Kris probably had some precognition power because the next day, Soah was definitely not okay and she really needed help with something: a vaccine. Cold had hit her like a ton of bricks, sudden and leaving her unable to move. Laying in her bed and alternating between shivering, coughing and snorting, Soah realized she was in no position to go to work. Extending her arm from under to covers, she grabbed her cellphone on her nightstand. Staring at the LCD screen of her phone, she wondered who she could call. She could call her bosses but she didn’t have their number. She could call Jinah, who was technically her superior, but after what Soah witnessed yesterday, she felt slightly uncomfortable talking to Jinah. She could call Jongdae, if the crazy kid was already up. Closing her eyes, she tried to concentrate despite something pounding in her head like a reckless woodchuck. It was a Wednesday. Who worked on Wednesday, usually?

“Jongdae, Jinah, Baekhyun and Chanyeol…” Soah muttered between coughs.

She found Jongdae’s number and typed the fastest she could:

Can’t come to work. >.< Really sick :S

She pressed ‘send’ after thinking it weirdly resembled a telegraph… Seconds later, she received an answer:

Okay. Get better

“Calm down or one could thing you care about me, Kim Jongdae!” Soah ironized.

Trying to put her phone back one top of her nightstand, Soah instead dropped in on the floor in a loud thud. Quickly repatriating her arm inside her warm cocoon of covers, she considered picking it back but decided against when her lids became heavier and she dozed off.

She was woken up by the sound of her ringtone. Opening her eyes with difficulty and feeling her headache explode with the loud noise, she reached for her cellphone and answered.

“Hello?” Soah asked, her voice hoarse from the coughing.

“Woah! I called to ask if you were really sick or only pretending but now that I hear a pubescent boy in your voice, I know you aren’t faking.”

“Baekhyun,” Soah stated.

And had she been in her normal condition, she would have make the perfect snappy comeback about how he liked pubescent boys but being in her current state, she didn’t.

“Do Kris and Joonmyun know I won’t come? Did Jongdae tell them?” She asked instead.

“Nope! Chen never relayed the message. Don’t you know better: you should tell me!”

Soah chuckled. “I would be sure everybody would know a minute after I told you. Maybe next time I’m on my death bed.”

“You’re so dramatic… Death bed… Anyway, bosses are giving me weird looks and not the kind of weird I like. I should go back to work! Get well, darling!”

And Baekhyun hung up without leaving time for Soah to say goodbye. It was totally in sync with his personality, though. Once Byun Baekhyun, professional sass queen, was done talking, the conversation was over and one could do nothing about it.

“I’m so weak, though,” she croaked with her now raspy voice. “Maybe I’m really dying…”

Soah’s mind wandered to all the thinks she still hadn’t done and really wanted to do. At the top of her bucket list was something Soah feared but really looked up to: Calling Tiffany. Ever since her dad showed up at her work, Soah couldn’t deny she did felt the urge to call her former bestfriend to catch up like nothing had changed. Her thumb hovering over the contact name, Soah sighed and suddenly snapped her phone close. Now wasn’t the time to think about it.

Still coughing her lungs out, Soah felt really miserable and alone. She had rented a small 3-room apart in the outskirts of Seoul for herself and never regretted her decision to move out of the family house until now. She did miss her mother’s soup. She went back to slumbering, her mind filled with delicious food she could get if only she found the strength to get out of her bed.

Turned out she didn’t even have to get out of her bed. As she woke up for the third time this morning, she inhaled the familiar smell of cooking. Thinking it was impossible that the smell came from her home, she looked around for an open window that could have indicate her neighbors were preparing something delicious. Finding none, Soah finally acknowledged that something in her apart smelled like food. Curious, she threw the covers off her and grabbed her bathrobe, wrapping herself in it on top of her pajamas. Still feeling pretty cold, she added a blanket around her shoulders. Dragging her feet to the door, Soah opened it to reveal two men were casually sitting in her kitchen. Clutching the nearest blunt instrument – which happened to be a oddly shaped lamp – Soah took few steps forward and cleared to make her presence known. Both figured turned her way.

“Kyungsoo?” Soah stared at her neighbor. Sure, she had given him the key in case of emergency, but it didn’t mean he could just barge in. To her defense, Kyungsoo looked pretty much harmless and she had nothing of value that would be worthy of being stolen. So it wasn’t like she minded him having a key. In fact, it proved to be quite useful when it was raining and she locked herself outside unintentionally.

“Soah-yah! Are you okay? I heard you were sick and I thought some homemade cooking would do you good. You should stop eating those premade meals and start cooking.”

She frowned when Kyungsoo pointed at the empty ramen cup in a corner of the room. “This isn’t healthy!”

“I’ll forgive you for barging in and nagging because this stew smells so good!” Soah said, rubbing her temples. “Wait, how did you know?”

“I found your boyfriend wandering in front of your door,” Kyungsoo happily stated. “He told me.”

“My boyfriend?” Soah repeated, shocked.

That’s when her eyes fell on the other man occupying your kitchen. “Manager Kris?”

He looked very awkward, alternating his gaze between her and her neighbor.

“He’s not my boyfriend! Kyungsoo-ah, you can’t just let anyone in, what if they were a stalker?”

Kyungsoo looked mortified and Kris offended. “I’m not a stalker,” he muttered.

“That’s right, I’m so sorry!” Soah’s neighbor apologized. “He just looked so worried and he knew your name… I just assumed he knew you!”

Soah’s eyes to double take on that. Kris Wu looked worried? The ever so collected ever so cold manager seemed worried about his employee? That was surely a first.

“I thought idiots didn’t have colds,” Kris said to dissipate the silence.

“It’s the flu!” Soah retorted, not seeing how that statement wasn’t helping her at all.

Kris looked at her for few seconds, his eyes lingering on her red nose and at the box of tissues she was carrying. “It’s just a common cold.”

“No, it’s swine flu! Or H1N1 and I’m going to die!” Soah whined childishly, agitating her hands. She managed to drop the lamp who shattered into dozens of pieces that were big enough to see but still small enough to hurt under the feet.

“This cold is getting to your head,” Kris said as he facepalmed.

Taking her arm, he dragged her to the table and made her sit in front of a hot bowl of soup. She took a spoonful and quickly, dipped the flatware back into the liquid, eating the soup at a LTE speed. Disappearing shortly, Kyungsoo came back with a broom from his own apartment and proceeded on sweeping her messes.

“Kyung-Kyung, we should get married already!” Soah announced out of the blue. “You’d be such a perfect housewife!”

Kris frowned at her silliness and a blush crept up Kyungsoo’s face as he kept picking up the pieces of her broken lamp.

“You are right,” Soah continued. “I should eat more homemade meals, I can’t live off ramens and microwavable dishes. In fact, I think eating your cooking tonight would cure me right away!” She felt no shame in playing the sick card or returning his words against him to get what she wanted.

“Fine,” Kyungsoo agreed.

“And tomorrow?’ Soah asked, pushing her luck.

“How about I take you to the restaurant, instead?” Kris offered casually. “Stop bothering your poor neighbor or he’ll want to move out.”

Soah’s face stayed blank for a while before she broke into a grin. “Okay!”

“And now I’ll be going back to sleep,” she added while slithering toward her room. “Thanks for the meal!”

Soah closed the door and went back to sleep right away.

The fourth time she woke up, it was because someone rang her doorbell. Opening one eye, she wondered how much time had passed since she last was up and if there was still a chance Kyungsoo or Kris was still here and ready to open the door without her having to get up. Or better yet, maybe if she just ignored it, it would go away…

“Soah?” her neighbor asked from the kitchen. “I think someone is at your door.”

“Ignore it!” She yelled.

But the doorbell rang again, and she rose up from her sleep, still holding her box of tissues. She lazily ran her fingers through her hair only to have them stop midway. Cursing at her stupid hair knots, she left it that way and entered the kitchen at the moment Kyungsoo was opening the door.

On the other side stood a very confused Kim Joonmyun who stared at Soah’s neighbor like he had grown a second head.

“Er… Hello?” he said tentatively.

Kyungsoo looked Joonmyun up and down and noticing the paper bag in his hand turned to Soah with a worried expression. “Kwon Soah! Does your boyfriend know you have another boyfriend?”

“Kyung-Kyung?” she asked and he perked up. “Shut up.”

Turning to her other boss, she invited him in with a move of her hand before plopping her down on her favorite chair.

“Ignore that woman,” Soah said pointing to Kyungsoo. “She just can’t believe I’m single.”

“Well I can’t believe you are single either,” Joonmyun confided as if he was talking about the weather.

“Thank you,” Soah stuttered, a blush creeping up her face but going incognito as her face was already red from the cold.

“So, how are you feeling?” the manager asked full of solicitude.

“I’m not so good, but I should be okay tomorrow. Except I’m not working tomorrow… I guess I should be back to work Friday morning!” Soah was still feeling dizzy from the sickness and thinking seemed like something hard to do.

“If you are not okay, feel free to call in sick again.”

Soah smiled. “It’s okay, Kris said it was only a cold and I always get better really fast!”

“Kris said that? Did he come here?” Suho asked, looking around to see if maybe Kris was still hanging around. Soah thought it was pointless, there weren’t any place one could hide in her apartment and her boss surely wasn’t hiding in the cookie jar. Kyungsoo, for example, was trying to be as small as possible and only managed to freeze in the corner like an awkward statue. And he pretended he couldn’t hear the conversation…

“He did, just before you came. It’s a fuzzy memory, though, I was sleepy and fell asleep afterwards…”

“Kris doesn’t even play by his own rules…” Joonmyun mumbled.

“Well, I got soup for you since it’s important to stay hydrated,” Joonmyun added with a normal tone of voice Soah could actually hear. “I guess we’ll see each other on Friday. Don’t forget to call if you are too sick!”

Soah laughed. “I don’t have your number, Mr. Kim.”

“Oh really?” Joonmyun sounded surprised. Noticing her phone on the table – who knows how it winded up there – Joonmyun opened it and input something. “Now you do.”

And he gave a small wave at both his employee and her neighbor with a bow before her left the apart. Soah took her phone and opened it. Turned out Joonmyun had started a text-message conversation with himself which meant he also had her number. She smiled at the way he chose to put his name as Suho.

“Who are you guarding, Kim Joonmyun,” she whispered with a smile.

“Kyungsoo? I feel like eating soup. You don’t have to cook for me tonight.”

Her neighbor slowly seemed to come back to life and looked at her with his big surprised eyes. “Ehm… Sure.”

“Thank you though, you are the best neighbor a girl could have!” Soah chirped.

He smiled and bowed to her before going back to his own place. Soah watched him close the door with half-lidded eyes before yawning. She had soup she could eat, but maybe sleeping some more was a good idea…