Just A Few Numbers Away

Chapter 115

The Breaking Point

​The alarm hadn't even gone off when Yoongi felt the shift in the room.

​Usually, Aen was a quiet sleeper, but this morning, her breathing was heavy, ragged.

When he reached out to pull the duvet higher, his hand brushed her shoulder.

She was radiating heat like a furnace, the air around her thick with the dry, sharp scent of illness.

​"Aen-ah?" he murmured, his voice thick with sleep.

​"I'm up... I'm up," she croaked, her eyes barely fluttering open.

She made a move to sit up, her hand searching for her phone to check her work schedule, but she winced, her head falling back against the pillow.

"Just a headache. I have that 9:00 AM inventory meeting at the office..."

​"You have a fever that could boil water," Yoongi said, his tone shifting from sleepy to firm.

He sat up, pressing the back of his hand to her forehead.

"You aren't going anywhere, Jagi."

​"Yoongi, I still have work, then I need to attend to the wedding favors... the Shilla coordinator is calling at noon to finalize the seat map, and the district office still needs my signature for the-"

​"The world isn't going to stop spinning if Min Aen takes a breath," he interrupted.

He was already out of bed, grabbing his phone.

​He didn't call her office first.

He called the Gangnam-gu district office.

​"Hello. It's Min Yoongi. I'm taking a personal day off. Family emergency, my wife is sick. I'll file it under the Soulmate System Act," he said into the phone, his eyes never leaving Aen's pale face.

He knew the mention of the Act would trigger the immediate mandatory caregiver bypass, a bureaucratic fail-safe that rendered any inquiry into his absence both moot and illegal.

​The authority in his voice left no room for argument.

​Next, he dialed her manager at Yakult.

Aen tried to reach for the phone, her face flushed with a mix of fever and panic, but he gently caught her wrist.

"Manager-nim? This is Min Yoongi. Aen won't be in today. Or tomorrow. My wife has a severe fever... Yes, thank you."

​He set the phone down and looked at her.

The "Logistics Queen" looked small, buried under the heavy blankets.

​"You called in sick for me?" she whispered, her voice cracking.

"And you used the Act to get a day off... they'll record that."

​"Let them record it. That's what it's there for," he muttered, reaching for a fresh cloth.

"In the system, you're my primary priority. The district office can't flag it as a missed shift if it's filed under the Soulmate Care clause. It's the one part of this law I actually like-it makes it impossible for them to tell me I can't be here with you."

"But... You never call in sick, Yoon," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the hum of the air purifier.

​"I do now, when my wife is trying to run a marathon on a broken leg," he muttered, though his eyes were soft, betraying the bluntness of his words.