Lu Han’s POV

“Eun Hae!” I cried, holding her in my arms before she fell to the ground. Omo, she fainted! She fainted! I wasn’t expecting this to happen.

I quickly carried her limp body up in my arms, bridal-style, as the lift’s doors dinged opened on the ground floor. Thankfully there was no one there so I was able to walk out of the building unseen by anyone who might jump to conclusions if they see me carrying her. They might think I her or killed her or drugged her to her or something. That would be bad.

She’s sick, she’s running a fever, and I need to get her home fast. If I carry her all the way home myself, it would take too long.

I carried her until I reached a bus stop just a block away from the apartment building. No one was there, no cars on the road and there was no buses coming in since it was already quite late. The night was silent.

I set her down carefully in a sitting position on the bench and let her head rest on my shoulder. I searched around her bag for her hand phone to contact someone to help me with her.

I found her phone in the front pocket of her school bag.

I turned it on and the phone blinked to life, blinding my eyes for a second by the bright lights that illuminated in the dark. But then I gnashed my teeth together when I saw that her phone was password protected.

Curse it.

I creased my forehead as I tried to think of all the possible words Eun Hae would use as her password. What could it be? Knowing her, it was something that she holds close to her heart.

But . . . just what?

I looked at her phone and saw that her password required five letters. I rolled my eyes as the answer came to mind instantly. Of course, I should’ve guessed. It was so obvious. I typed in the letters L-U-H-A-N. I shook my head slightly when her phone immediately unlocked. This girl is really adorable, I tell you.

I searched through her contacts and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw she had the number of the person I was looking for and pressed on the call button. I waited impatiently for him to pick the call up as I gently her hair. I turned my head slightly to kiss her burning forehead.

Hang in there for a bit, Eun Hae.

“Yeobosaeyo?”

“Kai! Can you come meet Eun Hae and me now?” I asked him, sounding a little bit desperate. I was desperate.

“I’m with Daeseul . . .”

“Something’s wrong with Eun Hae.”

Kai muttered curses under his breath. I could tell he muffled the speaker and I could hear him saying to Daeseul, “I have to go somewhere. I’ll be back soon. Wait for me, okay, darling?” Then he hung up on the phone with me.

I put the phone in my pocket and zipped her bag up just as Kai appeared in front of me. He took one look at her and his face clouded. “What the hell happened to her?” he wanted to know. He grabbed her by her shoulders.

I took her back in my arms, scared that he might cause any harm on her. “She fainted,” I told him and his eyes bugged out.

“Bwoh??”

“I need you to teleport her back to the apartment.”

“She needs to go to the hospital!” he exclaimed.

“She doesn’t want to go to the hospital,” I replied glumly.

“Waeyo?!”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure. But before she fainted, she said she didn’t want to go to the hospital,” I explained. “I don’t agree with her but I trust her judgment. If she says she doesn’t want to go to the hospital, there must be a really good reason for that.”

“What if she dies?” he asked in a hollow voice.

I gave him a piercing look and thumped him on the head. “Don’t say that,” I snapped. I did not want to hear that. “Can you please teleport her back to the apartment? I’ll just join you later after you’ve gone. That’s the only way.”

He nodded and came over to where we were. When Kai carried Eun Hae away from me, I wanted to take him back. I didn’t like her being in another guy’s arms. “Damn, she’s hot,” he mumbled.

I shot him a Look.

“I meant that she’s having a high fever,” he quickly corrected himself. “I didn’t mean it another way. Don’t jump to conclusions!”

I shook my head.

“I’ve got Daeseul!” he protested. “Do you seriously think I go out with girls because they’re hot or that I would do that to my girlfriend?”

“Just take her home,” I snapped at him.

He was still not happy that we’re not taking her to the hospital. “If I turn out to be right, you’d be sorry,” he muttered before disappearing.

I gave it five seconds before I closed my eyes and imagined Eun Hae’s face. In my head, she was smiling, kissing me, with that healthy glow around her body. This was the Eun Hae that I remembered, not this sick Eun Hae.

When I opened my eyes, I was in the living room. Kai was in her bedroom, setting her down in bed. I hurried over to where they were. I looked at her. She was breathing quite heavily. I looked at Kai who, shrugged, as he was just as helpless as I was.

“Try to get her to wake up while I got get a wet cloth for her,” I told him as I rushed to the bathroom. I opened the cupboard and took out a handkerchief, soaking it in cold water before I rushed back out to Kai and Eun Hae. Kai was unsuccessfully trying to wake her up. She was sweating so much too.

I dabbed her forehead with the handkerchief and got in bed next to her to support her body. She looked so uncomfortable, so weak, and so sick. It kind of reminded me when I was having the flu.

Did I pass it to her?

“She needs to go to the hospital,” Kai murmured. He shook his head. “It’s not right that she’s staying here when she’s in such a critical state.”

“I know,” I said quietly, praying that she would wake up.

“Mmmm,” she mumbled in her sleep and Kai and I breathed in sigh of relief to see that she was at least conscious but still asleep.

I looked at Kai. “You should get going. Daeseul is probably waiting for you,” I told him, reminding him of his girlfriend. “Besides, I’ve got a backup.”

He nodded, not bothering to protest. He knew it was because we were still playing the Game, so technically I should be the one who takes care of her since I’m her ‘boyfriend’. “Let me know if anything changes or if she wakes up, okay?” he told me and was gone within a second.

I dabbed her forehead, face, nose, wiping the sweat off, cooling her body temperature from the fever. I couldn’t go to sleep even though it was already so late in the night. I stayed up, taking care of her. I found some medicines I could use for her fever and had to wake her up to eat them before she went back to sleep. I made sure she was well taken care of. She will not die in my arms.

Not tonight.

Not her.

When morning came, she was still feverish and I couldn’t stand it anymore. I couldn’t stand to look at her in this state. She has to go to hospital even though she told me not to take her there. So I took out her phone and was going to punch in the number to call an ambulance when my finger accidentally pressed on number one and then the call button, connecting to her speed dial.

Whoops.

I was about to disconnect the call to call the ambulance when I saw that I was contacting someone by the name of Doctor Kim.

Doctor?

Maybe this person can help me.

“Yeobosaeyo?” a woman answered the phone after the fourth ring. “Is everything okay with you, Eun Hae?”

Twenty minutes later Doctor Kim was in the apartment, inside Eun Hae’s room, talking to her who had woken up five minutes before she came. I wasn’t allowed in the room for some strange reason but Doctor Kim told me that she needed to check Eun Hae’s body and that would require Eun Hae taking her clothes off, so for her privacy, I was not allowed inside even if I was her boyfriend.

I paced around the living room anxiously, my hands in my jeans pocket, waiting for Doctor Kim to come out to tell me what was wrong with Eun Hae.

Finally after waiting outside for a good fifteen minutes, Doctor Kim finally emerged out of the room, closing the door behind her. She seemed like a really nice lady. She turned and noticed my anticipation and let out a light chuckle. “You must care for her a lot, huh?” she said softly as she came over to me.

I nodded. “I do care about her. What’s wrong with her?” I asked. “She was fine yesterday morning when I sent her off to school! Why did she suddenly get a fever? She looked really thin and pale.” I frowned. Did I pass it down to her when she took care of me the time I had the flu?

Doctor Kim looked at me strangely. “Have you not noticed the sighs? Did you notice any difference in her behavior for the last couple of days? Did you see any difference in her eating habits? Did you not notice that she was growing thin?”

Had she not been eating? And was there any difference in her behavior? Now, come to think about it, I noticed during dinner she wasn’t eating much and she seemed really weary and tired at times. I always thought it was due to stress about her parents and work. I also noticed that she kept tossing and turning in bed and would take longer time than usual to fall asleep.

Yeah, I noticed everything. But I didn’t think it was that bad.

I hung my head in shame. I felt really guilty. I noticed all the signs yet I chose to be ignorant. I am such a terrible boyfriend. “Why is she like this, Doctor?”

She smiled ruefully. “Eun Hae is generally a weak person,” she told me. “She gets sick very fast because her body does not have enough antibodies to fight off viruses and diseases so she’s always a target whenever she’s around sick people.”

I hung my head. She must have got it from me.

“And also, because her body is very weak, it’s also very easy to drain her energy, especially if something is upsetting her or troubling her.” She looked at me. “Do you know anything that’s stressful in her life right now?” she asked me.

Yes. Her parents. Zico. Her so-called ‘brothers’.

But I didn’t tell her. If Eun Hae didn’t mention any of these to her, and since she’s her doctor, I figured she didn’t want her to know so I kept my mouth shut. If Eun Hae isn’t saying, then neither will I. So I shook my head. “If I did, I would have noticed the signs, right?” I asked back.

She frowned thoughtfully but nodded. “You are right.”

“But . . . I think she got sick because of me. I had the flu a few days ago,” I told her. “I just recovered from it and since Eun Hae was taking care of me at the time, I guess she was exposed to it.”

She nodded. “That is one way of looking at it.”

“Oh yeah.” I remembered something that I wanted to ask Doctor Kim. “Before she fainted, she told me not to take her to the hospital. Why?”

Doctor Kim laughed. “It’s simple. Eun Hae does not like hospital.”

“But why?”

“Well, the smell is one thing. I mean, I work at a clinic and the smell is something I do not like to get used to even if I go there every day. Nobody does,” Doctor Kim replied. “And she’s scared of needles and all of that. Some people get naeseous when they see needles, blood and sick people. Plus, she’ll be even more exposed to other people’s diseases and sickness, right?” she added.

Right.

“Ah, I see,” I said weakly.

She looked at me with concern. “You’re worried about whether you did the right thing for her by not taking her to the hospital, right?” she guessed, tilting her head to one side. “Like, maybe she would get better faster if you had taken her to the hospital last night before calling me in the morning, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“You did the right thing.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “Like I said, taking her to the hospital in her condition would probably make it worse,” she replied. “And besides, this isn’t the first time it happened to Eun Hae. She had fainted and out like this before so do not worry. Not that much. All her life she’s been sick because of her weak body so she knew how to take care of it. It’s just that sometimes it slipped and happens without knowing. But before she out, she knew there was no point to go to the hospital since she already knew how to take care of herself,” she explained.

I felt immensely relieved when she said that. But then I frowned. Eun Hae had been sick all her life? Maybe that’s one of the reasons why her parents kicked her out — they would say she would waste their money by having to send her to the hospital all the time.

Poor, poor Eun Hae.

I hate her parents.

“Don’t worry about it,” Doctor Kim reassured me. “She’ll be fine. She may be weak, but she is also very healthy.” She checked her watch. “I have to go. I gave Eun Hae some medicines. Make sure she takes it.” Then she bowed politely before she turned and left.

I walked inside Eun Hae’s room and found her bed empty. Before I could even wonder where she was, I heard a retching sound coming from inside the bathroom. I turned my head toward the bathroom to see Eun Hae bent over the toilet bowl, vomiting. I rushed to her side and I helped pull her hair back, patting her back occasionally, and whispering soothing things to her so she wouldn’t feel horrible. When she was done, I got her a glass of water as she went back to bed after rinsing . I came inside and saw her wincing as she got in bed. I could tell that she was in a lot of pain. I got in bed with her and made her lean on my chest after she took the water. I set the glass aside and she snuggled up with me.

“Sorry you had to see that,” she muttered weakly, closing her eyes. “You must have been disgusted.”

“It’s not like you never took care of me when I vomited,” I replied evenly and she just snuggled up closer to me.

I kissed her forehead, wishing she would get better. “Sleep,” I told her. She nodded and soon fell asleep. When I was sure she was fast asleep, I called Lay. He can cure her of her sickness and make her well within seconds.

No One’s POV

Inside Exo-M’s room, everyone was bored, not having anything to do. Suddenly Lay heard a familiar ringing coming from outside. His friends all cocked their ears toward the door and heard it too.

“Someone’s watch is ringing,” XiuMin stated the obvious. “Whose tone is that? It’s not mine.”

“Nor mine,” Tao nodded.

“It’s not mine, either,” Chen chimed in. He turned to Lay. “So does that mean that it’s yours?”

Lay nodded. “Yeah, it’s mine,” he said with a sinking heart. “That’s the ringtone that plays whenever Lu Han Gege calls me. This means that Eun Hae is sick and he needs me to heal her.”

“But you can’t,” Tao pointed out.

“None of us can,” Chen sighed. “And it’s not like we can teleport over to Earth.”

Lay sighed, nodding. He felt really helpless. How did Exo-M get into this mess? This isn’t fair. Kris is being so unfair.

I’m so sorry, gege. I can’t help you when I’m stuck inside this room.

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Hai~ poor Eun Hae, imagine having to be sick all the time D:

Heh~ and poor Lay, not being able to help Lu Han.