Your bite - Kim Junkyu

second

Going back to class should have made her feel warmer, but Danbi was experiencing the opposite. Yoshi took notice of her appearance. Since the teacher was facing them, he ripped the edge of a paper and wrote on it: "Are you okay? You seem sick."

Danbi peeked at the teacher and then at him, nodding with a weak smile. She had no way of explaining the bizarre state she had been in since the morning, so there was no use in denying it.

Yoshi's eyes traveled around her face, noticing droplets of sweat all over. He made sure the teacher wasn't looking and touched her forehead with the back of his hand, retracting it immediately.

"Danbi...!" He whispered with worry. Yoshi cleared his throat and ripped another piece of paper. "You're hot!" he wrote on it, giving Danbi the wrong idea based on her perplexed expression. He shook his head, taking the paper from her and crossing out the writing.

"You have a fever!!!" He wrote this time.

Danbi's hands went to her cheeks, checking if he was right. She could feel the difference between her extremities and her face.

Yoshi sent her another note: "Should I give you a heating pad during the break? I still have some from the last restock.

She shook her head, giving Yoshi a small smile. "I'll change back to warmer clothes during the break," she scribbled on the back of the paper.

Her having a fever made sense if she were to consider the theory of having a cold. But she wasn't having any other normal cold symptoms, such as coughing, sneezing, or having a runny nose. She thought that missing out on two nights of sleep couldn't have led to a fever, though.

---

"Ah, there they are! We were waiting for you."

The three cousins appeared together, having met on the way to the bathroom. Danbi's friends were already gathered at the gate.

"Do you guys usually have plans after school together?" Jeongwoo asked, to which the other four shrugged.

"Occasionally. But today Junkyu said he'll buy us ice cream if I run faster than him." Doyoung explained, and Junkyu whined.

"I thought you said you'll drop it if I begged you cutely." He pouted, shaking his shoulders.

Doyoung and Hyunsuk snickered. "Drop a free ice cream? Never." Hyunsuk smiled.

"From where though? We saw that Berry Good Ice Cream was closed." Jihoon interrupted.

Danbi shook her head. "You must've gone to the old one we used to go to as kids. It moved somewhere else."

Jihoon and Jeongwoo looked at each other, their hearts leaping with joy as they high-fived.

"Let's go! What are you waiting for??"

---

"The taste," Jeongwoo licked his chocolate ice cream, "of childhood."

"Also the pain." Jihoon had his eye squeezed and was holding onto his forehead, enduring the brain freeze of his life.

"Why didn't you get any, Bi?" Junkyu hopped to her with quiet steps, taking her by surprise.

"It's quite cold, I don't think I can handle eating an ice cream right now." She explained, finding his vanilla ice cream mouth-watering.

"You... want a bite?" He hesitated, hoping it wouldn't seem weird to offer that.

Her cousins' eyes darted to Junkyu, pausing their ice cream eating.