#he'shandsomeashell

“ah, so you’re here again?” jaemin asked, his eyebrow raising lazily as he saw you walk in with your friend. however, it lowered when he saw that your friend has her arm wrapped securely around you, with your head hanging towards the floor. 

“what happened?” he asked, walking over to the both of you at the door. 

“she passed out during gym,” your friend explained, hoisting you up gently so that you could stand straight. you gave jaemin a weak smile, your eyes only a tad bit open to avoid being overwhelmed by all of the light. jaemin frowned, lips dipping down and lines forming in between his eyes. 

“the teacher said to give her a check-up to see if everything is alright,” she explained, and jaemin nodded, still analyzing your form. 

“okay, i’ll do that. could you bring her to the chair over here?” he asked, and your friend nodded, shuffling towards the chair and delicately letting you fall into the cushion. your senses were still out of it, and you covered your face with both of your hands to get ahold of yourself. your head felt lighter than normal as if it was floating around instead of being firmly planted on you. you didn’t even notice your friend had left the room, and that you were stuck alone with jaemin. 

he tsked before approaching you, pulling a chair out in front of you and grabbing a clipboard. 

“it seems like you come here a lot,” he started, “do you just like me or something?”

at that, you scoffed and picked your head up, covering your eyes with your arm to face the ceiling. 

“just shut up and fix me,” you said hoarsely, the usual volume of your voice brought down. 

“i will, as always,” he said, and brought his pen down from his ear to his hand. 

“so, explain what happened during gym.”

you sighed, the sheer memory of what happened making you cringe. 

“we were having a soccer game, and we were running back and forth between the goals and stuff, and I started to feel lightheaded,” you explained. 

“then, someone kicked the ball and it hit me on the side of my face. i felt fine for a minute, but when we started running again i just, i don’t know, fell? and then i woke up and there were a lot of people surrounding me.”

“i see,” jaemin murmured, jotting down something on the paper. 

“did you feel more lightheaded after you got hit with the ball?”

“yeah.”

“describe what it felt like.”

“aren’t you supposed to know that already?”

“it’s different for everyone,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders, “i can’t assume that everyone feels the same way.” 

you groaned, rubbing your forehead as you spoke. the sheer effort of just explaining everything was tiring you out. 

“my ears started to ring after i got hit, and my vision got darker. it also felt like my brain got sucker-punched,” you said, and jaemin was writing away, the pen moving as fast as your voice. 

“okay. was that similar to how you felt before you got hit by the ball?”

“before, i was just dizzy and tired,” you explained, tilting your head from the ceiling down to your lap. you balanced your elbows on your thighs, fingers kneading into your temples. jaemins brows furrowed again at your condition, and he got up from his chair to get his equipment. 

“what did you eat today?” he asked, standing near you as he held the blood pressure wrap in his hands. 

a beat of silence passed by, and you made sure to close your eyes when you said, “nothing.” 

jaemin sighed, and gently tapped your shoulder so that you could look up. 

“what did you eat yesterday?”

you look into his eyes for a flashing moment before glancing off to something insignificant, because his brown eyes always held so much emotion in them and you couldn’t really handle it. 

“i ate cereal. and water,” you replied, and jaemin wraps the strap around your arm, making sure not to jostle you too much. his fingertips graze the surface of your skin and it’s cloud-like and warm, a sharp contrast to your cold and clammy skin. (you think you get goosebumps.) 

“darling, that’s not enough. you need to eat something so that you won’t burn out like this,” he said gently, turning on the machine and waiting for the pressure level to show up. your heart pounds a little bit harder at his words and the amount of concern that’s present in them makes you want to scold yourself just for making him worry.

“i know,” you said in the same tone, exhaustion heavily lacing your voice. “i just - i don’t know,” you retracted, shaking your head and regretting it, feeling the aching sensation swirl throughout your entire head. 

“i don’t even know what i’m saying,” you said, a slightly dry laugh leaving your lungs. 

“clearly,” jaemin said, giving you a small smile and he starts to write on his clipboard again. 

“both your blood pressure and bpm are low,” he stated, tapping the top of his pen against the corner of his lips, “i still have to check some other things, but first i’m going to bring some juice and some snacks and you have to eat them, okay?”

“okay. can i sit over there?” you asked, using your finger to point over to the bed on the other side of the room. 

“of course,” he said, and you got up from chair quickly, only to have your legs feel like absolute jelly underneath you. 

shit.

you could sense yourself about to fall onto the floor again, and you would have if jaemin didn’t rush over and grab your shoulders securely. 

“god, you scared me,” he mumbled, pulling you upright and keeping a tight grip on you. you would have laughed at the sudden serious tone of his voice if it wasn’t for the close proximity that was between you two. 

“i look away for one second and you’re falling again,” he said, sighing as he looked into your eyes, and giving your heart an extra beat. 

“what time did you go to sleep last night?”

“around twelve-thirty,” you replied. 

“and what time did you wake up?”

“around five? five-thirty? i couldn’t go back to sleep,” you revealed, rubbing the back of your neck with your hand and looking away. he tsked quietly and adjusts his grip to be around your arms to be more comfortable, your cheeks washing over in a familiar burning sensation. 

it only gets stronger when as he guided you to the bed, and he didn’t let go of you until you were sitting down. 

“i’ll be right back. don’t hurt yourself,” he said, and ran off to get the food. 

as soon as he’s gone and out of sight, you let your face fall into your palms. feeling the tinge of heat from your face, your mind is racing and swirling and you almost think it’s gotten worse since you were at the gym. 

all of you can think about is that fact that you’re alone with this dude, for god knows how long, and that your stupid heart is feeling light over the fact that he called you darling. 

how were you supposed to survive?