Fluffy SKZ oneshots🧸

Brave Little Kitten🍼🌡️

Sickie/Little: Minho

Caregivers: Stray Kids

No one's POV.:
Minho had suffered from asthma since he was a child and had always been a bit short of breath. He was deeply familiar with the uncomfortably tight feeling in his chest. His friends knew and Chan always carried a spare inhaler for emergencies. There was something that always made his asthma significantly worse and that was stress. Especially when he got stressed on top of being tired. Working in an industry where stress was a constant companion, the dancer had to find a way to cope with it and after some research, he had come up with age regression. Slipping into a younger headspace gave Minho a chance to escape from his fast-paced life. It was like the stress couldn't touch him when he was little. His members were all very supportive of their friend's regression as they could clearly see how he benefited from it. Minho loved feeling like there were people watching out for him and making sure nothing could happen to him. He loved feeling safe when everything was getting too much. Having seven members willing to shower him with affection, Minho didn't have one particular caregiver. All seven of his members loved babying him when he was little and with more people caring for little MinMin, it was easier to find someone who wasn't too busy. They all knew where their friend kept his inhaler and when he needed to take his medication. Minho was usually very responsible and good at remembering to take it but the others weren't taking any chances. Who knew what might distract the boy when he was in his headspace? Relying on a little in his headspace to remember such things by himself was just too risky.

Being on daily oral medications, Minho barely had attacks anymore. At least not when he made sure not to get too stressed. His members had only ever witnessed one bad attack during one of their dance practices. It had been bad enough for the dancer to spend the following night in hospital and had given the rest of the group quite a scare. After that, his medication had been adjusted and the group was a lot more on the look out to prevent such situations. They got particularly worried when Minho got sick and tried to work through it, since he often pushed his body way too far, so when the dancer caught an early autumn cold, all of them kept a close eye on him. With how closely they were watching him, none of them missed how scratchy his "Good morning" sounded when he greeted them at breakfast. After that, Minho mostly remained silent. His chest felt tight and he didn't feel like he had enough air to spare for talking. The cold really seemed like it had gone straight to his chest and had kept him up with a bad cough for most of the previous night. Luckily, they had the day off, so the dancer planned to go right back to bed to catch up on the sleep he had missed during the night.

Minho finished his meager breakfast, not really having had an appetite to begin with, and put his plate into the sink. Clutching the kitchen counter, he buried his face in the crook of his arm and let out a painful sounding, dry cough. He kept coughing, choking on air as his chest tightened painfully. Chan was by his side in an instant, steadying him by the shoulders while Hyunjin pulled out a chair for the older to sit down. Minho was glad for his hyung's support as he started to feel a little lightheaded, while being manhandled onto the chair. The coughing slowly tapered off and the dancer rubbed his chest as he tried to catch his breath. Jogging back from Minho's room, Jeongin offered him his inhaler but the older shook his head. It wasn't that bad yet. Handing his dongsaeng a glass of water, Chan frowned: "That sounded really bad, Min." – "This cold's messing with my asthma a bit", Minho wheezed, still mainly focused on his breathing. Sure, his throat felt shredded from all the coughing but his chest was so achy and he just wanted to sleep the pain away. He knew he wouldn't be able to sleep with how difficult it was to breathe right now. "It's our day off and even if it wasn't, you wouldn't work today anyway, so how about you go see a doctor?", Chan offered, deeply concerned about his dongsaeng. Minho frowned, biting his lip. He didn't want to go anywhere other than his bed and he certainly didn't feel like seeing a doctor.