Something cooking

“How is Dara?” Young Bae asked Teddy who had just arrived for his shift.He and Ji Yong were both in the locker room, dressing up to leave when the Ji’s oldest cousin walked in.“Mai told me her temperature’s spiking up and down and she’s a little worried but she’ll check for the night and if it doesn’t get any better in the morning, she’ll be taking her back here.”“Does Mai-noona need any help?” Young Bae asked worriedly “They’re only two women alone in that house and it might not be a good idea.”“Jeju’s a very peaceful place” Teddy replied.“I wasn’t implying that hyung” Young Bae immediately cleared up “I just mean that it would be difficult for the two of them if in case Mai-noona would need to rush her to the hospital.”“Well, I did tell her to call me immediately” Teddy answered “but you know you’re noona, she’s as stubborn as a mule.”“We’ll check up on the both of them then.”Teddy smiled “That would be great!”“You drive Ji” Young Bae told him.“I – what?!?”“You drive” Young Bae repeated nonchalantly, checking whether he had packed up everything he needed “I wasn’t able to bring a car today and just hitched a ride with Seunghyun but if we’re both going to Dara’s, we’ll need to bring your car instead.”“But I didn’t volunteer to go” Ji complained.Teddy and Young Bae exchanged glances. “I know” Young Bae answered “I volunteered the both of us.”Ji rolled his eyes “If you just want to see Dara, you don’t need to tag me along.”Young Bae laughed, his eyes sparkling with a light that Ji wasn’t comfortable with “Oh. I’m not doing this for myself.”Immediately defensive, Ji closed his locker and zipped up his bag, “And what do you mean by that?”Young Bae’s smugness didn’t leave him “I just mean I’m not doing this for myself” he explained “I’m doing this for Dara. That woman takes care of all of us here. There’s nothing wrong with checking up on her right? What did you think did I mean?”Not liking the way things were turning out, Ji tried to control himself from losing his patience with his cousin’s and friend’s knowing comments about him and Dara.He was finding it hard every minute to fight off whatever he was feeling and what they were doing was not helping him at all.“I just asked” he finally answered, not ready and not willing to admit anything to anyone (even to those close to him).“Why don’t we go then?” Young Bae placed a hand on his shoulder, his smile unchanging, making Ji want to hit him with something rock solid “Dara might be needing a knight in shining armor and one of us might fit the bill.”---------------------------------------------------------------------Child’s play“Are you guys up to something?” Ji asked his best friend bracingly as they drove out of the parking lot.“What the hell are you talking about?” Young Bae asked innocently, making himself as comfortable as he can in the passenger seat.He turned to give a crooked look at Young Bae. “I am not stupid.”“Of course you’re not.”“And you are not answering my question.”“Of course I’m not” Young Bae answered playfully, apparently liking the way he was making Ji prickly.Ji suddenly put the brakes on – making Young Bae’s face almost stick to the windshield. “Oh ake!” Young Bae was able to utter as he stretched his hands to prevent his face from colliding with the glass “What the hell was that for?!?”It was Ji’s turn to look devilishly smug “That’s for not answering my question.”----------------------------------------------------------------------The ManArriving once again at the Parks’ doorstep, Young Bae immediately pressed the door bell without waiting for Ji who was ensuring his car was parked ok.Mai opened the door for the both of them and they were immediately engulfed in a bear hug.“You’re here again” Mai commented to Ji.“He dragged me” Ji answered, pointing at Young Bae.“How’s Dara?” Young Bae asked.“Well… I guess she’s doing ok for the moment” Mai answered uncertainly “This afternoon her temperature spiked so high and after an hour it went down a little and then it went up again. She’s been having dreams too and I’ve been thinking whether I should take her to the hospital.”“Why don’t we have a look at her?” Young Bae suggested, quite proactively.“That would be great” Mai answered and led the way upstairs.Ji felt his heart beat thunderously and hoped that Dara wasn’t as worse as Mai had pictured her out to be. When he had taken her home, she looked weak but her conscious resolve was so evident. It would be different, though, to see her now – sleeping and an easy prey to illness.Mai opened the door and Ji saw Dara, sleeping with furrowed eyebrows and sweat lining her forehead.“She doesn’t look ok” Young Bae immediately checked for her vitals and frowned.Ji looked at him “Her pulse is quite fast.”“The heat’s making her heart beat faster” Ji concurred.“I should go down and get another bowl of cold water with alcohol” Mai announced.“Noona!” Young Bae called out “Would you know where the thermometer is?”“Ow!” Mai answered, her voice softening as she went downstairs “I think I left it in the –““Did you hear what she said?” Young Bae asked Ji.Ji shook his head, distracted by the minute rise and fall of Dara’s chest.“Haish” Young Bae muttered as he tried to look around for the thermometer and followed their noona downstairs when he was sure that it wasn’t anywhere in the room.“Ir…. Sho…” Dara muttered and Ji Yong, his ears perking up at the sound of her voice, immediately walked to her bed side.He saw that she was sweating bullets, her face red with the heat, and her hair hallowing around the pillow but still, she looked so damn beautiful that he had to shake his head to erase thoughts he shouldn’t be thinking at all when it came to her.“Ir… Sho” she muttered again and Ji knew it was something else entirely that she was trying to say but her wind pipe wasn’t allowing her to.“I wonder what she could be saying” he told himself and decided to check for what Young Bae had told him a while ago, he reached out for her hand and felt for her pulse. It was indeed going at a very fast rate.“Ji?”Startled, he looked up her face to find Dara – her eyes squinting through the light, looking at him directly, looking like she had woken from a trance ans she was at a lost at where she was.“Dara” he answered – her name rolling off his tongue like sweet music, sure that his heart was beating as fast as her pulse but tried to recover from it “How are you feeling?”Finally refocusing and registering the situation, she seemed to finally remember that she was sick and in her room. “Like death warmed up” she answered in a feeble voice and closed her eyes again.“We’ll be taking you to the hospital” he informed her, still holding her hand.“Please…” she answered in a whisper “Don’t…”“But you’re only going to get worse” he countered, a little surprised that at this rate, she still had the gall to be stubborn.“It’s just like this” Dara responded, struggling with her words and squinted once again to look at him – her eyes trying to convey the will that her body didn’t want to follow “Please… don’t take me to the hospital.”Young Bae returned to the room and was as startled as Ji to find Dara awake “Hey Dara! How are you?”“She feels like death warmed up but still does not want to be taken to the hospital” Ji answered for her, his voice laced with sarcasm.“What are you talking about?” Young Bae asked incredulously. “Too bad you don’t have the energy to fight with two doctors, Head Nurse Park. This time around you cannot boss us. We’re taking you there.”“You won’t” she answered persistently.Young Bae rolled his eyes at his best friend as if to say “Imagine that I have been working with her for more than a year now” and Ji raised an eyebrow in understanding.Mai finally came up with the sponge bath, noting that Dara was awake and immediately smiled. “Ow thank God you’re awake!”“Unnie” Dara managed to say and tried to sit-up with obvious effort.Ji and Young Bae helped her at once.“She’s saying she won’t go to the hospital” Young Bae informed Mai – like a kid telling his mother someone took his candy.“Well, that’s no surprise” Mai answered him knowingly and then looked at Dara with a very smug look “But you do know that there are two doctors here who can easily carry you out that door and into an ambulance.”Dara coughed and cleared and warned both Doctors with as much intimidation as she can “You can take me to the hospital but be prepared to be assigned at the emergency for a whole month.”Young Bae groaned as Ji just smiled “You have to do better than that” he answered in challenge.The Head Nurse looked at him with as much hauteur her weak body can muster, not answering.They looked at each other, measuring… exchanging messages without any words until finally Ji spoke up. “I was just joking” he informed her, surprising everyone in the room – most especially Dara “You don’t seem to need to go to the hospital anyway with all this display of stubbornness.”“What?!?!” Young Bae reacted.“Are you sure?!?” Mai asked in concern.“Uhmmm… th-thank you” Dara answered uncertainly.“You’re welcome” Ji responded, looking at her directly as though Young Bae and Mai weren’t in the room too “But don’t tell anyone I let you win this time. I won’t go so easily on you the next time we talk.”