Chapter Text
To say it was chaotic when all of their PCR tests came back positive—save Felix and Jeongin—would be an understatement. Jisung heard later that Minho and Seungmin were rushed out of the other dorm by people in hazmat suits less than five minutes after they got the text, with barely enough time for each of them to stuff a few days’ worth of clothes and a laptop into a backpack, while Felix and Jeongin were made to stay in their rooms for two hours while the entire apartment was deep-cleaned and aired out.
Since everyone in Jisung’s dorm—3racha plus Hyunjin—had tested positive, all hell broke loose as the four of them ran around trying to find their chargers and gather up snacks and nintendo switches and enough clean underwear for seven days. Jisung cursed his messy habits as he searched high and low for his favorite headphones, which he eventually found under a sweatshirt in his closet along with the water bottle he thought he’d lost. What else would he need? A jacket? A pilates mat? Who did he get covid from? Was he gonna get sick? How sick? Would they give him tea if he was sick? What if they didn’t have his favorite kind of tea? Which of his damn roommates drank all his favorite tea?
“Has anyone seen my workout shoes?” Changbin yelled from the living room.
“What do you need shoes for, we’re gonna be in a hotel,” Chan yelled back from somewhere closer.
“Check the shoe closet, dumbass,” Hyunjin said.
“I did!”
“Why do we have to go to a hotel anyway? Why can’t we just stay here? We all have it already,” Jisung asked, staring forlornly into the pantry where his tea used to be.
“Something about the building ventilation,” Chan answered, this time from behind him. “Are you okay? Do you feel sick at all?”
Jisung turned around. Chan was kneeling in front of the fridge and grabbing things seemingly at random.
“No. I mean, I’m stressed out, but other than that. You?”
“Nah, I’m fine. Changbin has a sore throat though.”
Jisung watched as their leader threw a grapefruit, a container of mixed greens, five hard-boiled eggs, four bottles of soju, and a zucchini into a refrigerated bag. “Give me two of those sojus.”
Chan handed them over without question and moved on to the cheese drawer. Jisung left him to it.
Thirty minutes later he found himself in a double-queen hotel room outfitted with a mini-fridge, a sofa, a view of some crappy buildings, and Changbin, who had brought enough workout equipment to train a small village.
“Why are we in the same room again?” Jisung wondered.
“So we can work together,” Changbin said. It came out muffled. He was lying face-down on the bed closer to the window.
“Oh yeah.”
“And ‘cause I’d be lonely.”
Jisung rolled his eyes and flopped onto his own bed. Of course.
“But mostly the first thing.”
“If you say so,” he said, resigned. “How’s your sore throat?”
Changbin grunted. “Hurts.”
“Sorry ‘bout that.”
“Mm.”
“Want some tea?”
“Mhm.”
Jisung used the plastic kettle to make them both a cup of his second-favorite tea, a lavender chamomile blend, and wrinkled his nose at the styrofoam hotel cups. Maybe he could request some ceramic ones later. They were gonna be there for a week, after all.
He looked over at Changbin and saw he was asleep, so he put the cup on his bedside table and got out his laptop.
A while later Changbin woke up and went into the bathroom right before Jisung was about to. He figured it wouldn’t be a problem until he heard the shower turn on and realized he’d have to hold it for at least ten more minutes. Damn.
Fifteen minutes later, Changbin called his name from the shower.
“Jisung.”
“What,” Jisung said, scrolling mindlessly through twitter.
“Help.”
Jisung stood up, alarmed. “What is it? You okay?”
“I’m lonely,” came the watery reply.
He stopped in his tracks, hand already reaching out for the bathroom door, and sighed.
“Hyung. Are you serious?”
“Yeah,” Changbin said, seeming genuinely morose. Jisung could already picture his exaggerated pout and his pleading eyes. He didn’t want to picture anything else about the situation.
“No,” he said, “I’m not joining you in the shower,” and plopped back on the sofa. “Obviously.”
“Why not?!”
“Because!” he exclaimed, gesturing to empty air. “It’s weird!”
“No it isn’t! We’ve gone to the sauna together!”
“That’s different!”
“How? We were naked there, we can be naked here!”
“It’s completely different,” he said incredulously. “I’m stuck with you in this room for the next week!”
“Exactly. So we might as well get comfortable,” came the infuriatingly casual reply. The shower turned off.
Jisung couldn’t believe it. Why? Why did he have to be the only one quarantined with a roommate? Changbin, of all people? He knew it should make sense, they were used to long hours and late nights in the studio together, they were good friends, but this was different. This wasn’t work. This was everything else. Jisung was an introvert. He liked being alone. And having his own bathroom. Especially for seven days.
The bathroom door opened and Changbin emerged, a towel wrapped around his waist. Jisung’s eyebrows lifted at the sight of his beefy chest and arm muscles. Usually it was Chan he saw half-naked just out of the shower. Chan was toned, but Changbin was just ridiculously buff.
“Oh, shit,” Jisung said, realizing something.
Changbin noticed him looking and smirked.
“Ew,” Jisung made a face reflexively. “No, I think I forgot my meds. They were in my bathroom.”
Changbin’s expression turned serious. “Oh, shit. What should we do? Text somebody?”
“I guess,” Jisung said, and texted Chan about it. Chan messaged him back right away with the phone number of someone to contact. Apparently he wasn’t the first person to realize they’d forgotten something. “Did you forget anything? I can tell them to get it at the same time.”
“Nothing I can think of.”
Jisung tossed his phone aside and flopped onto his bed again, staring at the ceiling. “What’re we gonna do for seven days?”
“Sleep,” said Changbin.
Jisung looked over at him. His hair was damp and fluffy from the shower, he still hadn’t put a shirt on, and he was rubbing his forehead with the palms of his hands.
“Why am I so sore,” Changbin groaned. “I feel like I fell down a mountain.”
“You mean a staircase? For you that’s basically a mountain.”
Changbin glared at him.
“Maybe you worked out too hard?” Jisung tried.
Changbin shook his head. “I think it’s cause I’m sick.”
“Oh, yeah,” Jisung said, remembering. “Didn’t you have a rough time with the vaccines?”
“It felt like my blood hurt,” said Changbin.
“Still not sure what that means,” Jisung muttered.
“Not that complicated. Your blood just hurts.”
“That’s no different from the first thing you said.”
“Let’s not do this,” Changbin sighed, and curled up on his side with his phone in his hand.
Jisung shut up.
You’re gonna have to be the responsible one here, the mature, adult side of him said. He feels like shit. Just suck it up and take care of him. You’re lucky you don’t have symptoms yet. Being stuck in a room with anyone for a week is hard, don’t make it worse by being a jerk.
He stuck his tongue out at Changbin’s back and got up to make them both more tea. Fine. He could be responsible. But Changbin was paying for all their takeout.
Changbin went to bed at an astonishing 8pm while Jisung stayed up fiddling with a track. It was really inconvenient not to have all his usual equipment, and agonizing to work on his little laptop screen. He texted the number Chan sent him, asking someone to bring him a monitor and a set of speakers tomorrow. At 2 in the morning, once his eyes were dry and his brain felt fuzzy, he gave up and went to bed. The hotel mattress was okay. He tired himself out trying to untuck the sheets without getting up, and fell asleep defeated.
He woke up to the smell of lunch and some noise from the TV. Changbin had screencasted something from his phone; a youtube video of people doing parkour on a bridge over a river. Jisung blinked blearily at it, not awake enough to parse the strange-sounding English they were speaking.
“Morning, sunshine,” said Changbin, peering over the back of the couch.
“Nggh,” said Jisung. Close enough.
Changbin chuckled. “They brought us our morning rations. Got you an iced americano. It’s in the fridge.”
Jisung gave him a thumbs up and let his head drop back to his pillow.
It was kind of nice to have no real responsibilities, he supposed, but the six days still ahead of them seemed to stretch endlessly in his mind. Plus they were supposed to be having a comeback right now. The part of him that had spent months preparing for that was frustrated, restless. What if his dancing got rusty? Or he forgot his lyrics? He’d been excited and hyped up to perform, and this was a major hit to his momentum. Momentum counted for a lot in an industry that didn’t allow much time for sleep. You had to keep riding the adrenaline.
“This sucks,” he said out loud.
“I think it’s pretty cool,” Changbin said around a mouthful of chicken. “Seems kinda dangerous though.”
Jisung was confused for a second before he realized Changbin was talking about the parkour.
“I meant the covid thing.”
“Oh yeah, that sucks. But we gotta make the best of it, eh?”
“Ugh.”
“Is it really so bad? I know how much you love me,” Changbin said cheerfully. “We’ll have so much quality time together. It’ll be great.”
Jisung glanced at him. “You seem to be feeling better.”
“Yeah, I took some painkillers.”
“Mm.” Jisung dragged himself out of bed and stumbled to the mini-fridge. He retrieved his precious coffee and plopped down on the couch next to Changbin, who was reading through the group chat.
“How’s everyone?” he asked, paying mild attention to the parkour video.
“Good. Seungmin has symptoms. Chan has a headache. Otherwise everyone’s just bored. I can’t read fast enough to keep up with the memes they’re sending back and forth.”
“That’s 'cause you’re old.”
Changbin pushed his shoulder lightly. “We’re a year apart, dumbass.”
Jisung refused to acknowledge that, and changed the subject.
“Where is this, anyway?” he nodded at the TV.
“Hamburger,” Changbin said confidently.
Jisung snorted.
“It is,” Changbin insisted, and paused the video so the title was visible.
“That says Hamburg,” Jisung pointed out. “That’s in Germany.”
“Did we go there on tour?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Yeah, I would’ve remembered if we went to the place hamburgers were invented.”
“Are you sure that’s true?” said Jisung doubtfully.
Changbin looked insulted. “How could it not be?”
“I don’t know! It just seems like it would be fake!”
“Does not!”
“Does too!”
“Wanna get hamburgers tonight?”
“Yeah, sounds good.”
They watched somebody do a flip off the bridge, trying to land on a wooden pole. They fell into the water.
“Swimming would be nice,” Jisung said wistfully.
“Going outside at all would be nice,” said Changbin.
“I’ll bet you the price of the hamburgers they weren’t invented in Hamburg.”
“You’re on.”
They worked all afternoon pretty successfully, once the monitor arrived. Changbin took some time to flesh out the track while Jisung worked on lyrics, then at the end they did a few run-throughs and made adjustments all around. Jisung had just finished adding the guide vocals for the chorus using his laptop’s shitty mic when he noticed Changbin was rubbing at his eyes again. He decided they’d made enough progress for a day.
“How’s it going?” he asked tentatively, saving the file and closing his laptop.
“Painkillers wore off,” Changbin muttered. “My face hurts.”
“Your face hurts?”
“Yeah.”
“Well...how’s the rest of your body? Does that still hurt?”
Changbin considered, then said thoughtfully, “No, more like it’s turned off.”
They locked eyes for a second, and cracked up. Changbin seemed to find what he’d said almost as funny as Jisung did. His silly grin made Jisung realize it was the first time either of them had smiled since they’d arrived. That was kind of sad. Maybe Changbin was right; they should make the best of the situation, now that they were in it.
He resolved to make Changbin smile as much as possible during the six days remaining.
They ordered dinner late and ate their burgers on the couch (since Wikipedia couldn’t give them a conclusive answer, they agreed to split the check) and scrolled through Netflix trying to find something to watch.
“How ‘bout this one?”
“Seen it already. It’s okay.”
“Ah.”
“What about that one?”
“Nah, too intense for my mood right now.”
He kept scrolling mindlessly until Changbin piped up, “Oh—I’ve heard that’s good.”
Jisung paused. Fantastic Fungi. “What is it?”
“A documentary, I think.”
“About...mushrooms?”
Changbin shrugged. “I guess. Hyunjin recommended it.”
It was only an hour and twenty minutes long, so he figured, why not, and clicked play. Changbin finished his burger and scooted next to Jisung, linking their elbows together and rubbing his cheek on his shoulder. Jisung rolled his eyes and patted his hair with his free hand, but it felt nice, actually, to be close to someone.
He fully expected the both of them to be asleep by the end of the documentary, but an hour and fifteen minutes later, the two of them were spellbound, bolt upright on the couch, watching the credits roll.
Jisung broke the silence first. “What the fuck.”
“What the fuck,” agreed Changbin.
“No, like, what the fuck,” he whispered.
“I know.”
“How did we not know any of that.”
“I wish I was a mushroom.”
“Bro,” said Jisung, turning to Changbin, “I was literally thinking that.”
Changbin nodded sagely. “I’m not gonna be able to sleep tonight.”
“Me neither.”
Despite that, for lack of anything else to do, they brushed their teeth and washed their faces side by side in the bathroom, lost in thought as they gazed at their reflections. Laying in bed, curled on his side, Jisung couldn’t stop thinking about mind-blowingly large underground networks, and trees talking to each other, and meeting god, and mushrooms that ate oil spills. He’d never given a mushroom a second thought in his life. He wasn’t sure he ever wanted to eat one again. They felt completely alien now.
He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling for a long time, feeling oddly lonely. How was it possible that he was a single, isolated, separate organism? Completely unconnected to anything but himself? Suddenly it didn’t make any sense. The rest of humanity seemed so far away.
“Sung-ah,” he heard Changbin whisper. It was loud in the silence of their room.
“Yeah?” Jisung whispered back.
“You still thinking about mushrooms?”
“Yeah.”
“Me too.”
For some reason, that was enough to make him swing his legs over the side of the bed and climb underneath the covers next to Changbin, wrap his arms around his bicep, and bury his face in his shoulder. He felt Changbin turn to look at him, probably in surprise, but neither of them said anything.
Changbin’s free hand reached over to smooth the back of his hair. Jisung hooked a leg over one of Changbin’s and scooted closer. The solidity of another person made him feel a little better. He breathed a heavy sigh and felt the existential dread slowly drain away.
“We’re like tree roots right now,” Changbin remarked.
Jisung chuckled. “Hey hyung.”
“What?”
“If we were trees, what would you say to me?”
“Hmm.” Changbin thought for a second. “I’d say, hey Sung, got any nutrients?”
“I’d give you nutrients, if I had some.”
“Thanks.”
“Know what I’d say?”
“What?”
Jisung released Changbin’s arm and did a little dance. “Tree, tree, tree, tree, baby, baby, baby,” he sang, to the tune of the Girls’ Generation song.
Changbin groaned and pinched his shoulder, but Jisung could tell he was smiling. He settled back in again, pleased.
“’Night, hyung,” he mumbled through a yawn.
“’Night, Sung-ah,” he heard Changbin say quietly. The last thing he thought before he dropped into sleep was that Changbin smelled good. Like home.