dicey ↬ nomin

Ch.14

Jeno was feeling nauseous while playing basketball in P.E. It was one of his only classes with Jaemin and Renjun, who were having a competition to the side of the court about who could throw the ball harder and knock the other unconscious. Every step he took made his stomach churn and heave, but he pushed the horrible feeling down and caught the ball as it was passed to him.

"Here! Pass!" A classmate called, his arms up high for an overhead pass. Jeno did exactly that and then the boy scored a basket. He started to feel himself sweat more than he should've and he shivered.

"I'll knock you out first!" He heard from the side of the court, where the two boys were viciously trying to kill each other with the basketball.

Jeno stepped off the court and sat down with his back against the wall. "I'm taking a breather!" He called out and sat, taking in shallow breaths. The deeper he breathed, the more strongly he felt the urge to get sick. He zipped his P.E hoodie up until it hid his chin and he pulled it up further over his mouth. He could smell Jaewoo's cologne on it from when he had passed Jeno his pile of washed clothes yesterday, but he couldn't care less.

"You look beat," Jaemin murmured from above Jeno, where the boy hadn't realised he was looming.

'Literally,' Jeno though spitefully but uncurled himself and pulled his hoodie neck down. "Just tired."

"Well, you can join Renjun and I. I'm trying to hit him with this," he lifted up a ten kilo dumbbell with ease. "He keeps dodging though, but if we both aim for him, then I'm sure he can't escape."

Jeno laughed quietly. "I don't need murder on my hands, but thanks anyway."

"No bro, you have to join us. I'm secretly trying to annoy you so that you break our agreement, and this is 'attempt number one' - make Jeno do something he doesn't want to do."

The black haired boy looked at him in defeat and pulled his hoodie back up over his mouth, muffling his words. "Then I'll make you break the agreement by not doing what you want me to do."

Jaemin sighed and stomped his foot. "I just want to fight with you again. I miss your mean words and weak punches."

"Just remember, you have a problem with me because you think I'm popular for no reason. I don't like you because you have literally only one setting: annoying. With such petty feudal reasons, do you think there's any point in us fighting in the first place?"

"Yes!" He answered immediately. "I don't want to get along with you, which is why we agree to disagree; it'll leave us both at odds."

Jeno began to shiver from the cold sweat and he covered his mouth before anything could escape. It was actually quite sore, because his tummy felt as though it was being stabbed. "Eh, I don't feel so good," he murmured and leaned his head back against the cold wall behind him.

Jaemin stood there eyeing him, noticing how pale he was and how he had laboured breathing. "You don't look too good either."

"Stop trying to pick a fight," Jeno growled and closed his eyes as he felt the cool wall on his neck begin to warm up.

"I didn't mean it like that, I meant you look unwell." He crouched down and noticed how subtly Jeno's hands were shaking. "Well, I'm not a doctor, but I think you're sick."

"We established that," Jeno breathed angrily, feeling like the lion with the thorn in his paw. The pain in his tummy was making him tetchier than usual. It didn't help that he felt the corners of his vision blur as though there was something in his eye when there wasn't.

"Maybe I should become a doctor to help people," Jaemin pondered as he looked somewhere above Jeno's head in thought.

Renjun was standing a few metres away with his hands on his hips and his foot resting on top of a weighted basketball intended for weight training. "Well well, what's happening here."

Jaemin turned around and kneeled, looking at Renjun. "I think I should become a doctor now."

"Bro, with your grades, you'd probably accidentally kill the corpse you have to practice on in med school."

Instead of taking the insult to heart, Jaemin gasped in disgust. "You have to practice on corpses? Get out of here - I'm not doing that."

"You wouldn't have even had the chance to try, you idiot," Renjun cackled and took his foot off the ball. "They would have rejected your application."

Jaemin turned back to Jeno and put his hand on the boy's forehead, feeling the heat and the sweat from it. He brushed the hair back off his forehead, disallowing the sweat to mat it. "Jeno, why did you come to school today?"

Jeno rolled his eyes and looked to the side, not making eye contact. "I didn't want to stay home."

"You're more of an idiot than I am."

"I'm just a scholar, unlike you. Sorry Jaemin, you won't be going to med school."

Jaemin pouted and felt behind Jeno's neck to see the temperature. "Neither will you if you die. Plus, I've seen the error in my ways - I'll be a vet instead."

"So you'll accidentally kill animals instead? Must've been a hard decision to make," Renjun cut in and crouched down beside Jaemin to inspect Jeno. "Yup, looks like a fever to me."

"That's what you said about my bee sting last year. I wouldn't trust him, Jeno."

Jeno rolled his eyes again and continued to breathe shallowly and ignore the stabbing in his gut. The heaving began again and he covered his mouth, squinting his eyes shut. "Go back to trying to knock each other out. I'm just taking a break."

Renjun put his hand on top of Jeno's head and ruffled his hair. "It's okay to not be okay, Jeno. A fever shouldn't be taken lightly. I'm grabbing the teacher."

Before Jeno could protest, Renjun scuttled away and alerted the teacher to Jeno's state. Jaemin looked sadly at the ill boy and sighed, pulling him away from the wall and into his arms for an easy transition into standing. He pulled Jeno up with him, but his vision was so dizzy that he closed his eyes and began to rock forward and backwards, not knowing that he was nearly falling over.

Jaemin made sure he didn't fall by keeping an arm under his shoulder and his other arm around his waist. This came in handy when Jeno's legs shook and prevented him from standing on his own. "I've gotcha, bud. Just relax," he said and tried to coax the boy into opening his eyes.

Jeno opened his eyes slowly and saw everything spin. He began to fall backwards with the spinning but Jaemin's hold disallowed that. "I'm gonna get sick."

The teacher rushed over and the other students flocked around, watching as the well-known cat and dog clung to each other: Jaemin holding Jeno up and Jeno trying to cling to him as closely as he could. "I'm calling the nurse to tell her to prioritise you," the teacher spoke slowly, clearly and loudly, knowing that it would take Jeno a moment to process the words. "Jaemin and Renjun, bring Jeno to the nurse." She was just as scared as they were but she didn't show it because she was the adult in charge.

"Yes," they answered and Jaemin and Renjun took an arm each to carry him. Jeno was nearly completely out of it, not saying a word while opening and closing his eyes slowly. He lingered on closing his eyes, feeling the need to fall asleep but knowing it meant he would be unconscious.

"Jeno, sweetheart," the teacher called, "hang on until the nurse can ask you a few questions."

He didn't show any sign of hearing it, but he did hear. Everything spun and rippled in his vision while his hearing zoomed in and out of silence.

"See Jaemin? This is what would have happened if you actually hit me with that dumbbell: I'd be completely unconscious," Renjun bickered as they exited the P.E hall. They were in the corridors at the moment, moving as fast as they could.

"Two point: first of all, you were the one who wanted to knock me out first with a weighted basketball, no less. Second of all, I would have hit you hard enough to send you into eternal slumber - and it wouldn't have been done by accident."

That was the last thing Jeno heard from the boys before everything went black.