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It was a beautiful day and Arakita was not there to see it.
He’d not only missed all of his classes, but was nowhere to be seen by the time practice rolled around at the end of the day. Missing school wasn’t something completely unheard of, of course, but Arakita had been missing without a word for the past two days, and now everyone was starting to notice the biker’s prolonged absence.
“He’ll come back eventually,” Izumida remained hopeful even as Arakita failed to show up day after day. Fukutomi only shrugged.
It’s Toudou who finally brings his teammate’s disappearance into discussion. “Aren’t you guys worried?” He asks the club at the end of practice on the third day, “Arakita’s been gone and nobody’s said anything!” The odd exchanging of glances he gets as a reply doesn’t sit with him well.
“Well yes, we’ve noticed.” Shinkai is the one who seems to be speaking for the group. “But it’s Arakita, he’ll come around. He’s probably not feeling well.” It isn’t enough to satisfy Toudou’s inherent worry, and during his bike ride home he expertly flips out his phone with one hand (his habit of biking and texting Maki-chan at the same time has led him to become quite the multitasker) and punches Arakita’s number in with ease.
The call rings a few times before Arakita picks up, and Toudou isn’t greeted with a normal, casual “Hello?” but rather with a loud, ungrateful, “Hah?!”
“Hah yourself! Where have you been?”
“What? Toudou?”
“You haven’t been at school and you haven’t been showing up to practice, what’s the matter?”
He doesn’t get an immediate reply, and instead hears some shuffling, and then what sounds like sniffling. “I’m sick.”
It’s Toudou’s turn to reply with a surprised ‘Hah?’ and slows his bike to a stop on the side of the street. “Sick? You’ve been sick?”
“That’s what I said, yeah.” More sniffling sounds. “That’s all you called for?”
“You should have told me to bring you some medicine or something! Does Fuku know?!”
Arakita groans from the other side of the line. “I don’t know, I didn’t tell Fuku-chan anything. Can I go back to sleep now?”
“No!” Toudou frowns, and Arakita doesn’t have to see it to know the unpleasant expression on the climber’s face. “I’m coming over. I’ll buy some medicine and come over. Do you want anything to eat?”
“What? Don’t come over.”
“I’m coming over, Arakita!”
“You’re so annoying…”
“Arakita!”
Arakita lets out a sigh, and then a cough. “Whatever. I don’t want medicine, just bring me some Bepsi.”
Toudou arrives holding two giant bags filled with nothing that even remotely look like Bepsi.
“Tch! Why did I even let you in if you didn’t bring me what I wanted?” Arakita stands by the doorway huddled in a blanket, making disapproving glances at the bags in Toudou’s hands.
“All you do is drink soda,” Toudou sets down the bags on the table, making room for them by pushing aside the numerous empty Bepsi bottles he could only imagine had been collecting as Arakita let his sickness fester. “And look, you’re sick and there’s trash everywhere. You need to take medicine if you want to get better.”
“Yeah, okay, thanks for the medicine,” Arakita says with rolling eyes, “You can go home now.”
“No way, I’m going to stay and watch you take it!”
“Hah?! You’re gonna stay? You wanna get sick or somethin’?”
“Arakita,” Toudou says, his voice firm and commanding as he holds out the medicine in one hand and a glass of water in the other. “Medicine.”
He gets a squinted stare in response. “No.”
“Arakita. Medicine.”
“…No.”
“ARAKITA.”
“Fuck, Toudou! I’m sick, don’t yell!” Arakita immediately pops the medicine into his mouth with a defeated grimace and takes a gulp of water. “There, see I took your stupid medicine, now go home.”
But Toudou doesn’t seem to be listening, and instead continues unpacking the bags from where they sat on the table. He pulls out more medicine, vegetables, raw chicken, herbs, spices – Arakita can’t believe his teammate managed to fit this much into the bags and still not bring him any Bepsi.
“What are you doing?” He asks after watching Toudou search for a large pot to put on the stovetop.
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m going to make you chicken soup. I figured you haven’t been eating right for the past few days.” Toudou pauses, and then turns to look at Arakita. “What have you been eating, anyway?”
“Chips. Bepsi. Takeout.”
“What kind of takeout?”
“Fried chicken.”
“If you’re going to order takeout you might as well order something healthy!”
Arakita slumps over onto the couch and rolls himself up in the blanket. “I don’t want any of your soup.”
“I’m going to make it and you’re going to eat it.” Toudou says, beginning to prepare the vegetables and the rest of the ingredients.
The sick biker lets out an agonized groan from the couch. “I don’t want to eat your soup, I’m already in enough pain here, I don’t need to be poisoned.”
“I’m not going to poison you, I’m a great cook!”
“Says you.”
“People happen to like my cooking, Arakita.”
“Is that what they say before they drop dead from extreme food poisoning?”
Toudou lets out a long sigh that rivals the one Arakita let out earlier. He doesn’t continue the banter – he knows Arakita won’t let him win – and lets his sick friend rest on the couch as he cooks.
“Why do you have to be the one to come and take care of me, why couldn’t someone else come instead?” Arakita says after some time, and Toudou isn’t quite sure if Arakita was talking to him or himself.
Toudou answers anyway. “Because Shinkai would just give you power bars and Fuku would try to force feed you apple pie. I’m the best shot you’ve got at recovery!” He doesn’t mean to smile when no one else can see, but his lips curve upwards triumphantly at the thought of how well he was handling the situation. Of course he’d be the one to save the day, he thinks, Toudou Jinpachi can think of anything!
“All I want is Bepsi.” Arakita’s words wipe the smile clean off his face.
“Forget the Bepsi, you’re not getting any!”
Toudou can hear Arakita mumble words under his breath, but they aren’t loud enough for the climber to hear, drowned out by the sound of food cooking on the stovetop. And after some time had passed, Arakita had gone completely silent – almost too quiet for Toudou to feel like he was even in the presence of Arakita’s company at all. It’s strange, but not uncomfortable, and when the soup is ready, Toudou ladles it out into two bowls, neatly sprinkles some decorative garnishes on top, and brings them out into the other room.
“All ready, I hope you’re hungry!” Toudou enters the room and immediately finds that Arakita had dozed off in the time it took the soup to cook. The sick biker had bundled himself up in his blanket like a cocoon – it’s quite the sight, almost like a long bug, Toudou thinks, and he doesn’t want to wake him just yet. He gently places the bowls on the coffee table in front of the couch, and takes a seat.
Arakita doesn’t even stir. Toudou crosses his legs and brings a hand up to play with his hair as he watches Arakita’s chest rise and fall in a steady rhythm. His gaze trails its way to the biker’s face, and Toudou idly starts to notice a few things about his sleeping friend – how his skin looks so smooth and bright, even while sick, how long his bottom eyelashes are, how his lips are parted just slightly to breathe, and how, incredibly enough, he looks so relaxed. For someone who spends much of his waking hours with a furrowed brow and a nasty scowl on his face, seeing him so peaceful and relaxed when sleeping was almost too surreal to see.
Perhaps it was the smell of the soup drifting over to Arakita’s senses, or perhaps Toudou wasn’t as quiet as he thought, but Arakita opens his eyes and turns his attention to the climber sitting across from him. “Wha—? Fuck, did I doze off?” Of course the minute he wakes up, Arakita is back to being generally ungrateful and generally unpleasant.
“I finished cooking,” Toudou shakes himself out of the trance he seemed to have found himself in with this thoughts about Arakita. “Go on, have a taste.”
Arakita turns and sits up, giving Toudou a wary stare. “What were you doing just now, watching me sleep?”
“Wh-what?”
“That’s creepy, you know? You don’t watch someone else when they’re sleeping.”
“I wasn’t--!” Toudou wants to say something more but he stops himself when he sees that Arakita’s face almost looks like it had tinted red when he— No, that had to be Toudou’s imagination. Arakita doesn’t blush, and he sure as hell wouldn’t blush over someone like Toudou, of all people. It had to be the effects of Arakita’s sickness coming over him. But still, something about the idea of Arakita blushing makes Toudou’s cheeks feel warm. The sight of the normally hostile biker with a pink face was almost… cute. So cute, in fact, that Toudou doesn’t realize how long he’d been staring until Arakita brings him out of it again.
“I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” He says with a troubled sigh.
“What? No, you’re sick, that’s fine.”
“Too sick to sleep longer than a few minutes,” He grumbles under his breath, perhaps speaking more to himself than he was to Toudou. “Haven’t gotten a good night’s rest yet.” His eyes seem to inadvertently droop in his fatigue; he sits up and leans over to turn his attention to the food in front of him. “Are you gonna eat too?” He says quietly, changing the subject away from him and his sleep troubles, and sluggishly stirs the soup around with his spoon. Toudou quickly picks up his bowl.
“And miss a chance to eat my cooking? Of course not!” He blows on a spoonful to cool it off and takes a sip – ‘It’s absolutely delicious!’ he praises himself in his head, ‘Arakita is going to love it! He’s going to take one sip and fall in love with it and want me to come over again to cook for him and—'
But Arakita takes one sip and spits it out almost instantly. “What the fuck is this, Toudou? This is disgusting!” And Toudou is taken so off guard he barely has a response.
“What?! What do you mean it’s disgusting, there’s no way!"
“I told you, you were gonna poison me!”
“Stop being ridiculous, your taste buds are probably just affected by your sickness! I mean, if they aren’t already completely ruined by all that unhealthy soda you drink!”
“I told you to just get me a Bepsi and leave, but really you wanted to stay and kill me, is that it?!”
“Don’t be so ridiculous, Arakita! You think I’d do all this if I wanted to kill you?”
As if almost in instinct, Arakita reaches out and grabs Toudou by his shirt, yanking him down to him and slamming their foreheads together. He glares at him menacingly, baring his gums in the unattractive trademark snarl Toudou has gotten so used to, but that’s not what Toudou is paying attention to – their sudden contact has made Arakita’s temperature very obvious.
“You’re…really warm.” Toudou says slowly. “Have you taken your temperature lately?”
“Hah? No?” Arakita lets go of Toudou’s shirt, and the climber immediately gets up to get a cool, wet towel from the kitchen.
“You didn’t know you were running a high fever? Lie down.” Arakita complies, perhaps because lying down felt easier than sitting up, and Toudou gently dabs at his hot skin with the cool towel – pressing it against his forehead, his face, his neck – and it seems to have a relaxing effect on Arakita, who has finally closed his eyes with a deep exhale. “Does it feel good?”
A quick “Mm.” is the only response he gets.
Arakita’s hot forehead warms up the towel gradually, so Toudou replaces it with a colder one and continues, brushing Arakita’s hair away from his face gently, and leaving his hand there longer than he had intended.
“Your hands are cold.” Arakita mumbles quietly under his breath, sleepily slurring his words.
“Oh, sorry, I can—"
“No,” Arakita continues, leaning his face towards Toudou’s palm and earning a wide blush from the other man. “I like it.”
“…You— you’ll forget about this when you’re recovered.” He begins, but notices Arakita has already quickly fallen asleep again. “You must have been so tired… I’m sorry for keeping you up.” Toudou remains there for a long moment, back to staring at Arakita’s sleeping face, his slender features, the oddly serene expression on his face… Toudou brushes a strand of hair away from where it stuck to Arakita’s forehead and softly runs his fingers through his hair.
After some time, Toudou slowly stands to leave and put away the leftover food, but Arakita, suddenly awake again, grabs his wrist. “Wait,” his voice is low and raspy, “Don’t leave yet.”
“You want me to stay?”
“I... when you’re here… it’s stupid… but...” Arakita seems to have difficulty finding his words, and he looks away from Toudou to stare at a spot on the floor, as if not looking at the man in front of him gives him enough courage to say what he’s thinking. “I feel like I can sleep around you. I feel comfortable. So I want you to stay.”
Only a few seconds had actually passed, but the subsequent silence that falls between them feels like it drags on for hours. When Arakita seems to finally register what he had just said, he lets go of Toudou’s wrist immediately. “No! Forget that shit I just said, I’m sick, I don’t know what I’m talking about!”
“Arakita…” This time, Toudou knows Arakita is blushing, but the matching blush on his own face leaves him speechless as well.
“Just go home or something!”
“Let’s go to your room.” Toudou finally replies.
“Hah?!” Arakita’s head bolts up at lightning speed to look at the climber with wide eyes, and the blush on his face only deepens – did he take that the wrong way?
“Wait! No I didn’t mean— I mean you should sleep in your bed and not on the couch!” Toudou quickly moves to help Arakita sit up. “I’ll help you to your room, come on.”
Arakita doesn’t put up any resistance and lets his friend drag him over to his room. “If you want me to thank you for this, I’m not going to.” He says, looking away from the climber and scowling as much as his current energy level could possibly muster.
“Sure, you can thank me later.” Toudou smiles brightly down at Arakita, who doesn’t return it whatsoever.
“I just said I wasn’t going—" Toudou drops him on his bed before he can finish. “What the fuck, this is how you treat a sick person?!”
“Here I am doing all of this for you and this is the thanks I get.” Toudou rests his hands on his hips and his face twists into a displeased pout. “Maybe I should have never come after all.”
“That’s what I said in the first place, isn’t it?” Arakita lifts up his blankets to slide in, and drags out a sigh when he finally rests his head on the soft pillow. “I didn’t want you to come, you almost poisoned me, and you didn’t even bring Bepsi.”
Toudou shoots Arakita a glare, but the sick biker only rolls onto his side to expertly avoid eye contact. Ignoring his friend’s previous comments, Toudou fixes the blankets and tucks him into bed gently. “Well anyway, here I am regardless. So do you still want me to stay…?”
Arakita still doesn’t turn to look at him when he replies, “Don’t make me tell you again… shit’s embarrassing.” So Toudou slowly lays down beside him, not really knowing where to put his hands or what to do, or if he was even doing it right in the first place. But Arakita figures it out for the both of them; he shifts his body and rests his back against Toudou’s chest, and almost instinctively Toudou wraps an arm around Arakita, who sheepishly moves to hold onto his hand.
“Don’t get the wrong idea here, your hands are cool and they feel nice right now.” Arakita says,
“I won’t tell anyone, you can’t help it if you’re attracted to me,” Toudou teases, a smile graciously forming on his lips, and it earns him a kick.
“Ugh, you’re so annoying…” Arakita trails off, and ends the conversation there.
“Shhh, go to sleep.”
When Arakita wakes up well into the afternoon of the next day (the most successful sleep he’d had since his sickness began, he admits), Toudou is gone. He could almost believe Toudou’s entire visit was just some sort of deranged fever-induced dream if it weren’t for the bowls in the sink and the leftover soup in the fridge. The soup is a lot better the second time around, he later finds out, and now he could almost feel grateful that Toudou had left him with all this food. Arakita takes the medicine left out for him and walks into the other room.
There is a Bepsi on the table.