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It’s RItsu’s gym teacher who first notices that something’s wrong with him. The boy is unusually sluggish, his breaths coming out in shallow pants, his cheeks bright red after only a few laps around the track. It’s extremely out of the ordinary for the boy, who usually possesses a nearly boundless amount of endurance and energy.
“Kageyama!” Tanaka-sensei calls, watching as Ritsu stumbles mid-jog and nearly faceplants into the asphalt with concern. The boy looks his way, and his teacher waves him over.
Ritsu stops running with a look of immeasurable relief written across his face. He drags himself over to his teacher, panting heavily, and asks, “yes, sensei?” in a shaky voice.
“You look awful,” Tanaka-sensei, never one for delicacy, deadpans. “Go to the nurse, please.”
Ritsu frowns and shakes his head. “I-I'm not sick,” he wheezes, trembling hands on his knees.
“You clearly are. I’m not going to have you making yourself worse by overexerting yourself. Even kids like you need to take a break every once and awhile, alright? Are you going to go on your own, or do I need to have another student escort you?”
The prospect of anyone else having to watch Ritsu’s pathetic, stumbling trek to the nurse’s office persuades him to follow his teacher’s advice. Wordlessly, he nods and walks off the track toward the changing room. He sheds his gym clothes and exchanges them for his regular uniform at a snail’s pace, then wobbles his way down to the nurse’s office. She takes one look at him—sweaty, flushed, and shaking—and makes to call his parents.
“I-I can’t go home,” Ritsu says quickly as she reaches for the phone. His voice comes out raw and scratchy. “There’s a student council meeting after school.”
Unlike Tanaka-sensei, the nurse is more empathetic to his concerns. “Your dedication to your club is very admirable,” she praises with a soft, understanding smile, “but you can’t stay here like this. The last thing we want is for you to make yourself worse. Besides, you don’t want to get anyone else sick, do you, honey?”
Ritsu lowers his head guiltily and shakes his head. “No,” he reluctantly admits. She pats his head softly and returns to the phone, calling his mother and explaining the situation. Before she hangs up, Ritsu asks to speak to her.
“Ritsu, honey, I’m coming to pick you up now, okay?” Akane’s voice comes through the phone soft and full of concern.
“You don’t have to,” says Ritsu, who hates making trouble for anybody. His parents have always told him not to worry about finances, but he can’t help feeling guilty about pulling his mother away from her job to take care of him. “I-I can walk home, I’ll be alright.”
“I know you would be,” Akane replies patiently, “but it would make me feel better if I came and got you. You just sit tight and rest, okay?”
Well aware that his mother is not going to budge on this, Ritsu mumbles his acceptance. They bid each other goodbye, and Ritsu sets the phone back on the hook. “I should get my homework for the day before I go,” he tells the nurse, who chuckles a little at his antics and shakes her head.
“No, you shouldn’t. You just sit right there and rest up—I’ll let your brother’s homeroom teacher know to have him get your work for you at the end of the day.”
Ritsu winces at that, but says nothing in reply. The last person he wants to make trouble for is Nii-san, even if he’s sure the boy wouldn’t mind. He hates being a burden to anyone—least of all his relentlessly kind, patient, wonderful elder brother, who has already done far more for him than Ritsu feels he deserves. He hates the idea of making Shigeo go even further out of his way for him than he already does, especially for something as minor as retrieving a few assignments. Ritsu could easily do it himself and save Nii-san the trouble, but he’s quite certain the nurse wouldn’t hesitate to strap him down to the bed until his mother arrived if it came down to it.
So, Ritsu spends the next twenty minutes laying on the small cot in the nurse’s office, staring blankly at the ceiling. His mind is becoming a bit hazy, and he struggles to focus on anything. Several times he almost drifts off, but forces himself awake each time for fear of worrying the nurse.
Eventually, his mother appears. Ritsu doesn’t realize just how weak and tired he feels until he sits up and a wave of dizziness rush over him. Heat flushes his system and his cheeks are burning as he forces himself up onto shaky legs. His mother comes close and wraps a comforting arm around his shoulders, clicking her tongue and saying something that doesn’t register in Ritsu’s addled mind as she leads him out of the room.
The drive home is mostly silent; Akane runs through a checklist of different symptoms—runny nose, fever, coughing, stomach ache, the like—and Ritsu tries his best to tell his mother how he’s feeling without worrying her too much. Then they lapse into silence, Ritsu's head resteing against the cool glass window. When they arrive home, Akane slings her son's school bag over her shoulder and Ritsu realizes, as he’s guided into the house, that he’d forgotten all about it.
A few hazy minutes pass as Akane helps him into bed and fusses over him. She takes his temperature, makes him drink a glass of water, sets out some light pajamas for him to change into. Ritsu obeys in a dizzy fog, eventually finding himself laying in bed without much knowledge of how he’d come to be there. He drifts off to the comforting sensation of his mother’s gentle fingers carding through his sweat-slicked hair.
“Ritsu, honey,” he awakens to what feels like both seconds and years later to Akane’s hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake. She helps him sit up, presses a glass of water into his hands. He sips at it obediently.
“I have to run to the grocery store. I’ll only be gone a few minutes—do you need anything before I go?” Ritsu shakes his head no and she smiles affectionately. “Okay, honey. I’m sorry to wake you; you just stay right here, okay? Go back to sleep. I’ll be back in a little bit.”
Ritsu nods his agreement and Akane gives him a gentle squeeze before leaving the room. Ritsu sits there and stares at the wall, sipping at the cold water until the glass is empty. Then he blinks uncomprehendingly down at the cold glass and frowns. He’s still thirsty—he needs more water. Mom will bring him some soon, he thinks. But she’s at the store, isn’t she? She’d only just left, so she won’t be back for half an hour at least. The idea of waiting that long to quench his thirst makes Ritsu's frown deepen. He slips out from under the covers and stands on wobbly legs.
The walk to the kitchen is a slow one, one hand trailing along the wall and the other clutching the glass tightly in his shaky fingers so as to prevent it from slipping through his weakened grasp. When he finally reaches the kitchen, he sets the glass on the counter and sucks a shuddering breath in. The walk had exhausted him; he suddenly feels as though trying to make it back to his room would take too much out of him.
He shuffles toward the fridge, intent on retrieving the pitcher of cold water his mother keeps within, only to stop when he hears the door open.
“M-Mom,” Ritsu’s voice is weak and squeaky when he calls out to her, but he doesn’t care. He’s just relieved that she’s returned.
That relief turns to surprise, though, when Shigeo is the one who walks into the kitchen. Ritsu’s head swivels, and he blinks at the time displayed on the stove with confusion. Shouldn’t Nii-san be at club right now?
“Ritsu, what are you doing up?” Shigeo asks with concern, staring at him from the doorway.
“N-Nii-san,” is all Ritsu manages to say in reply before another wave of dizziness crashes over him.
The world tilts on his axis and he stumbles, trying to keep his footing and failing miserably. He sways, and then pitches forward; in the next second, he’s pressed against a warm body, and Shigeo is there. The elder boy’s arms are tight across his shoulders, supporting the weight Ritsu can no longer support for himself.
Even so, Ritsu's embarrassment skyrockets. He may not be entirely coherent, but the feeling of his weakened body being drawn closer to his elder brother's provides him with all the information he needs: he's burdening Shigeo with something he should be dealing with himself.
"I-I can stand," RItsu stubbornly insists, even though he's pretty sure he can't.
Luckily, Shigeo doesn't believe him. "I don't care," his brother says. He bends down, hooking an arm beneath Ritsu's knees, and hoists the boy into the air. In a moment of clarity, Ritsu realizes that Shigeo’s aura hasn’t surrounded him—that his brother is strong enough to carry him unassisted, now—before the suddenness of the lift catches up with him and he gets a head rush that makes him giggle deliriously.
“N-Nii-san, you have m-muscles,” muses Ritsu hazily, his arms swaying limply as Shigeo carries him off down the hall and back to his bedroom.
“Not really.” Shigeo informs him as he approaches the younger boy’s bed. He uses telekinesis to pull back the covers, then gently eases Ritsu down onto the soft mattress. “I’ll be right back,” he says in his usual calm, gentle tone.
Ritsu watches him walk away and whimpers to himself, bereft at his brother's parting. When Shigeo returns he brightens instantly, so delighted by Shigeo's presence one would think he’d been gone for weeks. He doesn’t even notice the glass of water Shigeo has carried in until he’s bringing it to Ritsu’s lips. Ritsu shakes his head and takes the glass in a weak hand, determined to do it himself. Shigeo releases his hold on it, but has to catch it and its contents in midair with his telekenisis only seconds later when it slips from Ritsu's slack grip. Shigeo plucks the glass out of the air and patiently raises it to his younger brother's mouth; this time, when Ritsu makes another persistent grab for it, he shakes his head. Weakened, Ritsu accepts defeat and drinks the water.
When he’s finished, Shigeo sets the glass down on his nightstand. “Do you need anything else?” He asks, reaching out to run his hand through Ritsu’s hair much the same way their mother had. Ritsu relishes in the contact, deflating beneath his hand with a bleary smile. His eyes flutter closed, comforted, and he shakes his head.
“Then you should rest,” Shigeo tells him. “I’ll check on you in a few minutes, okay?”
“Nnn—!” Ritsu whimpers in protest, eyes popping open as Shigeo makes to pull away. His cheeks would have colored in embarrassment had they not already been flushed, but Shigeo doesn't seem to mind his sudden outburst, waiting patiently for him to continue. Ritsu hesitates a moment, half tempted to let Shigeo leave if only to prove that he's capable of taking care of himself. But he really doesn't want to be alone. He can pass this all off as fever-induced delirium tomorrow, he decides, but today he's going to be selfish.
“Don’t go,” he pleads, hands crawling up Shigeo’s arm, curling around it and laying claim to the appendage.
A soft, affectionate little smile comes to Shigeo’s face. “Okay,” he says gently, and slides into bed beside Ritsu, propping himself up against the wall behind him.
Ritsu hums in quiet contentment and curls further into Shigeo, his head slumping against the elder boy with a soft sigh. Within seconds he’s drifted off again, snuffling into Shigeo’s shoulder. Shigeo stays there until his mother comes home and halfheartedly chastises him for being so careless—what if he catches a cold now, too?, she asks—but he doesn’t mind at all.