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Felix hummed to himself, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he looked through the pantry. It was still early in the afternoon, and the dorm was clean and, for once, quiet. Not silent, though. He could hear Jisung singing into his cell phone as he paced around the living room, recording his ideas for the new song he was working on. He and Felix were the only ones home, which made the dorm a lot less chaotic than usual. Chan, Changbin, and Jeongin were at the gym, and Minho, Hyunjin, and Seungmin were at vocal lessons at the company. They’d had separate schedules earlier in the day, but late in the morning, Jisung and Felix had gone to the salon to get their roots touched up, and, with nothing else to do that day, they’d gone home early. Now with the rest of the afternoon to kill, Felix wanted to make brownies.
He found flour, baking powder, sugar, and cocoa powder, and lined them up on the counter. He turned back to the pantry to get the chocolate chips, but he couldn’t find them. He frowned and stood up on his tiptoes to look behind the bags of chips to check if they got pushed to the back, but he didn’t see them. “Han,” he called, “have you seen the chocolate chips?”
“Chocolate chips,” Jisung sang into his phone as he wandered into the kitchen. “The chocolate chips are gone, gone, gone.”
“Where did they go?” Felix sang back, grinning when Jisung did a body roll to the sound of his voice.
“I.N. ate them for breakfast yesterday. We’re out of cereal, so he ate a bowl of chocolate chips because he is a child,” Jisung sang. “He asked me not to tell, but now there’s now chocolate chips!” he finished with an exaggerated vocal run.
“Is that going on the album?” Felix asked as Jisung stopped the recording and saved it.
“I’m saving it for my mixtape,” Jisung answered.
“Oh, right, sure, yeah,” Felix smirked. “So we need cereal, too?” He took his phone out of his pocket and started making a list. “What else do we need?”
“I don't know. I think we’re running low on laver and sesame oil. Changbin’s mom sent us some kimchi, so we’re okay on that.” Jisung opened the refrigerator. “Do we have butter?”
“I don't know. Do we have butter?” Felix asked, joining Jisung at the refrigerator.
“I don't see any.”
“We keep it in here.” Felix opened the small compartment in the door of the fridge. There was a stick and a half of butter left, but he added it to his list anyway.
“Chan said that he was running low on his protein powder,” Jisung said, and Felix wrinkled up his nose.
“No, that stuff’s disgusting. He can get it himself.” He checked his list. “I have chocolate chips, cereal, laver, sesame oil, and butter on the list. Oh, I need vegetable oil, too. Anything else?”
Jisung shrugged. “Probably. You’ll have to ask Minho, but I guess you’re going to send him your list?”
“Nah. It’s not that much. I’ll just run to the store really quick,” Felix said.
“Oh, okay. Um, just let me change really quick and I’ll be ready,” Jisung said, looking around the kitchen for his wallet.
“It’s okay. I can go by myself.”
Jisung blinked at him. Felix wasn’t supposed to leave the dorm alone. There wasn’t any rule explicitly stating that he needed a chaperone, but it was understood among the members and their managers that Felix should always have at least one other person with him whenever he left the apartment just in case he had a seizure. Felix could probably count on one hand the number of times he’d gotten to walk around Seoul on his own after his debut. It didn’t bother him to always have someone with him whenever he was out; in fact, Felix usually preferred to have company. However, the constant hovering, though always well-intentioned, could become tiresome. The grocery store was just a short walk from the apartment building, and Felix wasn’t planning on buying much. Besides, he was having a really good seizure day. He’d only noticed three absence seizures so far, and none of the members had said anything to him about having more than that. Surely, he could manage on his own for the twenty minutes he would be alone.
Jisung must have come to the same conclusion because instead of arguing with him, he just said, “Okay, but put on your alert bracelet.”
Felix smiled broadly. “Okay.” He hurried to his bedroom and found his silver medical alert bracelet. Grabbing it as well as a plain black ball cap and a mask, he went to the doorway, patting down his pockets to make sure that he had his wallet, phone, and house keys as well.
“Call me if you need help carrying anything home,” Jisung said. He was already pacing around the living room again, his phone in his hand.
“I will,” Felix promised.
Outside of the apartment building, Felix took a deep breath. The early spring air was unseasonably warm, and there was very little fine dust in the air. As he walked, kids in navy and yellow school uniforms ran past him. He moved to the side of the sidewalk to make room for a mother walking home with her small twin sons. She nodded her head appreciatively as she was dragged ahead by her children, who were pointing at a bus that was parked further down the road.
For a long time, even after he had debuted, Felix felt as though he didn’t really belong in Korea. His parents spoke Korean to each other at home when he was growing up, and his older sister spoke Korean pretty well, but he really hadn’t used the language much as a child. There were other Korean families in his neighborhood and at his church, and he’d visited Korea a couple of times for family vacations, but he had still been truly unprepared for just how Korean Korea was when he arrived all those years ago. It was odd to see so many people who looked like him but understood a language and culture and customs that still seemed foreign despite his upbringing. It took him a while to get used to the honorifics of the language and knowing how to use them. The way he talked seemed too informal and rough by comparison. His manners were too friendly, and the way he dressed was too flashy.
Now, however, he blended in. Despite his bleached blond hair and multiple ear piercings and the fact that he was part of a successful K-Pop group, Felix didn’t really stand out among the throng of Koreans going about their days. He could easily read the signs marking the aisles in the small grocery store and understood the fragments of conversation he overheard as he made his way through the store, filling his basket with items from his grocery list, which he’d written in Korean. He wandered down the aisles, even the ones he knows don't contain anything on his list. The store’s air-conditioning was working overtime; goosebumps raised on Felix’s arms. He picked up items at random, read their labels, and put them back on the shelves, being careful to point the labels out neatly.
“Excuse me, auntie,” he said as he approached an older woman who was stocking the shelf in the dried goods aisle. “Do you sell protein powder here?” Though he hadn’t even planned to buy Chan’s protein powder, he was having too good of a time to leave the store just yet.
The woman looked up, startled. “What? Oh, yes, sorry. Your voice surprised me.”
Felix laughed behind his mask. “It’s okay. That happens a lot.”
The woman laughed, too. “I bet. And look! You have freckles, too. Well, aren’t you cute? You wanted protein powder? I think we might have some. Follow me, please.”
Felix happily followed the woman around the store to the small supplement section.
“I don't know if we have what you want…” the woman said, scanning the aisle.
“You do, it’s okay,” Felix said, selecting a random container of vanilla-flavored protein powder. He had no idea what sort of protein powder Chan liked, but the woman was too nice to just not buy some, especially after she complimented him and personally brought him to the correct aisle.
“Oh, good,” the woman said with a relieved smile. “I have to get back to work, but you have a good day, sweetheart.”
“You, too! Thank you, auntie!”
Felix went to the freezer section to look for some ice cream for Jisung. It wasn’t on his list, and the managers might be annoyed at him for buying sweets and going against their diet plans, but it would be a fun change to make ice cream sundaes with his brownies. He kept his distance from the freezer door, unwilling to face its icy blast when he was already shivering. He was about to select a quart of chocolate chip, but an older man moved in front of him and threw open the door, basking in the cold air coming from it.
The man looked over his shoulder and grinned at him. “It’s hot, isn’t it? You’d think they’d turn the A/C on.”
Felix blinked, confused, but nodded and smiled. “Yes, sir.” He waited for the man to move out of the way and grabbed the carton of ice cream. Was it warm? Felix couldn’t tell. He didn’t necessarily feel cold, but the goosebumps on his arms were still prominent. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. His stomach sank as he realized that, no, he wasn’t cold; he was having an aura.
Felix didn’t have tonic-clonic seizures very often, averaging one major seizure every two or three months, and was therefore more familiar with the confusion he’d come to associate with absence seizures and the migraines complex partial seizures gave him than the auras he tended to experience before tonic-clonics. He hadn’t recognized the goosebumps for what they were and had mistaken the tremors in his hands and arms for shivers.
He rushed to the check-out line at the front of the store. The auras were good at letting him know that he was going to have a major seizure, but they couldn’t tell him how long he had before the seizure actually began. Sometimes, the auras would last a full day before his body finally gave in to the seizure’s pull. Sometimes, he only had minutes. Sometimes, he didn’t have an aura at all and was instead pitched headfirst into the seizure without any warning whatsoever. Usually, he preferred the seizure to happen quickly, though he appreciated his body’s built-in warning system, as hit-or-miss as it was. Experiencing an aura for hours on end was emotionally draining as anxiety built up in his chest, waiting for the seizure to begin. He much preferred getting a short, twenty-minute warning that he was going to have a seizure; it gave him enough time to alert his members of what was about to happen and to find a safe place to lie down before the seizure hit and he could get it over with.
Now, however, he hoped the aura would last. There was only one cashier checking people out, and there were three people already in line, their baskets full of groceries and produce that would need to be weighed before they could be scanned. He would have to wait in line and hope for the best or abandon his groceries and come back another time.
Felix bit down on his lower lip, thinking. He had already made it this long. If he left now, he wouldn’t be able to make brownies, and the whole trip would be a waste. He’d have to at least put the ice cream away so it wouldn’t melt. He took a deep breath and got in line.
He shifted his weight from foot to foot, willing the young man working the register to go faster. A minute passed. Two minutes passed. His left hand was shaking, and goosebumps still stood boldly on his arms. The women in line in front of him chatted to each other, fanning themselves idly. The register beeped angrily as something was read incorrectly. The cashier used a small microphone to access the intercom system and called for a manager. The man from the freezer got in line behind him. Felix stared straight ahead and focused on his breathing - in through his nose, out through his mouth. The manager fixed whatever problem the cashier was having, and the line snaked ahead. Four minutes passed. The line moved again. He was next. His right hand was shaking now as well. Felix pressed his lips together.
Felix set his basket of groceries on the counter and stared at the cashier. Was he supposed to take the groceries out, or was that the cashier’s job? He couldn’t remember. The cashier looked at him, asked him something, but Felix couldn’t understand what he’d said. His ears were ringing now like there was a single tone siren going off in his head. He took his wallet out of his pocket. He waited, still staring at the cashier, who was averting his eyes as he scanned each of Felix’s items. Felix forced himself to look at the screen in front of him and to wait for the numbers to pop up to tell him that it was time to swipe his card.
A violent shiver ripped up his spine, and he dropped his wallet. He bent down to pick it up and lost his balance. He fell, landing hard on his side, but scrambled to his feet quickly. The cashier was staring at him. The man behind him reached out his hand and said something, but Felix couldn’t understand what. He took a credit card out of his wallet and tried to swipe it through the card reader, but his hands were shaking so badly that he lost his grip on it. The card clattered to the counter. He tried to pick it back up, but somehow he missed, his hand thumping uselessly a good half foot away from the card.
The cashier picked up the card and ran it through the machine himself. He held it out to Felix, but Felix shook his head. “Put it in a bag,” he said. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to get the card back in its spot in his wallet, but the cashier still held out the card. “A bag. Put it in one of the bags, please,” Felix grit out. The cashier blinked and narrowed his eyes in confusion. It occurred to Felix that he might have been speaking English, not Korean. He tried to remember the word for “bag,” but it wouldn’t come to him.
The man behind him took the wallet out of Felix’s limp hand, took the card from the cashier, slotted it neatly back into place, and handed the wallet back to Felix. Felix’s fingers closed slowly around the leather billfold. “Thank you,” he tried to say, though he may have accidentally said “hello” instead.
The cashier was staring at him again. Felix stared back. The cashier looked to the side, and Felix noticed that all of his groceries were there. He needed to bag them. Another shiver rocked him, more violent than the last. “Sorry,” he said. He would have to come back for the groceries. Someone else could have them. It really didn’t matter to him. He had to get home.
He stumbled away from the counter. Somehow, his phone was in his hand. Good. He needed help. He opened his contacts list and found the number he was looking for. He had just managed to press the call button when he dropped the phone. He went down with it.
Jisung was in the middle of singing through another version of the chorus he’d written when his phone rang, interrupting his note with a surprised yelp. He’d have to delete that recording before anyone could hear how out of tune that note had sounded.
“You ruined my demo,” he said as he answered Felix’s call. He expected a laughed apology or maybe even a genuine apology, since Felix was nice to a fault, but instead he got nothing. “Felix?” Jisung asked. He brought the phone away from his ear to make sure he hadn’t accidentally hung up, but the call was still active. He pressed the phone to his ear again. “Did you just butt-dial me?” It wasn’t that the call was totally silent. He could hear voices in the background, but they seemed muffled and faraway. “Felix!” Jisung yelled. Felix didn’t respond, so Jisung ended the call.
He held his phone in his hand for a moment before calling Felix. Maybe Felix would realize that he’d accidentally called him if Jisung returned the call. When Felix answered, Jisung would hang up, then call again to laugh at him for butt-dialing like a grandpa. The phone rang. And rang. And went to voicemail. Jisung hung up instead of leaving a message.
The apartment suddenly felt emptier than it had before. It was too quiet, and he was there all by himself. Everyone else was still busy with schedules. Felix was supposed to be there with him and he wasn’t, but that was okay because he had just run to the store. He’d be back any second. Jisung went to the door and opened it, looking out into the hallway to see if Felix was there. Maybe he’d called because his hands were full and he needed help getting in. Then again, if his hands were full, how had he made the call? It didn’t matter because, of course, no one was in the hallway.
Jisung went back inside and closed the door. He turned his phone over his hands for a moment then called Felix again. It rang until it went to voicemail. Jisung didn’t pause to think about what he was doing; he just put his shoes on and left.
As he walked to the store, he thought about what he would say. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, but he also had no way to know if that was true or not until he saw Felix. It wasn’t that Felix couldn’t take care of himself; he could, and what’s more, Jisung knew that he could. He was having a really good day. Even Jisung hadn’t noticed many absence seizures. If Jisung suddenly showed up and Felix was fine, he had to have some excuse so that Felix wouldn’t think that Jisung thought that he couldn’t handle one little errand on his own. Maybe he could say that one of the other members had called and asked for something from the store. Or that he forgot to ask for something. Maybe he could say that Minho was going to make dinner and needed a particular ingredient. Maybe he could actually get Minho to cook something for them; that would be nice. He would have to convince Minho to lie to Felix for him, though, and that seemed unlikely. He would also have to figure out real ingredients to a real recipe and find them at the store. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.
He still hadn’t decided what he was going to do when he arrived at the store, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the ambulance blocking the store’s entrance.
“Shit, shit!” Jisung ran to the ambulance and banged his fist on the closed doors. “Hey! Let me in!”
The doors of the grocery wooshed open, and Jisung spun around. Two EMTs in dark blue uniforms were pushing a gurney out of the store and towards the ambulance. Sure enough, Felix was strapped down to it. The mask and cap he’d been wearing when he’d left the apartment were missing. There was a streak of blood under his nose, and he was unconscious.
“Move out of the way, please, sir,” one of the EMTs said.
Jisung took an unconscious step backwards as Felix was loaded into the ambulance. “Wait, no. I need to come with you.”
“We’ve got it covered. This doesn’t concern you, sir,” the other EMT said.
“Yes, it does! I know him! We live together!” Jisung said, surging forward. The EMTs looked at each other. “His name is Lee Felix Yongbok,” Jisung continued. “He has epilepsy. He has a medical bracelet and everything.”
“Step back,” the first EMT said while the second ran his hand over Felix’s wrists. He found the medical bracelet and read the engraved tag on it.
“You’re not supposed to take him to the hospital,” Jisung went on. “He’s fine, right? He just had a seizure, right?”
The first EMT looked at the second, who shrugged. “He’s got the tag. Let him in.”
Jisung climbed hastily into the ambulance. He’d never been in one before and was surprised by how cramped it was.
“What’s your name?” the second EMT asked.
“Han Jisung. We live together.”
“Are you his emergency contact?”
“No. That’s our manager or Chan. Our leader. We’re in an idol group. Have you heard of Stray Kids?” He was babbling, he realized. He put his hand over his mouth to stop himself. “Why is his nose bleeding?” he asked through his fingers.
“Hit his face on the checkout counter when he fell,” one of the EMTs said. “That’s what the cashier said. He started seizing right after.”
“Did they time it? We’re supposed to time it.”
“No, but everyone said it lasted about a minute or so.”
“That’s good,” Jisung muttered. “He doesn’t get big seizures like this very often. He still gets some, like today, but usually he just has the little absence ones.”
“Did he take his medicine today? He is on medication for the epilepsy, right?” the second EMT asked.
“Yeah, but I don't know if he took it. I think he did. He usually does. He’s really good about taking it. He can take care of himself, you know? The meds don't stop all the seizures, though. It’s definitely better than it would be if he wasn’t taking anything for them, but, yeah, no, he still gets some. I don't know what his medicine is called. Chan does. Do you need me to call him? Or the manager? The one listed, I mean. On his bracelet? Or, I guess, you could do that. Sorry, am I talking too much?”
“It’s fine,” one of the EMTs said. “So long as he wakes up soon and is okay, he won’t have to go to the hospital.”
“How’s his nose?” Jisung asked. It wasn’t bleeding anymore, the red smear over Felix’s lip still made him anxious.
“It’s fine. He’ll probably have a bruise, but it isn’t broken.” The first EMT wet a piece of gauze and dabbed the blood from Felix’s face. Felix flinched at the sensation. “Mr. Lee. Are you okay? Can you hear me?” the EMT asked.
Felix flinched again, then groaned.
Jisung surged forward, pushing between the EMT and the gurney to take Felix’s hand. “I’m here, too, Lixie. You’re okay.” He ignored the small flutter of hysteria in his chest at being so close to the EMTs in such a confined area and put all of his attention towards Felix, whose eyes were beginning to open. Jisung smiled at him, feeling slightly manic. “Hey! There you go!”
“Can you answer a few questions for us, Mr. Lee?” one of the EMTs asked, trying to get Felix’s attention, but Felix’s half-mast eyes stayed fixed on Jisung.
“He might not understand you. Korean’s his second language,” Jisung explained.
“Is he foreign?” the other EMT asked. “I thought he might be.” He tapped his cheek to indicate Felix’s freckles.
“No. He’s Australian,” Jisung answered. “I mean, he’s Korean, but he’s from Australia. I used to live in Malaysia. What do you need to ask him? I can translate. He might not be ready to answer. Sometimes it takes him a while to be able to talk after a seizure. Postictal, right?”
“Right,” the first EMT said, though he looked confused about what he was agreeing to. “Just make sure he knows what’s going on and ask him if he feels okay.”
Jisung nodded and turned back to Felix. His eyes were still only half-open, but they didn’t seem too unfocused or glazed over. “You had a seizure,” Jisung began in English. “Do you remember leaving the dorm? I was going to go with you, but you said you could go by yourself, which is fine and everything. Like, yeah, you can definitely run errands on your own. But this time you had a seizure. At the grocery store.” He pointed to the wall of the ambulance in the direction of the store. Felix just blinked at him, so he continued. “I think maybe you tried to call me before you had it. Do you remember getting one of those things? I don't remember the word for it. Like, arm tinglies? Does that make sense? Anyway, you called me but didn’t say anything, so maybe you were already seizing. I guess no one saw your medical bracelet because someone called for an ambulance. That’s where we are now. I told them that you would be okay to go home, but they’re already here and now they have to make sure that you really can go home or else I think they’re going to take you to the hospital, which would be okay, too. You hit your face when you fell. Your nose was bleeding and everything. Does it hurt?”
Felix and the EMTs stared at him. Felix squeezed his hand. He hummed a little to get some sound going, then said, “No.”
“See?” Jisung said, turning to the EMTs. “He says he’s fine.”
“Okay,” one of the EMTs said slowly. “Let’s just give him a few moments to wake up a little more.”
“Alright. Oh, hey. Do you think you could drive us home?” Jisung asked suddenly. “He’s fine and all, but he’s always really tired after he has a seizure, and I don't think I can carry him all the way there. Not that it’s far; you wouldn’t have to take us a long way. We live just a few blocks from here, actually.”
The first EMT looked at the second one, who sighed and shrugged. “Why not?”
“Oh, sweet! Let me go grab our groceries, then.” He quickly let Felix know that they had a ride home and that he’d be right back. At Felix’s nod and hesitant “okay,” Jisung squeezed around the EMTs and jumped out of the ambulance.
Customers and store employees were still milling around at the front of the store, gawking at the ambulance pulled up to the curb outside. “Hi!” Jisung greeted a man in a pressed white button-up shirt who looked to be the manager. “My friend is the one who had the seizure. Are his groceries still here?”
“I have them,” a young man around Jisung’s own age piped up. “I still have everything at my register. I have his cap, too.”
“Great!” Jisung and the cashier quickly bagged Felix’s groceries together.
“Is he okay?” the cashier asked as he finished bagging up Felix’s baking supplies. “I’ve never seen anyone have a seizure before.”
“He’s fine. Did you call the ambulance?”
“No, my manager did.”
“Oh. Well, let him know that he needs to check for a medical ID next time. We’re actually supposed to call his manager if he has a seizure, not an ambulance.”
“‘Manager?’ Is he an idol or something?”
“Sorry, I have to go. See ya later!” Jisung gathered up all of the bags and ran back to the ambulance.
Felix was sitting up on the gurney now. His face was splotchy, and he was crying softly while one of the EMTs spoke to him in a quiet voice.
“What happened?” Jisung asked, dumping the bags on the floor and scurrying into the ambulance to join them.
Felix’s face fell when he saw him, and he held out his arms towards him. Jisung leaned over the gurney to pull Felix into a hug.
“He’s okay. He just got upset when you left,” the EMT explained. “A lot of people get confused or emotional during their postictal periods.”
Jisung nodded. “He usually cries after a big seizure.”
“This is so embarrassing,” Felix mumbled through his tears into Jisung’s shoulder.
“It’s fine!” Jisung insisted. “You’re talking a lot better.” Felix’s words were slightly slurred, but he didn’t seem to be fighting for every word now.
“I want to go home,” Felix whined and started crying harder.
Jisung squeezed him tighter and looked to the EMT. “Can we go soon?”
Jisung was thankful that the EMTs didn’t turn the siren on as they drove back to the company dorm. The last thing any of them needed right now was more attention. Jisung didn’t see any photographers or saseangs lurking by the doors as he all but carried Felix and their groceries through the lobby and into the elevator. Hopefully, no one at the store had recognized either of them and no one had seen them getting out of the ambulance.
“There we go,” Jisung said as he and Felix finally entered the dorm. “Home again.” He let the grocery bags fall to the floor with a clatter. “Do you need to get cleaned up, or are you ready for a nap?”
“The groceries-” Felix began, but Jisung cut him off.
“I’ll put them away in a minute. Do you want to take a shower or anything?”
Felix shook his head, blushing deeply. “I didn’t wet my pants this time.”
“I know,” Jisung said, and Felix’s face grew even redder. “Do you want to lie down on the couch, or do you want to go to bed?”
“I was going to bake brownies…” Felix trailed off. His nose wrinkled up as he tried not to start crying again.
“It’s okay. We’ll bake them later when everyone gets home. Or you and Seungmin can bake together for your Puppy Cat School thing.” Jisung walked him to the couch and set him down. “I’ll be right back, then we can figure out what you want to do, okay?”
Felix nodded shakily. “Okay.”
By the time Jisung was finished putting the groceries away, Felix had fallen asleep, just as Jisung knew he would. He didn’t think there could be anything more exhausting than a major seizure because Felix was always physically and emotionally drained after having one. He got a clean blanket from the basket of unfolded laundry on top of their dryer and carefully lowered Felix so that he was laying with his head in Jisung’s lap. Jisung tucked the blanket around him and took out his phone, bracing himself for the unpleasant phone call he was about to have, first with their manager, and then with Chan.