𝓑𝓲𝓽𝓲𝓮𝓼

𝓘'𝓶 𝓼𝓲𝓬𝓴 𝓽𝓸𝓸

Crying, Seungmin shocked everyone. His whines were hoarse and his shouting made his throat worse.

"Pup, calm down. Your throat will just hurt more" Chan was by his side in a second.

"Tired" sobbed Seungmin, slipped at the age of 2 years old.

"Do you want to sleep more bubble?" Seungmin desperately nodded at Hyunjin's words, almost instantly regretting as his head started throbbing again.

"Where does it hurt puppy?" The boy pointed at his throat and head before tearing up again.

"You know what could hyung do to make you feel better?" asked Changbin. The vocalist looked at him like a lost puppy.

"We could make you a bubble bath, what do you think?" Not knowing what to do and sure that his hyungs had everything under control, Seungmin just shrugged.

The September twins ran to the bathroom to prepare a bubble bath for the little, while Chan stayed on the couch to comfort the poor boy. Once Seungmin calmed down, the leader carried him to the bathroom. Han smiled at him and left, while Felix asked Chan if he needed some help.

"Uhh... yeah, you could go to my room and grab the softest hoodie you find, thanks mate" Chan was really grateful to his Aussie friend.

"Sure, on it" with that being said, Felix disappeared.

Chan then took off Seungmin's hoodie, that the boy put on before sleeping because he was feeling cold, and sighed after sensing how sweaty the younger was. After taking off the rest of his friend's clothes, Chan lifted Seungmin and put him in the bathtub. Felix and Han really did a good job, thought Chan. The water was just the right temperature, and as promised the pomegranate-scented bubbles created a thick layer on the surface. The vocalist smiled a bit before relaxing. He trusted his hyung to make him feel better. And Chan did his best. After delicately washing him with strawberry-scented body wash, the leader took his time to massage his friend's head with the shampoo. He could see the little enjoy it, so he continued for some time.

After rinsing all the shampoo, the leader helped Seungmin out of the bathub and wrapped him in a fluffy towel drying his body, before slipping on him some comfortable clothes and his hoodie as promised. When the two entered the kitchen, Hyunjin and Minho were preparing some soup. Felix and Changbin were arranging the plates on the table and Han was searching for crackers.

Seeing the leader entering the room, everyone stopped chatting and asked about Seungmin.

"I think the bath helped him but he still isn't perfectly fine. Please don't make loud noises and... Wait where is Jeongin?" The leader stopped talking once he noticed one person missing.

"I guess he's still sleeping. We're gonna call him once lunch is ready" shrugged Minho.

Chan had a feeling that something was wrong, but no one was worrying about the maknae.

After lunch was ready, Chan went to Jeongin's room, still surprised. The maknae wasn't one to sleep in, especially during free days he liked to wake up early so that he'd have more time to spend doing fun things, with or without his hyungs.

"Innie... wake up, lunch is ready" Chan used his softest voice to wake up his dongsaeng.

"Wait is it already lunchtime? I didn't sleep much last night I guess" yawned the maknae. His voice was hoarse just as Seungmin's, but the leader guessed it was just the normal voice he had when waking up.

Chan sighed. Sometimes Jeongin would go to sleep at 3 AM just to finish a game he was playing in the evening.

"What is it again, that videogame you bought last week with Hyunjin?"

"Uh no, I couldn't sleep no matter how I tried and I just... uhh..." the youngest didn't know what to invent to hide the truth from his hyung. His headache was almost gone but his throatache wasn't.

"Nevermind, let's go have lunch now. Seungmin's sick and little, so we made some soup for him while we're gonna have some tteokbokki." explained Chan.

Jeongin was really hoping to get some soup too. He didn't know how much food the others cooked but he was afraid the spicy tteokbokki would make his throat worse.

"Is there some soup left? Could I have some too?" the maknae was a bit scared when he approached Hyunjin in the kitchen. The dancer was already so affectionate and protective towards the little.

"No, I'm sorry. Soup is the only thing Seungmin eats at the moment, so we need to have enough in case he wants more" explained the dancer, not paying attention to Jeongin's hoarse voice.

"Could I at least try it? I wanna taste your cooking, that's all" the maknae insisted.

"Uhh fine, but not much, okay?" Hyunjin gave up.

Jeongin walked to the lunch table with half a plate of soup and a smile on his face. He sat between Seungmin and Felix.

The little cutely waved at him, then pointed to his friend's throat and tilted his head. The youngest smiled and pointed to his own throat before pouting a bit, then pointed to his head and smiled.

Seungmin smiled too, while the others didn't pay attention to them, too immersed in the food.

After eating the tteokbokki, Jeongin found relief in the soup, the mild taste washing away the spiciness of the rice cakes and calming down his throatache for a bit.

"I'm going to my room, please don't disturb me." Jeongin wanted to find comfort in his room again, his headache making his appearance again.

"Sure Innie" the others started to worry too. This wasn't the typical behavior of their maknae. Jeongin tried to stay in his room as less as possible, preferring to spend time with his friends.

Before heading back to his room, Jeongin took something from a cupboard in the bathroom. No one saw him, because everyone was in the living room caring for Seungmin, asking him if he needed a blanket, singing him to sleep or preparing some tea for him.

On his bed, Jeongin took the painkillers he got from the bathroom out of his pocket. Gulping down the medicine with some water, the youngest sighed. Sure, he loved little Seungmin, but he realized he wasn't the maknae anymore. He used to be babied a lot from the others, but now they didn't even notice the maknae was sick just as the little.

Trying to stop the negative thoughts, he grabbed his Nintendo Switch from the corner of the room and played Animal Crossing for some time, not in the mood for sleeping again even though he didn't get much rest last night.