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“So Himiko, I understand that we’ve just begun our project a few days ago…” Chisa Yukizome’s orange hair bounces behind her as she begins cleaning up around the recently dismissed classroom she and Himiko were both occupied in. “And you’ve been partnered up with Kokichi for this project, correct?”
Himiko wipes at the blackboard, making sure that she was steady on the stool she was standing on. “Nyeh, that’s right Miss Yukizome.”
“Well since it’s Friday I’d like to ask if you can go to his dorm and fill him in on what was going on for the last few days. This project requires both of you to work on it, you can’t just be doing this all on your own. You’ll both have all weekend to catch up, you don’t mind doing this, right?”
“I guess,” Himiko hops of the stool, wobbling a bit from her landing. “Is that all I need to do?”
“Mhm. I don’t want you two to fall too far behind the others with your project.”
“Okay, have a good afternoon Miss Yukizome.” Himiko says politely before heading out the door.
Upon exiting she was met with the two familiar faces of Angie and Tenko. The former rocked back and forth on her heels smiling inquisitively, while the latter immediately began speaking.
“Himiko you aren’t in trouble are you?!”
“Nyahaha~ What did ya do Himiko? Did you get caught cheating on a test?”
“She would never Angie-”
“Nyeh, I’m not in trouble nor did I cheat,” Himiko responds calmly. “But I won’t be able to hang out with either of you today. I hafta stop by Kokichi’s dorm to work on the project with him.”
“Ah, then we’ll both come with you!” Tenko quickly interjects, looking towards Angie. The artist’s eyes were closed as she hummed and swayed her body for a moment. A few seconds later, the blonde’s eyes reopened.
“Atua strikes again, how divine! Angie has been blessed with sudden inspiration for another art piece. So sorry Angie cannot tag along, see you guys tomorrow. Bye-yonara~” Angie quickly runs off with a cheer, with her platinum blonde hair trailing behind her as she ran.
Tenko huffs, “Well then Tenko will come with you.”
“You really don’t have to. We’re just going to be working on the project we’ve been assigned.”
“Himiko please let Tenko come with you!” Tenko pleads earnestly, she rests a hand upon her chest. Carefully choosing her wording, she continues speaking. “That little… gremlin… could be up to somethin. He’s been gone for three days, he could maybe be planning on pranking you. Tenko will come with you to take whatever he has in store head on.”
“Nnn… I dunno,” Himiko shifts from foot to foot. “It’s not like him to miss classes consecutively. It could be something other than that.” Himiko says reasonably, earning a halfhearted grunt of agreement from Tenko.
She was right, despite being a troublemaker, Kokichi had a good academic standing. He was almost always amongst the top eight when it came to high scores on exams -- and he almost never missed class.
“You can tag along Tenko, but don’t go causing any trouble. We have to get a start on our project.”
“You can count on Tenko!” Tenko cheerily reassures her.
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“Now Tenko…” Himiko started warily, eyeing Tenko cautiously.
Currently the neo-aikido master was preparing to kick Kokichi’s door down. The two girls had just arrived at his dorm but upon knocking there was no response, much to Himiko’s exasperation and Tenko’s annoyance.
“Himiko you are not going to go another day doing your project all by yourself.”
“But to go so far and kick down his door? Maybe he’s not in at the moment?”
“No one has seen him at all these past three days. Rantaro hasn’t even spoken to him…” Tenko pauses briefly, a look of concern flashing over her face. “Tenko’s going to force her way in, but if this turns out to be some prank, he is so going to get thrown.”
Himiko relents and takes a few steps back. Tenko shifts her weight to one foot, raising the other one and angling at the door knob. With one swift kick, the door knob falls off and the door creaks open slightly.
The two girls exchange looks of worry before Tenko rests a hand on the door. “Kokichi! Tenko’s coming in now!” the brunette loudly announces, forcefully swinging the door opening and running in, “If this is some pra-AAH”
Himiko was startled by her friends sudden scream and ran in after in after Tenko without haste. Upon entering Kokichi’s dorm, she had let out a scream of surprise of her own.
Lying on the floor in a puddle of water was none other than Kokichi. His face was flushed a sickly red, with the sheen of sweat glistening on his cheeks, he took short labored breaths and seemed to be unconscious.
When Tenko recovers from her shock, she immediately drops down onto her knees and places a hand onto his forehead. A frown tugged at her lips as she scooped Kokichi into her arms.
“He’s hot to the touch, Tenko thinks he has a fever,” she rises back onto her feet and begins walking towards the back of the dorm, most likely to Kokichi’s bedroom. “Himiko can you fill up a bowl with cold water, and add some ice too if there’s any?”
Himiko mumbles incomprehensibly in response and quickly scrambles to the cabinets. After a minute of digging through the cabinets she found a suitable sized bowl that was large enough to hold a lot of water.
After she finished filling up the bowl with water and ice, Himiko took hurried steps to the room, spilling some water on the floor as she did.
Upon entering the room Tenko had just finished placing the supreme leader into his bed. The martial artist turns to Himiko and gently takes the bowl from her, dropping a towel in it in the process of doing so.
Tenko settles the bowl down on the nightstand beside Kokichi’s bed and wrings out the excess water on the rag. After making sure the rag wasn’t sopping wet, she gingerly places it on Kokichi’s forehead.
“Okay,” Tenko starts, making her way towards Himiko. “Tenko’s going to bring Mikan here to help, at most it should take me about thirty minutes to get back if Tenko runs.”
The dormitories were about a twenty minute walk from the main campus. During mornings Himiko would have to wake up almost an hour early just to be ready to leave her dorm when classes are close to starting.
“Do you think you can handle him by yourself Himiko?” Tenko asks, stretching her legs out in preparation for her run.
Himiko waves off her concern, “Nyeh just go Tenko. I’ve dealt with fevers before.”
With one last parting glance Tenko sprints off, leaving Himiko with an unconscious Kokichi.
Himiko approaches Kokichi’s bedside, looking him over. She wondered how long he’s been like this. Has he eaten over the course of the last three days? Was he hydrated?
“I guess our project can wait.” she says to him, though he couldn’t hear her.
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When Kokichi comes to his senses he notices two things. First the smell of food and second the familiar form of Himiko sitting at the edge of the bed.
His movements gains the attention of Himiko, who was in the middle of playing a game on her cellphone.
“So you’re finally awake,” she comments, tossing her phone into her bag. She walks over to the nightstand and hands a glass of water to Kokichi. “Here drink.”
He accepts the glass but gives a look of confusion to his redheaded classmate. “How’d you even get in here?” his voice coming out weak and gravelly. He sips the room temperature water as Himiko spoke.
“You haven’t been in class the last few days. We were assigned as partners for a project in Miss Yukizome’s class, and she wanted me to find you since you haven’t been showing up. But we found you on the floor when we got here.” Himiko explains.
“And who is we?”
“Tenko. She broke your doorknob so we could in by the way. But she’ll be back with Mikan soon,” she mentions casually, handing him a bowl of soup. “You haven’t eaten a while, this soup will help with your fever.”
Kokichi gave her a curious look. “I thought you said you were a ‘mage’ not a nurse.”
“Nnn… everyone needs to know how to treat a fever.”
“You treated a fever before?”
Himiko’s expression dampens slightly, “Nyeh… when I was travelling with my master he gotten a fever a few days before a show. And I was the only one with him. But luckily for me I was at a high enough level to do healing magic.”
Kokichi remained silent, everyone in the class knew that bringing up Himiko’s master was a sore topic. Whenever she would, she would become sad and start rambling about magic more often. Kokichi knew that magic was a coping mechanism for the magician.
“Hey Himiko…” he looks towards her, even if he was at his weakest at the moment, he’d still find a way to have fun -- especially when he was in a good position to tease Himiko. “Since I’m really weak, do you think you can feed me?”
Himiko sputtered, all of her sadness evaporating into embarrassment. “W-what why?!”
Kokichi coughs -- though he does it a bit more forcefully to add some flair to it. “Well seeing as how I have a fever. I don’t have enough energy to feed myself.”
Himiko wanted to believe that Kokichi was lying about being too weak, but considering that he had a fever -- she felt inclined to do it.
She dipped the spoon into the bowl before holding it shakily in front of Kokichi mouth.
“O-o-open up.” she murmurs with a heavy blush settled onto her face.
Kokichi purposely maintains eye contact with Himiko as he slurps the soup off of the spoon, refraining from laughing at Himiko’s embarrassment.
Himiko continues to feed Kokichi for a couple of minutes until the supreme leader waves her off, signaling that he had enough.
“You know Himiko you’re a pretty decent cook. Never had I thought someone as lazy as you would be able to prepare their own meals.”
“I may be lazy but I’m not that lazy to the point where I can’t care for myself.” Himiko says with a huff, removing the towel from Kokichi’s head to reapply cold water to it.
“Wow aren’t I lucky to have you taking care of me Himiko. You make it seem like you’re my girlfriend.”
Himiko -- who was in the process of replacing the towel on Kokichi’s forehead -- promptly drops the cloth onto his face.
Immediately hopping off of the bed, Himiko covers her face. “D-d-don’t say t-things like that!” she stutters.
“Aww Himiko. You don’t like me?” Kokichi asks in mock sadness, placing the towel correctly on his head.
“Sh-shut up! You should be s-sleeping now. Re-rest is important when you have a fever.” Himiko deflects, wanting to change the subject.
Kokichi snickers, “I’m not even tired. Besides I’m having fun talking to you.”
“Anyways,” Himiko breaths out softly in order to regain her composure. “If your fever breaks tomorrow then we can start to work on our project since we’ll have the weekend to do so. But since you may still be feeling weak, I’ll come to you.”
“But won’t that end up making you sick too? There’s nothing but germs in my dorm.”
Himiko rolls her eyes and gives him a smug grin. “I won’t get sick. I barely did a child because I ate right and took my vitamins like my mother told me to. And I still do it today and haven’t gotten sick.”
“Don’t talk like that Himiko, you might actually end up getting sick. If you do, I’m totally laughing at you.”
Before Himiko could retort, Tenko’s voice rang from outside of the room.
“Himiko we’re back!”
Tenko comes jogging into the room, looking slightly winded, in her arms she toted Mikan. The nurse had her arms securely wrapped around Tenko’s shoulders.
“I-I’m sorry you had to carry me all th-the way here. If I weren’t too sl-”
“Nonsense Mikan, Tenko doesn’t mind carrying you.” Tenko gently helps the nurse to her feet.
Mikan gives the aikido master a smile before directing her attention to Kokichi and Himiko. “Thank you for watching over him Himiko, but you don’t have to stay here now, I don’t want you risk health. You’ve been here long enough exposed so it would be best to leave.” Mikan’s stutters drop as she gained her confidence she usually had when she was performing her nursing duties.
“Now you and Tenko can leave. Kokichi is good hands.” Mikan gives the two girls a reassuring smile before slipping a face mask on.
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It was the day after Kokichi was cared for, and he was feeling a lot better than he was the previous day.
Mikan had left him with some pills to help with any remaining pain her may have. And through following his upperclassman’s advice he was able to recover a lot faster.
Currently he was waiting for Himiko to come over to his dorm so they could start their project. It was midday and she hasn’t come around yet. Even if it was the weekend he was sure she had to be awake at this point.
Rather than sitting around waiting for her to come to him, he decided he’d go to her.
Luckily for him, her dorm was just across the hall from him. Upon reaching her dorm attempted to let himself in, which was unsuccessful since her dorm was locked. This wasn’t much of an issue for him since he knew how to pick locks.
He let himself in with ease in a matter of seconds, and when he entered he noticed that all the lights were off in the living area of her dorm.
“There’s no way she could still be sleeping. Just how lazy can she get?” He mumbles to himself as he headed towards her bedroom. He knocked on the door before letting himself in, and upon entering her room he saw Himiko lying in her bed surrounded by a bunch of tissues.
Himiko had dark circles under her eyes, and was paler than usual.
“What’s this? Himiko are you sick? I thought that you don’t get sick.” Kokichi teasingly says with a smirk.
Himiko gives him a weak glare, her throat was too sore for her to respond.
“But that’s alright Himiko, since you went and took care of me yesterday. Let me do the same for you.”