28. Together

TWENTY-EIGHT

In the hallway,Charis loops his cold, bony hand around Mouse's wrist. Mouse frowns slightly at how contrarily cold it feels.

"You didn't have to do that," Charis says. "You were busy. I didn't mean to take you away from your friends."

Mouse waves a hand. "That? I just bumped into them. It's nothing. Now tell me?"

Charis takes his hand back, the better to wrap both of his arms around himself. Charis isn't small by any means. He's quite tall, but in his grey, oversized sweater, in the blandly lit hallway, he looks smaller than usual.

Now that Mouse has done this, now that he's stolen him away from his friends, he feels foolish. Surely this is an imposition.

Charis bites his lip. Now that he's come all this way, it would be worse for him to refuse to talk to Mouse. To make Mouse pry it out of him like he's a… a child.

"I just feel kind of sick," Charis confesses. "My head hurts, and I feel dizzy. My stomach?—"

He winces and clutches it, doubling over slightly as a new wave of pain and nausea hits him. He groans slightly, and Mouse's eyes open wide. Despite all he's had to drink, Mouse suddenly feels very sober.

He puts a careful hand on Charis' back.

"Hey, Pocky, have you already seen a nurse about this?"

He keeps his voice light even as his heart starts pounding inside his chest. Adrenaline starts coursing through his body like a shot. Although he'd been feeling tired and languid just a second ago, all of a sudden, he's all the way up. Extremely alert, with every sense prickling.

He rests his hand lightly on Charis' back, and when it seems clear that Charis doesn't mind the touch, he starts rubbing it gently, broad, soft circles over his back. Charis leans into the touch minutely. His forehead is creased, his brow wrinkled up in pain, and a light sheen of sweat can be seen peppering his temples.

When the wave of pain and nausea finally passes, Charis stands up again. Careful, like he doesn't trust it.

Although he hadn't thrown up again—only earlier, when he was alone in their bathroom—he still wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

"No," he says. He frowns. "I don't think I need to."

Mouse—he doesn't get angry at Charis often, but just now, there's a flash of anger and irritation, which he's careful not to show. He still keeps his voice soft and tender as he says, "Okay, but Pocky, I think we need to get you to a doctor."

Charis stiffens, and Mouse jostles him slightly. "I know you hate doctors. But just real quick, okay? Then I'll make you comfortable back in our room?"

Our room.Why does that sound so nice?

Charis finally reluctantly agrees. Not because Mouse had bribed him, but because he feels guilty. He nods slightly.

They go and wake up the on-call nurse. Mouse leaves Charis sitting blearily—miserably—on a chair outside the nurse's office. Its cushion is thin and uncomfortable, and there are stiff wooden arms on either side that mean that Charis can't get comfortable. He shifts awkwardly in his seat while Mouse goes to get the nurse.

The nurse looks tired, but to his credit, he comes to alert right away when he sees an idol outside his bedroom door.

"Is something the matter?" he asks, quickly pulling on his coat.

Mouse preps him on their way back to the nurse's office.

"He's not going to want to go to the hospital," he says. "So don't suggest it unless it's definitely necessary. He already doesn't trust doctors."

The tired-eyed nurse listens to this. His hair is a bit messy, and you can tell he'd just woken up, but he's already alert, and his faculties are all working. He'd spent a lot of time as an ER nurse, and he's used to doing shift work and being on call. Just because he moved into the private sector doesn't mean that age-old muscle memory has gone away.

His sleepy eyes turn a bit sharp as they cut toward Mouse. They're walking quickly down the hallway to the nurse's office near the lounge, but the young idol is in front of him, hurrying faster.

He doesn't approve of some of the lengths these idols push themselves to.

"Young man, if there's something wrong with your teammate, I'm definitely going to send him to the hospital. No competition is worth your health."

"Good," Mouse says immediately, surprising the nurse with his vehemence. Maybe he had it wrong. "I want him to be healthy. I just don't want him to be upset."

Ahh… maybe this is about something else entirely.

The nurse had seen plenty of this in his time in the hospitals, too. Worried partners.

A small smile comes to the nurse's face. He can't be older than his late-30s, and he looks kind and handsome when he smiles.

"Don't worry. I'll take good care of your friend," the nurse says.

He stops short of patting the young, raven-haired idol's hand, but only because the young man looks so affronted when he goes to do it that the nurse changes his mind at the last minute; he's smooth enough to use the gesture to go to his pocket instead. He pulls out the key card that opens the door to the nurse's office and passes it to the idol as they round the corner.

As they do, his next patient comes into view.

Charis blinks wearily up at them. Their hard pace and the lack of sleep he's gotten recently feel like they're hitting him all at once.

The nurse is wearing a cardigan, and Charis tries to pull himself upright to make himself more presentable as the nurse unceremoniously kneels down in front of him. As he does, the soft edges of his dull pink cardigan brush the floor.

The nurse stops him by raising a hand. "No, don't get up if it hurts. Can you tell me where?"

Charis frowns and puts a hand flat over the middle of his stomach. "Here…"

"Okay, can you stand up? Let's go inside the room."

There's a small bed where Charis can get comfortable, and Mouse helps him to lie down. Charis feels deeply uncomfortable and awkward lying there while the others stand around him, but the nurse's affect is soothing, and he's punctual and professional about his work.

"May I touch you?" he asks, and Charis nods minutely.

"Yes," he says with his sticky throat.

"Does it hurt when I push on it?" the nurse asks, and he carefully palpates Charis' abdomen.

Charis winces a little bit when the nurse presses on a tender place, right where it feels like his stomach is roiling. "Yes."

"Okay. That's actually a good sign," he says. "Does it feel like the pain is moving? If I tap on your lower back like this, do you feel any kind of sharp pain?"

Charis shakes his head. "No."

"That's good." The nurse takes off his latex gloves and throws them in a small wastebasket. "Can I ask what you ate tonight?"

Charis frowns. "I went out for dinner with some of my members. We had Korean food— kimchi jjigae and some noodles. We had a few drinks of soju, as well."

"Hm." The nurse rubs his chin. "Well, if your members haven't come to see me, it's probably not food poisoning, although we can never rule out that some people are more sensitive than others. Have you been under a lot of stress lately?"

The nurse keeps his voice gentle and kind.

Charis pauses, freezing like he's ashamed, and then warily, he nods slightly.

"It might be stress. It might also be that you had a little too much to drink," the nurse says wryly. "I don't know your habits, but if you suddenly eat or drink something out of the ordinary, it can hurt your stomach. I can give you some tablets to ease your stomach upset, but if you're still not better in the morning, you should come to see me again, and we should think about getting you checked out at a facility with better resources than I have."

"Okay. Thank you," Charis says, nodding firmly as he holds his hand out for the tablets.

The nurse rips a small foil pouch of two off from a roll of them. Charis expects to take them with him, but the doctor gives him a small paper cup of warm water, and he swallows both pills right away. They're small and blue, and they go down easily.

Ugh, his stomach still really hurts, and his head doesn't feel well.

The nurse sits in his chair and turns on a lamp, the better to see by. He starts writing up his report and gestures to the clipboard while talking to Mouse and Charis. "I'll be here finishing this up for a while, so feel free to rest here for a bit if you need to. You won't be bothering me."

Charis looks to Mouse, and even without speaking, he communicates all he needs to.

"Alright, let's get you up," Mouse says, and he helps to support Charis as he lifts himself off the bed.

His stomach still feels unsettled, but he hopes the medicine fixes it soon.

The nurse gets up to see them out, telling them not to worry about the door as he closes it behind them.

"That wasn't so bad," Charis says in the quiet hallway. "He was nice, at least. Can we… hurry back? I don't want to run into anyone."

Mouse nods.

"So, out drinking?" he asks to lift the mood. He raises an eyebrow at Charis, who laughs softly, although the laugh ends on a cough and a small wince.

"Ow," Charis says softly, and then Mouse feels a little sorry.

"Let me guess, Kiki and Xiao Yu?"

"How'd you know?" Charis asks.

"You don't want to be around Soohyun right now, Miyong can't drink, and Joonie isn't trying to socialize unless everyone is there."

"And you were gone," Charis says lightly.

"Mm. That only leaves two."

"It was… nice," Charis says. He smiles wryly. "Apparently it was Kiki's idea. I think they were trying to cheer me up."

"Kiki is good that way sometimes."

Charis knows about Mouse's history with Kiki, but he doesn't think on it often. It hardly seems worth mentioning, but once in a while at moments like this, Charis wonders a little bit about the kind of relationship that Mouse and Kiki have. He knows how Mouse is, they've commiserated about it before. He doesn't think that Mouse ever wanted a relationship with Kiki, but he wonders about the kind of friendship they have.

Little comments like that make Charis think that it's probably a very good friendship, maybe the kind where they know parts of each other that other people don't. It makes him a little happy to think that Mouse has friends like that, that it wasn't just about sex between him and Kiki.

Mouse looks down at the top of Charis' head. His hair smells clean and light, with the scent of shampoo wafting off it. "And did you need cheering up?" He nudges Charis gently. "You could've come with me, you know."

"Mm. I know. I didn't want to."

Mouse accepts it at face value. They do hurry. Charis leans on Mouse, who helps to support him as they go the rest of the way back to their room. Charis is relieved when they don't pass another soul.

"The vlog," he says suddenly after he's collapsed ungainily on the bed inside. He lifts his face up from the bedspread.

"Screw the vlog," Mouse dismisses easily.

Charis pushes himself upright, struggling a little. "No, really. We should do it. You already covered for me once."

Mouse looks at him, feeling that same strange feeling of helpless irritation burgeoning again. He feels that way so often when it comes to Charis—helpless. Like he doesn't know what to do. Charis doesn't listen to him when he doesn't want to, and Mouse loves it as much as he finds it baffling and frustrating.

"Come on," Charis says as he leans over to grab the camera. "My stomach is already feeling a little better after the medicine, anyway."

Charis won't relent, so in the end, Mouse has to. They film a quick vlog, and Mouse can't help noticing how soft and pretty Charis looks in the dim monitor.

It's an intimate vlog, filmed with the both of them sitting on top one of the beds with the covers slightly rumpled beneath them. It's the sort of vlog that can make Charms feel like they're really there, sitting in the room with these two people who are tired but hanging in there, working so hard to bring them the content they all love.

There are so many more things it won't and can't capture, though. Charis' stomachache, Mouse's reunion with people from his past, their drinks with friends, and the way they waited in the hallway for the nurse to arrive. Things behind the scenes that no one else will know. This vlog will probably air weeks from now, when this night is a distant memory in the rear view.

"Thank you for supporting us," Charis says in his soft, serious way. His lips curve up. "We had a lot of fun playing King of the Mountain today. I even caught someone."

When he smiles, there's a flash of teeth, followed by a self-deprecating laugh that's somehow deeply sexy. Mouse tends to think he's used to these things—he's been around—but it sends a thrill down the curve of his spine, and his mouth starts to water.

"Goodnight," Charis finally tells the camera with a smile.

"Goodnight," Mouse echoes.

They cover up the lens. Mouse usually loves social media. He thrives on it, but he's never been more happy to be alone. They turn the camera off, and he puts it carefully on the side table.

"Feeling up to cuddling?" Mouse asks.

Charis nods, feeling strangely relieved. They change into their pajamas, and he climbs into Mouse's bed. It's already very late, almost 4 in the morning. He isn't used to staying up so late, and his head is buzzing. The tablets have finally done their work and his stomach has settled down enough to let him sleep. As soon as he gets comfortable with his arms around Mouse and their legs tangled together, he's already started to drift.

Mouse starts to play with his hair, dragging his fingers through it, and Charis' state of relaxation only gets deeper. The way that he'd so boldly kissed Mouse earlier, hands wandering over his body—feels almost like a distant memory. So much had happened since then. It feels like it's been longer than a day.

"How did you even find me?" Mouse asks.

The sudden question rouses Charis a little, but he barely stirs. His fingers clench a little tighter around Mouse as if in reflex. Why does that get to Mouse so bad?

"It wasn't that hard. I knew you were with Seojun, so I just found their rooms in the directory."

Charis is so sleepy. He speaks softly, and his lips barely move. As they do, they tickle the side of Mouse's cheek, and he can feel the sensation scratching at his heart.

Mouse thinks of Charis, sick and not feeling well, knocking on various doors until he found the right one, and the thought sends a slight shiver through him.

Mouse holds him a little tighter.

"I'm glad you found me. You always can, you know? Or maybe… maybe I just shouldn't ever leave you alone." He's pretty sure Charis is sleeping by now. He huffs a self-deprecating laugh at himself. "What am I saying?"

He has his arms full of the most beautiful boy. Charis, just a year younger than him, so self-possessed all the time he seems like he has it all together, like he doesn't need anyone, but Mouse has never been fooled. Even from the first time they met, he could see through it. He always thought Charis seemed scared and kind of brittle, more fragile than he let on.

Mouse sweeps a strand of hair carefully away from Charis' face and just looks at him.

He didn't expect that he'd ever feel this way. That he'd want to protect him so bad.

He was so surprised when Charis kissed him earlier. He'd been so horny, and he still is, somewhere underneath all of it, but he's tired too. It feels so good to just lie here with Charis' body wrapped around his.

"What do I do with you?" he murmurs down to his sleeping Pocky. "You terrible, impossible thing."

He punctuates it with a soft kiss to the side of Charis' mouth, then finally gives up and lets the haze of soju and a long, strange day take him.