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“So let me get this straight, you-” Ryuji was interrupted by Akira’s muffled giggling, “-hey! Stop that!”
“There’s no straights for you to get here, babe,” Akira grinned dopily.
“Effin’ christ…” Ryuji mumbled. Ryuji was sitting on the edge of Akira’s bed, narrowly dodging projectiles of snot every time Akira sneezed. It was a considerably hard task, because Akira was sneezing a lot. “See, I get goin’ out in the rain to turn in some movies. What I don’t get is why you went without an umbrella.”
Akira had snuggled himself up in a blanket cocoon, using all the blankets he owned. Ryuji tried prying him out, but he absolutely would not budge. “I couldn’t find my umbrella,” Akira pulled the blankets around himself tighter.
Ryuji looked back and forth between Akira and the umbrella propped up by the entryway. He hoped Akira could see his exasperation etching hard lines onto his face. It was late, and the room was pretty much dark save for the small lamp on Akira’s work desk. The rain had been hammering on for a few days straight, showing no sign of letting up, but the sound of water droplets bouncing off the attic’s windows was soothing.
Busting out in nasally laughter, Akira gave in. “Fine. Maybe I want to do teenage hipster shit for once, okay? I’m still young.”
“Since when is standing out in the rain teenage hipster shit?” Ryuji ran a hand down his face. “If the public finds out that this is what the Phantom Thieves’ leader does, then we’re effin’ screwed.”
“It felt nice. You should do it with me sometime.”
“And catch a cold like you did?! Sure man, hit me up.” Ryuji watched Akira’s eyes flutter between open and closed, and his glasses were threatening to slip off his face. He hunched over, which probably wasn’t good for his posture. “How much cough syrup did Boss give ya, anyway?”
Akira looked at Ryuji with his eyebrows raised, and pupils barely visible under his eyelids. It looked like he was taking awhile to process Ryuji’s question. “Two.”
“T-two what?”
“Mm, two.” Akira leaned over until his head was resting on Ryuji’s shoulder. Ryuji’s worry increased with every second.
“I gotcha, man,” Ryuji tried to comfortingly rub his back through the thick layers of blanket.
Akira sniffed, his runny nose kinda gross but tolerable. Whining a bit, Akira leaned back until he was laying down, effectively pulling Ryuji to lay in bed with him. Ryuji shifted until he was comfortable, one arm slung over Akira’s chest. “You gonna hog all the blankets?” Ryuji joked.
“Yes. And you can be my pillow for tonight.”
Ryuji’s face flushed. “O-oh, I dunno ‘bout that. We’ve got school tomorrow…”
“So wear one of my uniforms,” Akira poked Ryuji in the stomach, and Ryuji squirmed.
“Dude! We’d be way too obvious, then.”
Akira’s lips were barely ghosting on Ryuji’s neck. “I don’t care. Let everyone know.”
A shiver shot down Ryuji’s spine. “Yeah, let ‘em know I’m your personal snot-rag.”
“Sorry,” Akira laughed as he impossibly clinged closer to Ryuji. He hummed into Ryuji’s neck, sending vibrations across his skin. Akira’s breathing evened out, slow and steady, but it sounded like he was struggling to breath through his clogged nostrils. “I’m serious, though. Stay. Please,” Akira wheezed.
“Okay okay, I give,” Ryuji decided. He gingerly removed Akira’s glasses and set them on the windowsill. Ryuji moved the arm wrapped around Akira to push up his bangs that were damp with sweat, his forehead also hot and sweaty. He was so hot, there was no way he was so cold as to burrito himself in his blankets like that. Ryuji just laid like that, letting Akira’s hair fall and stroking it back up. If Akira was still awake, then he wasn’t acting like it.
“I don’t know why I did it. Going out into the rain like that,” Akira said quietly.
“Teenage hipster shit, remember?” When Ryuji met Akira, he’d always thought Akira was invulnerable. It’d make him feel bad about himself, and also a little bit jealous. But now he knew better; he knew that Akira was just as human as he was, and being human meant that he was also prone to getting ‘emo’ sometimes (as Akira liked to put it). Ryuji was fine with it. His emotions tended to get the better of him, too, and Akira was always there for him during those times.
Akira finally unwrapped himself and he threw a portion of his blankets over Ryuji. “Yeah, that, but also for something else. I don’t know.”
“You can talk ‘bout it.” Thunder struck, and the lamp flickered.
Akira pulled his face away from Ryuji’s neck, the string of mucus he left making Ryuji cringe. Nothing he couldn’t handle. “I think- maybe I did it to punish myself. I knew that I could’ve gotten sick, but I did it anyway.”
Ryuji was trying to decipher Akira’s line of reasoning. “...So you are an M.” Akira bit Ryuji’s earlobe in retaliation for that comment, and Ryuji pretended to swat him away. “Sorry, dude. Sorta. What are you punishin' yourself for?”
“My existence.”
Ryuji put his hand on Akira’s cheek, studying his face. “I effin’ hope you’re kiddin’.”
“Yeah, probably,” Akira said, but there was no joking tone in his voice. “I’ve just been thinking, what if I never got myself in this whole mess? Getting myself charged with assault, getting expelled from my old school- moving away. I could’ve avoided it.”
“Then we’d have a few more shitty adults around. And I would’ve never met you.”
Akira let out a broken sigh and coughed. “Sorry, you’re right. I just feel off.”
“It happens,” Ryuji stroked Akira’s cheek with his thumb.
“And we only have a week left to change Okumura’s heart,” Akira clutched onto Ryuji tighter.
Akira said exactly what Ryuji’s been thinking. Ryuji was harboring his own load of doubts, but tonight wasn’t about him. He was even more worried, now that Akira had gotten sick… “We can make it. We did it before, and we’ll do it again.”
“Yeah, but never this close to the deadline. Something about his palace doesn’t feel right, a-and I’m off my game. Shit Ryuji, every time we go in someone almost dies -” Akira rasped.
Ryuji rushed in to comfort Akira- “the shadows in there are strong, everyone understands.”
“I don’t want to fail- we can’t fail- but we’re so far from the treasure. And it’s not like we’re slacking off either, because everyone’s exhausted. I can see it.”
Ryuji would’ve been well off into crying if he was in Akira’s position, but Akira’s eyes were only shiny at best. “Stop that! Stop doubting yourself. You’re a good leader, man. Hell, you’re the leader for a reason. Just- we’re closer than you think, okay? We’ll make it.”
“Okay… Okay…” Akira kept garbling intelligently. “I trust you. I just can’t shake the feeling that something’s wrong.”
Ryuji pinched Akira’s nose, and Akira squeaked a small, nasally ‘ow’. “What’s wrong is you’re sick and not gettin’ any rest.”
Akira resigned with one last soft ‘okay’. He buried his face back into Ryuji’s neck, and Ryuji gratefully took him in. Akira began taking in short gasps of breath, and Ryuji started freaking out because oh god was he going to start crying now?! But Ryuji’s line of thought was interrupted when Akira sneezed into his neck, not one time, but three times. Ryuji tensed when he felt Akira’s snot and spit clinging to his neck.
“Aw man, give a guy some warning next time!”
“My bad,” Akira laughed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.
Ryuji wiped away the mess on his neck, and then wiped his soiled hand on Akira’s bed. It wasn’t like his bed hasn’t seen worse fluids. “Gross,” Ryuji said but didn’t mean it, as he pecked Akira on the corner of his lips.
“Are you trying to catch my germs?”
“Kissing you is nothin’ compared to all those times you sneezed and coughed on me.” Ryuji pressed his lips against Akira’s again, as if to make a statement.
“Mm, maybe.” More thunder struck, and Akira’s fingers twitched against Ryuji’s abdomen.
Ryuji wondered whether he was the reason Akira wasn’t sleeping, and he felt bad for the possibility. “I’m gonna legit sleep. You should do the same, so- goodnight.”
“Goodnight, babe. Wait-” Akira gasped.
Ryuji’s eyes flew open. “What?!”
“Sorry, just thinking about you wearing my turtleneck tomorrow.”
Ryuji choked. “Go to sleep!”