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Komaeda opens his eyes to a hospital room and his boyfriend’s unimpressed stare.
Being in the hospital isn’t necessarily new for someone as accident-prone as Komaeda, but the look on Izuru’s face has him thinking that he must have done something wrong, so he quickly racks his brain trying to think of how he ended up in this room.
Ah, that’s right.
He takes stock of his injuries. His arm is in a brace, and his head and ribs throb with a dull pain. Not terribly bad, all things considered.
Izuru is standing next to the bed, and says nothing when their eyes meet.
“Izuru-kun,” Komaeda says, a sheepish smile crawling onto his face. He glances around the room. “Tsumiki-san isn’t here?”
“I was the one who took care of you,” Izuru responds, his expression not changing. His gaze flicks down as though assessing the work he did on Komaeda’s sling and bandages.
“Ah, of course! You are Super High School Level Nurse as well, after all.” Despite the circumstances, Komaeda will never not be impressed with—and maybe just a tad obsessive about—his boyfriend’s myriad of talents.
He wants to say Izuru shouldn’t have bothered with someone like him, but he knows Izuru well enough to know that he doesn’t like when he talks like that. Especially at this stage in their relationship.
“Well. When I heard that my boyfriend threw himself in front of a moving car, I thought perhaps I should take responsibility.” Ah, there it is. Izuru’s voice is clipped, an undercurrent of anger audible only to the trained ear.
Komaeda ducks his head. “I wouldn’t word it like that,” he argues. “It’s not like I meant to do it. Besides, I don’t think I had much of a choice!”
Izuru clicks his tongue. “You did.”
“But if I didn’t push Souda-kun out of the way, it would have hit him instead!”
“I don’t care.”
Komaeda gapes. “Izuru-kun, you shouldn’t talk like that about our classmates!”
Izuru is silent for a moment. Then he steps forward, closer to the bed. He leans over, one hand cupping Komaeda’s cheek, his gaze stern and searching. Komaeda’s heart flutters like it does every time Izuru touches him, like he still can’t believe it’s a thing that Izuru would ever willingly do.
“Don’t do something like that again,” Izuru says. Komaeda wants to argue that of course he would do something like that again to protect one of his classmates, but Izuru’s tone says he is in no mood to argue over this. “The car wasn’t going that fast, but if it was, you could have died.”
The prospect doesn’t seem that terrifying to Komaeda, but he knows, somehow, miraculously, it is to Izuru. That thought alone makes any immediate protests die in his throat.
“I know.” Komaeda glances away from that piercing gaze. “It’s just that…things like that are my fault, aren’t they? If Souda-kun had gotten hurt, it would have been because of my bad luck. I’d feel terrible if I didn’t do something about that.”
Izuru cocks his head as he looks at him, as though that thought never really occurred to him. Then again, he wasn’t ever much concerned with Komaeda’s luck cycle.
“That doesn’t mean you should get yourself hurt,” he says. “Let me handle it instead.”
Komaeda laughs. “Izuru-kun, you can’t always be there.”
Izuru’s face tightens, his brow pinching. He doesn’t emote very much, but Komaeda is an expert at reading the intricacies of his expressions. He looks sad, and for one horrifying moment Komaeda thinks he might actually be about to cry.
He hastily gives up on any sort of argument and wraps his arms around Izuru, pulling him close. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs against Izuru’s shoulder. “It must be exhausting always having to look after me.”
“Hm.” There’s a beat, and Izuru’s hands come to rest around him, one of them gently checking the bandages on his head. “You certainly cause me a lot of grief.” But when he pulls away, there’s an unmistakable fondness in his eyes.
“Sorry,” Komaeda says again.
Izuru shakes his head. “I’ll have less work to do if you let me be there to protect you in the first place.”
A smile quirks at Komaeda’s mouth. “Ah, well. If it’ll be doing you a favor, I don’t necessarily mind.”
“Good.” Izuru presses a kiss to the bandages on his forehead. Komaeda feels warm inside at the gesture.
He still can’t believe someone like Izuru Kamukura would worry and care about him so much. But as unworthy of it as he is, he’s also selfish. So he’s not going to complain. He’ll just do whatever he can to make Izuru happy.