Today is a lazy day for Chaeyoung. She has finished brewing a whole cabinet full of healing potions for Jihyo, most of them are for cold treatment. Many people gets sick in this weather, especially kids, luckily Jihyo has Dahyun and Tzuyu help taking care of them. So Chaeyoung decides to take her well-deserved rest, sleeps, and waits for Mina to come home. Speaking of, the older has been so stressed and tired these days, Chaeyoung is worried Mina’s going to collapse if she keeps working like this.

She is woken up from her naptime (every time can be naptime for a cat) by the storm outside. Strong gusts of wind sweeps everything on the ground up high, leaves, dirt, scattered paper, and make the glass window rattled tremendously. Then, water starts pouring down from the sky, drumming against the glass window so no one can see anything outside. Mina didn’t bring her umbrella today, hell; the girl doesn’t remember to eat sometimes. Chaeyoung has to meow or jump at the girl’s lap demanding food so the girl could take a break and eat with her. It’s raining too hard outside, Mina can’t be stupid enough to go outside, can she?

Fifteen minutes later, rain still pouring outside, Chaeyoung hears a click of the door and heavy footsteps follow. She quickly runs to the door to see a soaked Mina, standing in hallway, face too pale for her own good. Ugh, an intelligent girl can be so stupid sometimes. She’s definitely gonna get ill. She looks like she’s ill already. So Chaeyoung nudges, scratches, follows the girl around to make sure she’s functioning. The human girl needs to get out of her wet clothes soon or she’ll catch a nasty cold.

Chaeyoung is waiting outside the bathroom (she respects privacy!) when she hears a soft thud. She immediately runs inside to see Mina lying on the floor, unconscious. She checks the girl’s breath and temperature to see she’s indeed having a fever. That isn’t good. She tries to shake Mina with her tiny paws but the girl doesn’t show any sign of responding. What is she going to do now? If she turns, there might be a chance the girl will wake up and there goes her secret identity. Worse, Mina will be furious and kick her out of the house. But she can’t possibly leave the girl lying on cold floor like this, especially when she’s burning from fever. What would Jihyo do in this situation?

She sighs, turns back to her human form, scoops the girl up without much struggle, and heads to the bedroom. Her strength and years of training proves to be effective. Putting the unconscious girl on the bed, she contemplates on what to do next. The girl is in underwear, very wet underwear, which needs to be taken off to prevent further damage. In short, wet clothes need to be replaced with dry ones. But how? The girl is unconscious and can’t give consent on this. Chaeyoung is not unfamiliar with people’s form, as she usually helps Jihyo take care of sick ones. Even Mina changes her clothes in front of her all the time. She didn’t want to look but the girl didn’t warn before taking off her clothes.

Still, leaving Mina in wet clothes only worsens the situation. Chaeyoung sighs for the tenth times that day and starts undress the girl. The younger tries her best not to look at the girl’s form when undressing and dressing again in new set of clothes. This is purely medical, she tells herself. She tries to be gentle as possible, fearing the girl would wake up and find them in this compromised situation. She lifts the girl’s head and put on her lap when drying the dripping wet hair. In cat form, she played with Mina hair sometimes, but this it’s the first time she does it in human form. Actually, this is the first time she ever touched, no, interacted with Mina in human form.

Mina’s temperature keeps rising. She holds the girl until she stops trembling and put on a wet towel when the fever gets high. Luckily, she still have some cold draught left in her secret stack. She doesn’t have a clue about human’s medicine. The girl whines like a kicked puppy, but obliges when Chaeyoung make her drink the draught. When the medicine starts kicking in, Mina sweats so hard that it dampens the bath towel Chaeyoung uses to wipe. She holds the sick girl’s hand in attempt to soothe her sobs. The cold draught can be quite intense but it works magically. The palm is sweating and burning hot but the fingers tips are cold. Poor girl. It feels strange and familiar that the same time, they hugs and cuddles usually, but the human hands give different feeling than the paws do.

Chaeyoung wonders, what Mina’s reaction would be when the girl found out about her identity. Would she be scared? Disgusted? Hurt? It’s the last one that she fears the most. But now, tending to Mina like this makes her want to take a chance.

She doesn’t have to wonder for long. When she brings Mina water, the girl catches her and inquires her identity. She could just run away, but what’s good to that? So she takes the chance and says

“I am Chaengie”

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