🧭🐰Day 29: Came back worse/Round Two
@sicktember
Summary: Minho felt better. He truly did. Until he couldn’t really hear Chan talking to him.
CW: mentions of hospitals, mentions of IVs
Sickie: Minho Caretaker: Bang Chan + I.N./Jeongin
To be honest, Minho was surprised by how okay he felt. The previous day had been a horror show to him, the fever, the coughing, the stuffed nose. Even the night had been a hassle - Bang Chan had made him sleep in his bed in the dorm Chan and Jeongin shared, switching between checking on Minho and Jeongin, who was still feeling queasy but had slept through the night.
That morning when he woke up Minho really felt good. His fever was completely gone. His throat didn’t hurt anymore, and the coughing and stuffed nose were both gone too. It felt like a miracle healing.
He turned his head to look at the alarm clock Chan had on his nightstand - it was close to 12pm. He had clearly needed that sleep and it seemed to have helped a lot. His leader was nowhere to be seen, so Minho decided to get up. He definitely needed to wash up, brush his teeth and maybe eat something.
The dancer walked across the hallway to the bathroom where he relieved himself and washed up. Every member even had toothbrushes stored at the other dorms so he could brush his teeth - a real luxury in his opinion. His mouth tasted like death after such a long sleep.
He made his way towards the kitchen, almost marveling at how easy it felt considering yesterday every step had felt like climbing up the steepest mountain. In the kitchen he found his two hosts - Chan was sitting on a chair, downing a cup of coffee while watching and chatting lightly with Jeongin who was slowly eating some bland porridge.
“Oh, hyung lives”, Jeongin greeted quietly with a cheeky smile - mostly recuperated - and a wave.
Chan got up and rushed over, gently taking Minho’s arm and leading him to sit on the chair he had abandoned.
“How are you feeling? Do you feel up to eating?”, Chan asked.
The words registered mostly in Minho’s brain but he was distracted by something else. It was kind of difficult to hear Chan - in fact it sounded like he was underwater. Curious. While he had thought himself healed, maybe his ears were still affected.
“I could eat”, Minho said and swallowed. He probably should tell Chan his ears felt weird - after all he relied on the organ for singing and dancing, his whole life.
He turned around to face Chan who was already at the stove and scooping porridge into a bowl. “Hyung, I was about to say I feel fine but uhm, it’s kind of hard to hear you.”
He saw that Chan’s mouth moved, he was speaking, but whatever he said was overlaid by Jeongin’s exclamation of “Oh no, hyung!”.
Minho frowned. “Could you repeat yourself?”
“Does your ear hurt or how does it feel?”, Chan asked but again his voice sounded distant, barely there. He put down the bowl, frowning.
“It’s … I dunno? Like I have water in my ear?”, Minho tried to explain and turned around fully on his chair. “It’s not really pain but … I can hear I.N-ah just fine but it’s hard to hear you.”
“Maybe it’s the pitch?”, the maknae asked, but now his voice was thready.
“I think… I think it’s my right ear”, Minho said, starting to feel really worried. “I was able to hear you just fine earlier, maknae, but now that I turned … hyung, say something!”
“I guess it could be an ear infection”, Chan said, his voice mostly clear. “Is this better?”
Minho nodded.
“Okay, well, how about you eat up and we go see a doctor?”, Chan said.
“I don’t think … I feel fine otherwise, hyung. I just can’t hear properly. We don’t need to bother the doctors with that.”
Chan came closer, his hand resting on Minho’s shoulder. “You really feel fine, except the ear?”
“Yeah. Nothing feels bad. I could probably dance…”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves”, Chan stopped him with a smile. “Not going to the doctor is one thing. Dancing is another.” He lifted his hand to feel Minho’s forehead, cheeks and neck. Then his lymph nodes. Minho let him do as he pleased, knowing he’d never get out of it anyways. “You don’t have a fever. I still want you to rest and take it easy today.”
🧭
Five hours later Minho regretted his early words. He did not feel fine. He didn’t know when it had crept in but somehow the fullness in his ear had turned into pressure and pain. He still didn’t feel feverish again but this was actually worse. Half his world was silent or distorted and full of pain. The other half was just exhausted and annoyed. His ear pulsed with pain and he wanted it to stop.
Jeongin - also confined to the apartment for that day - had put on the TV as a distraction from boredom earlier. It was an action movie but Minho couldn’t follow the plot. While the voices of the actors were mostly too quiet to hear, the sounds of the special effects were too loud, drawing out everything. It didn’t seem to bother the maknae but Minho just wanted it to stop.
His ear pulsed again, feeling warm and hot. It was unbearable.
Minho stumbled to his feet, not sure if Jeongin said anything to him or not, but he made his way to the hallway. Chan was in his room working - occasionally coming to check on them but mostly deep into 3Racha things. Minho hated to disturb him, but he couldn’t endure anymore.
He knocked on the door but he didn’t receive an invitation. He hesitated - what if Chan was doing something really important or was on a video call or something. But then the door opened and Chan stood in the doorway.
“Hey, didn’t you hear my invitation to come in?”, he asked gently. Minho shook his head and without meaning to, he took a step towards his hyung, lifting his arms. Instantly Chan wrapped himself around him, pulling him close in that hug they all loved no matter how much they pretended they didn’t.
He pressed his face into Chan’s chest for a moment and took a deep breath. Then he pulled away for a bit and looked at Chan. “Hyung, I think I should go to the doctor.”
🧭
Half an hour later Chan led him through the hallway of the company to the medical center of JYP where idols were treated for various illnesses and injuries. The security needed for most idols for a hospital or doctor’s visit was way more expensive and hassle-filled than a doctor and nurses working for the company.
By now Minho felt really miserable. His ear ached constantly and he could barely concentrate on anything but the pain. He relied on Chan guiding him by the small of his back, too tired to actually have any idea where exactly they were going.
Once they reached the medical center a nurse and a doctor appeared in front of them, greeting them politely. They were guided into an exam room and Minho gratefully sank onto the exam table, relieved he didn’t have to stand any longer.
“How are you feeling, Minho-ssi?”, the doctor asked, already reaching for a temperature gun.
“Awful”, Minho mumbled, his own voice sounding weird. “My ear really hurts and I just don’t feel well.”
“Slightly elevated but no fever”, the doctor said, clicking her tongue. "Let's look into your ear.”
She reached for the weird thing doctors used to check ears. Minho had no idea what it was called and he honestly couldn’t care less. The pressure of the device felt bad in his inner ear.
“Oh, wow”, the doctor said sympathetically, “oh, wow. Your ear is really inflamed. Are you dizzy or anything? This looks pretty bad.”
Minho winced. That was exactly what you wanted to hear from your doctor. Chan, who until then had stood to the side, stepped closer and squeezed Minho’s shoulder.
“No dizziness, just a bit wavy”, Minho replied. “But the drive was kind of really bad. Like I wasn’t moving how I was supposed to.”
“Yeah, that’s common”, the doctor said and then turned to the nurse.
“Please run to the pharmacy across the street. I know they are already closing but we need antibiotics and pain meds. He can’t wait until tomorrow.”
The nurse nodded and vanished.
The doctor sighed as she turned back to Minho. “Your ear is really inflamed and it won’t get better without a general antibiotic. Take one before you go to bed and then every eight hours. Always eat a bit with it because otherwise it might upset your stomach. Take the pain meds as needed but be careful to keep to the dosage. Do you have infra-red lamps? Those usually help with the pain.”
“Uh yeah”, Chan said. “Is there anything else we should be worried about?”
“Well, I can’t tell how this will progress but there is a risk of the eardrum rupturing. I’d like to come by your dorm tomorrow morning so we can take some blood just to monitor you. Sober, please.”
🧭
Somewhere between that and getting home Minho’s memories got fuzzy. He vaguely remembered eating and taking the meds with Jeongin fussing and then passing out.
It was the next morning that he really was aware again and he regretted it. If possible he felt even worse. His ear felt … wet. When he reached up to touch it, there was some fluid sticking to his fingers. He grimaced and wiped it on the underside of the pillow. Chan’s pillow. Oh, he was still in the wrong dorm.
Needing to use the bathroom, Minho pushed himself up. It was a bad idea. Everything suddenly spun around him. He grabbed the wall to steady himself, nearly falling back onto the bed. This felt so bad. He couldn’t remember the last time he had vertigo this badly.
But he really needed to go. He took a shaky step forward, then another. He managed but it was hard. He had to really focus on walking straight and it took a lot of coordination and strength he was already seriously lacking. By the time he reached the door to the hallway, his knees were trembling a bit. Luckily he could hold onto the wall of the hallway and then the appliances in the bathroom so he had some balance left.
As he stepped out of the bathroom he met Jeongin. The maknae looked way better than he had in the past days and he smiled brightly at Minho before noticing his state. “Hyung? Are you okay?”, he asked, reaching for Minho’s arm instantly. His voice barely registered.
Minho shook his head and his whole world tilted. He took a deep breath before answering. “Dizzy.”
That was when Chan appeared, always there at the right time. “Let’s sit you down, Lino”, he said gently, “it’s just a few steps to the couch. Then you can lie down again. The doctor should be here soon for that blood draw and then you can eat a bit. Should help your blood sugar if anything.”
Minho stumbled behind Chan, letting himself be led and then guided down on the couch. Chan knelt down beside him and stroked his hair back. “Innie, go get him some water, will you?”
The doctor indeed arrived soon after. She greeted him gently and looked into his ear again. Minho mumbled about the fluid he had felt.
The doctor sighed. “That’s what I feared. Your eardrum burst. You likely didn’t feel it because you were asleep. You should be glad, it can be really painful.”
Minho froze. Burst was such a violent word for something that had happened while he slept. He hadn’t even felt it happen. But it explained so much. The even more reduced hearing. The Vertigo. The fluid. The general feeling of bah. Still the idea was a bit creepy.
“Is there anything we can do to help?”, Chan asked, his hand still stroking Minho’s hair.
“No. Eardrums heal on their own. He should rest a lot, especially if the vertigo is bad. Eat, drink, sleep. Definitely no sports. No dancing and I mean it. No headphones. Try the infra-red lamps.”
🧭
The blood draw felt like a dream. Not nice but certainly not like a nightmare either. Just floaty. But Minho was really done with that day already when the doctor finished. She had needed a few tries because his veins weren’t great on good days and this certainly didn’t classify as a good day. It had hurt but he had been too exhausted to really register it.
The day passed in a quiet atmosphere. Jeongin went to the Felix/Seungmin dorm after a while, saying they wanted to game together. Chan sat on the armchair across from the sofa, mostly working but occasionally looking up to watch Minho. Minho himself dozed on and off, the infra-red lamp shining into his ear actually helping a lot.
It was around late noon when the restlessness hit. Minho did feel better after laying down and napping so much and he didn’t feel like being confined to the couch the whole day. He was an active person by nature and this sucked.
But the moment he sat up, everything slammed back into him. The vertigo nearly knocked him flat back onto his back. It felt awful, dizzying. Just really unsteady. He moaned without meaning to, pressing his head into his hands.
“Hey, what’s up?”, Chan asked, already putting his laptop away. “Feeling sick?”
“No”, Minho mumbled. “No, I just… I felt better laying down. Good actually. I am bored. But the moment I sat up everything started spinning again.”
“Your eardrum burst, kiddo”, Chan said sympathetically. “Of course you’ll feel better laying flat. You need rest.”
“I am bored”, Minho repeated himself, ignoring that his voice bordered on a whine.
He hated this. This wasn’t him. Laying down he was fine. Not stimulated enough for feeling that good. But anything involving movement made his head think he was on a carousel. It was unfair.
Chan, the bastard, laughed.
“How about …?” Halfway through his sentence he turned his head away, gesturing.
“Huh?”, Minho asked. It had already been hard hearing Chan but when he spoke into the wrong direction his voice was completely lost to Minho’s ears.
“Sorry”, Chan apologized, turning back. “Wanna watch a movie?”
“I can’t hear the movie.”
“With subtitles?”
“I don’t know if I can tolerate a moving screen”, Minho mumbled dejectedly.
“Alright, uhm, how about we …?” Chan trailed off, clearly having no idea what else to suggest.
“I’m going to lose my mind just sitting around”, Minho complained. “It’s only a matter of time.”
“I am afraid you are already insane, so don’t worry your pretty little head”, his hyung replied with a chuckle. “So how about we lie back down and nap and actually get better?”
Minho grumbled but he had to admit laying back down felt much better.
🧭
Days passed with Minho’s hearing barely getting better. He hated it, knowing it could take weeks for an eardrum to heal. But it was annoying. Everybody constantly forgot and had to repeat themselves. He himself had to turn his head into weird positions when somebody spoke from the wrong side. Any conversation with more than two people turned into a blend of noises he couldn't distinguish.
It was, plainly said, horrible.
But at least Minho didn’t actually have to listen to his members. And if he pretended he didn’t hear them when he actually did for once, occasionally, when they were annoying … nobody had to know.
Notes: I had a middle ear infection just like this last March and I am telling you, it was awful. I technically had a youth event I had to lead, my very first own thing. And I nearly had to cancel it. The youth leaders did beautifully without me, I heard though.
But the panic on Friday (so just after I heard from my doctor my eardrum burst) when a teenager who was supposed to help said he had the stomach flu and couldn’t help… so I ended up going on Friday anyway and it was horrible. I could barely help or hear. And then laying around on my bed on Saturday and Sunday feeling okayish until I stood up was pure guilt. 0/10 would not recommend.
Masterlist link: Fairy's Masterlist 2024 Fairy's Masterlist 2025 Fairy's Sicktember 2025
