So maybe it hadn’t been one of my best ideas to crawl into Jongup’s bed with him while he was so obviously sick. In my defense, it had been him to ask for a hug and then never let go - even if it was half-medicated Jongup who’d asked and so thus shouldn’t be fully trusted. I just thought my immune system would have been enough to support me through it, that’s all.

Well, turns out it wasn’t. And in the morning, our roles had swapped.

So much for doing good deeds to bring good karma.

“I feel bad,” the second day of my enslavement to my bed, Jongup was beginning to worry. Well, more so than the day before. “This wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t so headset on making sure I was alright two days ago.” I had successfully shook him off the day before (because, god, what else would be more embarrassing than proving I couldn’t even manage myself), but seeing as I wasn’t feeling much better today, I didn’t have much to say.

I rolled my eyes - whining when even just that set off another headache; I was dying, I’m sure of it. “Couldn’t leave you dead on the table.” Or, at least that’s what I’d tried to say. It came out sounding more like a foreign language in mix with a sort of gurgle  I’m not so sure Jongup even understood.

Whether he did or not, he simply frowned, shaking his head. He left the room and brought back the last bit of soup he’d gone out to fetch yesterday and patted my head, abusing my immobility. Had it been not so ing cold in my room right now - Jongup said it was at least twenty degrees, but that’s not what my shivers told me - I might have slapped his hands away. I was not a puppy.

“It’s fine,” I opened my mouth for another spoonful of the soup Jongup had cooled off, prodding my lips and giving a look for me to shut up and take the damned soup, “I won’t die while you’re out.”

He didn’t look so sure.

When he reached the bottom of the bowl, Jongup scrapping the spoon against the bottom of the dish, he pushed it off to the side, looking at me with a bit of a sigh. Suddenly, I felt like I was back in elementary school with my mom fussing over as any mother would - except, she liked to use a more colorful set of vocabulary than the others -, only, Jongup wasn’t mom.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can after classes end.” He’d wanted to stay back from class, claiming it wasn’t as if he’d really even miss anything, but I’d been feverishly - ha - against it the other day. So I guess he knew better than to even suggest it today.

I shrugged, barely. Much as I shouldn’t have held him back from his studies, it got awfully lonely complaining about my clogged nose alone. “Have fun in class.”

Jongup gave me a look, but mumbled out an okay, pressing a pill to my lips and a glass of water to help it down. Funny how these roles could change so drastically within just a measly few hours. “Go to sleep and try to feel better, alright?” I gave him a lazy grin and a salute, to which he scoffed. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

A part of me wanted to tell him to take his time, but before this conscious could take over, I was already nodding along like a fool. Being sick made a wimp out of me.

And then, I went to sleep.

When I woke up, a several hours had already passed. I was drenched warmly in sweat and my blankets that I’d cuddled were beginning to suffocate me. Overall, it wasn’t a much favorable position to remain in - yet the urge to ignore it all and go back to sleep was too strong.

Maybe another minute later, the front bell began to ring. I wanted to ignore it - no one important had said they were visiting, not to mention Jongup knew the passcode in - but the ringing got to a point where it was just impossible.

Rolling out and shrugging on a jacket, zipping it up to my chin, I half crawled to the door, croaking out for the person to just damn it stop ringing the bell for a ing second. They weren’t exactly my first choice of words, but really, the person knew nothing on manners it seemed.

I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me to ask who it was at the door before opening it. To be honest, I might have just wanted to open the door, just to say that we weren’t interested - it was an automated response - so I could crawl back into bed and pretend life didn’t exist. But when I opened the door, the person, the supposed visitor, didn’t give me a chance to do that. They walked in, pushing me out of the way like the owned the place. Talk about no manners at all.

I stood a little off to the side as the lady stalked in, at her heels a man dressed out in a neatly ironed suit. She looked important, for a lack of better words, cloaked in her fur and makeup that hid completely any trace of human in her. And then she turned to me, her look turning completely sour, like she’d seen a dying mutt on the streets pissing on her dress. I wasn’t a mutt - or taking a piss for that matter. She didn’t say anything, rather didn’t have the chance to, but her look had told me enough; I wasn’t worthy.

It didn’t matter though, because just as her red stained lips opened to what I supposed would be degrading towards aimed violently towards me, she was cut off. “Mother?” And the appalled boy who cut her off was too soon at my side, checking my forehead for signs of fever before going on to glare over at devil wears prada. “What are you doing here?”

I would have liked to ask the same thing but;

Oh - this was Jongup’s mother.

“This is stupid, Moon Jongup, return home this instant. I do not approve of you living with this,” there was a pause, and a wrinkle of her carefully powdered face, “mutt.”

an: back from japan. sleepy.