soljae | bts [editing]

low blood sugar (2018)

SOLJAE ABRUPTLY OPENED HIS EYES, recognizing the hollow feeling that racked his body. he groaned out, reaching past the alarm clock that showed the time as '2:30 am' and grabbed the dexcom receiver off his nightstand. he pressed the button on it, watching the screen light up and showcasing his glucose level: low. his eyes widened as he scrambled out of the bed and into the kitchen. his normal levels were supposed to be 70-120 mg/dl, so low (49 or lower) was dangerously low.

any movement he made felt foreign to his body and the only way he could ever describe the feeling of low blood sugar was 'walking after leg day, but it's your whole body that feels like that'. people usually understood that well enough.

he fumbled the door to the refrigerator, grabbing a juice carton. luckily, namjoon had just bought a new case of juice for him earlier the previous day. he chugged the juice down and grabbed a slice of bread from the cabinet, smearing peanut butter on it before opting to sit on the couch. he curled into the arm of the couch, nibbling on the slice of bread and mentally noting the 34 grams of carbohydrates he was intaking. his doctor had told him "if your numbers are below 50, i want you to eat 30 grams of carbs. if they are 50 to 60, eat 15 grams."

he had to stay awake for 15 minutes to check his blood sugar again to make sure it went up enough, but those 15 minutes felt like hours. he couldn't decide if he wanted to go to sleep right then and there or eat everything in the cabinets to try and stop his body from feeling so weak. fortunately, he remained awake the whole 15 minutes and didn't eat anything else, so when he checked his receiver again and the number said 98 mg/dl, he sighed in relief.

just when he had gotten up from the couch, stretching his hands to the ceiling, jin walked out from his bedroom. "what are you doing up so early?" his eyes were nearly sealed shut with sleep. he must have got up to use the bathroom, soljae guessed.

"my sugar was low."

jin's eyes opened fully as he rushed toward the kitchen, "do i need to make you something to eat? i can make you something."

soljae waved his hands in protest, "no, no hyung. it's okay, i had some of the juice namjoon hyung bought earlier and ate some bread with peanut butter." the peanut butter would stay in his system longer and help his numbers level out instead of spiking and then dropping again.

"why are you awake?" soljae asked him.

"i woke up to use the bathroom," he pointed to the bathroom door right across from his bedroom door, "are you sure you don't need anything else to eat? what was your sugar?"

soljae shook his head, "i'm okay hyung. it was below 50, but now it's 98. i was just heading back to bed."

they both returned to their respective rooms soon after and soljae climbed back into the bed next to jungkook.

---

hello 👋 here is a little glimpse into the life of a type 1 diabetic. if you read this chapter before it was edited, you might have noticed i didn't include soljae's little moment with jungkook: i just felt like it was unnecessary. yes, i know it was a cute little moment, but i felt like it wasn't necessary to include, especially because i am planning on opening requests for this book when i finish editing it. 

if i have any fellow diabetic readers, i bet this was a shocker! i have never read a fanfic or book where the reader or any character was a type 1 diabetic so i thought it would be cool to make soljae one!

while i am a type 1 diabetic, i am not an expert (no matter how long i've had it) so if you want to learn more about the disease, please feel free to visit the cdc's "what is type 1 diabetes" or mayoclinic 😊 

anyways i hope you enjoyed this chapter and look forward for more. sorry for being gone for so long--i am a student and finals are coming up within the next month and a half so i will be busy 🫡 

word count: 531

published: cerca 2019

edited & revised: march 2023