“Did you always want to be a nurse?” Taehyun rolled over on his side and looked at Minho. The boy’s face was as pale as ever, and if not for his dark hair he would have disappeared into the white sheets. It was hard to imagine that the boy he had bickered with over something as silly as laundry two weeks ago was the same as the one on the bed. Winter was the season for colds, and of course Taehyun with his non-existing immune system had gotten a cold border lining pneumonia. Being even sicker had given him trouble eating, and his coughing had been so bad his rib had gotten a slight fracture.  It seemed as if, just as Minho had first suspected, this patient of his was really made of glass.

“Not always. It was what I wanted when I finally found out what I wanted to be,” Minho replied slowly, scratching the nape of his neck. Talking about his personal life was not something he often did with patients, but Taehyun had this magical way of prying it out of him without even exerting much effort. “My parents always wanted me to do science, to make something big of myself. And for a long time I just went with it? It was easier to just study and not think too much?” He shrugged his shoulders and gave a faint smile. This really wasn’t any of Taehyun’s business. Just like it wasn’t his business to know how Minho disapproved of his sister’s current boyfriend and how he had had a dog named Doobu when he was a kid.

“Hmmm? Is that so? Somehow I can’t picture you doing science?”

“Neither could I.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

“Is that a compliment? From the little prince?”

“Don’t get your hopes up.”

Minho shook his head.  Sometimes they could talk and joke around as comfortably as they just had, and sometimes Taehyun was too distant and cold to get a single word out of him. A little over a month together, and it was impossible to really make out their relationship.  Relationship? For some reason Minho could feel his ears heat up and he turned away from the boy in the pretense that he was checking his IV drip. Why the heck was the world “relationship” making him feel weird? Would friendship have felt less… pretentious? It made absolutely no sense.

“How about my hopes for going to Yeoido for the Cherry Blossom Festival? And don’t bull me, just tell me the truth.”

Cherry blossoms? That was rather unexpected, but not unlikely. Taehyun had the weirdest preferences, and that flowers fit into that, somewhere between zombie killing video games and slow rock ballads. Minho looked over his shoulder, then turned all the way around and put a hand on Taehyun’s forehead. “

If you stop going against me all the time… and promise me no more nights of sitting up playing video games then maybe.”

“Are you my mom?”

“No, you just asked for an honest opinion. Staying up and messing up your sleep pattern will do nothing to help you get better.”

“Fine.”

Minho narrowed his eyes. “Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

For a second Taehyun seemed to have more he wanted to say, but instead of speaking he buried his face in the pillow and coughed so hard his narrow shoulders shook. The sound pierced Minho’s heart and he almost felt guilty. It had been his idea to look at the full moon, his idea to stay out on the room late at night in the middle of winter. If only he had forced the boy to put on an extra jacket and brought an extra blanket, would he have been sick now?

Taehyun fumbled for the big glass of water on his bedside table and took a greedy sip of it. The coughing had painted small roses of red on his cheeks and he looked even frailer than he had just a minute earlier. “Humanity is curing cancer and doing heart transplants already, why can’t it come up with a quick and effective cure to the common cold?”  Minho didn’t answer, but filled up a spoon with cough drops and held it towards the boy. If he could take the cold for him, he would. Then again, Taehyun was more than just a little likely to catch his cold and get sick regardless.

“I’ll even go out in my chair as long as I can go,” Taehyun mused, making Minho all the more uncomfortable and nervous.  He hated going out in his chair, he had said that much before: one of the major reasons why he preferred to stay at the penthouse. People would stare too much, and he didn’t like to be reminded of how weak and sick he was. It made sense, but with all the distractions the outside world had to offer, Minho always found it strange that it was better to stay locked up and lonely. But if that was what he wanted, who was he to judge? He was not the one with an incurable disease, not the one who seemed to have given up on everything and everyone.

“Yah…”

“Hmm?” Minho looked up, confused for a moment.

“You’re doing that thing again.”

“What thing?”

“Thinking so hard your eyebrows might tie a knot in the middle.”

“Don’t start talking about eyebrows to me, Nam Taehyun.”

“Touché!”

Their eyes met, and not after long they were both laughing heartily at each other. The warm sound lifted the awkwardness that had started to creep in earlier, and Minho felt instantly better. The same could be said about Taehyun until his laughter turned into coughs and he hid his face against the pillow again. “No laughing,” he croaked from the depth of the white fluff and Minho nodded quietly in confirmation. No laughing. That meant he had to shove his want to make the boy smile up somewhere far away until he was better.

Not that he will ever be better.

His mind seemed to draw the conclusion on its own, and it made Minho want to take the book on Taehyun’s desk and knock it against his head. Not only because he made the mistake of forgetting that there was more than a cold that bothered Taehyun. But because the thought had deviously wrapped around his heart and squeezed hard. So hard it hurt. Attachment was a big “no, no”. And why was he still so worried about getting too attached to this squirt?

“Uhm… want me to go get you anything?” A slender hand appeared from the depth of the blankets and fumbled a bit in the air until Minho took it. It felt ice cold against his warm hand. Pulling up a stool to sit on, he gave the hand a little squeeze. “Fine. Staying then.” The back of Taehyun’s head moved and he was pretty sure the boy had just nodded. Another surprise, and another thing to add to the list of “reason why I don’t understand Nam Taehyun”.

“I moved here because I can’t stand the way they look at me.”

“What was that?”

Taehyun turned his head just a little bit and looked up at Minho. The face he was making was a new one, a new expression that couldn’t be read. But he looked determined enough to go through with whatever he had in mind of saying. In his time, of course. Minho’s words made him pause, and he looked at their now attached hands as if trying to figure something out. Whatever it was, he seemed unable to find the answer, and looked back up, their eyes meeting.

“My brother, my mom… they kept looking at me like I could die any moment. I wasn’t allowed to do anything at all. So I moved out. The condition was to get a hospice nurse and to have that nurse stay with me.”

With a little nod, the boy sat up a bit in bed. Then he reached out the hand not holding onto Minho’s to grab the glass of water.

“I can’t even remember how many I’ve had.  But they all looked at me and treated me like a porcelain doll, and it was suffocating me.”

Another pause, and it was now only too obvious that Taehyun was avoiding his eyes. Minho gave his hand a little, encouraging squeeze and almost willed the conversation to go on. He had no idea where it would go, but he felt like he would like wherever it chose to go.

“You’re the first one to treat me like a real person. And… and I just wanted to say that… I… appreciate that.”

As soon as the words were spoken, Taehyun let go of Minho’s hands and dived back in the pillow. Judging by his bright red ears, his face might be the same color, and it was hard not to laugh. Not because it was silly, because it absolutely was not even close to silly. But because the ice prince, the raja,  had just been utterly adorable, so how could he not smile?

“You… can’t you go make dinner?”

The voice that spoke was so quiet Minho barely heard, but he did. With a little nod that the boy clearly couldn’t see, he stood up and turned to leave, only to turn back to the bed. “Appreciation nodded. You’re not too bad yourself either, when you don’t throw stuff at me,” Minho said, his smile growing wider. And in what must be a moment of madness, he reached out and ruffled Taehyun’s brown hair.

On his way to the kitchen, Minho caught a glimpse of himself in the hallway mirror, and the sight made him stop dead. What the-… was he blushing too? Instantly raising a hand to touch his cheek, he stared in mixed amazement and horror at his own reflection. There was no way this could be good. Holding hands, speaking about feelings... it only let one way, and it was the bad way. And on the topic of hands: his hand was still tingling from before. How could someone have such a delicate and cold hand?  Why didn’t hold on to it all the time to make sure it was warm?

“What… like you are going to be the one to do it for him?” Minho grunted to his own reflection. Who was he really trying to fool? The him that had liked this side of Taehyun, or the one that wanted to stay as far away from attachment and emotions as possible?

“That wasn’t even a long tale, Song Minho, not a long talk, not a long story you got! Stop imagining things and just go cook. Am I right? Yes I am.”

Editor's not: Hello, and thank you for reading chapter three! I still have more to write, but I was wondering... instyle with my other fic here, would anyone be interested in a chapter written from Taehyun's point of view? Or should i Just keep going with Minho's?