Chapter Text
Chan was used to long and exhausting work days and he was good at dealing with emergencies while staying calm.
But after multiple hours of dealing with messes that other people had caused, he was thankful to be able to close his office door behind himself and just relax for a moment. He let his head fall back against his chair's headrest, stared up at the ceiling and enjoyed the silence.
After about three minutes of rest, he straightened up to get back to work. He felt bad about the fact that he had dumped most of his own work on Changbin and Jisung to deal with, while going off to fix other people's business. It wasn't a situation he could help, but he could still try and finish as much of the unfinished work as he could.
Hours went by as Chan sat in his chair, typing on his keyboard and dragging his mouse around. He hadn't noticed how much time had passed, until Yeji knocked at his door to let him know she was leaving for the day.
A quick look at the clock confirmed that it was time to go home. But he would make all of their days easier tomorrow, if he just stayed another thirty minutes to finish one more thing. So he stayed in his seat until he had gathered all of the information needed to deal with the situation tomorrow.
As Chan got up and packed his things to go home, his body felt stiff and heavy from the long hours of sitting at his desk.
By the time he came home, dinner was already on the table and Minho gave him a resigned look when Chan apologized for being late.
The next day at the office was thankfully a lot less eventful.
They managed to solve the problem Chan had stayed late for the day before and everything went smoothly—no sudden emergencies messing with Chan's schedule. He got through his tasks and had time to go out with Changbin and Jisung during lunch.
After he got back from lunch, he passed Yeji's desk in front of his office. She seemed a lot less stressed than yesterday too. The clicking of her keyboard sounded a lot less aggressive and there was a calm expression on her face. It seemed like a good day.
But maybe Chan had been a bit rash in his judgment, because when he plopped down into his chair the slight scratch he had been feeling in his throat since lunch developed into a minor cough.
It wasn't so bad that Chan felt like he had to go home, though, so he went back to work despite it. But as the hours flew by, he felt the itch in his throat become worse, even though he had forgone another coffee in favor of a cup of tea.
As soon as he stood up to get himself another cup of tea, the urge to cough overwhelmed him. He had to steady himself with one hand on his desk as the coughing fit shook his body. Even after the worst had passed, his breath still rattled in his throat and Chan was having trouble regaining his breath.
There was a careful knock on the door and then Yeji peered into his office. "Are you fine?"
"Yeah," Chan rasped out.
Yeji shot him a doubtful look.
"If you could get me a glass of water, that would be nice," Chan amended and Yeji disappeared with a quick nod.
Chan let himself fall back into his chair while she was gone, still breathing heavily and feeling breathless as if the oxygen he was inhaling wasn't reaching his lungs.
Yeji returned quickly, handing him a whole bottle of water.
"Thank you," Chan said with a tired nod. The cold water soothed his irritated throat and he immediately felt a lot better.
"You should go home early," she answered, glossing over his thanks.
"I'll be fine in a little bit. And I can't leave the others alone with my work again," Chan deflected.
Yeji shot him another one of her looks but left him on his own without saying anything else.
Eventually, Chan managed to calm down enough to get back to work. His throat still felt a little uncomfortable, but he got through the rest of his day without any issues.
Unlike Chan hoped, the coughing didn't simply go away on its own within the next few days. Instead it clung to Chan like a nasty parasite. It wasn't as bad as the coughing fit he had experienced at the office, but over time it invaded all aspects of his daily life.
Chan's gym sessions became shorter and less satisfying because he was breathless before the end of his usual routine and exhausted despite his muscles not being sore. His new lack of stamina also led to him switching to using elevators more than stairs.
Changbin and Jisung were teasing him about becoming unfit in his old age and he hated it. The teasing not as much as the fact that they were right about him becoming unfit.
He was also tired of acting like someone on the brink of sickness all the time. Scarves had become a permanent addition to all of his outfits, he ate soup for more meals than he would like to admit and he was seriously caffeine deprived because of the amount of tea he was drinking.
But despite all of it, the cold didn't go away.
It made Chan miss out on a hangout with his friends too, because he couldn't stop coughing just as him and Minho were about to leave. Eventually, Minho convinced him to stay home unless he wanted to get worse.
"You didn't make enough time to care for your body, so now it's forcing you to make time," Minho said to Chan before he left.
Chan sat on the couch, watching mediocre TV shows until Minho got back and grumbled about his words. He didn't like it, but there was truth in them.
And so, he agreed when Minho said, "You should stay home from work for a few days and properly recover."
Minho gave him a smile that said I have been waiting for you to come to your senses.
The next morning, Minho deposited him on the couch with a big pile of pillows, blankets, a giant thermos with tea and a big pot of chicken soup on the stove.
"Text if you need anything, okay? And don't even try to work," he said before giving Chan's forehead a kiss, walking out the door and leaving Chan on his own.
Immediately, a sense of unease overcame Chan. The knowledge that he was about to spend a whole day on the couch, doing nothing productive, was already making Chan feel jittery and he felt the urge to get up and do something.
His gaze wandered across the living room for something to do. And upon further inspection Chan found that the top of their shelves were covered in a thick layer of dust.
He decided that a little dusting wouldn't kill him and quickly grabbed the things he needed to reach up there and clean the shelves.
Admittedly, it felt a little as if the dust was out to kill Chan with the way it sent him into half a dozen coughing fits, but after just a little bit of suffering—and a lot of holding his breath—all the living room shelves looked pristine even from the top.
As he finished putting his tools away, Chan noted with annoyance that he felt short of breathing after stepping up and down from his little stool a couple of times. His condition was even worse than it had been a couple of days ago, and Chan had to admit that it was probably good he stayed home today before his body really decided to let him know he needed a break.
Chan couldn't wait for this cold to finally be over.
The ridiculous amount of exhaustion Chan felt after completing such a small task was ultimately what convinced him to rest a little more. That was probably what Minho had hoped Chan would be doing when he proposed staying home to him.
And it was probably the right thing to do.
Chan curled back up on the couch, maneuvering himself back into the pillow and blanket pile and drank tea while listening to music. When his eyes became heavy, Chan put his cup down and allowed himself to drift off while the music kept playing in the background.
By the time he woke up he felt fine. Not really great, or better than this morning, but fine.
He reheated chicken soup for lunch and ignored the by now familiar tightness in his throat and chest as he ate.
After lunch he tried to sleep again and stared at the ceiling as he tried to will his body into resting so he could get better. But despite his determination, he didn't manage to fall back asleep, because of the light tightness in his chest that kept increasing and bothering him.
It felt like a snake was wrapping around his ribcage. Pulling tight. Pushing the air out.
It went from a light weight on his chest, to a pain that radiated all across Chan's torso.
He kept scooting and moving around, trying to find a position that didn't hurt to lie in, or maybe hurt just a little less. But no matter which way he turned, the pain didn't lessen.
Chan was internally mapping out the way to the bathroom and the cabinet they kept medicine in. It wasn't far, not even across the whole apartment, but the pain in Chan's chest made it seem like an impossible distance to cross.
So he kept lying on the couch. Trying to breathe through the incessant pain.
He tried to lie as still as possible, but pain shot through his torso with every breath he took. His inhales were raspy, stuttered and felt inefficient. Like he was losing oxygen with every second, despite breathing.
It was hard to tell if the pain kept increasing, staying the same or becoming less. It was so overwhelming that Chan couldn't focus on much else.
All he felt was pain and anxiety.
The anxiety because chest pain was probably a bad sign. He didn't know how bad, and he didn't have much capacity to contemplate that right now. But anxiety was sloshing around in his brain additionally to the pain thanks to his vague thoughts.
Chan was dimly aware that he might be losing consciousness.
Both the pain and anxiety were coming and going in waves, even though he rationally understood that the pain wasn't actually fluctuating that much.
It felt like rest and relief but a little less tethered.
He was just floating around in a space where his breathing was smooth and he was separated from the pain and anxiety. But then it all crashed back into him like a wave. Overwhelming him, pulling him under, the current dragging him along.
Chan started to feel a little numb, the pain overriding all other sensations.
He didn't know how long he stayed there until the pain started fading for real. No more false hope, no more sudden waves. It steadily ebbed to a point where Chan could pull himself upright again.
And within a couple more minutes the pain was completely gone.
Chan sat on the couch, surrounded by silence, and no trace of the pain that had plagued him minutes ago. He didn't feel sore. There was no lingering pressure.
But his mind was still clouded. It was strange and eerie.
Chan lifted a hand to his chest and pressed down on it just a little to ascertain himself that the pain was really gone. It was. He felt fine again. Still not great but significantly better than a few minutes ago.
By the time Chan had regained his composure enough to consider that this might be the kind of situation Minho had referred to when he had said to text if Chan needed anything, it was already so late that Minho unlocked the door before Chan could finish his internal discussion about whether this was a situation worthy of interrupting Minho's workday.
"How was your day?" he asked with a smile as he reached Chan on the couch.
"Not that good."
Minho's brows furrowed in concern as Chan told the story of how his day went.
"That's a little more than not good."
"Yeah, I guess," Chan admitted.
"You should book a doctor's appointment."
And the look on Minho's face combined with the fear he had felt earlier convinced Chan to agree. He booked an appointment for the day after the next while Minho reheated more of the chicken soup for dinner.
Minho's eyes didn't leave Chan for more than a few seconds while bustling around the kitchen, as if Chan would spontaneously start hurting again if Minho took his eyes off him. As if Minho's eyes on him could do anything against the pain if it started again.
They ate dinner on the couch, Chan tucked into a complicated blanket-pillow construction he wasn't allowed to leave. Minho got up for everything either of them needed, brought their food, did the dishes, turned on the TV.
Eventually, Chan's eyes became heavy again and Minho carefully extricated him from the couch and maneuvered him through his bedtime routine and into bed.
Chan woke up in the middle of the night because of a pressure on his chest similar to the one from this afternoon.
He stumbled out of bed and almost fell to the floor in his hurry to get to the bathroom, the medicine cabinet specifically, before it got worse. Only when he knelt in front of the bathroom cabinet, did he properly assess the way he was feeling for the first time since waking up.
He felt tired and a little groggy and disoriented from just waking up. There was a pressure on his chest, but it felt less like pain and was paired with an itch in his throat this time.
Chan slowly let himself sink down onto the cold tile of the bathroom.
He wasn't in pain right now, but he didn't want to go back to bed only to regret the decision immediately if the pain appeared right after. He considered that it might have been safer to stay in bed right next to Minho instead of going to the bathroom all by himself in the middle of the night, but it was a little late to change his mind on that now that he was already here.
Chan scooted over to sit on the rug, leaned back against the bathtub and stared at the dark ceiling.
Sitting in the dark basically waiting to be in pain made Chan extra aware of all sensations he felt. The pressure on his chest, the scratch in his throat, the raspy noises he made while breathing, the feeling of the rug against his bare toes, and the cold tile against his back. He noticed and catalogued all of it in his head.
But as the minutes passed, the only thing that changed were his toes and back getting cold, tempting him to go back to bed.
The rug beneath him was plush, but it couldn't compete with an actual bed. A bed with Minho in it at that.
After a decent amount of consideration, Chan slowly rose from his spot on the floor, determined to go back to bed and fall back asleep.
But the moment he rose from the floor and straightened up, he felt a kind of shift in his body. As if the movement had dislodged something, he suddenly broke out into a coughing fit. His throat was scratchy, dry, and uncomfortable. His breath was wheezing in between coughs, and it felt like something was rattling around in his airway.
Chan held onto the sink with one hand and tried to open the tab to fill himself a glass of water. It took him longer than it should have, the force of his coughs shaking his whole body and making both his legs and hands unsteady.
He gulped the water down in between coughs. It ran down his throat, cold and refreshing. But the irritation causing his coughs was further down his airway, nowhere the water could reach.
Cough after cough kept coming, shaking his body, forcing Chan to sink back down to the floor in fear of falling. Ironically, he was right next to the medicine cabinet now that it didn't matter. He could feel the coughs loosening mucus from his throat and airways and scooted closer to the toilet bowl due to the lack of better options.
Chan's throat stung with every cough and even from the simple breaths he took. Tears were starting to gather in his eyes as he felt a little sorry for himself—sitting in the dark like this, plagued by what he thought was just an annoying cold. Maybe he was being punished by his body for trying to ignore it.
His head was starting to hurt, too.
The tears in his eyes were starting to overflow and Chan could feel them start running down his cheeks with the next cough. He felt pathetic, sitting on the cold tile floor of his dark bathroom in the middle of the night. Unable to get up, call for help, or do anything else to improve his situation.
Forced to wait it out again.
The next coughing fit was worse than the ones before. Chan felt more rattling in his throat and tried to resist the urge to claw at his neck or bang his head against the toilet seat.
He could feel the coughing dislodge more mucus in his throat. But when something fell into the toilet bowl after a particularly wheezy cough, it wasn't some icky yellowish-green slime. Even in the dark, barely lit bathroom Chan could see that whatever had dropped from his throat was red.
Panic coursed through Chan at the sight of the red color one the white porcelain.
But it wasn't blood. It wasn't dripping down into the water. It was something solid.
Chan reached upwards, trying to find the light switch above the sink. He managed to find it, the little lamp lit up and Chan stared at the red flower petals in horror.