Work Text:
It started with Chenle insisting he was fine, which immediately made everyone suspicious because Zhong Chenle never admitted he felt bad unless he was genuinely miserable.
He was curled up in the corner of the couch with his hood pulled over his head, knees tucked against his chest beneath the blanket Jaemin had draped over him an hour ago. The television played softly in the background, though Chenle had barely reacted to it the entire evening. His eyes looked heavy, lips slightly parted as he breathed through his mouth, and every few minutes a small shiver ran through his body hard enough to make the blanket tremble.
“You look awful,” Haechan announced from the kitchen doorway while holding a cup of instant ramyeon. His voice carried its usual teasing edge, though concern lingered underneath it. “Like genuinely concerning. Like Victorian orphan levels.”
Chenle weakly lifted his head enough to glare at him from under the hood. “You always say that.”
“No, this time you actually resemble death,” Haechan replied immediately.
Mark sighed from the dining table. “Donghyuck.”
“What? I’m being supportive.”
“You told him he looked taxidermied ten minutes ago.”
“Because he does.”
Chenle let out a tired groan and sank deeper into the couch cushions. Even that tiny movement looked sluggish. Jaemin noticed first. His smile faded slightly as he crouched beside the couch, resting one hand against the blanket-covered lump that was Chenle. “Lele,” he said softly, brushing the hood back enough to reveal his face. “Hey. Look at me for a second.”
Chenle was still coherent at first, even while exhausted. He complained about the medicine taste, rolled his eyes weakly whenever Haechan exaggerated his symptoms, and grumbled under his breath every time someone touched his forehead.
“Stop treating me like I’m dying,” he muttered hoarsely while Mark handed him another bottle of water.
“You’re at thirty-nine degrees,” Renjun replied flatly. “You practically are.”
“Traitor.”
Even sick, Chenle still sounded enough like himself that the atmosphere stayed manageable. Worried, yes, but familiar. Jeno kept replacing cold towels while Jaemin tucked blankets around him despite repeated complaints that he was too warm.
“You said you were cold five minutes ago,” Jaemin argued.
“I changed my mind.”
“Brat.”
“I’m sick. Be respectful.”
That earned a few tired laughs around the room. Then, slowly, things started changing. At first it was subtle. Chenle stopped responding as quickly. His eyes stayed closed longer between conversations. He leaned more heavily against Jisung whenever he shifted beside him on the couch.
Mark noticed first when he handed over medicine again. “Chenle?” No response. “Oh,” he murmured under his breath before pressing his palm against Chenle’s forehead.
His eyes widened. “Wait.”
Renjun looked over from where he was reorganizing snacks on the counter. “What?”
“He’s burning up!”
“Lele?”
A tiny sound came from beneath the blanket. Jisung frowned immediately. Because it sounded small. Not physically small. Emotionally small. Chenle slowly lifted his head from Jisung’s shoulder, eyes glassy with fever and exhaustion. For a second he looked disoriented, blinking at all of them like he suddenly didn’t recognize the room properly.
Then he whispered quietly, “Gege?” the same word that Baby Lele utters whenever he feels disoriented from his surroundings. At the mention of the word, Renjun immediately bolted fast from washing the dishes by instinct. The entire dorm froze.
Haechan’s mouth literally fell open. “Oh, no.”
Jeno was already moving before anyone else reacted, crossing the living room in quick strides with a kit. “Move,” he muttered softly, kneeling beside Jaemin before placing the back of his hand against Chenle’s neck. The older visibly stiffened.
“Holy— Chenle.”
“What?” Mark stood so quickly his chair scraped loudly against the floor. “How bad?”
“He’s seriously hot than earlier.”
Haechan abandoned his ramyeon immediately. “I knew it. I knew he was dying.”
Chenle's eyes drifted somewhere, eyelids not totally open. "Channie.."
“What the fuck—he regressed?!” Haechan whisper-screamed.
“Can a fever even trigger that?” Jeno asked in alarm.
“I don’t know! I’m an idol, not a pediatrician!”
“Stop yelling and Chenle's not a kid for pedia!”
"Of course he is! He's technically baby!" Haechan barked back at Jeno.
“I’m stressed!”
Meanwhile, Renjun’s entire face softened with immediate concern as he leaned closer. “Lele,” he said carefully. “Baby, look at me.” Chenle slowly turned toward him.
The sight nearly shattered everyone’s hearts on the spot.
His cheeks were deeply flushed beneath damp strands of hair sticking to his forehead, eyes shiny with fever and confusion. He looked unbearably tiny bundled inside the oversized hoodie, exhausted enough that he barely held his eyes open.
When Renjun touched his forehead again, Chenle instinctively leaned closer into the touch with a small, miserable sound.
Jaemin physically clutched his chest. “Oh, baby…”
Nobody teased him. Nobody even looked at him with any funny remarks. Because Chenle looked absolutely pathetic in the most heartbreaking way possible. Chenle’s fingers weakly curled into Jisung’s hoodie as he shrank closer against him, expression softening into something younger, more vulnerable, more confused.
And suddenly every single person in the room realized the exact same thing. The realization that it isn't onyl Chenle, but Baby Lele had a fever.
“Oh my god,” Jaemin whispered in pure panic.
“No, no, no,” Haechan started rambling while running both hands through his hair. “Regular Chenle can handle fevers. Baby Lele cannot handle fevers. Those are completely different situations.”
The dorm descended into immediate chaos. Mark grabbed the thermometer, hands on his phone, while Jeno disappeared to get cold water. Jaemin hunted down extra blankets even though Haechan argued they needed fewer blankets because Chenle was overheating. Renjun kept snapping instructions at everyone in Mandarin and Korean interchangeably whenever they got in his way.
Jisung stood frozen in the middle of the living room for three whole seconds before blurting, “What do we even do first?!”
“He doesn’t even understand why he feels bad!” Mark looked moments away from losing his mind. "Wait, I'm calling the managers, doctors, I don't know!"
“Temperature!” Renjun called back.
“Medicine!”
“Water!”
“Somebody get the cooling patches!”
“I said water, not sparkling water, Lee Donghyuck!”
“I panicked!”
Through all the commotion, Chenle remained curled in the same spot, eyes glassy and unfocused as he watched them stumble around the dorm like frightened first-time parents.
Honestly, they kind of were. Because taking care of Baby Lele during regression was one thing. They knew how to handle clinginess, tiny tantrums, sleepy affection, and the occasional need for reassurance.
This was different. This was a sick child who doesn't even understood what degree celsius means.
And suddenly all six of them realized with growing horror that none of them actually knew how to explain sickness to a regressed little whose feverish brain barely understood why his body hurt. The thermometer beeped loudly.
Mark stared at the screen and paled. “39.9.”
“WHAT?!” Haechan nearly dropped the medicine packets.
“That’s really high,” Jaemin whispered worriedly.
Mark crouched beside the couch with a water bottle and medicine in hand, forcing himself to sound calm even though anxiety curled tightly in his stomach. “Okay, Lele,” he said gently. “Your body feels bad because you’re sick, okay? You have a fever.”
Chenle blinked at him. His brows slowly pulled together.
“Sick?” he repeated softly.
“Yeah.” Mark nodded carefully. “Your body’s working really hard right now, so everything feels warm and achy.”
Chenle immediately looked offended. “Don’t want."
The room collectively melted. Haechan covered his face with both hands. “Oh my god.”
“We know,” Jaemin soothed quickly, rubbing Chenle’s shoulder. “Nobody wants fevers, sweetheart.”
“Make . . go away,” Chenle whispered, voice wobbling slightly.
And there it was. That awful moment. Because suddenly none of them knew what to say. You could explain schedules. Stress. Exhaustion. Practice injuries.
But how were they supposed to explain to a feverish regressed Chenle that sometimes your body hurt and there wasn’t a magical way to fix it instantly?
Jeno looked genuinely panicked. Jisung’s face crumpled with sympathy. Even Renjun hesitated. Meanwhile, Chenle looked increasingly distressed from the sudden noise, brows pulling together weakly as he squirmed against Jisung’s chest.
“Hurts,” he whispered.
That destroyed everyone instantly. Because there it was. The thing they were completely unprepared for. Adult Chenle understood sickness. He could tolerate discomfort even while whining dramatically about it.
Baby Lele only knew that his body hurt, everyone looked panicked, and he didn’t understand why. And suddenly six grown men were scrambling emotionally because none of them knew how to explain fever symptoms to a regressed little trying very hard not to also cry. It's pathetic, really, but how do barely adults take care of a sick child at that?
It was Haechan, surprisingly, who finally crouched beside the couch and spoke softly. “Your body’s trying really hard to protect you right now from bad fire enemy,” he explained carefully. “That’s why you feel warm. The medicine? Those are warriors that go 'brah-brah'.." Haechan animatedly acted like a monster doing sword whooshing. "..they fight the fire enemies so Baby Lele won't stay warm. So you have to eat your medicines, okay?" surprisingly, despite being panicked earlier, Haechan seemed to have recovered and is gentle with his approach.
Chenle stared at him with glassy eyes. “…Fight?”
“Yeah.” Haechan nodded gently. “Your body’s strong.”
Chenle looked down at himself like he clearly did not feel strong at all. A tiny pout formed on his face. “ . . feel yucky.”
The entire room audibly suffered. “Oh, no,” Jaemin whispered dramatically while pressing both hands over his heart. “That was fatal. I’m deceased.”
“Focus,” Renjun snapped, though his voice sounded suspiciously emotional too.
Getting medicine into Chenle turned into an ordeal. He made a face the second the spoon came near him and immediately buried his face into Jisung’s chest with a distressed whine. “Noooo…”
“Lele,” Mark coaxed patiently. “You need this.”
“Tastes . . bad . . bad.”
“You haven’t even tried it yet.”
“.. smell . .”
Jeno turned away because he was visibly trying not to laugh. “This is serious,” Renjun hissed.
“You’re smiling too!”
“I can smile and be serious simultaneously!”
Haechan grabbed the spoon and took the medicine Mark was supposed to be feeding Lele. The others looked offended but he paid them no attention as he crouched down to Chenle's eye-level taht's currently squeezed on Jisung's arm and chest.
"See? Channie hyung eats and it's good.."
With that, Baby Lele's eyes got a bit wider, shoulders tense relaxing somehow. "Channie . . sick?" If it was possible for Haechan to collapse on the floor, he would've done so instantly.
Jisung adjusted Chenle carefully against his chest, one hand rubbing slow circles against his back. His voice had gone impossibly gentle without him realizing it. “Baby,” he murmured quietly. “Medicine first, then we can cuddle again, okay?”
Chenle peeked up at him with watery eyes. “…Promise?”
Jisung’s expression softened so fast it physically hurt everyone nearby. “Promise.” The medicine went down after three more minutes of pitiful whining and dramatic suffering.
Haechan applauded quietly. “You survived. We’re all very proud.” Chenle glared weakly before immediately coughing afterward, which completely ruined the effect.
“Oh, sweetheart…” Jaemin reached over instinctively, smoothing damp hair away from his forehead again.
As the evening dragged on, exhaustion settled over the dorm heavily. Blankets littered the couches. Empty water bottles crowded the coffee table beside torn medicine packets and discarded cooling patch wrappers. The lights stayed dim to avoid bothering Chenle’s sensitive eyes, leaving the dorm wrapped in soft yellow warmth.
And in the middle of it all sat Jisung with Chenle curled limply against his chest. The younger had stopped talking much by then. Fever exhaustion dragged at him harder every hour, leaving him clingier and quieter than usual. Every now and then he whimpered softly when his body ached too much or shifted restlessly because he couldn’t get comfortable.
Every single time, someone immediately soothed him.
“Easy, baby.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
“You’re okay.”
“Gege’s here.”
It felt strangely emotional watching it happen. Because despite feeling miserable and confused, Chenle trusted them completely. Whenever one of them reached for him, he leaned into it instinctively. Whenever someone touched his forehead or rubbed his back, he relaxed. Whenever they reassured him, he believed them without hesitation.
At one point, Chenle started crying. It wasn’t loud. That somehow made it worse. Tiny tears gathered silently in his eyes while he pressed his burning face into Jisung’s hoodie, little sniffles escaping him every few seconds like he felt embarrassed for crying in the first place. The sight devastated everyone instantly.
“Oh, sweetheart, hey…” Jaemin moved beside them immediately, rubbing comforting circles across Chenle’s back.
Renjun’s voice softened into something achingly gentle as he brushed damp hair away from Chenle’s face. “Lele,” he murmured in Mandarin. “Look at gege.”
Chenle looked up with trembling lips and watery eyes. “.. don’t feel . . good,” he whispered.
Jeno literally had to sit down on the floor because his knees gave out. “I can’t handle this,” he muttered emotionally into his hands.
“None of us can,” Mark admitted quietly.
Haechan stood nearby clutching another water bottle with suspiciously shiny eyes. “Why am I getting emotional over a fever?”
“Because he’s tiny and sad,” Jeno answered immediately from the floor.
“And because he trusts us,” Mark added softly. The room fell quiet. Because that was exactly it. Even sick, even confused, Chenle kept reaching for them like he already knew they would catch him every single time.
Later that night, Jisung carefully tilted a straw toward Chenle again. “One sip,” he coaxed softly. “Then you can sleep.”
Chenle frowned sleepily before hiding his face again.
Jisung looked genuinely distressed. “. . Please?” Chenle slowly peeked up. Then, after a long pause, he obediently took a small sip. The room erupted instantly.
“He listened to you again!” Haechan whisper-yelled.
“I’ve been trying for fifteen minutes!”
Jaemin pointed accusingly at Jisung. “Explain your powers.”
Jisung blinked, startled by the sudden attention. “What?”
“Why does he only cooperate for you?”
“I don’t know!” His ears turned bright red while everyone stared at him knowingly. Chenle, meanwhile, had already fallen half asleep again against his shoulder.
By midnight, the dorm looked completely destroyed. Mark had passed out sideways against the armchair. Haechan sat on the floor wrapped in a blanket burrito while scrolling fever symptoms online despite Renjun repeatedly telling him to stop. Jaemin gently played with Chenle’s hair while Jeno kept checking his temperature every ten minutes like an anxious parent. And in the middle of all of them lay Chenle, warm and sleepy beneath layers of blankets, cheeks still flushed pink from fever.
Jaemin looked down at him fondly. “He’s ridiculously cute like this.”
“Dangerously cute,” Jeno agreed immediately.
Mark cracked one tired eye open from the chair. “You all sound insane.”
“We are,” Haechan answered without missing a beat.
Honestly, nobody disagreed. Because somewhere between the panic, the medicine, the tears, and the whispered reassurances, every single one of them realized the same thing, aking care of Chenle felt terrifying sometimes. But loving him? That part came naturally.
The fever finally broke sometime past three in the morning. Nobody noticed immediately.
The dorm had fallen into that strange exhausted silence that only happened after hours of panic. The television was still running quietly in the background, untouched cups of tea sat cold on the table, and every blanket in the apartment somehow ended up piled around one tiny feverish boy.
Jisung had long since stopped trying to move. He remained trapped carefully in the corner of the couch with Chenle curled boneless against his chest, one arm wrapped securely around his back while the other kept the cooling towel from slipping. His neck ached. His legs were numb. He genuinely thought he might die there. He didn’t care.
Because every time he adjusted even slightly, Chenle made tiny unhappy noises in his sleep and instinctively clung tighter. So Jisung stayed still. The others looked equally terrible.
Mark sat hunched forward in the armchair with his elbows resting on his knees, exhaustion visible in every inch of him. Jaemin had fallen sideways against the couch at some point, though his hand still absentmindedly rested on Chenle’s ankle like he needed physical confirmation that the younger was still there. Renjun remained awake purely out of stubbornness, glaring at the thermometer every few minutes like he could personally intimidate the fever into leaving faster.
Haechan had stopped talking almost an hour ago. That alone said enough. Then suddenly Jeno blinked down at the thermometer in confusion. “. . Wait.”
Mark slowly lifted his head. “What?”
Jeno looked genuinely stunned. “It went down.” The room froze. Renjun immediately snatched the thermometer from his hand. His eyes scanned the number once before his shoulders visibly sagged for the first time all night.
“Oh thank god,” he whispered. The relief hit the room so hard it almost felt painful.
Haechan let out a long, shaky breath before collapsing backward dramatically onto the floor. “I aged ten years tonight.”
“Twelve,” Mark muttered tiredly.
Jaemin leaned forward so quickly his blanket slid off his shoulders entirely. “Really?” he asked softly. “His fever broke?”
Renjun checked Chenle’s forehead again carefully. The skin still felt warm, but no longer frighteningly hot. “He’s okay,” Renjun murmured quietly, and his voice cracked slightly around the words. “He’s okay now.”
And somehow that was the exact moment everyone finally started falling apart. Because the panic had kept them moving earlier. Medicine. Water. Cooling towels. Temperature checks. Instructions. There hadn’t been time to actually process anything. Now there was.
Jeno slowly sat down on the floor beside the couch and covered his face with both hands. “That was horrible,” he admitted quietly. Nobody disagreed. Because watching Baby Lele sick had felt completely different from taking care of Chenle normally.
Regular Chenle complained dramatically while still functioning. He could explain where something hurt. He could joke through discomfort. He understood medicine, fevers, recovery. Baby Lele only knew he felt awful. That was it. Too warm. Too weak. Too achy.
And every time he looked at them with watery confused eyes asking why he hurt, they’d felt completely helpless.
Mark rubbed both hands down his face tiredly before glancing toward the sleeping boy curled against Jisung. Chenle’s flushed cheeks had softened into a healthier pink now, breathing finally evening out peacefully against Jisung’s hoodie.
“He kept asking us to make it stop,” Mark said quietly.
The room fell silent again. Because they remembered. The tiny trembling voice. The confused tears. The way Chenle had looked genuinely betrayed by his own body.
“Don’t remind me,” Haechan groaned weakly from the floor. “I almost cried every single time he looked at us.”
“You did cry,” Jaemin pointed out immediately.
“That was private.”
“You cried into the kitchen towel.”
“It was an emotional support towel.”
Despite the joke, Haechan’s voice still sounded shaky. Jisung looked down quietly at the sleeping boy in his arms. Even now, Chenle remained curled impossibly close against him, one small hand fisted weakly into the front of his hoodie like he was afraid everyone might disappear if he let go. Jisung’s chest tightened painfully. Because hours ago, that same hand had grabbed onto him while Chenle whispered through tears that everything hurt. And Jisung hadn’t known how to fix it.
That part wrecked him the most. None of them were used to feeling so useless around Chenle. They could protect him from hate comments, exhausting schedules, injuries, stress, loneliness. But this? They couldn’t fight a fever for him. Couldn’t carry the pain themselves. Couldn’t explain sickness in a way Baby Lele fully understood. All they could do was hold him while he cried through it.
Jeno looked up quietly from beside the couch, eyes lingering on Chenle’s sleeping face. “I hated seeing him confused,” he admitted softly. “Every time he asked why he felt bad, I felt like…” He exhaled shakily. “Like my chest was caving in.”
Jaemin nodded immediately. “He trusted us to fix it,” he whispered. “That’s the worst part.”
Renjun’s expression softened. “No,” he corrected gently while brushing sweaty hair away from Chenle’s forehead one more time. “That’s also the best part.” Everyone looked at him. Renjun glanced down at Chenle with quiet fondness. “He trusted us enough to cry. I honestly wouldn't have it any other way . . compared to before,” he murmured.
Silence settled over the room again. Heavy. Emotional. Warm.
Because that was true too. Even while miserable, Baby Lele never tried pulling away from them. He reached for them constantly. Curled into their arms. Held onto their sleeves. Trusted every whispered reassurance immediately, even while tears still clung to his lashes.
And maybe that was why all of them looked so emotionally wrecked afterward. Because somewhere during the long terrifying hours of fever checks and whispered comfort, the realization settled painfully deep into their hearts that Chenle felt safest with them now. Not hiding, not alone. Even at his smallest.