Heat of the Moment
It had been a week since then before anything else major had happened.
Well…other than the godly timing of this debilitating fever perhaps.
What was meant to be a 4 days 3 nights little getaway from life to recover turned into the seventh day, and despite initially enjoying the extended time to run away from the reality of regretting everything once more.
It wasn’t funny for Minjeong on the 6th night when she had received a get well soon email from her professor attached with the work she’d have to catch up with.
So if her mother’s angry eyes and lectures about proper rest and sleep times hadn’t helped keep Kim Minjeong to her bed.
Luckily for the world, this Bob haired raven the height of 164cm is currently forced to remain in said childhood bed.
The terrors of her conscious presence are avoided for one more day, adding to the tally of three consecutive days of being encumbered to her bed.
There is however something bothering her.
It would appear her brother was having a heated discussion with someone at the front door, and truth be told…
She was wholeheartedly interested in just what it could be, who it could be. This was her 27 year old single brother! Adding to that, he’s arguing with what she could recognise to be a female voice, had Cupid finally arrived to reap her brother’s poor lonely soul??
Monumental events are happening, so why on earth is she still stuck under her sheets!
This fever better leave me alone before I drown in assignments and curiosity!!!!
Was it mentioned that fever also made it really really hard to focus on what the argument was about?
Almost as if there was a tiny Maltese puppy playing with her brain control panels.
OH I’M CURIOUS YEAAA SAJIN SOG NIGA SUNGAN MISO JIEO WAEEE
OH I’M SO CURIO-
“Minjeong ah, are you awake?” There’s a quaver in her brother’s voice that alerts Minjeong, the seriousness of his tone, not helping.
YEAA YEAH
Or at least, alerts her to the most alert she could possibly be.
“Why?” She regrets speaking, are her lungs on fire or something? Was there steam coming out her lips as she breathed?
Cause god knows if she happened to have her lips be sealed shut her nostrils would not allow her to possibly live.
Speaking of god.
Oh god; her voice, is that really her? That’s what she sounds like at this moment? Seriously?
“…Pretty and with black hair is standing outside our door and I can’t convince her to go away.” Pretty, black haired...
Minjeong finds herself cooing slightly, eyes tightly shut in an attempt to rest.
“Give her a mask and tell her to come up here, I’m too…sick to even breathe…”
“I feel so loved…” Her lips form a line as she tilts her head up slightly, smiling cutely.
“Huh? G-got it.” Her bedroom door is shut once more, her brother’s footsteps rushing down the steps of their family home.
It’s nostalgic, like whenever she was down with a fever, staying home from school, wrapped up in rolls and rolls of blankets and with her father scrambling around the kitchen, her brother rushing up and down the steps to get whatever their mother would ask for.
With her mother’s warm hand on her forehead, and despite however warm or scaldingly hot she would be, her mother’s hand would be warmer.
Just like- this…
“Minjeong?” Strange, did the world become slightly quieter than usual or was there some form of film over her eardrums?
Her visitors voice seemed a little stranger than usual.
“Unnie.” It comes out wrong, the fever ridden puppy unable to properly control the intonation of her words, if it was anyone else, perhaps she would care; but with her, it was fine.
“So you really are sick…should I not have come?” That’s a good point, despite the mask she would simply assume the other raven was wearing, was it possible she would pass it over?
The guilt would seriously be the next thing to debilitate her, and Minjeong would really really appreciate being able to return to her normal levels of functioning soon.
“Just…drop off whatever I need for class on the table and play with whatever you want, I…falling aslee…” She feels as bad as she possibly could with a fever of 39.2 degrees celsius.
Not that she didn’t truly feel bad about falling asleep when they’d come all this way to visit!
Just…there were other issues at hand, with just a little more importance.
Perhaps a lot more.
“I…I don’t have the materials the professor gave me with me though, are you feeling alright, Minjeong?” And yet despite the fire boiling her alive, she can’t help but grumble slightly with the way the raven continues to call her.
“Unnie. Minjeongie…unnie.” Why was the raven pretending as if there was a stranger in the room and they were two closeted girlfriends?
How strange.
Especially the silence from the other, was NingNing always the type to stay silent even with a feverish Kim Minjeong with lowered guards in front of her?
No half hearted ‘are you bad? Since you’re in bed.’ Jokes?
Strange.
“Ning ah, your hands are warm~” Perhaps in another life ‘Ning Yizhuo’ would have been a hand warmer, a flinching one.
There's a pause before the contact leaves, leaving the bob haired raven to whine, feeling like a child again due to the nostalgia of the moment, of the location, of someone else's presence.
“Ahh~ don’t remove them~!” There’s an airy scoff, Minjeong's cute whining clearly entertaining her. There’s the ruffling of sheets as the long haired raven leans in, placing her hands back onto the valetudinarian.
The mattress sinks just a little next to her, it would seem ‘Yizhuo’ had gotten comfortable, leaning her head against the soft sheets as her hands remained on Minjeong's skin.
“Yay.” The patient smiles wearily, eyes remaining completely shut as she wonders what time it would be by now.
“Just wait till I fall asleep before you leave. Seriously, I think your hands will cure me at this rate, Godning.” Another scoff, it’s followed up by a light whispered promise.
“ I’ll be here when you wake up.” It’s barely audible to the temporarily audibly impaired puppy, just enough to decipher the message, not the owner.
“ I’ll make Aeri unnie jealous today then, hehe.” The valetudinarian was babbling deliriously now, and albeit the visitor can’t help but to find it impossibly adorable, Minjeong wasn’t the type to rest properly, and this was truly the golden opportunity to get her to.
“Stop talking and sleep, Minjeongie unnie.” There’s a smile tugging on the corners of the visitors lips at the honorific she uses, a first for the two who’ve only either been older or the same age as the other.
“Okie~”
It’s almost ticklish, the gentle caress of warm yet cooling fingers; almost as if dissipating the fever with each second it lingers.
“How cute.”
Gentle.
The word to describe the touch that Minjeong stirs awake to.
Finally, the frost of the worlds cruelty didn’t weigh down on her; finally, the heat does instead.
“Urgh… get these blankets off of me.” She’s careful not to move around too much, NingNing didn’t have too great a sleep schedule either.
Only, now that her sinuses had cleared, it's a completely different scent.
A familiar one.
In the past, Aeri had pointed it out too; the fact they smelled like each other.
"Why is it...you?"
Yu Jimin.
The older woman's hands were still laid on her head, and even when they had finally slipped off, they landed on the shorter woman's lap as Minjeong quickly sat up, uncomfortable with the proximity at with their faces had laid next to each others.
She takes a moment to gather herself, glancing around the room, remembering what it was that had transpired before she'd fallen asleep only now with the revelation that Ning Yizhuo had never been here.
A minute passes when she finally arrives at the best conclusion she can think of.
Let's just...die.
"Minjeong?" Death postponed, cause of death has woken.
"Are you feeling better?" It sucks, the way her heart still jumps at the raven's touch, having the older woman's palm against her forehead once more as Yu Jimin squinted at her, trying to analyse the pores of her face as if it would miraculously tell her the exact down to the decimal temperature her body was at.
A cough, she quickly pulls at the older woman's wrist, looking away from obsidian orbs as she wiped at her sweat with her free hand.
"Why did you co-" She's silenced by the crinkling of soft tissues, by the texture of thin fabric swept across her nape.
Why are you doing this to me...
"Better?" Finally, for the first time during this whole interaction, Minjeong realizes it was more alike normal.
The lack of personal space, the smile that continuously tugged at the taller woman's lips, the obsidian eyes that struggled to leave her.
" Are you just pretending not to know why I've been so out of it these past two weeks?" Unlike normal on the other hand, is Kim Minjeong. Squinting, hurt, pained by the nonchalance of normality.
As if Yu Jimin hadn't abandoned her just 13 days prior.
"Pretending as nothing happened?" 5 days of consciousness.
"Should I do so too? Or will I be brushed past again? Will I be left on the other side of closing doors again?" 4 nights of overthinking.
"Say something, Yu Jimin." 3 nights of crying
2 cycles of hoping for a new text to arrive, for her to explain.
Yet, here Yu Jimin was; fixing everything with 1 smile.
As if my pain is meant to vanish just because you're here...
It’s almost pathetic, the way she finds herself folding for that damn smile.
Before she does something she regrets, something like letting the older woman back in; she steels herself.
“Get out.” Nails digging into her very own palms, holding herself down onto the sheets.
“Minjeong ah…” That irritates her more.
“Only when I’m pushing you away, am I called affectionately? If that’s so, should I call you Jimin ssi then?” A grit of her jaw, anything to hold herself together, eyes trained on her blanket that laid on her lap, a reminder of the stains of tears she’d shed in her very own bed.
She can’t give in, not yet, not while her heart still bleeds the hurt Jimin Yu had left.
“I’m sorry.” An apology only when she’s chased away, is an apology made in vain for the younger woman wishes for her not to stay either way.
“If you’re fucking sorry, you would have explained by now.” It might seem harsh, but it’s the best the younger woman could do.
Yu Jimin’s hands return to rest on her, and it burns.
It burns like the warmth of a morning sun after a cold night, tempting Kim Minjeong to step out from the shade, to bask in the safety of light.
Only the sun isn’t hers to savor.
“Minjeong…I can’t.” Only the sun isn’t here to save her.
Then why are you even here? To renew this pain you've inflicted me with? The thoughts remain within her, not wanting to say something she'd regret.
As long as she doesn't regret anything, she'll be able to let the older woman go.
“Get out then.” As long as she doesn't regret anything, this ends here.
“It’s not what you’re thinking, Minjeong.” The trembling of the older woman's voice.
“Get out.” The determination of hurt.
“I…I’m afraid too…” The pleading for comfort, to return to normalcy, to have Kim Minjeong look at her, to go back to...
Friends? Is that what she wanted?
“Just get out.” Back to what they were before a night was spent in the other's arms?
“Despite trying to, I found myself worried abo-“ Not friends, never friends.
They'd never seen each other that way either way.
“GET OUT OF MY ROOM!” The younger woman’s shout.
Unfamiliar to the older, unfamiliar to her.
She recoils at her own voice, trembling as she realizes what she’s done.
A knock at her door, her brother has come to ask what’s going on.
The silence of both the older and shorter, the shock that courses through her.
“I’m sorry.”
The leaving of the taller.
She pushes past the younger woman’s brother, running out the home of the other, leaving Minjeong’s brother stunned at what he’s seen, at how she seemed.
“Are you alright?” That’s for later, his little sister had just screamed at someone for the first time.
“Oppa too…get out.”
“Toltolie, do you want some alone time? Is it to cool down or to learn to bottle it up?” Minjeong’s looks mirrored the ravens, reddened eyes, streaming tears, a look of regret haunting both lovers.
Minjeong doesn’t respond, the older man pulls her head to his chest, patting the back of her head gently, comforting his sister.
“It’s okay… the both of you will be alright, so for now, just cry; get it all out so you can face each other again later, alright?”
"Why does it hurt here..." The young woman punches at her chest, coughing out her tears as she wailed.
"She hurt me- so why does it hurt more to hurt her?" The raising and falling of her chest, the breaths she pants.
" Why is it...when I look at her- I can only remember laughing together?" The memories of happier times.
"Only to remember-" The hauntings of that day.
"The closing of those elevator doors..." The movements of that moment.
"Her leaning in to the other?" The betrayal of the older woman.
"What are you talking about?" The concern of her brother.
" Am I really that...easily replaceable?"