Summary: Changmin is sick and wants to be coddled.

Changmin was feeling sick. It wasn't that bad, but his nose was definitely running and his throat sore. And he was feeling most put down. Yunho, that nerve, did not even notice that he was not his normal self during breakfast. The maknae had actually slowed down his eating to almost zero hoping that the dense man could catch on, but no! The leader wolfed down his breakfast within seconds and flew out of the house, muttering about unresilient alarm clocks and awful filming schedule. Changmin snorted through his reddish nose. An alarm clock can only withstand that many times of being flung into the wall before breaking down. It was already an achievement for Yunho's current alarm clock, or ex alarm clock, had lasted for close to a quarter of the year, the longest of any alarm clocks the brute man had owned.

So an hour later, Changmin was face down on his bed, feeling the most sorry for himself. He was sick and he wanted attention. He wanted to be cooed and coddled at but here he was all alone in his matchbox sized apartment. He threw his pillow away harshly as he recalled how insensitive his hyung was before utterly regretting his childish action. The lanky man stared forlornly at his discarded pillow and a single tear wet the sheets underneath him. Being a very prideful male, the sharp-tongue singer would have argued till the cows come home that he was definitely not crying, but he was sick, and feeling very vulnerable at the moment and really couldn't care less about ego and image now.

Realising that moping on his bed really couldn't get him anywhere, Changmin decided that he needed some attention before he die a depressed man. Since Yunho wouldn't give him what he wanted, the maknae decided that he shall just get it from someone else's. Someone who is very generous with hugs and kisses and love. Patting his pockets to make sure that his phone and keys were with him, Changmin left the apartment with a destination in mind.

Deeps frowns were etched as a man stared solemnly at an iPad on his hands. Biting his lips in consternation, he swiped across the smooth surface and groaned when the device vibrated with a huge red cross flashing across the screen. Shaking his head to clear away violent thoughts, Jaejoong took a deep breath and concentrated at the game in front of him. He had accidentally downloaded Scramble which is a game that required him to form as many words as possible with the letter grid presented before him. Now, Jaejoong knew that he was no English major, but having only found less than five words every round had ignited his competitive spirit. He was adamant in at least getting a ten and his score was currently nine. Just one more word, all he needed was one more word. The letters went blurry as he panicked for time was ticking against him. Fourteen, thirteen, twelve, eleven-

There! There! He spotted a word and started stringing up the letters.  Seven, six, five, four.... Just three more letters to the word.... Three, two-

"Hyung!"

Jaejoong coughed spectacularly and glanced up. Changmin winced at the sharp coughs.

"TIME'S UP!"

The pretty man raised his iPad up and slumped despondently when the number nine flashed mockingly at him. He was so close to reaching his goal, so close and he would have cleared it if not for the man before him.

Changmin bit the insides of his cheeks to stop the bubble of laughter to erupt. Jaejoong was an epic picture before him. Doe eyes glaring sharply up at him with a reddish nose, while seated with his bedroom pants pooled around his ankles.

When Changmin let himself into the apartment, he was surprised to find it devoid of life since Jaejoong's sisterd had confirmed with him fifty seconds ago that Jaejoong was at home. Jutting his lips petulantly, Changmin trekked deeper into the house. He heard groans from the toilet and knowing Jaejoong's habit of not locking toilet doors, he threw the door open to see him seated on the toilet bowl tracing frantically on the iPad.

God knows how long the singer has been seating on the toilet bowl and if Changmin could remember correctly, two hours and twenty-eight seconds was the record. He mused if Jaejoong had broken his record best yet.

"Yah! Can't you wait for at least a second before barging in? Look at what you have done!" Jaejoong fumed as he waved the iPad before him. But really, a man could only be that scary when he's half down and seating on a toilet bowl.

The lanky man ignored the furious exclamation and whined, "Hyung~~~"

"Yes?" The anger was replaced with worry for Changmin rarely whines and he only whines during a few occasions.

"I'm sick," Changmin pouted fiercely hoping to add effect to his statement.

He cheered mentally when he saw Jaejoong reacting to his statement. He could always trust the band umma to give him what he wants.

"Give me a moment, Changdolah," Jaejoong breathed out as he tossed his iPad away carelessly and wiped himself down.

Changmin slapped a hand against his mouth that was stretched into a ridiculous smile when Jaejoong stood up to flush. There across the pale, , skinny thighs was a thick red imprint of a toilet bowl rim. And Changmin has a fairly good idea of just how long Jaejoong had been cooped up in his favourite place of his entire apartment.

Tightening the drawstring of his slacks, Jaejoong pulled Changmin away who was leaning rather comfortably against the toilet door frame.

He sat the baby of the group down on his fluffy sofa before plopping down beside him. He placed his palm on Changmin's forehead while his other hand was on his own forehead. Finally getting the attention he wanted, Changmin almost purred at Jaejoong's touch and pushed his forehead against his hands. It says a lot as Changmin did not even complain about Jaejoong's old school technique of checking his temperature even though he was sure that a very expensive thermometer is lying somewhere in the house. Jaejoong tsked at the lanky's man actions. He knew that Changmin must not be very sick otherwise the paranoid singer would have went to check himself into the ER of the hospital instead.

"Not very sick, are you?" Jaejoong grumbled. Changmin smiled winningly at him before laying his head on Jaejoong's slim thighs. Jaejoong sighed and ruffled the smooth locks of the wannabe baby before his thin body racked with violent coughs.

The door to Jaejoong's bedroom opened and the afternoon sunrays filtered in obscured Changmin's view of the huge silhouette that stood at the opening.

"Changdolah?"

"Yunho hyung?" Changmin choked out his reply. He turned to look at Jaejoong questioningly only to find him hiding behind his palms shaking his head.

"Why are you here?" The leader asked hoarsely as he sat on the other side of Jaejoong.

"I'm sick."

Yunho furrowed his brows. That sure did not answer his question although he had a slight inkling.

"God, hyung. How could you not know that I was sick? We live together!" Changmin cried out, alarmed at how little attention Yunho paid to him.

"Changmin-ah, then how could you not know that I was sick too?" Yunho grumbled out before leaning his head on Jaejoong's shoulder.

"Yah, I'm not your bolster," the lead singer protested weakly. Yunho ignored him and even snuggled further into his neck. Jaejoong jutted his lips despondently.

"How could you be sick? You practically wolfed your breakfast and ran out of the house. That isn’t how a sick person is supposed to behave!" The long-legged maknae reasoned.

"So I'm supposed to be like you and pretend not to be hungry by eating one spoonful of rice every other minute while your stomach growls in protest?" Yunho rose his brow.

Changmin's lip thinned into a line when he realised that Yunho actually saw through his pretense and yet behaving as normal.

Yunho chuckled when he saw Changmin's face grew darker as the time passed. His laughter became coughs which set off Jaejoong coughing too. The beauty glared harshly at the coughing leader and slapped resoundingly on his thigh. The itch in his throat had finally died down and Yunho's coughing just brought it damn back. The leader shrugged helplessly as he tried to contain his cough before he really coughed his lungs up.

"I've known you for more than a decade, Changmin. Of course I know what you are up to. But I'm just too sick to coddle you," Yunho explained when his cough finally subsided.

"Aren't you supposed to be filming?"

"I can hardly deliver my lines without hacking up like an old man. Director-nim was so furious he just stormed off the studio."

“I always think he’s on constant PMS,” Jaejoong pulled a face at the mention of their favourite director.

“Why?”

“It’s like he has something against flower boys-“

“You? Flower boy?” Changmin snorted.

Jaejoong smacked his head at his unwanted comment.

“I happened to still belong to the idol category alright. At least the director still thinks so. But anyway, he kept telling me that I need to, and I quote, ‘throw away my idol image’ and ‘be willing to uglify myself like any actor would’,” Jaejoong heaved heavily, blood rising at the words thrown at him so carelessly.

“And…” Yunho probed further.

“What? If streaking down the streets with nothing but a red muay thai boxers isn’t enough for him, then I don’t know what else I can do. I mean upholding my image comes so naturally since it affects-“

“The reputation of DBSK. This excuse is almost as old as Yoochun always saying it’s not him whenever he pulled pranks on others. Just admit that you like being pretty,” Changmin interjected.

Jaejoong had half the mind to push the big baby off his lap and let him return to the graces of the floor.

“I like being pretty. Happy?” The beauty conceded while mock chocking the tall man still lying on his thighs.

Changmin flailed his arms around, hitting Yunho close to his crotch, who slapped the snarky man resoundingly for giving him such a fright.

Jaejoong pressed hardly against the back of the couch, trying to distance himself as far as the two violent men beside him. As what he had admitted, he liked being pretty too much to subject his pretty face to any accidental hits.

Smarting from Yunho’s punches and slaps, Changmin tried to kick him out of the house. Indirectly of course, since he didn’t want Jaejoong to kick him out too.

“Yunho, shouldn’t you be going home anytime now? Don’t want you spreading your germs to Jaejoong hyung, would you?” Changmin stated matter-of-factly.

“Shouldn’t you be going home too?”

Changmin stuck his tongue out and Yunho returned the equally childish gesture.

"Yah, you two get off my Jaejoongie hyung, it's our turn now!"

The bickering duo turned towards the corridor leading to the bedrooms to see the resident siamese twins, Junsu and Yoochun, dressed in identical printed pajamas.

The two shuffled stood in front of the trio and glared as fierce as they could with their fluffy bed hair and snot running down their noses.

"You have him all the time. Learn to share," Changmin shooed them as if Junsu and Yoochun were pigeons. Yoochun kicked Changmin half-heartedly before settling down on a loveseat with Junsu in tow.

"Why is it so difficult to have hyung all alone by myself," Changmin puffed as he stretched his legs towards the loveseat, hoping that his legs were long enough to poke Junsu on the loveseat.

He crooned in victory when he felt Junsu's pants on his toes and stabbed the innocent musical actor with his toes.

Too tired and still sluggish from his flu, Junsu blew his nose into his hand and wiped it on the unrelenting foot.

The indignant howl was worth it as Junsu smiled through Changmin's antics. His ears were thankfully, for once, blocked by the virus and he could hardly hear the sharp scream. The other less fortunate men could only stuffed their fingers into their ears, hoping to filter out the unworldly pitch.

"Junsu!" Jaejoong and Yoochun growled their displeasure for subjecting them to such torment and Junsu simply shrugged it off.

Changmin laid still as he lifted his soiled foot in the air, the thick yellowish mucus slowly drying off.

Yoochun suddenly started wheezing loudly, causing everybody to sit up in panic.

"Inhaler, table!" Jaejoong instructed as he watched Yoochun struggled to breathe worriedly.

Yunho jumped off the couch and threw the inhaler to Junsu, who immediately ed the life saviour into Yoochun's mouth.

The next few seconds were deadly silent as they saw Yoochun puffing in the medication.

The heaving chest of the skinny man told them Yoochun was still trying to regain his breath, but the smile otherwise told them that he was okay.

"Dude, I thought you hadn't had an attack for years," Yunho clarified seriously.

Yoochun nodded his head at the statement.

"Yes. But the thought of that thick mucus stuck in my throat... My windpipe suddenly constricted and I cannot breathe," Yoochun explained slowly.

Everybody turned to look at Junsu who pointed at Changmin in return.

"He started it first."

And the blame-pushing ensued as Changmin tried to push the blame to Yoochun who in return tried pushed it on Yunho and it goes round and round until a spectacularly loud sneeze from Jaejoong halted the ruckus.

"I got out of the hospital because I wanted to rest in the comforts of my own home, guys," Jaejoong sniffed pitifully. The headache had worsened and all he wanted to do was to sleep, but the current situation just wouldn't allow him to.

"You are sick?" Changmin was quick to ask.

Tired, Jaejoong stared blankly at his huge TV that was switched off. This wasn’t his idea of day off at all.

"Yeah, Jaejoongie hyung's coughs were so bad, we told him to get to the hospital-"

"It was really bad, he couldn't speak at all-"

"And when he was there, the doctor told him that if he admitted himself any later, he would have-"

"Pneumonium! But thankfully, he didn't-"

"The doctor gave him some extra strong medications-"

"And Jaejoongie hyung checked himself out after a day after making sure he has enough medications with him-"

"Including an asthma inhaler, even though he doesn't have asthma himself because-"

"Because old habits die hard," Jaejoong completed Yoochun's and Junsu's dialogue.

Everybody fell into companionable silence as they grew conscious about that one inhaler in their bags.

"Does that mean we all fell sick at the same time?" Changmin asked, still not quite processing the happenings around him. Virus made him stupid.

"Ever not?" Junsu asked back.

They always fall sick together, to the point that their then manager hyung had given up putting them on quarantine whenever one fell sick.

A chirpy alarm broke their train of thoughts and Jaejoong pushed Changmin off and got up, much to the consternation of the baby.

"Time for medicine, boys," He rasped while walking towards the table.

Yunho, Yoochun and Junsu groaned simultaneously at the pile of pills they have to swallow. Only Changmin cheered. He's weird like that, always asking his sick hyungs for extra medication so that he could have them too.

Once at the table, the four men stuck their palms out waiting for Jaejoong to dispense the pills to them. And boy, his table was littered with so many colourful pills that they could hardly see the white marble underneath the psychedelic pile.

"You asked for four extra dosages of your medicine?"

"Call it a premonition."

"Junsu, ah," Yunho instructed once he swallowed the bitter tablets.

Junsu pouted.

"Must I?" He whined, sounding a tad garbled at the same time.

"Yes," Jaejoong replied.

Junsu let out a big breathe, like a child who had been asked to own up a mistake.

"Ahhh," He opened his mouth wide, and there, below his tongue were the pills he was supposed to swallow.

Yoochun and Changmin grimaced at the unappealing sight before them while Yunho and Jaejoong were unperturbed by it.

"Isn't more bitter to stash the pills there?" Yunho asked, an involuntary shiver crept up his spine.

"You know I can't swallow pills well," Junsu pouted even harder, as if the pills will disappear magically if he pouted hard enough.

"I'm sorry, Junsu-yah, but these extra strong medication didn't have their syrup counterparts. Just... try to swallow, hm?" Jaejoong soothed.

Filling up his empty glass with more water, Yunho nodded at the musical actor.

With the silent encouragement from his hyungs, Junsu balled his hands into fists and squeezed his eyes tight. With as much effort he could summon, he relaxed his oesophagus and finally swallowed the pills with much difficulty. He was rewarded with bright smiles from Jaejoong and Yunho and he returned the smile like a proud child who got praised by his parents. Yoochun shook his head. They were such boys when they were sick.

"Alright guys, it's time for me to sleep, so I'll shall leave you to be..." Jaejoong muttered softly as he crept towards his bedroom stealthily. He fumed a little on the inside, wondering why the hell he had to creep around in his own house, but he didn't want to share his bed with anybody, so he shall creep around until he got to his room.

The drowsy effect of the medication kick-started as it took unusually long for the rest of the boys to understand what Jaejoong was insinuating at. By the time they realised, Jaejoong was already halfway towards his bed.

"But hyung!"

"We always sleep together!"

"It makes us recover faster!"

"We need comfort."

Jaejoong hurriedly shut the door to his room but Changmin was even faster, seeing how he was the less ill out of all of them. One against four. The result was obvious.

"There's no way we can fit in," the beauty grumbled once the four protesting guys were in his room.

"We’ve done it before."

"We were boys then. Your legs are twice as long compared to then."

"You make me sound like a freak, hyung," Changmin frowned. He was already considered tall in his teens. If his legs were twice as long, as what his lovely hyung had put in, he would be taller than Yao Ming!

"Only hyung when you want something from him, Minnie-yah," Yoochun shook his head in fond exasperation.

"Why, jealous?" The mischievous maknae shot back.

The arguing duo continued their crossfire, not caring about the people around them.

When they finally ceased their nonsensical argument, the room was very quiet. Like everybody else was asleep. Disbelief mirrored in each other's orbs as they slowly turned towards the satin covered super king sized bed.

There, in the middle, laid three men sleeping peacefully away. But the serene expressions were unable to calm the incredulity bubbling within Yoochun and Changmin. Not wasting anymore time, the two males scrambled up the bed and tried to squeeze into whatever space that was left for them.

A melody resounded across the silent apartment and the door opened to reveal Jaejoong’s sister. In her hands was a huge pot of chicken soup that their mother had boiled in the wee hours of the morning and tasked her to bring it to their sick brother.

Spoilt brat, she rolled her eyes endearingly, unable to blame her mother since all her sisters and her are guilty as charged.

With the heavy pot in tow, she shuffled towards the bedroom and gasped softly when she saw five boys sleeping on the bed.  As quickly as she could with the rotund belly of hers, she placed the pot softly on the kitchen island and shuffled back hastily to the room. She got out her phone and snapped a picture silently. Leaning heavily on the door frame, she checked the photo quality. She enlarged the image and saw glints from their wrists. Glancing up, she finally saw Cartier’s Love bracelets adorned on the five wrists.

Rubbing her pregnant belly unconsciously, Jaejoong’s sister giggled at one memory. She was having her monthly ultrasound, when her phone vibrated. Ignoring her gynecologist’s dirty looks, she answered the phone.

“Noona, is Jaejoongie attached?” Yunho garbled urgently into the phone.

“Emm, not that I know of. What’s the matter, Yunho-yah?”

“Well, I saw him with the Love bracelet… Thanks, noona!” And the call was ended abruptly.

By then, her gynecologist was staring at her belly a little in fright for during the phone conversation, the foetus was kicking up a storm with such intensity the doctor had not seen before.

Jaejoong’s sister patted her stomach proudly, as if her baby knows that her Uncle Jaejoong was the topic of the conversation.. Her husband had been telling her that prenatal teaching is very important and thus she had been staring at the lovely pictures of her brother ever since. She was confident that her baby would be prettier than a flower.

She backed away from the room and exited the house quietly. She was at first unsure if Jaejoong could finish the huge pot of soup but seeing how he had guests with him, the concern was if the soup is enough for them.

AN: There's a slight lull in my studies now, so I took the opportunity to update! :)