Jooheon was sprawled on his stomach, left arm dangling off the edge of the mattress and snoring lightly on the queen sized bed.

The distant sound of coughing, wheezing and gasping pulled Jooheon from his slumber. His dark eyes snapped open and he instinctively turned to his side, his sleepy eyes stared thoughtfully at the form lying beside him. He waited to see if the unsettling sound had come from the person he was sharing the bed with.

Another strangled cough echoed through the room and Jooheon quickly rose from his position, sitting up on the bed."Kihyun-hyung…?" He called out softly, reaching over to the side to turn on the lamp on the bedside table.

No reply.

Another cough followed by a wheeze, pierced through the silence.

Kihyun was lying on his side, facing the wall with his back facing Jooheon. He could clearly see that the older boy's body was trembling in an odd fashion. His brows knotted in an anxious frown, "Kihyun-hyung?" he called out again, suddenly feeling nervous. Something was definitely wrong.

Placing a hand on Kihyun's arm, he gently turned the boy to his side, so Kihyun would face him.

What he saw when Kihyun was turned to his side gave him an instant unsettling feeling. Kihyun was pale—really, really pale. His face glistened with sweat and his colorless lips gasped for air that just wouldn't come through.

What the hell? Only one thing popped into his mind when he tried to come up with a logical reason to what was currently happening to Kihyun.

Acting purely on instinct, he pulled Kihyun closer to him. "Breathe with me, hyung, slow and steady breaths just like me." He easily managed to pull Kihyun up into a propped up position, knowing that he'd breathe easier sitting up

"Kihyun-hyung! I-Is it... your asthma?" Jooheon remembered that as a child, Kihyun had asthma. But like a lot of other kids who suffered asthma in their childhood, he grew out of it. He never had any serious problems with it since. Well, maybe except for that one time, years ago when they were participants on No Mercy. That incident almost damned gave everyone a heart attack. But since that one incident, as far as Jooheon could remember, Kihyun had been fine. He had never witnessed the vocalist deal with another episode of an asthma attack since.

"Where's your puffer thing?" The specific word for it was somewhere in his muddled head, but he just couldn't quite find the exact word.

"In... inha...ler." Kihyun managed to wheeze out to correct him.

"Yeah, that. Where is it?" He was about ready to sprint out of their shared bed to turn the room upside down, in the quest for the little blue plastic bugger.

Kihyun sluggishly stretched his arm out, pointing toward the general direction beside their bed. He wanted to say something, but his chest was so tight and he was too busy trying to pull air into his starving lungs.

Wasting no time, Jooheon moved to look for the inhaler. He tried the bed stand drawer first, but Kihyun waved a hand lethargically, indicating that it was not there. Jooheon shot him a puzzled look—he was panicking. Where the hell is it then? His head instinctively scanned the surrounding area and his eyes caught the of sight a blue plastic object on the floor. He scrambled to retrieve it and rushed back to the distressed boy’s side in a split second.

Kihyun coughed as he tried to inhale the much-needed air and clear his throat at the same time, but he ended up choking and coughing even more.

Jooheon watched Kihyun intently, waiting and hoping for the medicine to take effect. "Better?" he questioned anxiously while his hand rubbed comforting circles in between Kihyun's shoulder blades, trying to soothe him. But Kihyun didn't reply. He wasn’t able to. His breaths still came in thin wheezes and his chest was still making disturbing whistling sounds.

1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10...

"Here! Here! Hyung! Here you go! Here you go!" Jooheon guided the inhaler to Kihyun's lips, assisting the other boy's clumsy weak fingers to push down on the inhaler, releasing the medicine into his struggling lungs. Kihyun lets his head fall back against the headboard and held his breath, eyes closed, allowing what little medicine he received to flow deeply into his lungseven more, the wheezing sound more pronounced than before. Another wave of panic washed over Jooheon when he realized that Kihyun was still working hard to breathe. His lips were now tinged with blue. "Take another puff!" Jooheon once again placed the inhaler in front of Kihyun's lips, eyes pleading for him to take another puff of the inhaler. But this time Kihyun turned his face away from the inhaler.

"What the Kihyun-hyung!" He snapped. Worry had long turned into silent panic, but now the panic slowly building into frustration and fear. "Take another damned shot of your inhaler! What's wrong with you?" He tried to keep his voice down but failed. He was just so damned scared that Kihyun would stop breathing altogether.

"I-…F...fi...nished... no… more…"