"Seokjin, are you having trouble breathing? the hospital pediatrician asked.

"No, it's as usual," the little boy said as the doctor listened to his breathing through his stethoscope.

"Are you at your peak?"

"Yes," Seokjin affirmed, taking a deep breath.

The doctor lowered Seokjin's shirt and removed the stethoscope from his ears, under the watchful eyes of his mother and the two Kim brothers who had refused to wait in the hallway with Baek during the auscultation.

"Ms. Murakami, has Seokjin ever been diagnosed with asthma?"

"N-no, why?" Yoko stammered.

For financial reasons, she rarely took her son to the doctor, treating him only with naps, hot soups and vitamins, believing that this was enough to cure the small germs that all children caught easily. Conversely, the Kim children went to the doctor more than reason, for the slightest cold caught.

"Seokjin has very shortness of breath, I noticed it yesterday but I thought it was related to his state of unconsciousness and blood loss, so I thought it would subside, but it didn't go away. And Seokjin says he breathes like that on a daily basis. I need to run him some tests now to measure his breath and make sure his bronchial tubes are working fine, but chances are you missed early asthma. If so, I will refer you to a pulmonologist in the morning. You son is still very young and we must take it very seriously not to reach a point of no return in the future concerning his health."

Shocked, Yoko looked at her son with difficulty and he looked at her without understanding.

"Am I sick, mommy?" he asked.

"It-it's not sure honey, the doctor just wants to check you're alright, okay?"

"Okay," the little boy nodded obediently.

Yoko knew that her son placed absolute trust in her word. She would have liked to tell him that he had nothing, that he was in good health, but she couldn't say that without being sure and she was very anxious herself at the idea that he was really sick.

Soon, a nurse came to get Seokjin to make him blow and take measurements of his breath but she couldn't take Seokjin alone: ​​the other two boys were holding him by one hand each and refusing to let him go. Yoko hastened to apologize, saying that unfortunately she could hardly separate them.

While Seokjin willingly squeezed Namjoon's hand to feel more reassured, his fingers were relaxed on Taehyung's side and it was only Taehyung who made sure to keep his hand in his.

Because of his injury which was tormenting him despite the painkillers and whose pain had woken him several times during the night, Seokjin walked very slowly and the other two were forced to follow his rhythm but would not have let him go for anything in the world.

This vision of the trio made the woman laugh and she did not prevent them from entering a treatment room.

The room was organized lengthwise and there were several cabins with transparent glass walls with inside each an adjustable chair fixed to the floor as well as a tube with a mouthpiece connected to a screen in front of which was a curved base, obviously made to rest his chin. Next to each cabin was a desk with a computer that was connected to the screen that was inside the cabin.

"Sweetie, you are going to enter this stall and sit on the chair," the nurse told Seokjin, pointing to a stall near the entrance. "I'll close the door but you can still see and hear us, okay?"

"Okay," Seokjin replied, reassured by the gentleness of the young nurse.

He let go of Namjoon's hand to go to the indicated cabin but if Namjoon also let go of his hand, it was not the case of Taehyung. Seokjin tried to tug gently on his hand to extract it from Taehyung's but since the other wouldn't let go, he stopped trying : he was terribly afraid of upsetting Taehyung. He cast a pleading look at Namjoon.

"Let him go Tae, he needs to get treated," Namjoon ordered him.

"I don't want to, what if that lady locks the door, Jin is suddenly in pain and we can't get him out?"

"Don't worry sweetie, the door won't be locked," the nurse assured him patiently. She approached Seokjin and placed a moss-covered nose clip on his nose. "You'll need this for the tests." Then, turning to Taehyung: "Will you let him into the cabin? It won't be long, and it won't hurt, I promise."

"Hurry up and let him go!" Namjoon exclaimed, less patiently, while Seokjin on his side remained completely silent.

Despite a suspicious look cast at the woman, Taehyung reluctantly agreed to release Seokjin's hand who entered the cabin with the clip on his nose, and settled on the stool in front of the screen.

The door closed behind him and he found himself alone in the small space. He didn't particularly like confined spaces as he was always afraid of not having enough air to breathe, but as the nurse had promised, he could see very well what was going on beyond the glass walls and he could hear too, despite a significant muffling of the noise.

"Seokjin, can you hear me?" the nurse asked into a microphone, which reassured Taehyung who however wanted to make sure that Seokjin heard him too.

« Jin can you hear me too? » he asked.

Seokjin turned towards him without really wanting to and, nodding his head, quickly turned away from him.

"Yes," Seokjin said thumbs up, hearing her perfectly.

The nurse said to Seokjin :

"I'm going to ask you to rest your chin on the pedestal in front of you, place your mouth around the tube in front of you, and breathe normally. You can stare at the screen in front of you."

Seokjin complied and allowed himself to be guided by the instructions of the woman.

"Okay, now I'm going to measure your breath but first, something will happen, the tube will block and the air will stop flowing only for a few seconds, but you mustn't remove your mouth from the tube, okay?"

Unable to answer his mouth being already tight around the mouthpiece, Seokjin nodded in agreement.

However, the moment the tube clogged in a CLAC! sound and he could not breathe, he panicked so much that he removed his mouth from the tube and the nose clip from his nose, and began to breathe in a panting and frantic way although he was not short of air.

"Jin!" Taehyung cried, placing his hands against the the transparent wall to watch Seokjin carefully and pull him out of there if needed.

"It's fine, he's okay, don't worry!" the nurse said.

"I-I'm s-sorry," Seokjin stammered realizing that he hadn't followed the nurse's instructions. "t-there was no more air a-and I was scared..."

"It's okay, sweetie, I know you can do it. We will start again as soon as you feel ready."

Seokjin put his nose clip back on and replaced his mouth around the tube, breathing, this time expecting the distressing sensation of his breathing being blocked at one point.

"Careful, it's going to block," the nurse warned.

Indeed, the snap was heard again and this time, despite the panic of feeling his breath blocked, Seokjin waited for the necessary three seconds and was able to breathe normally again with relief when the tube opened again.

"Perfect, you did well! Now you will see on the screen full of candles, do you see them sweetie?"

Seokjin nodded, amused to see all of his lit candles sitting on a table, the flames of which seemed to dance before his eyes.

"On my signal, I want you to blow a biiiiig blow in the tube to put out the candles. You have to blow as hard and as long as possible to extinguish as many candles as possible, okay?"

It looked like a game and Seokjin didn't have a game console at home, even though he had already tried Namjoon's and Taehyung's. Especially Namjoon's because Taehyung hated lending his stuff. So Seokjin was happy to be able to play here in the hospital. He nodded happily.

The nurse adjusted her computer measurement tools.

"Are you ready, sweetie?" she asked as Seokjin had his mouth around the tube he had to blow into. "So, one, two, three... BLOW!" she cried before encouraging him to breath longer : "again, again, again, again, again, ag-"

But Seokjin, who exhaled as hard as he could to blow out the candles, couldn't go any further. He had given his maximum but he had no more breath and barely half the candles had been snuffed out.

Worse, he was out of breath and he wasn't breathing as much as he wanted through the tube. He withdrew his mouth from the tube again and removed the nose clip to greedily suck in the missing air.

Taehyung and Namjoon could see Seokjin's results on the nurse's screen.

"You're not very good," Taehyung remarked innocently, turning to Seokjin.

"We didn't ask you anything idiot," Namjoon remarked, before reassuring Seokjin :"I'm sure it's hard to blow a lot of air into a tube."

Grateful, Seokjin nodded, still panting in the cabin.

"For you maybe, but I know I could have done it," Taehyung replied nevertheless, competing with his brother and not noticing that Seokjin's face was falling apart.

"I could have done it too!" Namjoon retorted so as not to sound like he was less good than his brother and forgetting that Seokjin was hearing them.

Seokjin looked sulky inside his cabin, hearing what they were saying. He himself was disappointed not to have succeeded and he wanted to start over to prove that he was not bad.

"We'll do it again," the nurse decided, switching the screen. This time, instead of blowing out candles, it was popping balloons.

Determined, Seokjin promised himself that he would succeed in shutting down Taehyung. He put his pince-nez back on, put his mouth back around the tip of the tube, and at the nurse's signal, blew as hard as he could.

Again, he didn't pop all the balloons. Worse, he erupted less than he blew out the candles, as his breath was still short from his first blast on the candles.

He withdrew his mouth from the mouthpiece and removed his nose clip, his eyes watering.

"Why can't I do it?" he whined.

"It's not your fault, sweetie," the nurse assured him, "I know you did your best."

"Can I try too? I know I will succeed," Taehyung said.

"If you couldn't do it then you would be in this cabin and not your friend, sweetie," the nurse said kindly. "This machine allows you to measure the breath and to be treated if you don't have enough."

"Jin don't breath enough ?! So he is really sick?!" Taehyung exclaimed, turning to Seokjin who froze.

Was he really sick? No, he was injured, for sure, but not sick, that was why he had come to the hospital.

"You can go out, sweetie, we will do some allergy tests and then you can join your mom."

Once out of the cabin, Seokjin found himself sitting on an armchair with around his right index finger a sensor connected to a machine that measured the amount of oxygen present in his lungs. During this time, the nurse went to get something to do allergist tests for him.

She returned a whole palette of small vials and needles. Seeing the needles, the three little boys turned pale. The woman rolled up Seokjin's right sleeve and started drawing little circles with her pen. In all, she did about twenty, and Seokjin chuckled and wiggled each time:

"It tickles," he laughed.

Reassured to see him laugh, the other two boys smiled. Next to each circle, the nurse wrote the name of the allergy test liquid and placed a drop of each product in each circle.

"That was the nice part, the rest will sting a little bit because now, the product must be penetrated into the skin with the needles," the nurse warned him as she grabbed the big needle by the plastic handle, causing Seokjin to swallow. "It will be quick, I promise. Are you ready?"

"Y-yes," Seokjin said, unsure however. All he wanted was to find his mother as soon as possible and for that he had to go through the test of the needles.

The instant the woman stuck the first needle into the first circle, Seokjin let out a small cry of pain that made Namjoon and Taehyung flinch.

"Why are you doing this to him?!" Taehyung exclaimed as he grabbed the woman's wrist to stop her from stabbing the needle into Seokjin's forearm again, whose glowing eyes threatened to shed tears of pain.

"I have to get the liquid into the skin to see if there is an allergy to the product or not. It is essential to know this because an allergy can cause serious crisis if Seokjin is asthmatic. If you can't watch, I'll ask you out," She warned Taehyung.

Taehyung had obviously not understood everything but Namjoon had. He grabbed his brother's hand and said:

"Your annoying, let her do her job."

"But Jin is in pain..."

"I know," Namjoon lamented, "but if she does, it's for his own good."

The nurse nodded. Seokjin gritted his teeth, deciding to be strong until he can return to his mother. The woman plunged a needle into each circle at full speed and as promised, it was soon over. Without a sound, Seokjin released his tears of pain.

"Are you okay, Jinnie?" Namjoon asked worriedly.

"Yes, I'm fine," Seokjin replied, wiping away his tears and agreeing to take the comforting hand Namjoon held out to him.

Taehyung approached him and looked at his reddened arm, before glaring at the nurse who was not looking at him because she was putting away her equipment. She declared:

"We have to wait a few minutes now. If there is swelling in any of the small circles, then there will be an allergy."

A few minutes later, Seokjin found again the safety of his mother's lap in the treatment room with a new doctor who was a pulmonologist. His back rested against her chest and he contentedly let his mother caress his hear and brush his flyaway locks from his forehead.

The other two boys had obviously followed him into the treatment room and were sharing the second chair in front of the desk, next to him, each trying to prevent the other from taking up more space than the other.

Seokjin's arm wasn't so red anymore but it still bore the pen marks and two circles surrounded a swelling like a large pimple.

"I see that Seokjin is allergic to cat and... potato, that's not common," the doctor pointed out.

"Is it bad?" Taehyung interjected before Seokjin's mother could react herself.

"It can be. Based on the results of the breath test and his blood oxygen levels, it appears that Seokjin indeed has asthma, and allergic attacks can often turn into asthma attacks for an asthmatic person."

"What is an asthma attack? Will it handicap him in his daily life?" Yoko asked, worried.

The doctor grabbed a diagram of the respiratory system to illustrate his explanations and make them more understandable for Seokjin's mother. Seokjin and Taehyung didn't understand anything but Namjoon also listened carefully to the pulmonologist's explanations:

"An asthmatic person has a dysfunctional respiratory system: his bronchi have a thicker mucus wall than the norm which makes his breathing less obvious than for others. And when in the event of an attack, the bronchi tighten even more and will secrete mucus very thick, which makes breathing difficult and wheezy. And since the nose and throat are parts of the breathing process, the nose often ends up runny or clogged ant the throat congested as well."

"And... how does attacks appear?" Yoko asked, continuing to caress Seokjin's forehead nervously.

She had already noticed that when her son was sick, he had his chest congested and then had trouble sleeping at night because of this, as he breathed badly and coughed up thick mucus.

However, she thought it was normal for a sick young child hose body was learning to fight against germs. She had misjudged the situation, she realized now: how could she have made her own diagnosis, when she was not a doctor just to avoid going to the doctor? She blamed herself terribly and considered herself a very bad mother.

"Asthma attack can happen in various situations: when he's sick, when he's having an allergy attack, when the weather is too hot and humid or too cold and dry, when the pollution peaks are high or, and it's the most common case, during any physical effort, especially when playing sports."

"Eh?!" Yoko spontaneously reacts, catching Seokjin's attention. "But Seokjin wants to become a professional sportsman, he started to play football even before he learned how to walk!"

The pulmonologist looked sorry for the mother, then for the son.

"He should start imagining another professional project if he wants to think about it now, to avoid being disappointed in the future, even if it is still a little early given his young age. Asthmatics can play sports of course, especially with the right treatment, but it is almost impossible to do it at a professional level given the level expected and the effort required in terms of breathing. I prefer to warn you now: he cannot be a professional footballer."

"Yes, I'll be a footballer," Seokjin contradicts him as he sits up on his mother's lap, frowning because he understood that the doctor was trying to deprive him of his dream.

"Little man," the man said, "I am very sorry, but just as it will be impossible for you in the future to live with a cat and eat potatoes for your own good, you will have to review your ambitions for your health: you cannot practice the sport at a professional level in view of your breath results."

"I will be a footballer!" Seokjin repeated louder, starting to cry, "mommy, tell him!"

"S-sir," Yoko stammered in the face of her son's distress, "football is his whole life, he has never loved anything so much as this sport and he is working hard to achieve his dream, you know? I can't take that away from him, how could I when I know I'll be so devastated? I'm sure with treatment, he'll be able to be cured and-"

"Ma'am," the doctor cut her off, "there is a basic treatment to reduce the frequency of asthma attacks and their intensity as well as a crisis treatment to overcome them when the time comes, but so far, no treatment to cure asthma exist."

"N-None? So he'll have to live with that... forever?" she asked, on the verge of tears.

"When a person's bronchial tubes are diseased, they remain so for the rest of their life, except for a minority of people."

"So it's possible he's cured?" Yoko asked hopefully.

"It is true that some children, when they reach the age of 17 or 18 approximately, when their adult respiratory system is fully formed, no longer have seizures or almost no more, as if their bronchus had been sufficiently strengthened. But I prefer to warn you: it happens very rarely, it would be better not to count on it and to assume that Seokjin will be sick all his life and that he will have to be careful to take care of his bronchial tubes. I will prescribe a background treatment to maintain them and a crisis treatment to be taken immediately when breathing difficulties appear."

All his life. It seemed like a nightmare to all of them, especially Seokjin who continued to cry and regretted coming to the hospital and meeting that abominable doctor.

"I hate you!" he yelled at the man, to the surprise of his mother and the two Kim brothers, because this behavior was not like him, more like Taehyung.

"Seokjin, don't say that, it's not the doctor's fault," Yoko said, wiping her son's cheeks bathed in tears before turning to the man. "I'm sorry, please forgive him sir, he's very upset."

"Don't worry about it," said the man who was used to announce bad news. The doctor pulled out a Ventolin from his drawer to show Seokjin, "look my boy, this medicine will be your daily best friend once you have it. You will never have to part with it, you will always need one on you." Then he turned to Seokjin's mother: "You will also have to send one to school in case he forgets or loses his and you will need several in reserve at home because you have to act quickly in case of crisis to avoid the worst. You know what that means, don't you?"

Yes, she understood it and she lost the last colors of her face. This implied that without quick action, Seokjin could die of asphyxiation. Understanding the seriousness of the situation with so much medicine and the repetition of the word "crisis", Seokjin continued to cry as he turned to his mother.

"No!!" He sobbed, unable to accept the reality: "I don't want to be sick! I don't want to take these medicines! I want to keep playing football!"

"I know Seokjin baby, mommy is really sorry," Yoko said crying herself and hugging his son.

Taehyung and Namjoon looked at them apprehensively, sensing their distress.

"Jin, you don't have to play football, you can play many other games," Taehyung told him comfortingly. "I'll lend you some if you want!"

Even though it wasn't a usual thing for him, he was willing to make concessions so that Seokjin wouldn't cry anymore. Namjoon gave him a skeptical look, but said nothing.

"No..." Seokjin sobbed into his mother's neck, his voice interspersed with a loud snort, "I want to... keep... playing... football... and nothing else!"

The doctor sympathetically said to Seokjin:

"Seokjin, if you take your medicine well, you can continue to play football."

"R-really?" Seokjin stammered, his eyes widened and stopping his cries. "I'll take them well then!" he promised hastily.

"Yes, you can play in that case, but not at too high a level, you have to understand that. You should just play football for fun, you can't become a professional because it's too intense for you."

Devastated, Seokjin started crying again, sobbing that he would become a footballer anyway. The doctor spoke to his mother:

"He must not play football in a club outside of school, he must limit his team practice to school."

"He only does it at school already," said Yoko, who did not have the financial means to enroll her son in an after-school football club.

"Perfect. But you will have to tell his teacher that to start, he will only play one half. This until he was in middle school and old enough to manage himself and figure out his body and when he hit his limits before having an asthma attack."

"I don't want to play just one half, it's not enough!" Seokjin whined, "I want to play the whole match!"

"That's the only compromise I can offer you at the moment, my boy. If you accept it, you can continue to play football, if not, you will have to stop team football, because it can be dangerous for you, you have to realize that."

"Jinnie baby, we'll talk about it at home, okay?" said Yoko, who knew her son was too upset at the moment to understand that these decisions were being made for his own good.

For her part, she had not been able to see the signs of her son's illness and that could have been dramatic. So now that she had a doctor's diagnosis, she intended to follow his instructions to the letter.

"I will print the prescription and the crisis protocol for you: "1 tablet of Solupred per day for 5 days and for Ventolin, two puffs every 15 minutes for one hour, to be renewed if necessary. If it does not go through medication, do not hesitate to have him hospitalized. For the cost of the hospitalization of this night as well as the care and the consultation, it will be necessary to pay them at the reception, on the ground floor."

Yoko nodded. She thanked the pulmonologist and took her leave, taking with her her grieving son and the two Kim kids who followed her obediently, in an almost religious silence. She found Baek and all together, they headed to the hospital lobby. Leaving Baek to drive the children to the car parked in the hospital parking lot, Yoko went to pay the medical bills.

Even though his son was born in South Korea, the fact that his mother did not have Korean nationality worked against him and he had not yet had nationality. At the moment, they only had a renewable residence permit.

This made medical expenses particularly high and poorly reimbursed, and it made Yoko pale when she discovered the bill. Now that her son was sick, how was she going to be able to pay for more hospitalizations in the future, as well as all his medications, each month?

Even if she left the Kims and found a job, this time she would have to pay for housing and the bills that went with it. Life was already not easy right now, how was her family going to cope with so many expenses added to each other?

Leaving the hospital, she did not immediately join the car and leaned against the nearest wall so as not to collapse because they felt weak. There, she buried her face in her hands and let out tears of anguish in spite of herself, which she immediately wiped away.

She had to pull herself together and be strong for her son, even though the situation seemed hopeless and that she felt particularly alone at this moment.

This certainty was probably the reason why she was so surprised when she suddenly heard those four words that she never expected to hear :

"I will help you."