disease (RxR)
A cough, a sniff, shaky hands curling around a mug of tea, pouring some honey into the hot liquid. Once one of his hands was freed from its former task, Takanori brought it up to pull the thick scarf closer around his aching throat, snuggled up into his fluffy bathrobe.
He felt miserable. He had felt miserable for the last four days, and, slowly, he was giving up hope to get rid of this damn flu ever. He felt cold and trapped inside his flat and to make things worse, a snowstorm was raging outside. He hated snow. And he hated storms. And he hated how weak he felt, and how hot his forehead felt under his cold fingertips, and how shaky he was on his feet, and how the honeyed green tea didn’t taste like honeyed green tea at all because he couldn’t taste anything right now.
A cough.
He felt cold and alone and he knew he was overreacting on a simple flu he’d catch almost every winter.
A sniff.
He padded over into the living room and huddled himself up on the couch, trying to forget the cruel world and raging snowstorms and that he was all alone in the middle of the night.
Trying a simple touch to his phone, he considered calling someone. Or rather someone.
Sure, he could have just called him in the middle of the night, crying and fragile, but he wouldn’t. No, he wouldn’t… would he.
He jumped up – and regretted doing so immediately because his legs were almost giving up on him underneath his minor weight, so he needed to catch himself with a hand curling around the edge of the sofa to keep stable. Now, he walked over to the bathroom. Yes, a hot bath would make him feel better. Make him forget things. Like diseases, and snowstorms, and solitude, and the person he’d had in mind all day.
He was busy right now, he knew that. He was busy having studies and everything. Too busy to come and fix him up, like he always did. Ever since he’d entered College, he would be a little too busy to do this and that with his best friend. And it hurt more than the flu or the headache.
Takanori hated to feel that way about him. He was his best friend, God damn it, not his mother. He wasn’t obliged to come here and curl him into a towel once he had finished bathing, and he wasn’t obliged to cook dinner for him because he felt like starving and was sick and tired after another half-a-night without sleep. And of course he wasn’t obliged to tell him everything was going to be okay because, hell, it would, and he knew that, and he hated overreacting like this, and he hated how he got all emotional now about that dickhead.
Hitting up the faucet and closing the drain he watched the steaming water whirl into the white tub, slowly rising and soon starting to form bubbles as he put in his favourite supplement. His hands and feet were still cold as he started to undress, fumbling with the knot on his robe for a moment longer than he’d usually needed and it was enough to agitate him a little more. His shirt hit the floor soon after and as he slipped out of his pyjama pants he almost got stuck and stumbled over his own two feet. Cursing, he stepped out of his shorts as well and toed off his fluffy socks, now fully revealed to the cool air in the room. Maybe he should have turned on the heating but he didn’t mind the shudder running down his back. The air was slowly heating up by the hot steam curling up from the halfway filled bath tub, so he took a second to step over to the sink and give himself an inspecting look in the mirror.
His reflection looked ugly like this, all pale and with puffed eyes because he couldn’t breathe properly and therefore didn’t sleep all that much either. He knew he needed rest but how should one sleep, if they had the feeling to asphyxiate under the thick sheen of mucus in the back of their throat..?
He rubbed his eyes and sighed.
Once the tub was filled to his liking, he turned off the water and stepped into the warm heaven inside the porcelain bowl, lying down and immediately feeling the relaxation spreading in his muscles as they got warmed up. The best thing about bathing was that once the water surrounded you, it felt like a mother’s hug. Or that of a lover. Which he didn’t have.
Something was going wrong in his life, wasn’t it.
He closed his eyes and tried to relax…
He woke up to the sound of heavy boots on the tiled floor. A light chuckle reached his ears and a hand caressed through his wet hair. “How long are you already in there, dear?”, he heard that smooth baritone and slowly slipped his eyes open, seeing that face he’d longed to see for days now, and everything seemed so unreal. Strong hands slipped underneath his arms to support him in getting onto his feet and only now he realized how cold the water must have turned. He was shaking all over again, feeling numb to the core, and he also felt dizzy.
A big, fluffy towel was around him a second after, strong arms securing its hold and caressing his back to warm it while his nose was nuzzled into the elder’s shoulder. “Why are you here, Aki?”, he asked and pushed his lips further into the soft skin around his collarbone. “Since you didn’t call me like you promised, I came to check on you.”
Takanori tried a weak nod and let the other help him out of the tub and into the bedroom where he sat down on the bed immediately. Pulling the blanket up to the other’s waist, Akira came to sit behind the smaller blonde and started drying his hair with a towel, his free arm curling around the slim waist to pull the cold body closer to the warm own. “You’re quite a handful, you know.”, he chuckled and finished his task, putting the towel aside.
“I’m sorry…”
“Hey, I brought take out with me! You want some?”
And that moment, Takanori just stared at his best friend and felt the tingle in his stomach.
He didn’t feel sick anymore, and he didn’t feel cold and lonely anymore.
A smile crossed his lips as he nodded and watched how his very personal remedy got up to get the food for him.
