Daehyun looked at her. Hyeri looked down as fast as she could, her hair covering her face. She hoped she didn’t look as horrible as she felt. Daehyun her hair behind her ear.

‘Hyeri, look at me.’

Slowly, Hyeri looked up. Daehyun placed his warm and soft hand on Hyeri’s forehead. She was so surprised by him, suddenly laying his hand on her forehead, that she forgot the pain in her stomach for a second.

‘You’re glowing, I could use you as my heater!’

Hyeri chuckled.

‘Listen, Hyeri, you’re going to see the school doctor and go home after she has given you an aspirin, okay?’

‘No, it’s okay, I’ll…’ Hyeri had to stop in the middle of the sentence, because she felt a warm but stingy goo flowing from her stomach towards , she managed to swallow it. Daehyun shook his head and raised his hand.

‘What are you…?’ Hyeri tried to ask, but miss Kim interrupted her as she looked up from her computer.

‘Yes, Daehyun?’

‘Hyeri here is really ill, is it okay for me to bring her to the school doctor?’

‘Ah, that’s a pity, the fever is in the air during this time of the year. Yeah, sure, you can bring her.’

Daehyun satisfyingly smiled at Hyeri, she sighed.

‘Now you will have to go to the school doctor.’

Hyeri shook her head as she started to put her pencils and notebook in her bag, ‘you’re unbelievable, really!’

Daehyun looked down and grinned, ‘I know, I know.’

They were walking through the corridors as everything started to spin in front of Hyeri’s eyes. She tried to grab Daehyun’s shoulder, but managed to miss it. The floor quickly came closer and everything turned black.

She woke up and looked right into the worried face of Daehyun. Her head hurt. She looked around, she found herself in the room of their school doctor.

‘How did I end up here?’ she asked.

‘You suddenly fainted in the hallway, so I carried you to here.’

She sat up immediately, ‘you carried me? And I didn’t notice?’

Daehyun shook his head, ‘no, you didn’t notice a thing.’

Hyeri looked around again, ‘and where’s the school doctor?’

‘He isn’t here, I found that the door was open so I walked in, but he wasn’t here.’ He started to chuckle at Hyeri’s shocked face, ‘don’t worry, I haven’t touched you in any weird places, it’s not like I’m a ert!’

Hyeri gave him a faint smile, ‘I know you aren’t. How long was I out?’

‘Not so long, not even five minutes, I think.’

‘My god, I can’t believe I really fainted.’

Daehyun laughed, ‘me neither, you gave me quite a scare!’

‘I’m sorry…’ she looked down, guiltily.

‘No, it’s okay, it’s not like you could help it.’

She felt so bad for him, she was wasting his time, would probably be the cause of his muscle ache tomorrow morning and it was most likely that he wanted to leave her alone and go back to class, but couldn’t because he was too nice to actually do so. She also felt bad for herself, why wasn’t she conscious when she was touching his back? Hyeri was suddenly very curious about what his back felt like, why hadn’t she woken up?

She sighed, ‘anyway, I should go home.’

‘On your own?’ Daehyun asked, his voice filled with disbelieve.

‘Yes, how else? My parents aren’t home so they can’t come to pick me up.’

‘Then I’ll go with you to bring you home,’ Daehyun said.

Hyeri shook her head, ‘absolutely not, you’ve done more than enough for me already.’

‘Don’t you know how dangerous it is to let you go home on your own in this state? What if you faint again? It’s risky to let a high school girl use the public transport on her own anyway. I’m coming with you.’

Hyeri sighed, ‘you’re very sweet, really, but you have to go back to class, miss Kim will get so angry at you!’

‘Hyeri, you freaking fainted, for god’s sake. I'm not letting you go on your own. I'm sure she’ll understand. And if she doesn’t, well, I’ll have to go to detention for a little while, I don’t really care.’

Hyeri faintly smiled at Daehyun and whispered a thanks.

Daehyun smiled back at Hyeri, 'no  problem!''

They were in front of Hyeri’s front door. Just as she wanted to thank Daehyun for everything, Daehyun asked if someone was home.

‘Nope, I’m all alone,’ she answered, sounding more sad than she meant to.

Daehyun sighed and walked inside the house, ‘well, not anymore.’

Hyeri was flustered, why did Daehyun think he could come in her house just like that.

‘Daehyun, you need to go back to school.’

‘Listen, school is almost finished, if I go back now, I won’t make it. So that’s not a problem now. Secondly, I’m not leaving you alone in this state. You could just have caught the flu, but what if it’s something else? People don’t just faint like that.’

Deeply sighing, Hyeri asked Daehyun what he’d like to drink and went to the kitchen to get it. When she got back, she found Daehyun walking around, looking at pictures of her on the wall. She handed him the glass.

He snorted, ‘you sure looked cute as a baby.’

Hyeri turned all red, ‘god, if you’re only here to make fun of me, please go, I’ll be fine!’

‘I was serious, you looked super cute!’ He laughed, ‘how are you feeling now?’

‘I’m still nauseous and I’m having cramps in my stomach.’

Daehyun turned around, heading for the kitchen.

Hyeri stopped him, ‘what are you going to do in my kitchen?’

‘I know what to use to reduce cramps,’ Daehyun answered, slightly proud.

‘So then you just walk into my kitchen, getting yourself what you need to make me feel better?’

When she finished this sentence, she suddenly heard how cute that actually sounded.

‘Yeah actually. Believe me, I know what I’m doing. You should lay down and relax.’

Hyeri’s eyes widened, ‘what?’

Daehyun rolled his eyes and started to chuckle, ‘how many times do I have to tell you? I’m not a erted kind of guy. You need to lay down in foetus-position, on your side.’

Hyeri did as Daehyun said.

‘Yes indeed! Exactly like that!’

He then disappeared in the kitchen. Hyeri waited, feeling that the cramps in her stomach slowly got less and less bad. After five minutes, Daehyun came back with two drinks. One being warmed-up milk, and the other being something that looked like water mixed with some sort of powder.

He seated himself next to her, ‘come, sit up, you can’t drink like that.’

‘I bet I can.’

Daehyun laughed, ‘I’m sure you can, but I don’t think your mother would like us to check whether it’s true or not. Come, give me your hand.’

She stuck out her hand and he pulled her up so that she was sitting next to him. He first gave her the milk. She drank it gratefully. But when he handed her the other drink, she got a bit suspicious.

‘You aren’t trying to drug me, are you?’ she asked, sceptically.

Daehyun raised an eyebrow, ‘no? Why would I do that?’

‘Hmm,  don’t know.’

‘You still don’t trust me? After all I did?’

‘It’s the exact reason I don’t trust you.’

Daehyun started to laugh, ‘I thought this was a village in which the citizens are very close to each other, trust each other and help each other out, but when I try to be more like that too, I only get distrusted more!’

Hyeri started laughing as well, ‘I’m sorry.’

Daehyun pointed at the drink, ‘it’s just an acetaminophen tablet mixed with water.’

Hyeri sipped the drink, still not looking somewhere else than at Daehyun’s eyes, trying to keep an eye on him.

‘Didn’t even know we had acetaminophen over…’ she couldn’t finish the sentence as she started to choke.

‘Are you okay? I should’ve warned you that this is really disgusting…’

Hyeri furiously looked at Daehyun, ‘yes, you should have! This tastes horrible, I almost had to threw up!’

‘You need to drink it all as quickly as possible and wash it away with water.’

‘And this is a safe thing?’

Daehyun faked a shocked face, ‘you distrust me again?’

Hyeri laughed, ‘yes, slightly.’

‘It’s okay, I don’t think your parents like the idea of you being alone in the house with a boy. I suggest you call Jia to take care of you.’

Hyeri nodded, ‘yeah, that sounds like a good idea.’ She looked at him with an evil grin, ‘your first one of today.’

Daehyun did the shocked face again, ‘how dare you! I’m full of perfect ideas!’

Hyeri laughed, ‘well, I’d like to see those someday.’

She called Jia, who left school as quickly as possible to look after her friend. During the remaining time that Daehyun and Hyeri were alone, they talked about the future. Daehyun told her that he wanted to become a doctor. He liked the human body, it was filled with mysteries. Hyeri confessed that she would want to start her own clothing line, she liked to design clothes but only drew designs to pass the time. As she was showing some of her designs, Jia came in.

‘Daehyun? Your job is done, I’ll take it from here,’ she yelled through the house.

Hyeri suppressed a chuckle, Jia wanted some quality time with Hyeri. If one of the two was ill, the other one would visit her and together they would watch movies together all day, talk about everything and nothing and eat as many ice lollies as possible. A boy didn’t fit in this quality-time-schedule.

Daehyun looked a bit confused at first, but recovered and got up.

‘I’ll head home then, I guess.’

Hyeri nodded, ‘thank you so much for everything!’ She gratefully smiled.

‘Anytime!’

Daehyun put on his coat and Hyeri followed him till the door. He suddenly turned around.

It seemed like he had just thought of something, ‘oh, and Hyeri?’

‘Yes?’

‘I hope you’re feeling not all too funny.’

Confused, she asked why.

‘Well,’ he answered, ‘I put loads of in your milk.’

‘YOU DID WHAT?’ Hyeri yelled, she almost dropped her lower jaw on the floor, that’s how open went.

Daehyun however, started to laugh exuberant, ‘sorry, I’m joking, but I had to see your reaction!’

‘You’re unbelievable,’ Hyeri mocked but then started to laugh.

‘Bye, Hyeri!’

‘Bye, Daehyun!’

She waved, and he waved back.

Saturday morning, Hyeri woke up. She felt so much better now. There was not much to do today, she watched television and made homework for the biggest part of the day. She got interrupted when suddenly the doorbell rang. She opened the door.

Surprised she asked, ‘what are you doing here?’

Daehyun was standing in front of her, shyly looking down.

He stated to stammer, ‘I… I came to see how you were doing…’

Hyeri laughed, ‘that’s so sweet! Why didn’t you just call me?’

Daehyun raised his shoulders, ‘I can’t. You never gave me your number.’

‘Oh, that’s true, I should do that quickly some time then! But I’m doing great, don’t worry about me.’

Daehyun nodded. Hyeri wanted to say bye and close the door as Daehyun looked at her again.

‘Wait, there’s something else I’d like to ask you.’

‘Oh, what’s the matter?’

Daehyun started to stammer again, ‘well… There’s this movie and… Well… I’d like to go… But, you know…’

‘But not alone?’ Hyeri finished the sentence.

Daehyun seemed to get his courage back, ‘yes! So, would you mind to come with me? Tonight, if you’re feeling well enough?’

► ‘I don’t know, I’ve just been really ill and I don’t know whether it’s smart to go outside already. I guess I prefer to stay indoors.’

► ‘Yes sure! I can’t let you watch it on your own! Which movie is it?’

A/N: Choosing the right choices has been quite easy till now. This time however, you have to choose carefully. None of these options will result in a wrong end, but one option will turn out better for the future than the other~ :)