Ship/Member: Jeonghan & Mingyu
Major Tags: idolverse, exhaustion
Additional Tags: mentions of food/hunger
Permission to remix: Yes

***

They’re on their way to a photoshoot, and Jeonghan didn’t eat breakfast.

To be honest Jeonghan never eats breakfast, unless he stays up late enough to be eating a late-night snack when it’s technically already morning. And he’s in the car for hours every day, and usually it’s fine.

It’s not fine today. Jeonghan opens his eyes to try looking out the window and regrets it immediately, taking a sharp breath in through his nose as the van jerks to another stop. They left later than usual — late enough that traffic is crawling, everyone in Seoul on their way in to work. The stop-and-start is agonizing. Jeonghan leans his head back gingerly, taking careful breaths through clenched teeth. Water would help, probably, but if he opens his mouth he can’t make any guarantees about what’ll come out of it.

“Hyung.”

Mingyu’s next to him, or maybe in the row behind — Jeonghan can’t look to check. He’s close, wherever he is. Jeonghan utters a silent prayer that this isn’t him trying to start a conversation. Throwing up all over Mingyu for bothering him is better than throwing up all over himself unprovoked, but only marginally.

He shouldn’t have thought about throwing up. Jeonghan takes one breath, then another. His whole body is kind of burning, constant unpleasant waves of heat rolling over him.

“Hyung.”

Mingyu isn’t letting up. Jeonghan grunts at him, eyes still closed — if he opens them it’ll be a bad time for everyone, and Minghao’s in the car somewhere. Jeonghan can’t put him through that.

Something starts to crawl up Jeonghan’s throat and he swallows hard, panicked. Are they almost there? Surely they are. He can’t take much more of this.

“Are you okay?”

Jeonghan huffs out an irritated breath as he shakes his head, regretting the action immediately as the effort triggers another sickening surge of nausea. He holds himself very still and waits for it to pass.

Mingyu makes a concerned little noise, obviously worried. Jeonghan hopes he doesn’t try to touch him. Mingyu’s always so handsy, which is kind of nice on a good day and unbearable on a bad one, and today’s a bad day for sure.

But Mingyu doesn’t try. Jeonghan can hear a rustling sound coming from wherever he’s sitting, then he freezes at the sensation of something cool touching the back of his neck — someone’s water bottle.

It does feel nice.

“Thanks, Mingyu-yah,” he croaks out, his voice sounding just as ugly as he feels. He still can’t move his body at all, too afraid of aggravating his own misery. Mingyu hums next to him and doesn’t say anything, the warmth of him just out of reach. Jeonghan ignores it, focusing on the chill at his neck instead as he breathes very slowly.

Mingyu holds it there for the rest of the car ride, until they climb out of the car and Jeonghan shrugs him off.

*

The shoot lasts all day, until Jeonghan is so exhausted he can barely hold himself upright. Every part of his body aches, bones and muscles and tendons. His eyes. His knees. His wrists. The base of his neck.

His stomach is empty but he can’t eat til they’re back at the dorm — he filmed second-to-last, and all the food from the catering truck has already been taken away. By the time they get back it’ll be so late he won’t be hungry anymore, probably.

“Hyung,” Mingyu starts from where he’s come up next to him, prattling on about something Jeonghan doesn’t have the energy to give any attention. Something about tomorrow’s schedule. Seungkwan wants — something. Jeonghan’s focus skips and jumps, making it impossible to follow what Mingyu’s trying to tell him.

“Hyung, are you listening?” Mingyu presses insistently, after a prolonged silence during which he apparently expected Jeonghan to give a response. He’s always so insistent — it’s exhausting.

“No.”

Of course Jeonghan isn't listening. All his energy is going towards standing upright and he’s barely even managing that, slumped against the wall as he waits for their manager to come around with the car — the car that Jeonghan will have to sit in for at least another thirty minutes while they wait for Joshua to finish, because there’s only one manager still here and there’s no use driving home only for him to drive all the way back for one more person.

“Hyung,” Mingyu lets out an impatient huff of breath, nearly as loud and grating as his voice. Jeonghan wants to cover his stupid mouth until he stops making noise completely.

That’s —

Jeonghan tries taking a deep breath, hoping it’ll take the edge of his anger, but it doesn’t really do much. You’re just tired, he reminds himself, but that doesn’t help either. Jeonghan’s tired every day. At this point it feels like he’ll always be tired. Like he’s built up enough of a sleep deficit that he’ll never manage to balance it back out.

“Not now, Mingyu-yah,” he sighs, finally, not able to think of anything better to say. “Just — I can’t do it right now.”

Jeonghan doesn’t feel like he’ll be able to do it later, either, but that’s a problem he’ll just have to worry about then.

For now Mingyu’s backing off, mouth pursed tight, and Jeonghan is allowing himself a single solitary moment of relief.