior. He moves it away from Jackson’s reach.

“Hey, I want to feed Dimsum.” He whines.

“I made it, I feed him.”

“It’s my room!”

“It was my room first.”

“I was born first!”

“Enough! I’m sure if Mark could, he would tell you both to shut the up. Even my ears hurt and I just got here.” Im Jaebum twists his pinkie finger into his ear with a scowl on his face.

“None of you are feeding him. I need to talk to him, scram.”

“Who even says that.” Jackson mocks and with a threatening look Jackson shuts up. Junior hands the bowl of soup over to Im Jaebum and the two continue to fight over who will feed me later. The door closes behind them and we are greeted with a peaceful silence.

“What do you want?” I’m not the least bit happy to see his annoying face.

“Where did you find Bambam last night?” His voice is serious and he takes a spoonful of soup and holds it out toward me. I make a face at it as I watch the obvious steam rise up into the air. I knew that if I even dared to take a small sip I would lose more than one layer of skin all over my mouth, maybe even a few teeth.

“He was at my house when I got back from school.” I admit and blow on the spoonful of hot soup. I then open my mouth to be greeted with still boiling soup. I contort my face into a look of agony over the pain in my mouth and throat. I felt that if I opened my mouth, I could literally breathe fire.

“Are you sure?” God damn it, he’s not even remotely concerned that he almost burned all of my insides.

I give him a look of pure impatience. “Why would I lie? My mother specifically said he was there for hours just…sitting down.” I figured mentioning that Bambam was crying his eyes out would result in the famous ‘why’ question I didn’t feel like answering.

Im Jaebum takes another spoonful of the boiling hell fire soup and holds it out toward me. I continuously blow on it so I don’t die again. “Did he say anything? Did he look upset in anyway?”

I’m guessing this is the moment where I lie to protect Bambam. “He was crying.” Ah – , I wasn’t suppose to say that. Im Jaebum feeds me another spoonful of soup and sighs. It’s still hot and I’m convinced that he’s doing this on purpose.

“So you found out, huh?”

“Found out? What are you talking about?” I try to act innocent to his words. It doesn’t work, then again I’m not a good actor at all. He puts the spoon in the bowl and stares at me with a look that either says he’s going to kill me or, he’ll verbally abuse me for lying.

“He told you about his past, right? He even showed you the letter from his mother, didn’t he?”

Guess no point in lying. “Yeah…so you guys knew about it…and how he feels about his mother?”

“Who doesn’t know? That damn brat acts like he’s the only one adopted in this house.” Im Jaebum shakes his head and aggressively shoves the spoon into the soup bowl making a loud ‘thunk’ noise. He takes a deep breath and holds the spoon out to me. “So what did you tell him?”

“Nothing. I just let him get his snot all over my uniform, which you guys should pad to get cleaned.” I lie and take in the moderately hot soup now. I couldn’t tell since it was extremely hot earlier, but the soup tasted amazing. I can see Im Jaebum stare at my face for a few seconds, he must be trying to see if I’m lying or not. I don’t think it’s my place to tell them what Bambam has decided to do with his life. It’s best if they hear it from him.

“Thanks.” Im Jaebum smiles a bit, a slight rise in the corners of his mouth. “Even though he didn’t come to us, I’m okay with him going to you.”

“Why’s that?” He gets another spoonful for me. It has cooled so much I can really enjoy it’s rich and delicious taste. I really should ask later who made it.

“You’re basically one of us.”

“Like hell I am you .” I hiss toward him and a knock at the door makes Im Jaebum look away from me to see who it is. Youngjae peeks his head into the room.

“Jackson Hyung and Junior Umma are heading back to school. Umma says he needs you to look after Min Noona since they are going to be looking after Sector B today.”
Im Jaebum gets up with no complaints and hands Youngjae the bowl of soup now. “Watch the Nerd and make sure he doesn’t die.”

“Yah, Im Jaebum.” I growl in his direction as he smirk and leaves the room. When the door closes I can feel my headache slowly creeping back. Youngjae comes over and places the soup bowl on the nightstand and touches my forehead with a smile.

“Your fever doesn’t seem so bad now Hyung.” He put his hand to his chest now. “Don’t worry, I’ll look after you from now on.”

“Doesn’t that mean we’ll just sleep the whole time?”

“Sleep is the best medicine a person can give their body!” He says trying to sound like a teacher and he slowly makes his way into the bed with me. I sigh.

“You’re going to get sick Youngjae.” I warn as he snuggles into my side. He looks up to me with his sleepy eyes that always make him look like he’ll pass out at any minute.

“I drink a lot of OJ! I’ll be fine. I read that OJ is the secret to avoiding a cold.”

“Let me guess, Seventeen Magazine?” I chuckle and his usual sleepy eyes become little smiles on his face.

“Woah Hyung, you know me so well~”

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The number of times I’ve faded in and out of sleep has surpassed the number of fingers and toes I have. Most of the time I was forced awake to either eat, take more medicine, drink water, and see the doctor again. I was lucky that as the night neared my condition became stable enough that I could move from Jackson’s room to the bathroom alone. I didn’t need anymore eager helpers trying to shove their gross hands down my pants. It also gave me a chance to talk to my mother and inform her of my current condition and whereabouts. Thankfully she was okay with everything and even came to visit me for a few hours before being walked back home by Junior. I really hoped he didn’t try to recruit her into his growing support group for my heart.
Night time finally comes and as everyone settles down to sleep, I find myself wide awake with the sudden realization of something annoyingly obvious. I had not seen the maknae at all. Nor did he in any way try to help the others better my condition. It made me feel crappier, if that was even possible, at the thought that he was purposely avoiding me. What did I do? Does he maybe not want to catch my fever? Maybe he actually hates me now?

Wait a god damn second, why am I even thinking about him right now? I should be thinking about myself! I’m the sick one here. However, my feelings are still hurt and I can’t help the multiple sighs that escape my lips. Great, now I’m depressed.

I reach my good hand out toward Jackson’s nightstand and pull my phone toward my face. It’s 3 AM and I could already feel sleep fly away. I get up with a few painful groans and waddle my way out of Jackson’s room. The light isn’t on in either the living room or kitchen, well I guess it’s no surprise that I’m the only one up at this hour. Is what I thought before I noticed the dark figure sitting on the couch in the living room.

“Holy ing !” I stumble back and coincidently hit the light switch on with my back. “Ouch.” I wince at the impact of the cold wall to my back. Yugyeom’s shocked face stares back at my equally shocked expression. He’s holding a black bag in his hand and quickly avoids eye contact with me. I rub my back a few times and when the feeling in the room becomes awkward, I take it as my cue to go into the kitchen.

I grab a bottle of water and take a deep breath. I need to man up. I nod to myself and drag my legs back into the living room. Yugyeom hasn’t moved at all so I carefully take a seat right next to him. It’s not too close, yet not too far. A friendly distance. To be honest, with the way he’s so tense around me right now, it looks as if he would get up and run away as soon as I open my mouth to talk.

“So…why were you avoiding me today?” I question before taking a much needed gulp of water. It feels like bliss to my dry mouth and throat. I notice Yugyeom tense up even more, but he doesn’t look at me or even reach for his note pad like usual. “Did I do something to you?”

Yugyeom keeps his eyes glued to the floor and continues to fiddle with the black bag in his hands. I peer over at it, and since he’s holding it closed I can’t see what’s inside it. How can a stupid black bag have his full attention, but I can’t? It really annoyed me to know end. “What’s in the bag?” My voice comes out dry of emotion.

He finally peels his eyes away from the floor to look me in the face. He fiddles with the black bag some more before silently deciding to let me have a look inside. The bag is full of all kinds of different medicine, cold packs, and soups.

“This…?” I can feel heat spring to my face as the content of the bag made it very clear who it’s all for. “These are all for me?”

He nods and hands me the bag of things. He goes into his pocket and pulls out his usual small note pad. He scribbles on it for a while and I stare at him as he takes the time to write neatly before handing it to me.

I wanted to give them to you earlier Hyung, but the others brought you things before I could…and then they said I would only be in the way since I’m too young to know how to care for a sick person…so I couldn’t help you at all Hyung. I thought maybe after everyone had settled down I could visit you, but Jackson Hyung told me to leave you alone. I thought…maybe if I waited…

“You were waiting for me all this time? I’m really sorry Yugyeom.” I hand the note pad back to him. So…he was worried about me! He did want to see me as well! Wait, calm down Mark…you’re starting to sound like some love struck teenage girl. “You must be tired. Thanks for waiting for me, and for the medicines and stuff.” I smile and he begins to scribble again.

I’m not tired Hyung. How are you feeling? Did your fever go away?

“I’m alive.” I put the black bag on the floor and move closer to him. Our shoulders touch and even though little prickles of pain climb up my still casted arm, which I have been ignoring, the overpowering flash of butterfly inducing heat spreads to every nerve in my body. “Since I didn’t see you all day, I thought you didn’t want to see me.”

Why wouldn’t I want to see you Hyung? He scribbles franticly and I glance up to see his face, he’s giving me a face full of mixed emotions. When did he start expressing himself to me? It happened so fast, I didn’t even notice.

I rest my head on the couch behind me and stare at the lively white walls of the JYP house. There are so many pictures of everyone littered all over the walls and even a nice fancy TV hanging above a nice glass table. This house seems more lived in than my house. “I don’t know. I never know what you’re thinking Yugyeom…so I thought maybe I did something to you.”

I can feel his arm moving against my own as he writes. He hands me the pad again. I’m sorry Hyung, I must be difficult to handle….?

“Not at all.” I say instantly. “I don’t think you’re difficult. I’m the problem…I’m too impatient. Jeez all you brothers. There isn’t anything wrong with any of you. Well, minus that Im Jaebum, but that’s a different story.”

He smiles and leans his head on the couch as well. He doesn’t reach for his pad to write anymore and closes his eyes instead. It was as if he was going to go to sleep. We stay in a nice peaceful silence for a few minutes until I decide to be the one to break it.

“You should sleep Yugyeom.” I say softly, I didn’t really want to disturb him, but I did care about his lack of sleep on my behalf. He opens his eyes and looks at me with eyes full of too many emotions to understand and interpret. He shakes his head. “Why not?”

I won’t sleep until you do. He writes and it was the first time he actually sounded like a child.

“Then I’m going to bed now.” I say, but I don’t move a muscle. He gets up and holds his hand out toward me. I stare at it before slowly trailing my eyes up to his expecting expression. “What?”

He takes his hand back to scribble on his note pad again. Let’s go to sleep.

I agree and let him help me to my feet. I groan again at the dull pain starting to consume some of my limbs. “Night Yugyeom.” I wave lazily and wait for him to walk away.

He gives me a look of disappointment and I’m definitely confused now. He walks over to me and takes my hand into his. He tugs my hand forward making me move with him as he heads toward the opposite side of the house. “Wait, where are we going?”

I can hear what might be a small chuckle, but I can’t tell and I start to feel extremely stupid for asking him such an obvious question. It was as if I could hear his adorable voice clearly in my head as we continue to walk down the hallway.

My room.

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