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5 Years Old
Mio is sick. And when Mio is sick, that means she doesn’t go to school. And Ritsu has to go to school alone.
She and Mio haven’t been friends for very long, but they are really close. Mio is so clever and funny when Ritsu makes her jump, and Mio is so pretty she could totally be a model one day. Ritsu just loves spending time with her.
But she can’t spend time with Mio when she is sick. School isn’t fun without her best friend.
So Ritsu comes up with a plan: if she gets sick too then she doesn’t get to go to school, and their moms might let them spend time together. It’s a great idea.
But… but how do you get sick?
It takes Ritsu a few minutes to realise that she can’t get sick by force. So she comes up with the next best idea. She’s a pretty good young actress, so she thinks she can pull it off.
Okay, maybe she can’t.
The next morning Ritsu curls up with her head under the blankets until she gets really hot, makes her hair messy and cries, “Mooooom!”
But when her mother walks into her bedroom, she takes one look at Ritsu and says, “Nice try. You’re going to school.”
And Ritsu has a tantrum and Mom drags her to school, and she spends yet another day without her best friend.
---
9 Years Old
Ritsu coughs and rubs at her runny nose with the cuff of her sweater.
“Ricchan, that’s gross!” Mio says, grimacing and looking like she might be sick. “Use your hanky.”
“I’ve lost it,” Ritsu says, sniffing.
“Again?”
She nods, grinning. “Yeah. It fell out of my pocket.”
Ritsu forgets what she is about to say next when she sneezes. She doesn’t have a tissue on her, and ends up sneezing snot and spit all over her hands. “Ew, gross.”
Mio stumbles backwards, covering her mouth. As Mio rushes off to be sick, their teacher gives Ritsu a tissue and tells her to clean herself up. She trails into the bathrooms and finds Mio walking out of a stall, paler than ever with red eyes.
As she washes her hands and face, Ritsu’s stomach clenches. She turns around and watches Mio wash her own hands, and she mumbles, “Sorry for making you puke, Mio-chan.”
Mio smiles weakly, but her knees sag and she looks like she is going to faint.
“Whoa, careful!” Ritsu says, wondering how she made friends with someone so… frail.
Mio ends up getting sent to the nurse’s office, but Ritsu goes back to class. Her best friend is in the sick room because she feels wobbly, but Ritsu has to go back to class. She wants to miss Japanese. She wants to spend time with Mio. She wants to be fussed over by the nurse. And she does have a cold, after all, so it wouldn’t be faking if she just pretended it’s a bit worse than it really is…
Ritsu starts to cough again, coughing as hard as she can so everyone can hear the phlegm in her lungs. She coughs until her face goes red and she sniffs, hacking mucus into one of the many tissues her teacher gave her.
Come on, she thinks, feel sorry for me. Let me go to the nurse’s office.
“Ritsu, I know you’re worried about your friend, but deliberately coughing and making yourself look worse won’t work with me,” their teacher calls, and everyone looks at her.
Crap. It didn’t work.
---
13 Years Old
“Mio, I don’t wanna go shopping! It’s so boring,” Ritsu whines, sitting on the floor of her best friend’s bedroom after school one day.
Her mom has noticed her clothes are all too scruffy, and wants to drag Ritsu on a huge shopping trip this weekend. She doesn’t mind the odd shop (especially if she and Mio go to look at sneakers), but her mom’s shopping trips are hell. It’s going to suck.
“For once I don’t blame you,” Mio says.
“What’re you implying?”
“That you overreact,” she says, smiling slightly.
Ritsu grins. “Fair enough. But… it’s gonna suck, Mio-chan. Please help me get out of it.”
“I don’t know if you can. Your mother is a very… persuasive person.”
She sighs, clamping her hands over the sides of her head. “Help me…”
“Sorry, Ricchan,” Mio says. “But I’m sure it’ll work out.”
It won’t. Clothes shopping with her mom is torture.
So without Mio’s help, she has to come up with a plan alone.
The evening before the day of shopping, Ritsu walks slowly and winces and rubs her stomach. When her parents ask what is wrong, she whimpers about having a tummy ache. She thinks her mom will end up seeing through it, but it seems to work.
Bursting into tears in the middle of the night and pretending to be sick seals the deal. Her mom goes shopping alone, and Ritsu gets to stay in bed all day.
But when Mom comes home, she’s bought the ugliest clothes for her. Brilliant.
---
17 Years Old
Slumping against the table in the clubroom, Ritsu can barely keep her head up. Her head throbs whenever she tries to read her textbook, her skin shining an impressive shade of red. She keeps shivering and she wishes she wore tights this morning. It’s moments like this when she’s glad the Light Music Club never actually practise, because the thought of playing her drums makes her aching limbs ache even more.
She thinks it’s the early stages of the flu, her nose tickling and getting more and more bunged up, but currently the achiness and fever are far worse. Crap, she just wants to go to bed.
“Are you okay, Ritsu?” Mio asks.
She and Mio have been best friends forever, and three years ago they started dating. Mio is sat beside her, their arms pressed together. Ritsu lets her head flop against Mio’s shoulder, groaning.
“I feel sick,” she mumbles.
“Of course you do,” Mio says.
Yui gasps. “Mio-chan!”
“Mio-senpai, that wasn’t very nice,” Azuza says.
Mio looks at them both. “I’m not being mean. It’s just… Ritsu has always acted sick or made herself look worse to get out of things. Are you actually sick, Ricchan, or do you want to get out of practise?”
Mio’s smile is kind, like she is telling a joke. And if she really was faking it, Ritsu would probably laugh and be melodramatic and make a big thing out of it.
But she feels like crap, and Mio’s words hurt. She feels dreadful and just wants a cuddle from her wonderful girlfriend.
But Mio doesn’t believe her.
Now, Ritsu doesn’t cry easily, unlike some girls she knows. But… but she feels so sick and she just wants to go home…
And then tears are spilling down her flushed face and she sobs.
“Ricchan!” Yui cries.
“Are you okay?” Mugi asks.
“Ritsu?” Mio whispers.
Soon there are three pairs of arms around her, Yui rubbing her back, Mugi stroking her hair and Azuza pressing a hand to her forehead to feel her fever.
And Mio just sits there, staring at her as Ritsu sobs. Mio knows her too well; she must know that Ritsu doesn’t cry like this when she’s just pretending.
“Oh, Ritsu, you really are sick,” Mio says, slipping an arm around her waist and handing Ritsu a handkerchief. “I’m sorry. Do you want to go home?”
It’s so humiliating to cry, but she can’t stop. Ritsu nods, sobbing pitifully.
“Okay then,” Mio says, hugging her closer. “Let’s get you home, my Ricchan.”
And even though she feels like utter crap, that brings a small smile to her face.