Work Text:
Soup for a Sick Gambler
It started when he woke up that morning when throat felt like a frigid swamp had formed overnight, and ever since that moment his day had gone downhill. He struggled to get out bed with heavy limbs and it was terribly cold despite it being uhhh July?
He should be at home, in bed. With a warm of soup or something. That would be heavenly if it happened.
Unfortunately, he had no choice. He had to eat after all. So he was here, a pale ghost that increasingly matched the color of moonlight, that haunted the outside of the sparkling glass windows.
The white light from the store seared him and the neon hum was enough to make him want to rip out his hair.
His aching everything slogged through a sea of honey to try and get on with his fucking work.
It was as though he were trying to move a mountain with limbs that had 100 pound weight strapped to them. A sandstorm that brewed through his body made him wretch forcibly into his hands again.
The window wiper crashed into the bucket like a heavy spear, and Kaiji hauled it back up like pulling it from stone.
He wasn’t wiping fast enough, with his brain a poorly wired game controller trying its absolute damndest to make his lagging systems move. Even if he was constantly on the verge of collapsing, he sure as hell wasn’t getting sympathy from anyone.
He eyed that damn manager gliding through the aisles again, hugging his peripheries. The dark haired man was going to get an earful again and that’s enough to make him boil in his skin. Worst of all, he didn’t have the energy to land a fist between that old bastard’s teeth.
Just then, Sahara met his coworker’s low lidded gaze initiating the little ritual they did every day. He waved to his senpai, sunny grin brightening the older man’s day just a little before it would shortly go down the crapper.
The older man began to return the gesture, while the manager flew through the aisles like a stormcloud to send another round of bellowing thunder this slacker’s way.
Although this time, Sahara leaned over the counter obscuring his superior’s path.
The old man stopped in his tracks, but still pawing and ready to run down Kaiji like a raging bull. The blonde pulled the red cloth in his direction . “What, Sahara?”
“Sir, one of the customers said the toilet is clogged again.” Sahara acted urgently as he told the white lie to him.
“That’s the third time this week!” The old man instantly lost all bite, instead was thrown aback and scratched his head. “ I’ll go get Nishio, we really ought to get a sign not to throw toilet paper in there.”
The manager finally wove out of sight, Sahara in the meantime, watched his senpai enter the store relief came off him in waves even if his face was just as sour (if not more) looking as usual.
“Thanks, KuGh for that.” Kaiji forced out breathily whilst he tried to keep his lungs inside his body.
“Anytime, man.” Sahara replied with a thumbs up, and put his elbows on the counter when he was sure that this time his coworker would stop to chat.“He’s such a fucking pain. Who’s he trying to impress? The one guy who comes in the dead of night and buys the playboy every week?”
He threw his hands in the air. “Taxes, taxes, we aren’t even getting paid our stupid 900 yen an hour. I bet he’s skimming our pay.” Sahara speculated getting heated.
Now even I wouldn’t go that far. Kaiji would have said. Instead, he was silent.
“Kaiji?” Sahara waved a hand in his face. The dark haired man in front of him had spaced out in the middle of his rant, elevator music played in his head but the blank stare gave the illusion of him listening.
“Yeah?” He answered with a jolt back to reality.
Sahara paused and looked Kaiji up and down.
The older man looked...to be frank: like shit.
His brown eyes which were usually cutting, alive and glimmering with that interesting spark of life Sahara found oh so interesting were now just like a couple of dull marbles hidden in the deep boring holes that made up his eyes.
His skin looked laminated the way it shimmered with sweat, cheeks flushed a scalding pink. In addition, he quivered ever so slightly as he pulled his coat closer to him, fully aware he was the only one wearing a fur lined jacket in the middle of summer.
At this sight, Sahara’s hand suddenly slid under the seaweed of bangs that stuck to Kaiji’s forehead faster than his coworker could trace and within seconds the blonde flinched as though he had touched a stove.
Kaiji swat the hand away with a flicker of irritation. He watched the younger man’s expression harden. Sahara Makoto was no doctor, but he could definitely fry an egg on this patient’s forehead.
“Shit dude, what are you doing here? You gotta go home.” More than that, It was even more of a wonder of how the other man was still on his feet.
Kaiji snarled back. “I’m fine,okay. M-BLEch, Mind your own business.” Though he wasn’t very convincing though, when he used the counter for support. A tense moment floated and settled between them, before the lanky man let go of Sahara’s gaze as if letting the front of his shirt go after deciding not to punch him.
The younger man thus watched the other’s back as he stumbled away like a wounded animal, and there was a tug in his chest.
There’s no way this tough guy can be left like that.
When he was sure Kaiji was gone, he looked around his counter. He spotted cold medicine and chicken soup, perfect. Kaiji was getting a surprise visit from him whether he wanted the help or not.
The moon is high in the sky by the time Sahara found his coworker’s home in the little maze of the neighborhood. The nighttime obscured the numbers too. Even the backdrop of the bright city didn’t help too much.
The buzz of the doorbell rattled the whole of Kaiji’s shitty little apartment and behind the door there’s a “Shit!” followed by a clatter of dishes.
The midnight visitor hoped that Kaiji didn’t break any of those. Then he’d really feel bad.
Luckily when Kaiji yanked open the door he was unharmed, albeit just a little frazzled.
Sahara blurts out at the absolute shell of a man. “Damn! You look like you’re dying!”
Behind the black tangle of hair was muted surprise. “The fuck arrre youuhgh doing here?”
Getting snappy are we? Sahara raised a brow.
“Just coming for a visit. You don’t have friends, do you?” Sahara quickly slipped his worry behind one of his quips.
“Well except you.” Kaiji uttered, tiredly. Sahara’s eyes subconsciously widen at that and it brought a dog-like grin to his face and a deep summery feeling invaded his heart tissue pumping throughout his whole body.
Even though he was caught in the momentary glow of finally being acknowledged as Kaiji’s friend, he never forgot why he was there. “I got these for you.”
“Oh.” The dark haired man examined the soup and cough medicine with unfocused marbles as they were dropped into his hands. “Thanks Sahara.” The statement nearly punctuated with the slam of the door in the younger man’s face.
“Woah woah!!” The newly acknowledged friend called after him leading Kaiji to halt. Jeez, this guy was always so quick with the door.
Kaiji let out an exasperated sigh that dissolved into yet another coughing fit.
“You look like you’re going to fall out any second!” Sahara pointed out the obvious. And it was true, the darked haired man’s fingers clutched the door, the hinges creaking, already putting most of his weight on the doorframe.
Sahara spread his hands in a sweeping motion. “If I leave you alone, you’ll probably fall asleep with your face in a bowl of soup or something. Then you’ll be remembered as the guy who died drowning in soup! Think of how your mom will feel! ”
Sahara’s joking proposition is ridiculous enough to almost make Kaiji smile.
He’d.. almost smile… if… ink blots the sides of his vision and the rest of Sahara’s prattling was plunged underwater.
Sahara though noticed the very moment the fingers peeled from the doorframe and in mere moments flung open the door. He found himself cradling his coworker against his chest as the older man crashed into him with a “whump”.
A fist clenched in Sahara’s chest as craned his neck to see Kaiji’s face, panic bubbled up as he frantically tried calling his name.
In the next moment, the back of Kaiji’s eyes were smarting under the overwhelming lights, senses crawled back to him when he found himself in bed.
Sahara knelt down and practically shoved a glinting piece of metal in his face. “Here.” Kaiji didn’t resist as a spoonful of rancid medicine went down his throat making him gag.
Sahara was already prepared with the glass of water while he slid it across the table, thermometer in the other hand.
Taking the instrument under the lamp, Sahara scrutinized the number as he rushed around the house for a towel..
38.5 Celcius. Fuck.
He was the only one who noticed Kaiji moving at a snail’s pace. Everyone else had dismissed the lazy bones as going even slower than usual just to waste time. That wasn’t true though.
Mr. Tough guy had really worked himself to threads lately, so this was bound to happen sooner or later.
“Shit!” Sahara swore while the “tsss” of hot water boiling over, and Kaiji hazily watched as the shadow darted into the kitchen.
When he returned,Sahara frowned in the light, leaned in close with a bowl of soup between oven mitts.
"You okay?"He sounded so concerned .
“...Yeah.” Kaiji breathed, winded, sipping in air.
“Damn you’ve really overdid yourself, man.” Sahara shook his head, trying to hide the fact he panicked earlier with a tight lipped smile.
Kaiji said nothing.
Sahara glanced at the soup before producing a spoon. “Here you go, here comes the airplane!” The younger man tries to feed his older friend but is quickly rejected as Kaiji grabs his wrist in disgust.
“Cuugh-t it out! ugh I can do it… myself.” The raven haired man snatched the utensil, and Sahara snickered.
Then to try to eat the rest of it, Kaiji sat up a tad too fast and his steadfast pal grabbed his wobbly shoulders planting him into a sitting position.
After a while, to fill the space of Kaiji just eating his soup, Sahara turned the tv on.
“Watch any good shows lately?” He asked as Kaiji carefully blew steam away.
“Well, there’s this drama called Yumi’s Adventure.” Kaiji looked up to the side and put a hand under his chin. “I’m not really that into it, but I just kind of started watching it one day.”
“I’ll put it on then.” Sahara grabbed the remote so Kaiji didn’t have to leaving the older man to flop ungraciously back onto bed. That’s when Sahara vanished again.
The blonde was bent over the sink and wrung out the towel the way his mom did, then appeared by the bed again.
On the blue light of the television, the heroine tries to convince her friend not to come with her to a big boss battle against some monster. The friend of course, refuses so they can fight side by side.
The younger man creaked deafeningly when he sat down on the other side of the bed to watch. The low groan of metal scraped Kaiji’s ears and he instinctively curled up to shield himself from the noise. The older man looked pathetic, though he couldn’t help it.
Sahara bent towards Kaiji’s face and dabbed his forehead with the wet rag, then took his chin and gently rotated his head to the side and held the towel to his neck.
As he did, Kaiji grumbles softly and Sahara has to strain his ears to hear him.
“How do you know where I live?” he wheezed, delirium sneaking into his voice.
“That’s easy. Followed you home.” Sahara said cheerfully.
There’s a pause from Kaiji. His fever made him briefly wonder how he didn’t notice Sahara the whole time struggling home.
The younger man quickly cleared up the misunderstanding. “I’m kidding, Kaiji-san. I had your address from the last time I wanted to borrow that movie from you. It was damn good by the way.”
In response there was an exhausted mutter in contented acknowledgement to both statements.
Despite wearing a thick coat indoors, he shivered violently alarming his buddy. His teeth shouldn’t be chattering that hard for another few months.
Between Kaiji’s hacking, he didn’t even hear Sahara get up before a hail of blankets buried him.
Kaiji let out a yelp, muffled by the layers.
He dug his face out as if he were a fragile baby bird breaking an egg shell, to meet Sahara’s shit eating grin. “Comfy?”
Kaiji though annoyed, hummed back in agreement.
Sahara leaned back in the broken bed, gaze flecked between his ill friend and the silver screen.
The heroine and her friend bounded into the air, kicking the beast in the air before her friend was wounded. Her friend continued to fight on despite being more hurt than she let on.
Kaiji was like that too, he thought. Tended to try and act tough, but he was hopeless.
Something told him, if he were sick Kaiji would have done the same (albeit with a scolding that he needs to watch himself).
While not exactly the warmest, he was a good person like that. Just around the store there were bite sized portions of kindness. Things like letting Sahara borrow his movie even though he’d spent the last 30 minutes making fun of Kaiji, or when he’d stopped by his counter for no other reason than to wish him happy birthday. And he also listened to him blab on about Pokemon, something he knew pretty much nothing about.
Speaking of which. In the white noise of the commercials, Sahara had some exciting news to tell Kaiji.
“Guess what?” He went over and peeked at Kaiji’s half obscured face. “I beat the league! I’m the pokemon champion!”
“Congratulations.” Kaiji’s eyes sparkled and lit up, he continued breaking to cough in between. “What does that mean?”
“I’m the Champion of the Kanto region! Call me Champion Sahara now!” The other man boasted and he was glad to see the corners of Kaiji’s mouth turn up for the first time tonight.
As the show came back on, the heroine and her friend made it out alive. The narrator going on about how The Power of Friendship brought them to this point.
While the credits rolled,Kaiji murmured unexpectedly, straining his worn voice underneath the pile of blankets.“Thank you, Sahara. For just being here.”
Sahara is taken aback, but points a thumb at himself. “Anytime you need me pal.I’ll come running with the wind at my back.”
But by the end of that short declaration, Kaiji was softly snoring away.
Sahara took the opportunity to place his hand on Kaiji’s forehead again. It was no longer burning, pretty much back to normal.
Great, there was a happy ending to this story too. Time for him to go, it’s late anyway.
“Kaiji.” Sahara nudged his pal’s shoulder.
“Mmm?” Kaiji cracked open an eye.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Sahara waved slowly.
“Good night...” The cured man yawned, then trailed off.
As Sahara put on his shoes and clipped off the lights, he looked back at the scene he’d helped to create.
“ Goodnight.” Sahara said, to someone who he wanted to have more good nights.