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[Sent 22:08]
Me
Stop! My room mate is here!
I looked over to where Sihyeon lay in bed, wearing a pink satin eyemask, snoring softly as she slept.
He took so long to reply that I had a genuine fear that he really was getting my room number.
Joon
Promise me you’re ok.
[Sent 22:12]
I breathed a sigh of relief and melted back into the pillows.
Me
I’m fine. I’m not going to die from a cold.
Joon
Please don’t. I would never forgive you.
[Sent 22:13]
I typed out several replies, ranging from playful, to pithy to accidentally flirty, but deleted them all, losing my nerve half-way through.
Me
I’m going back to sleep.
Joon
Sleep well, Ky.
[Sent 22:15]
June 12th
The trip between Sydney and Melbourne was both agony and also a blur.
I’d been forced to admit to myself I was well and truly sick. I felt like garbage in every possible way. I described my symptoms to Sihyeon who replied that I sounded like the back of a cold and flu medicine packet. But there was no choice but to get on with it, so I threw back a couple paracetamols and put on my sunglasses.
This was one of those rare occasions that I’d been on the same plane as the group. I hadn’t known that, so when I boarded and passed through first class, I had been wholly unprepared to see them sitting there. Normally I wouldn’t have cared; I saw them so often that the shock of seeing them in the wild had long since passed.
What had caught me off guard was the double-take that Jihoon had given me as I passed. I knew I looked like hell, but it was another thing entirely to see it so plainly from his reaction. I hadn’t stopped. I’d pretended not to notice and just kept walking until I reached my seat in economy.
The flight itself was so short that it felt like we’d barely boarded before we were getting off, although that might have been because I fell asleep almost immediately.
The nap did me no good. I tried to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other, which mostly meant following the feet of whoever was in front of me.
By the time I trudged up the steps of the coach to the hotel, it felt like there was a cord around my sternum, dragging me down. Everything ached. My back, my hips, my throat, even my muscles were sore as if I’d done more than drag my luggage through two airports.
When we got to the hotel, I didn’t even try to pretend that I was well enough to do anything other than find my room and collapse on the bed. Sihyeon had made good on her promise not to share a room with me, and for the first time all tour, I found myself in the rare, and enviable position of having a room all to myself.
I didn’t care. I dropped my bags when the wheels snagged on the carpet, toed off my shoes and collapsed onto the bed, fully dressed.
