Five minutes and you’re getting sleepy from not doing anything.

Yet you didn’t dare to move, let alone do anything. You were in charge of looking after Luhan tonight and his manager just left some minutes ago. His condition was slowly getting better but Luhan still couldn’t grasp any good sleep. He would hardly went to sleep, sometimes he had to take pill just to sleep; just for sleep, and we were not talking about a nice and crisp sleep.

Your eyes wandered to his form, stiffly sleeping on the bed of the hospital. The wrinkles on his forehead were obvious even when he was sleeping and it brought aches to your heart. It’s too painful to reminisce how he overworked himself that it made him like this. A constant headache, insomnia, faintness and even his throat was swollen; he could barely talk two days ago.

Ah, Luhan and his (too) hardworking self.

Trying to make yourself strong and stay awake for his sake if he wake up and need anything, you pulled your headset from your back pocket. Hoping that listening to some beat would keep you awake. But unfortunately nudging the table on the process and made a clunking sound from the plate and cutlery on it.

With all of regret and spell for God to keep Luhan asleep, you shut your eyes tight, afraid to find him waking up due to your clumsiness. And you heard a creaking sound, from the bed. Slowly you opened your eyes, to a conscious Luhan, trying to sit from his former position.

You jumped from the sofa and helped him up, your hand sneaked to his back to support him from behind. “I woke you up, didn’t I? I’m so sorry...” you said in a meek voice and took a seat on his bed.

“No, no, it’s okay, it’s not that I was having a good sleep anyway,” he responded and his palm flew to his head, holding it tight.

“But still, you were sleeping,” you mumbled and reached a glass of water from another table beside his bed. One of your hands gave it to him while the other went up to his head, holding it and fiddling lightly with his slightly damp hair from not getting washed for some days. “What is it? Is it hurt?”

“Thanks.” He accepted the glass with both hands and downed it in one go. “Just headaches like usual, not as bad as before,” he said and placing the glass back to the table. “Why are you touching my hair? Don’t, it’s dirty.” He let out an embarrassed laugh and tried to shift away but useless.

“So what if it’s dirty, it’s just the same for me,” you scoffed and lifted your other hand to fiddle it altogether. It was not the truth though, you notice his hair had a little moist but you could care less. Playing with his hair was always a pleasure since it was so thick and soft.

Luhan gave you a knowing smile and decided to give up. “Did you just come? Ah, manager must have left for the preparation of flight to Bangkok, right?”

You folded your lips inward while nodding weakly, afraid he would be disappointed to remember the fact he couldn’t join the concert.

“You’re not going?”

This little deer.

You shrugged and put an indifferent face. “I was about to go though. But I heard my bias won’t come, so I put it off,”

Luhan laughed and pulled you closer to hug your head in his chest. “I feel so terribly sorry for them.” For his fans in Bangkok, obviously.

“They will understand.” You pulled your head back and held his shoulders. “I was your fans before I am your girlfriend and I know how it feels, I read it through social media too. Well, they wanted to see you of course, but they put your health in priority and wished you fast recovery, no problem at all,”

"Still," he followed your gesture to shrug his shoulders.

There were seconds of silence spent by the both of you staring at each other. Until you lifted your hands again, this time towards his forehead. Both your thumbs caressed the creased there, trying to soothe it. "Look at these. Just because people said you looked younger than you truly are, doesn't mean you can fold your forehead like this, it will eventually make wrinkles, you know, you’re an idol, take care of your looks," you lectured him, pretended to not acknowledge the creases on his forehead was out of his intention.

Slowly, Luhan closed his eyes, relishing your touch with a small smile. “If it means you’ll pamper me like this, then who cares,”

You laughed inwardly and gently placing your palms on his cheeks when the wrinkles seemed better. “You looked like a cat right now. Try to purr,”

He hated it when people said he was cute or pretty or those kind of things that was not on the range of manly, and you knew it well. That’s why you did not surprised at all when he immediately snapped his eyes open and made a fierce face and growl.

“Okay, okay, fine,” you laughed at his attempt to look manly, secretly thought that he was still cute no matter what he was doing.

“Are you staying?” Luhan contorted his face back and pulled your palms down with his own.

You nodded. “Tomorrow is Saturday anyway, I don’t have anything tomorrow, and everybody is left for Bangkok’s concert, you have no one else beside me, so yeah, I’m going to be your caretaker for tonight and tomorrow,” you explained in a tone as if you have no choice while the truth was the otherwise.

He laughed again, this time louder, and you silently smiled; glad to see him this happy again. These days he had been so tense than he could hardly take any joke, guess the doctor did a good job, eh?

“So, is there anything I can help or anything?” You blinked in curiosity and looked around, trying to find if there’s actually anything you need to do.

“Not really. Where are you going to sleep?”

“Sofa, of course, why? What?”

“Just sleep here. It’s big enough for both of us and I only had a pair of hose and needle on me―” he showed you the back of his left hand, “―and my disease is not infectious anyway,”

You stared at him intently regarding his childish wish. But he didn’t budge. Instead, he stared back at you in a hopeful manner, didn’t seem to realise the risk of his wish at all.

“Why?”

“Someone call the doctor because I guess the patient over here is getting overdose on his medicine or something,”

He pouted deep that you had to held a strong grip of your inner self not to cup his face and pinch his cheek.

“Oh come on, Luhan, the doctor will kick me out and write me on the blacklist. It’s not about the reasons you mentioned. It’s about you need a good sleep and obviously my presence on this small bed of yours is not making it any bette―”

“It is!” he protested and making a curl with his lips, probably unconsciously.

You sighed, as much as how child-looking he was, sometimes he was just as childish as how he looked. “So what is it that you want?”

Luhan grinned right away, causing his eyes to crease into a curve. “What I want is,” he raised his hands and hold onto your shoulders, and gently pushed you to lay on the bed, side by side with him, facing each other, “you to sleep next to me tonight. See, it’s not even that hard.” Felt both of you settled on a comfortable position, he placed his hand on the small of your waist, keeping you close.

You gave up and just stayed quiet as he silently shut his eyes.

“I’m starting to get sleepy while I usually needed to take pill over pill just to feel sleepy.” Luhan’s eyes remained close and his voice was getting meek from the fatigue washing over.

And you remembered something you did earlier this noon at class. You keep pestering your Chinese classmate just for this one thing.

“Luhan?”

“Hm?” As if he didn’t want to waste the sleepiness which rarely came over, he didn’t open his eyes.

You didn’t immediately give any response, your voice caught in your throat and suddenly you keep asking at yourself if this is a stupid thing. “Gánkuài hǎo qilái, Xiǎo Lù,”―get well soon, Little Deer, you said in a soft embarrassed voice.

The guy in front of you suddenly snapped his eyes open.

There was this one ironic thing about you and Luhan. Both of you acknowledge Mandarin was not an easy language to learn, it has tones, it has too many kinds of syllables and it needed the right pressures to say. Before, you had asked Luhan to teach you his native language and he happily did, but you quitted because it was such a precipitous mountain to climb. So bad because on the other hand, he liked it very much when you speak Mandarin.

Unlike your mother language, Korean, Mandarin’s way of articulation was a lot lighter so it’s cute for him, how you speak Mandarin with your Korean accent. And he hasn’t even started about how you tried so hard at following the tone and the pressure.

But since he was sick and he looked so horrible, you pulled your best just for that one phrase. Just for that one phrase.

Luhan looked as if he just saw a ghost if you didn’t catch the smile forming on his lips. “Oh my god, did I hear right? Or I was already dreaming?” Every single second, both of his eyes was getting even more circular.

You looked up at him with beaming eyes and calmly shrugged like nothing big happened.

“Oh my god, you just spoke Mandarin!”

With a proud look, you wriggled you eyebrows.

“Said it again, said it again! I didn’t expect you to say something in Mandarin so I wasn’t paying a full attention. Say it again, please with a thousand cherries on top,” he asked with both eyes sparkling.

You wavered a bit before taking a breath. “Gánkuài hǎo qilái, Xiǎo Lù,” you repeated. This time louder and with more confidence because he seemed so enthusiastic.

And yes, he laughed and looked a thousand times happier while keep mumbling ‘daebak!’.

You kept that proud look on your face while enjoying his laugh.

“That was sooo cute but you know what?” he gave a little pause and you mouthed ‘what?’ right before he turned his eyes into mischievous one. “It should be ‘Gǎnkuài hǎo qǐlái, Xiǎo Lù,’”

“Oh, shut up!” You smacked his side and another out loud laugh ensued.

See. It's not as good as how I imagined it ;-; But ah, whatever ;-;

I know it seems so late since he eventually recovered and performed at Beijing but I started this when I saw that Weibo post of his, ah ;-; I'm glad he's recovered though, I hope he fully recover soon, because it seems like he has not yet.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it ♥