Story requested by soshiace9

Pairing: 2eun

Azelea; a flower which symbolises "take care of yourself for me".

Eunji dragged herself into the dormitory, exhausted after a day of drama filming. She was about to head straight to her room when she spotted two bodies lying on the sofa. It was her fellow 93line member Bomi and her favourite dongsaeng Naeun. Seeing how uncomfortable they seemed, she woke them up. "Bomi ah, Naeun ah, wake up and get your into your rooms!"

Naeun opened her eyes immediately, mumbling "Oh unnie you're back.", while Bomi only rolled in response, almost falling off edge of the sofa, thankfully held back by Eunji. 

"Why are you guys sleeping here?" Eunji asked, as she shook Bomi in an futile attempt to wake the blonde up.

"We were waiting for you," Naeun explained, "But you came back so late we got too tired."

"You guys shouldn't have," Eunji replied, giving Naeun the 'help-me-drag-this-girl-in' look. After taking a relatively long time to shift the blonde from the living room to her bedroom, Eunji urged the younger to go to sleep.

"How about you, unnie?" She asked. Naeun always appeared like a cold city girl, but deep down she cared a lot. For her fellow members, especially Eunji. She might have been the closest with Chorong, but the latter was always with Bomi. Since the maknaes stuck around each other, Naeun ended up spending a lot of time with Eunji, and from there they developed a special bond. Eunji was the one she cared for the most, and it pained her to see the older having to work till such late hours only to get a few hours of sleep.

"I'll go bathe, read my script a little then sleep." Eunji's reply was not satisfactory for Naeun. The girl already had insufficient rest and yet she loved to spend time reading her script.

"Unnie, can't you just sleep after you bathe?" 

"Naeun, you know how important it is for me to familiarise myself with the lines right? I'm sure our fans and the viewers are expecting my acting skills especially after Reply 1997, I can't afford to let them down." Facing Eunji's smile, Naeun could do nothing but give up insisting.

"Fine. But sleep as soon as possible okay?"

"Eunji ah, time to wake up, you need to head out soon to prepare for your drama filming." It was the voice of Chorong, APink's personal alarm. Eunji gave a quick response, only to fall back into slumber the next moment.

"Eunji~" Chorong continued trying, while removing Eunji's script from her bed in case the younger crushed it. She felt bad for having to wake the girl up, but she really had to start preparing. Reluctantly, the younger got out of bed. When she was done washing up, everyone was already seated in their living room anticipating her entrance. This surprised her, as her other members were usually sleeping at this point of time.

"What's the occasion today?" Eunji asked.

"The kids missed you, so they got me to wake them up early today," Chorong explained. Everyone was present, and it was actually quite overwhelming for Eunji since those were faces she had failed to have a close look at for some time. She stood there, just appreciating the moment, as the two maknaes ran towards her to engulf her in a hug.

"Unnie, I'm so glad to see you!"

"It's been a long time, unnie."

Eunji smiled, feeling the warmth of something called family. The process of filming a drama was both physically and emotionally tiring, but her fellow members' messages of encouragement always kept her going. She loved the deep connection they shared.

"Yah Eunji, couldn't you just cut yourself some slack? You'll tire yourself out like that," Bomi commented, giving Eunji a sisterly punch on the shoulder as the latter walked past to get to her seat.

"Yeah Eunji, it's important to work hard, but it's equally important to take care of yourself as well," Chorong adviced, agreeing with Bomi's point. Throughout it all, the usually quiet girl was just seated next to Chorong, munching on her breakfast. It did not exactly matter if she had voiced out her thoughts, because evidently she was in agreement with the two unnies.

"I'm halfway through," Eunji insisted. "I'll get my rest back after I'm done. Just a while more!"

The five other members of APink sighed, knowing that there was no point in continuing to assert their opinions. To some extent, it made them upset knowing that one of the reasons why Eunji was working so hard was to hopefully bring more popularity to APink through the drama. And this particularly made Chorong dismayed, for she felt inadequate as APink's leader.

A few days later..

"Kids, our manager just told me that Eunji went to the hospital for an IV shot after filming today," Chorong announced worriedly as she entered each room. It was the best alarm ever, with all of them waking up in an instant. "I'm driving to the hospital. Who's coming with me?"

Everyone, including Hayoung who had to attend school that day, said 'yes' except one member. The members were quite surprised, as Naeun was the closest to Eunji yet she was not going along with them.

"Naeun ah, you're not coming?" Bomi asked.

"Nope, I'm still tired from yesterday's fansign," Naeun said, smiling weakly. She was actually unhappy that her unnie had disregarded their advice and ended up in the hospital. Why couldn't she learn to take care of herself?

***

Eunji was just resting in the hospital a while before she headed back to the dormitory, when the door opened and in came four people. The entrance was, as expected, a grand one, with her fellow 93liner exclaiming, "Eunji-yah are you okay?"

"I'm fine, thanks guys." She, together with the other members, were actually receiving second-hand embarrassment from the blonde but Eunji could not help but feel happy to see her members. Her smile, however, disappeared when she realised the one she missed the most was not around. "Where's Naeun?"

"Unnie's tired from her fansign event," Hayoung explained, and Eunji just nodded understandingly.

That night, Naeun had finally decided to talk to Eunji. She was still disappointed in Eunji's stubbornness, but nonetheless even she could not deny that she was terribly worried about her unnie. Knocking on the door, Naeun opened the door to see Eunji on her bed leaning against the wall.

"Unnie, what are you doing?"

"Looking through my script, I have a filming tomorrow." Eunji gave her reply without even looking up to the girl who entered. This response made Naeun's anger return, and the younger could not hold back anymore.

"Script, script, script. Drama, drama, drama. Is that all you think of?" Naeun raged, ignoring the fact that she was talking to someone who was older.

"Naeun ah, what's wrong?" Eunji finally looked up, slightly concerned about Naeun's sudden and rare outburst. "You know this drama is very im-"

"Important? I know this drama opportunity is important to you, but do you know how important you are to us? Do you know how often the maknaes are complaining that they miss you? Do you know how much time Chorong unnie spent worrying about you and your health? You have no idea how worried she sounded this morning when she received news that you were in the hospital! And Bomi unnie, she's always offering to wait with me for you. We advised you to take some rest, yet you took our advice for granted and went ahead. Failing to take care of yourself, this happened, and you got all of us anxious, hoping that nothing bad happened. Yet after all these, all you think about is still your drama. Why can't you take care of yourself for us members, for me? I'm so disappointed." By the time she was done, Naeun's tears of annoyance, anger, and concern were falling. She turned and was about to walk out of the room but was held back by Eunji's arms.

"I'm sorry, Naeun. I've let you down, I've let all of you down. I should've taken better care of myself. I'm so sorry for making you worried." 

Naeun turned around to face Eunji, feeling apologetic for making the latter say sorry. "Unnie, don't be sorry, I didn't tell you all these to make you apologise. And I'm sorry for being so disrespectful, shouting at you like that."

Eunji just shook her head, expressing that it was okay. 

"Unnie, promise me you will take care of yourself from now on? For us, for me?" Naeun asked, holding up her pinkie.

"Yes." Eunji nodded as she hooked her pinkie with Naeun's. The fact that Naeun was angry at her for that made her happy, in a sense. She smiled instinctively at the warmth of APink's bond. "I promise."

A/N: My first time taking up a request, challenging writing out another person's idea. I hope you guys like it, especially soshiace9 since you requested for it! ^^ 

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