"Next group: Im Youngmin. Jung Sewoon. Kim Donghyun. Lee Ji-hye. Please step outside and prepare."
Ji-hye suddenly feels all fidgety when she hears her name called along her groupmates'.
When the three guys stand and step out of the room quietly, she follows closely behind.
She can't help but feel shy and sorry around the three guys for she had been absent for two days straight, thus she wasn't able to help during the final revisions of their report.
She plans to apologize, but when she sees that the three of them are busy practicing their parts, she changes her mind and decides to do it after the report instead. She then moves away for a while to run through her part of the report. She sits atop the stairs that lead to the fourth floor, away from everyone's view. This way, she can concentrate. She's already nervous about speaking in front of the whole class with her three groupmates, but the pressure of doing great to make up for her absences is giving her more anxiety.
She's in the middle of reciting her memorized lines, when she hears Donghyun and Youngmin speaking in low voices but enough for her to catch.
"Do you feel better now?"
"Yeah. A bit."
"Good!" Donghyun says. "Had you insisted on going to school yesterday, I'm sure your fever would have worsened and you would have missed today's reporting," he adds.
"I guess."
Huh? Youngmin skipped class yesterday? And he had fever? Did he perhaps catch the fever from her?
"Why is everyone getting sick these days? Ji-hye even had to skip two days of school, too," Donghyun wonders out loud. Ji-hye gulps, feeling guilty again.
Youngmin stays quiet this time.
Ji-hye takes this as a chance to descend the stairs and meet with her groupmates, when all of a sudden, she misses a step.
Losing her balance, she yelps, closes her eyes tightly and waits for the impact of the fall...
But she doesn't feel the cold, hard ground. She doesn't hurt anywhere at all.
Instead, she feels strong arms holding her on both sides.
She slowly opens her eyes to see what has happened...
Only to see the softest pair of eyes staring right back at her.
"Youngmin."
He doesn't speak. She tries to read his face. Is he mad because she bothered him again? Ji-hye can't quite comprehend the emotion written all over his face. This is the first time she's seen him look at her this way.
"Hey, guys! It's almost time for us to---" Donghyun suddenly stops, seeing Youngmin closely hugging Ji-hye. He then turns around and walks away, embarrassed to have ruined the moment or something.
With this, Youngmin lets go of Ji-hye. Ji-hye suddenly feels her knees weaken, realizing only now that if it weren't for Youngmin's fast reaction time, she would have bruised herself all over or worse, she would have broken both her ankles.
"Youngmin," she manages to say. "Thank---"
Before she can even say another word, Youngmin encloses her in an embrace and whispers gently enough only for her to hear:
"Please take care of yourself and stop making me worry."
---------------
Short update!
Forgive me because I don't really know how to write fluff and I'm really struggling as I already want to transition to the fluff part (wink, wink) of the story because I'm afraid you're all starting to hate on Youngmin now. LMAO
Thank you for all the reads, votes, and especially the comments! I'm taking the time to read them all! Love you, guys xx
P.S. If anything confuses you, feel free to ask me questions:)
P.P.S. I really miss Youngmin ;;
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