The first indication that something was wrong was the fact that Chaeyeon hadn’t even bothered to try to laugh at Chanyeol’s joke, choosing to sip from her glass of water instead. Normally, she would say something snarky or tease someone, but she had been remarkably quiet the entire evening.

She slumped against the bottom of the couch, sitting on the floor, and out of the corner of Jongin’s eye, he saw Kyungsoo sending her a worried look. And then Kyungsoo turned his head and whispered to Jongin, “Is she alright?”

“I don’t know,” Jongin admitted quietly, so that she couldn’t hear, but it was very clear that she was overworking herself again. Minseok, next to her, wrested the almost-empty glass of water from her hand and tilted her head on to his own shoulder.

Jongin frowned. After all this time, he still couldn’t tell what Minseok wanted. Sometimes he was certain that Minseok was joking around. And sometimes, like at that moment, he seemed to genuinely care about Chaeyeon.

The hands on the clock ticked by, and people eventually left to go home, and Chaeyeon was fast asleep on Minseok. Jongin leaned over, prodding her, and Minseok chuckled, “She really is a deep sleeper. I’ll carry her to her room.”

For some reason, that doesn’t sit well with Jongin. And apparently, not with Chaeyeon either. As soon as Minseok lifted her up, moved with a soft, “Kai,” that made both o