When I woke up I felt much better, maybe it was because I ate, or because I had two days of antibiotics in my system. It felt like my fever had finally gone down and I could actually stand up without being overcome with dizziness.

            When I went into my living room Yixing was passed out on the couch, probably just got back from work. His coat was thrown onto the coffee table and his shoes looked like they had just been kicked off at the door. There were cups out on the table and a couple of dishes still in the sink but I didn't turn the water on to wash them because it might have woken up Yixing and he would have thrown a fit about me already overworking myself. When I started to at least put the rest of the cups in the sink and straighten up the things on the counter I found a note from Jongdae.

                        Minseok,

                        This is Luhan's number

                                    xxx-xxxx-xxxx

                        Give him a call if you want.

                                    -Jongdae

            I took the note back into my room and saved the number in a new contact because even if it was too early to be calling Luhan right now, I wasn’t sure now if I really wanted to.

            I thought about Jongdae yesterday and how strange he acted when I told him that I kind of did want to go on the date. He didn’t seem to be happy about it but I tried not to look too far into it because I didn’t want to assume anything based on what Luhan said while he was joking around.

            Jongdae seemed like the kind of guy that if he liked somebody he would actively pursue them with confidence; Jongdae was just nice to me, and there was nothing more to it.

            When it was finally a decent time I decided I should probably call Luhan and either tell him I can’t go because I’ve been sick, or get over it and ask him where we’re meeting up at.

            My fever had been down for hours now and I had been up walking around without feeling too bad. I asked Yixing a second time before he left what I should do but all he said again was that I needed to make the decision myself. It was unlike Yixing to not give me his input, maybe it was because he was as unsure as I was? Yixing played things safely for the most part, so he was probably telling me to make the decision because if he was wrong and I got hurt he didn’t want the availability of the blame being placed on him.

            I called Luhan, the phone rang for a while and I almost wondered if Jongdae had given me the right number or not before a soft voice answered.

            “Hello?” his voice over the phone was light and innocent sounding, the complete opposite of his personality.

            “Luhan?” I asked just to make sure, “It’s Minseok”

            “Ah Minseok! Are you ready for tonight?” I was actually prepared to turn him down but he sounded a lot more excited than I thought he’d be.

            “Where exactly are we going?” I asked because if it was just out to dinner I could at least handle that.

            “Just text me your address and I’ll come get you” he had a childish tone in his voice, like he didn’t want to spoil his surprise he’d worked so hard on.

            “Okay, when will you be over? I still need to take a shower” I gave in because I didn’t want to hear his disappointment if I canceled now.

            “I’ll be over at 7, take your time and make sure you look cool okay” he hung up after reminding me to text him and I wondered exactly he meant by cool? By his standards or my standards?

            I spent a lot longer picking out my clothes than I originally thought I would and I had to rush in the shower. I was a little dizzy when I got out but I played it off as the heat and the steam as I blow dried my hair and in the middle of styling it the doorbell rang.

            “Coming!” I yelled and it made my throat throb with dryness like when you ate too many salt crackers without a drink in between and you couldn’t swallow anymore. I opened the door and Luhan stepped inside, his legs wrapped tightly in what looked like leather jeans.

            “You’re not even dressed yet?” was the first thing he said when he saw the state I was in.

            “You told me to take my time” I reminded him and he looked down at me like I shouldn’t have taken that literally.

            “Do you at least know what you’re wearing?” he sighed and I took him into my room where I had the outfit laid out on my bed (I was sure to put all of my stuffed animals up earlier). “What? This won’t do! You need something flashier”

            “Flashier?” My voice squeaked because I was a little scared, I wasn’t even sure if I had anything ‘flashy’ in my closet because I usually went shopping with the intention to not stand out.

            He rummaged through my closet, pulling out this and that before wrinkling his nose and stuffing it back in the wrong spot. “This is okay” he’d gone all the way to the back and found one of Yixing’s graphic muscle shirts that was too big for me and laid it out.

            “That’s-” I tried to explain to him that wasn’t really mine but he ignored me and asked me where I kept my shorts. I pointed at the third drawer of my dresser and he rummaged through there too until he’d also dug through to the bottom and pulled out a pair of black shorts that I thought were too short.

            “Okay put that on” he tossed them over to me and went back to my closet where my shoes were while I changed.

            I’m going to look ridiculous, I thought. A shirt too big for me and shorts too short. “Are you sure about this?” I asked without knowing yet exactly what I looked like. “Is it warm enough to be sleeveless in shorts yet?”

            “You’ll be fine. Now your hair” he came back from my bathroom with a bottle of gel and began raking his fingers through my hair, tossing it this way and then that way and I thought that I really wasted all that time fixing it earlier for him to just give me a bed head again. “One more thing!” he said after taking a step back and looking at me. He went over to his small bag and pulled out a black pencil, he was going to put eyeliner on me.

            “You’ve got to be kidding me right?” I tried to back away but he held onto the back of my neck.

            “Just close your eyes I’m not putting it on thick” it felt weird to have someone drawing on my eyes and I tried not to flinch as he worked. “Okay, go see how it looks” he led me into the bathroom.

            At this point I almost didn’t want to see myself in the mirror, but I opened my eyes slowly and was thoroughly surprised. The shirt hung low, showed off my shoulders nicely, and although I did have a bed head it was a styled bed head. The eyeliner was barely noticeable but it was there and it gave my eyes a sharp touch, I actually looked pretty damn hot.

            “You have some pretty nice arms” Luhan was standing behind me and I shivered as he ran his fingertips down my upper arm from my shoulder until he was holding my elbow in his hand.

            “Ah, some of the equipment can get pretty heavy” I explained even though I’d always been more or less like this because of the Taekwondo and fencing classes my parents put me through growing up.

            I waited for him to move because he was standing to close behind me for me to leave first but he only leaned closer until his face was just behind my ear and he breathed “Ah, I see”. As I was distracted, completely forgetting that he was still touching my elbow, he made this weird slight scratching motion and I quickly yanked it from him because it tickled and ended up jabbing myself in the side.

            He burst out laughing, very obviously too amused with his trick and I chased after him to try and get him back. He ran out of the bathroom back into my room and hopped onto my bed. “If you’re going to tickle me back do it on here” He laid down with all of his limbs spread out and he had a stupid smile on his face as he sighed an easy “Ahhh, comfy”.

            “Hey who invited you onto my bed?” I pushed his leg over because he was lying on my clean clothes and he rolled over, propping his head up so he could watch me hang the clothes back up and reorganize the closet that he’d destroyed.

            “You’ll invite me into your bed soon enough” he smirked and I rolled my eyes, which actually kind of hurt.

            “Aren’t we supposed to be getting somewhere?” I asked him so that he wouldn’t say anymore weird egotistic things.

            He sat up quickly and just watching the fast motion made me dizzy. “You’re right, what time is it?” He dug his cell phone out of his bag that he’d left on the edge of the bed and gasped at the time. “Come on, we have to hurry now!” He grabbed the shoes he’d picked out for me to wear and ran out of the room. I followed him at a normal pace and he waved his hand furiously to get me to move faster.

            It wasn’t cold outside but there was a slight biting wind and because I was rushed I forgot my jacket. I didn’t even have time to put my contacts in so I had to grab my old glasses that weren’t exactly my right prescription anymore.

            I wanted to take my car but he said there wouldn’t be any good parking now so we’d have to take the bus. I had a horrible headache but I just passed it off as my hate for public transportation and closed my eyes so that I didn’t have to see the crowd of people rocking from the shaky movement of the bus.

            “Is everything okay?” Luhan asked me when he’d realized how quiet I was being.

            “Ah, yeah” I replied but my jaw was throbbing.

            “We should be there soon” he patted my knee and I thought he would have kept his hand there but he didn’t and I felt a little disappointed. Earlier I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to go on a date like this, because I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to be seen in public together with another guy, but he probably understood that so he kept his hands to himself.

            I felt the hard shake as the bus stopped and the doors were so loud as they slid and screeched open. Luhan helped me up but instead of holding my hand as we got off together he just walked closely behind me so we wouldn’t get separated.

            I could see now exactly where he was planning on taking us, we’d gotten off just down the street from a large live performance concert hall. “Sounds like it’s about to start, we have to see if we can squeeze close to the front” he grabbed my hand now and pulled me along. “I’ve had these tickets for months now. The guy I was supposed to go with turned out to be a creep so I’m glad I asked you to come instead.” He explained on the way over. “This is going to be so awesome! I’ve always wanted to see this band live!”

            He gave the tickets to the security guy at the front doors and we were allowed inside. We weren’t even in the hall yet but the noise from it was so loud even outside the doors that Luhan had to yell at me. “Do you want a beer?”

            “Some water please” my throat was really starting to kill me and my head still hurt.

            “Alright I’ll get you a water and a beer” he asked me to stay where I was while he went over to the concession. The door that was right next to me opened as a girl was coming out so she could talk on her cell phone and the sound of the screams from inside hit me hard. I wished Luhan would return with that water quickly because I was getting really dizzy now. I looked around for a place to sit and wait but the second I tried to take a step I wobbled and the last thing I heard was the girl on the phone screaming and I think I remember hitting the floor.

            When I woke up I was at the hospital. Yixing was the first person I saw because he was standing over me, probably hadn’t left my side after the moment he got here.

            “How are you feeling?” he asked me and I nodded to show that I was feeling a lot better.

            “What happened?” I asked because I barely remembered what I was doing before being here.

            “You fainted outside a concert, you’re at the hospital getting IV fluid because you were really dehydrated” Yixing explained and I suddenly could recall everything.

            “What happened to Luhan?” he looked up from me to the other side of the room and I turned my head to see Luhan sitting in a chair next to the door. “What are you doing here? I thought you said you really wanted to see that band?”

            He tried to smile but I could tell he was actually really upset. “It’s okay they’ll do a concert again”

            “I’m sorry” I sighed because I was feeling so worthless right now. Yixing had probably left work again to run over here and Luhan was still missing his concert as he just sat there.

            “Minseok?!” Someone came through the door breaking the silence that we’d just created.

            “Jongdae?”

            “I called him” Yixing explained and Luhan stood up so that he was standing next to his boss.

            “How could you be so reckless?” Jongdae spat at Luhan.

            “I didn’t know he was sick” Luhan tried to excuse himself but as he sat back down and looked over at me I could see in his eyes that he was blaming himself.

            “I think that until Minseok gets completely over his sickness you should stay away from him” Jongdae announced and Yixing agreed.

            “That’s neither of your decision to make” I spoke up and Yixing looked down at me like he couldn’t believe I didn’t want his advice now even after he’d refused to give it to me earlier. “Can the two of you leave for a minute” it was a question but I wasn’t asking them.

            The two of them exchanged glances before Yixing left the bedside and walked towards the door, Jongdae following after him and shutting the door.

            I felt like I was starting to understand things a little more clearly now, and I couldn’t just keep pretending like I didn’t want answers to my questions. Right here right now while I had everyone here looking after me I was going to set things straight. “Luhan”

            I began and he scooted his chair closer to me, placing his hands on the edge of the bed “Yes?”