Chapter 9

It was just past 2 am when the front door opened and Jongin stumbled in. The manager followed in behind him and watched worriedly as Jongin dropped his bag on the floor and bent down to take off his shoes. Before I could even say anything, the manager looked up and met eyes with me.

“Oh Yoonae! I didn’t expect you to still be here. I thought you would’ve just dropped off the medication, the members could have taken it.”

“It’s okay, I wanted to see Jongin anyways, it’s been a while. And I was able to catch up with some members.” Or just Baekhyun. I was aware of Jongin’s eyes on me now as I made my way over to his side.

It was then that I was able to see him up close, and he was worse than I remembered. I had expected it would be the case, but still, it never got easier watching him wear himself down like this.

“Baby, you look pale.” I placed my hand on his forehead and noticed he was breaking out in a cold sweat, and he was burning up. Geez, what was he doing to his body?

“Yoonae.” He barely spoke under his breath as he reached forward and collapsed into my arms. He clung onto me with enough weight that if I had let him go, he would stumble face first into the ground. “Stay with me.”

“I will Jongin, I’ll stay with you tonight. But you promise me you’ll quickly wash up and go to sleep.” I said as I gently rubbed his back like I was comforting a small child. It was just that, he seemed so weak and powerless at the moment, I just wanted to hold him.

The manager cleared his throat as he took off his shoes and coat. “Yoonae, if you can help him, I’m going to go to bed first. I have to be up in a few hours to drive Kyungsoo to his drama set.”

“Yeah of course,” I replied. “You go rest up. I’ll take care of him.”

“Thank you.” He said with a grateful look in his eyes. He too seemed worn out, it must be hard having to watch over so many guys, and he must’ve felt the emotional pain I was going through too as he watched over Jongin. “Make sure you give him some fever medication before bed. You know where everything is.”

“I got it oppa.” I said.

“Goodnight.” He said as he disappeared down the hall towards his room.

With that, I turned my attention to Jongin who was barely conscious in my arms. “Come on, let’s go to the bathroom. You should at least rinse off your sweat.”

He shivered and shook his head, “I can’t Yoonae. I’m too tired. And I’m cold.”

He was right. It’s so late in the night already and with a high fever like his, would it really be smart to let him take a shower? Not to mention, he could collapse in there and I wouldn’t even know.

“Alright baby, let’s get you to bed then.”

We slowly made our way to his room and when we did, he fell onto the bed, groaning as his back and waist was stretched out.

“I’ll be right back.” I said as I kissed him lightly on the forehead.

“Be quick.” He whispered, his lips quivering. My heart almost broke at the sight before I turned and hurried out of the room. I grabbed a large mixing bowl from the kitchen and filled it with warm water and grabbed two towels from the bathroom. Afterwards, I quickly stopped by to get some fever medication from the cabinet and a glass of water.

When I returned to the room, Jongin had just dozed off and I felt terrible having to wake him up again. But without much protest he complied. Slowly, I helped him out of his sweaty dance clothes. Dipping one towel into the warm water, I rang out the excess water and began wiping his body.

As I was cleaning him off I realized that something was different. Usually I would take the time to marvel at his body if I had ever stumbled upon him shirtless, but today, not only did I not have much time before he would become even colder, but something seemed off. It was when I helped him back into his usual sleepwear that I realized, he had lost weight. A lot of weight.

“Jongin when was the last time you ate?” I asked, almost angrily. I absolutely hated it when any of the members would skip meals especially if it was because of a busy day jam packed with schedules. They were skinny enough as it was to conform to the idol image. And my boyfriend, in particular, was always the main culprit for this.

“I had some bread before our evening performance.” Whether he was lying or not, I didn’t even know.

“Well you can’t take fever medication on an empty stomach so I’m gonna see what there is.” I said as I headed towards the kitchen. He didn’t even have the energy to protest. I warmed up some leftover soup that Kyungsoo had made for dinner and brought it back to the room.

“I don’t want it.” He finally argued.

“It’s just soup Jongin, I know you don’t have an appetite but you have to at least have something.” I helped him up and he sighed, obediently drinking every spoonful I held out to him. When he was done, he took the medicine without further argument and went back to lying under the covers, shivering.

“Jongin, you need to stop doing this to yourself. Stop pushing yourself so hard, stop practicing so late. It’s bad for your back and your health.” I said as I gently his hair. It was something he liked me doing when he needed to be comforted.

“There’s no time,” he spoke in his airy voice, his couldn’t even keep his eyes open anymore.  “I can’t stop now, this song is going to make it big, I can tell. Everything needs to be perfect.”

“Yeah but Jongin, you can’t get sick like this. I’m not even around to take care of you anymore. You’re going to push yourself too far one day.”

“I won’t, love, I promise.” He paused for a second, sleep clearly finding him. “Thank you…”

And with that, he dozed off, his soft snores filling the room. I sighed as I watched him. Tears brimmed my eyes. He just looked so tired, so drained, yet still...he pushes himself….

Quietly I got up and put everything away before I returned and settled next to him in bed. Leaning over, I pecked him softly on the forehead.

“Goodnight Jongin, I love you.”

---

I followed the boys to the SM building the next day, taking a day off of school yet again, to watch over my boyfriend. Despite my protest he went on with dance rehearsals with the other members anyways. I stuck around for the beginning just to check out the new title track, “Growl” and sure enough, Jongin was right. Everything was catchy and it was going to make it big.

After two hours of watching Jongin about to faint from exhaustion, I couldn’t stand it anymore. When the boys left to go to their Music Bank performance, I excused myself and headed towards the top floor of the building.

When I rounded the corner to the offices, the secretary immediately stopped me. “Miss, do you have an appointment?”

“No.”

“But-” Before she could even protest I stormed my way past her and knocked on the office door. I could hear her following me in protest.

“Come in.” The voice on the other side spoke.

I opened the door only to meet the shocked eyes of SM’s CEO.

“Mr. Lee I’m sorry, I tried to stop her but-”

“It’s okay Jihae-shii, I’m not busy now anyways. Besides, she’s an important employee here.” Lee Soo Man replied before gesturing to the chair in front of him. “Have a seat Yoonae-shii.”

When I did, the secretary gave me a confused look before excusing herself. Of course she didn’t actually know me, I was never in this part of the building before. The figure in front of me often scared the living hell out of me, so never in my life had I even considered I would willingly be sitting here, confronting him.

“I didn’t know you still considered me an employee Mr. Lee,” I said. I couldn’t refrain from having the bitterness leave my mouth. “I was under the assumption that me leaving the company would mean I am no longer associated with SM.”

He let out a small, amused, chuckle before replying. “With your relationship to EXO Yoonae, it’s virtually impossible to say that you are no longer associated with the company. How are you and Jongin doing?”

I narrowed my eyes at him, and I was only getting angrier by the second with his man in front of me. “Last time I checked you didn’t care less about how Jongin and I were doing, you wanted us to break up.”

With that, he dropped his smiling facade, and became the intimidating CEO that I had known all along. “Never say I don’t care. I care for those boys more than you could ever Ms. Park. I’ve watched those kids grow up for years and gave them the career that they always dreamed of. Every one of those artists are like my own children so don’t you dare tell me I don’t care about them.”

“If you care so much then you would know that Jongin is about to go on stage right now and his fever is off the charts! Not only that but his waist has only gotten worse and he lost a large amount of weight in merely three weeks since I’ve seen him!” He seemed to be taken aback by my sudden outburst. I took a deep breath, calming myself, and reminding myself that being a CEO of such a big company, there was no way that Lee Soo Man could have kept tabs on how each and every artist was doing, and that Jongin himself was partially at fault here.

“I don’t know if you know but I went to see his specialist yesterday to pick up his medication. The doctor said his condition was getting worse and no amount of medication will be able to help him. He needs rest, sir, immediately.”

He sighed, bringing a hand to his forehead as he massaged his temples. I could tell he was frustrated about the situation as well, but there was only so much he could give up because afterall, the boys were public figures.

“Yoonae please...trust me. I know what I’m doing. If it gets worse, I’ll make him stop. But for now, there’s nothing we can really do.”

“Please sir,” I begged. The anger was all gone, and this was the only way I could get through to him now. “You haven’t seen his condition sir, it’s really bad and everyone is worried about him. A few days is all I’m asking. Just give him a few days to rest, relax, and find himself again. Please do it before it’s too late.”

He looked up at me, and shook his head. “No means no. I can’t just send you two on a jolly little vacation when the refurbished album is right around the corner.”

“But sir-”

“No Yoonae. No matter how much you ask, it’s not-”

Suddenly the door burst open, and the secretary stood at the door with a horrified look on her face.

“Sorry to interrupt Mr. Lee, but you have an urgent call on the line.”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “Who is it?”

Nervously, she gave me a brief look before answering. “It’s EXO’s manager.”