Chapter 5

       Sulli was currently on her way to the Lee Residence. She was deep in thought as she was traversing the route to the residence, but it didn’t matter because she had been there so many times that she had already memorized the way to Taemin’s house like the back of her hand.

       Why would he have a fever all of a sudden? He only ever gets sick when he’s extremely exhausted or when he’s particularly depressed… Aside from that, I would think that he was immortal… But he was perfectly fine yesterday, wasn’t he?

       The girl had been pulled out from her musings when she realized that she had reached her destination (at the pace she was going, it was no surprise.) and that she was already standing in front of the massive gate of Taemin’s mansion home.

       Ding dong!

       I wonder how the guys are doing back at the café… Could they be playing pranks on Jo Kwon sunbae without me…? Nah, Sulli would most likely tell them off before they even get the chance to do anything. I wonder how she’s doing? She’s probably with that Minho guy again… Grr…

       In spite of his current state of unwell-ness, Taemin still found it in him to grumble in jealousy because really, when it came to that girl, he could never not make a big deal out of things.

       Whenever she smiles at him, he gets so overjoyed that when he expresses these feelings of elation at his home, the maids would often assume that he was high on some sort of happy pill. Whenever she calls him up to tell him something ranging from something of utmost importance to complete idiocy, he’d always have this lovesick smile on his face as he listens to her ranting over the phone. And now that she’s developed feelings for a guy who was definitely not him, she ended up sending him to his death bed. (Well, it wasn’t really a death-bed, but to him, it absolutely felt like it was.)

       Taemin was driven to stop his sulking when he heard a light knocking from the direction of his bedroom door.

       “Come in!” Assuming that it was one of the maids checking up on him once again, he tried his best to make his voice as cheerful as it normally is as to not make any of them worry.

       The door opened quietly and the maid timidly stood in the doorway. “Sir, you have a visitor.”

       “At this time of day? It’s only – ” He turned his head to his right to glance at the digital clock placed on his bedside table, “2 in the afternoon. Didn’t Auntie tell me that she’d come by at 7?” The maid nodded her head to answer his query.

       “Actually sir, it isn’t Jung Juri-nim…”

       “LEE TAEMIN!”

       The ailing boy was startled by the sudden entrance of the one and only Choi Jin Ri. She was marching towards him, obviously in a bad mood. His initial reaction was to cower under his bed covers and wait out the storm of Sulli’s wrath, but he knew that doing this would be useless. Running away from an angry Sulli was utterly impossible. So instead, he opted to sit up and greet his visitor.

       “Hey--”

       “Don’t ‘hey, hey’ me! Why didn’t you tell me that you were sick?!” She had stopped walking when she reached Taemin’s bedside and she put her hands on her hips; a clear signal that she was very upset. “You could have at least messaged me, you know!”

       Sulli wasn’t shouting, but her voice was loud enough for Taemin to recognize the frustration in her voice. He prepared himself for a long lecture from the girl about considering other people’s feelings and proper health care, but he was caught by surprise when Sulli’s demeanor suddenly changed from an enraged bull to that of an angel’s. She had put her hand to her forehead tiredly.

       “Aish…You had me so worried…”

       The boy’s eyes widened when she said this. He hated making Sulli worry. He was about to apologize to her when another one of his headaches decided to make a grand appearance at that moment. He put a hand to his eyes because his vision had suddenly blurred once again as it had been doing for the whole duration of the day. He threw his body back into the bed in hopes of easing the pain, but it was to no avail. His head still hurt like hell.

       “What’s wrong?” Sulli’s voice was laced with concern as she went to sit on the floor beside Taemin’s bed.

       “It’s… nothing…” He tried to smile at her as he said this as to not distress her any more than she was at the moment, but what came out was a sort of pained smile.

       She hit him on the head. This produced a groan of pain from the boy. “Liar.” With a sigh, she patted him on the head again, but this time, out of affection. “If you’re feeling that bad, take a nap or something. I’ll deal with you when you’re up and feeling better.”

       To a normal person, what Sulli said would have sounded like a threat. But Taemin knew that when she said this, she meant: “Get to sleep so that you’ll feel better. I’ll be here for you when you wake up.”

       He closed his eyes with a small smile on his face and drifted off to sleep.