𝙘𝙖𝙩𝙘𝙝 22 | chensung

32

Chenle awoke to his own cough, courtesy of his extremely dry throat. It was so dark that he couldn't even see his own hand in front of his face. In fact, he had no sense of where he was.

He swallowed dryly and brought on a small coughing fit. His body was tingling without feeling on fire and he was sure that if he stood up, his legs would give way. Luckily, his noises made someone else in the pitch-black room aware of his consciousness.

"Chenle?" A groggy voice asked from somewhere nearby. The sound of covers being pulled back and the pitter-patter of feet against floorboards pierced the silence, and then the room was illuminated.

"Hyuck?"

The boy was rubbing his eyes with a slumped back standing by the switch on the wall beside the door.

Chenle lifted his hand to his eyes to block out the painful light and he scrunched up his face. He blinked multiple times before adjusting to the lighting and then propped himself up on his elbows. "Hyuck, why am I in your room?" This much was clear. The cosy double bed and fluffy duvet around him were signature and he had been in here a hundred times.

The boy shuffled over to him, without energy, one arm dangling loosely by his side while his other hand still rubbed his eyes. "Le, you've been sleeping since five o'clock in the evening. It's now..." he glanced up at the clock on the wall, "half one." A tired yawn escaped his lips, quite involuntarily, and he tried to cover it up quickly. He didn't want to seem as though he had only slept for an hour.

There was a makeshift bed on the floor beside the double made up from a few blankets laid out and a spare duvet, with what Chenle was sure was one of the wacky lime-green pillows that usually sat on the couch in their living room. "Why were you all the way down there...?" But he quickly answered his own question when he felt the space on the mattress beside him. It was sweat-drenched and his pillow was no better. The pyjamas that Donghyuck had dressed him in had absorbed the sweat and were beginning to make him shiver. "Oh yeah, I went into heat."

"Don't say it so casually! Do you know how worried we were?"

"We?" His memory was pretty blurry but he vaguely remembered the four guys trying to strip him, and possibly succeeding, but he didn't remember much after fainting. He could recall even more vaguely grasping onto a peppermint-scented male who could only have been Jisung. And he remembered the pain. He ruffled his hair harshly and slapped his hand down on the duvet. "I've been out for eight and a half hours?!" He whisper-yelled.

"On and off. You were woken up by what looked like agony but you were out of it most of the time. This is the first time you've been communicative since you went into heat earlier." It was a lot for Chenle to process and Donghyuck could see that. He wandered over and sat down beside him. He pulled the shaking boy into a hug, soothing the last of the heat-induced shivers from him and squeezing him gently. "You looked like you were dying," he whispered and placed his chin on Chenle's shoulder.

The ravenette hesitantly lifted one of his arms and wrapped it around Donghyuck's shoulder while his other arm supported him to sit up. "Am I... Am I pregnant?"

"Thankfully, no. They didn't get that far."

His whole body relaxed a little, although his muscles were aching from the trembling, and he let out a breathy chuckle of feigned relief. "Ah, I wish I was a beta," he sniffed, tightening the hug.

His friend laughed softly, murmuring a noise of agreement. Didn't they all? He pulled away. "It's the middle of the night, Le. Try to sleep until a reasonable hour of the morning."

He nodded, taking notice of the bags under Donghyuck's eyes. He must've been up and down getting him painkillers and water all night. As the boy was beginning to move away to the bed on the floor, Chenle grabbed his arm and yanked him down onto the double bed. "Do you mind my sweat?"

"Of course not," he smiled faintly. He pulled the duvet up and slipped underneath, lying facing Chenle. "Oh wait, the light is still on."

The younger grabbed a top pillow and threw it at the light switch, knocking it off and bathing them in relieving darkness. "Now it's off."

They cuddled up together like they would on the couch on a normal 'first day of heat', like the two of them had recently when Donghyuck was on his monthly. "Night night, Le."

Chenle blinked the glassy tears of post-shock from his eyes and snuggled further into the blankets. "Night, Hyuck."