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They’d started riding to school together on the first day of high school. It had been Tamaki’s idea-- of course-- and as Tamaki had bounced around the room pouring out his theatrical explanation as to why carpooling was brilliant, Kyoya had decided it would be more beneficial than detrimental to agree. It would be a much needed morning wake up call, if nothing else. At least his days wouldn’t start off boring.
Now, though, Kyoya might have been regretting his decision.
They’d had their system in place for a couple of years and were quite practiced at it. A driver would leave the Ootori estate and go to retrieve the early riser first, while Kyoya dragged himself out of bed and schooled himself back into consciousness. On mornings where his father required his presence over breakfast, he would rise a bit earlier, join them all at the table, and let Tamaki’s arrival be his good excuse to duck away.
There had been no family breakfast that morning, which was good because Kyoya had barely been able to get himself upright and eyes-open as was. His legs felt like lead, and his joints felt like sand, and whatever had crawled into his sinuses and started to swell was not a welcomed house guest. Kyoya kept his eyes peeled just long enough to get to the car and into the backseat, and once his back hit the deliciously cool leather upholstery, he dropped his head back against the headrest and let his burning eyes fall shut.
Tamaki had been halfway through a good morning salutation when he took notice: “Kyoya, mon ami, good morn-- what’s the matter?”
If Kyoya ignored him the way he wanted to, Tamaki would quickly become unbearable. Fussing and fluttering and poking and prodding. As it was, Tamaki was already in his space, too close to him on the sprawling backseat, which Kyoya typically didn’t mind, except he was already overheated.
Better to bite the bullet.
He forced his eyes back open and spoke in a calm, unbothered voice. “I seem to have come down with a head cold, but it’s nothing you need to worry about.”
“You don’t look well,” Tamaki bulldozed. “You’re wearing a face mask.”
Kyoya sighed. “It’s a simple courtesy. The last thing anyone wants is me sneezing on them.”
“Are you feverish?”
Kyoya batted Tamaki’s hands away from him. “I am fine,” he protested. “My family works in medicine. Do you honestly believe they’d allow me to leave the house if I wasn’t well enough?”
If he was being honest, they hardly paid enough attention to him to notice, and the staff could try and persuade him to stay home, but there weren’t any domineering care-taker personalities among the Ootori servants-- not like Tamaki’s Shima-san, then again Kyoya wasn’t immature enough to still require a governess. He’d outgrown the need for nannies before the end of elementary school.
Tamaki believed it, or at least pretended to. “Well, if you’re sure...”
“Did you finish the economics package?” Kyoya asked, cutting him off and hoping a quick subject change would provide ample distraction. “You should compare your work to mine. First folder, biggest pocket.” Tamaki was already rifling through his school bag, and Kyoya let himself relax again. He had twenty-three more minutes of peace before they arrived to campus and he would have to affix himself with a polite and friendly demeanor for their schoolmates. At least he didn’t have to pretend with Tamaki. Tamaki worked quietly next to him, and he let Kyoya rest to the sound of quiet muttering and the occasional scratching of pencil on paper.
---
“You look tired today, Ootori.”
The speaker was Yuto Nakamura, second son of a well-established furniture manufacturing plant owner, and while he probably meant to ill-intent with his comment, the observation had Kyoya seeing red.
The medicine he’d taken that morning had either worn off or had never started working in the first place. His eyes were flaming, his headache was roaring, he couldn’t breathe out of his nose, and swallowing felt like grinding sand into an open wound. He wanted so terribly to go to sleep, but it was only ten a.m. They had hardly even begun the school day. The past two hours had lasted a hundred years.
“Did you see that new viral video going around?” Tamaki asked, voice too loud and too close and Kyoya closed his eyes for a single, blessed moment. They had a ten minute break between classes, and Tamaki was spending it seated on Kyoya’s desk, fielding conversation away from him whenever anyone tried. Kyoya would have appreciated it if he had the capacity to be anything but nauseated and annoyed.
“The one with the cat?” Tamaki continued, and Nakamura’s attention slipped away from Kyoya and to the other boy, who was wriggling around and pulling out his cellphone. “You’re going to love this, come here, check it out.”
If Tamaki wasn’t on Kyoya’s desk, Kyoya could have laid his head down. Could have closed his eyes and rested a moment. If he tried now, he’d be putting his head in Tamaki’s lap. No, that wouldn’t do. Kyoya kept himself upright.
His eyes slipped shut, and what felt like seconds later he jerked his head back up and eyes back open. Tamaki had returned to his seat behind Kyoya and was prodding at his back. Their teacher had returned and begun lecturing again. Kyoya wasn’t sure how much he had missed.
---
“You should eat.” Tamaki’s voice was sing-song and his arm was around Kyoya’s shoulders and Kyoya felt claustrophobic. Tamaki waved a spoonful of soup under his nose, and Kyoya felt his stomach turn over. He nudged Tamaki away and extracted himself from the other boy’s space so he could manage a breath of air, so he didn’t throw up on him. The soup spilled from the spoon and onto the floor between them.
“You enjoy,” Kyoya said, and his voice sounded weird and his ears felt plugged up. He pulled his bag into his lap and dug through it for a moment, looking for cold medicine. He couldn’t remember if he’d brought an extra.
“At least drink this,” Tamaki said, and Kyoya found a bottle of water being pressed into his hands as his bag was tugged away. He didn’t know what Tamaki was doing with it, but the water was wonderfully, blessedly cold. He pulled his glasses off and pressed the bottle to his forehead. He sighed.
Tamaki let out some sort of disgruntled hum. “Do you have an entire pharmacy in here?” he asked, and he upended Kyoya’s bag on his desk to search, and Kyoya sighed. He picked through it, and Tamaki shoveled everything back into the bag and said, “We should go to the nurse.”
“I’m not going to waste her time with--”
“You’re sick.”
Kyoya swallowed a pill dry, nearly choked on it. “I’m fine.”
“You’re lying.”
“You’re annoying.” Tamaki pouted at him, and Kyoya deliberately looked away from him. He uncapped the water and went to take a sip... and spilled it down the front of his shirt. He coughed, sputtered, set the bottle down and pulled the dripping cotton mask off of his face.
Without his glasses, he couldn’t make out the details of Tamaki’s facial expression, but he was pretty certain that he was holding back laughter. Kyoya narrowed his eyes. “You’re obviously in perfect health,” Tamaki said.
“I am going to destroy you.” Kyoya put as much heat into his voice as he could muster, and Tamaki simply nodded and patted his arm.
---
The walk from their classroom to music room #3 was excruciating. Perhaps he had overdone it with the cold medicine. He’d taken Tamiflu, and dextromethorphan, and Mucinex, which may have also contained dextromethorphan-- he couldn’t remember-- and an ibuprofen, and some zinc. Not all at the same time. One by one, as his symptoms failed to improve, until he reached the end of his day and realized he may have overdone it.
His head felt like a precariously tied balloon. Every time Kyoya blinked, his vision flashed white. The lights were making his head throb, and he still couldn’t breathe through his nose. He was counting down the hours before he could go home and pass out, mourning the hours of work he’d be missing that he’d need to catch up on later, and dreading the fact that he’d be relying on Tamaki’s notes from class that day. His own notes were useless, but Tamaki’s were always nearly incomprehensible.
It was going to be a long few days.
It was a long walk. Tamaki had taken his bag away and insisted on carrying it, and Kyoya didn’t have the energy it would take to get it back. He felt ridiculous, but he kept his attention firmly on walking and acting normally. God forbid he stumble and have the moron insist on helping him walk.
When they reached their destination, Kyoya snatched his bag back, lugged it over to his usual table, and collapsed into his seat without a word to anyone else there. He hoped this behavior wasn’t uncharacteristic enough to draw attention. When he got his eyes to focus, he saw that his notebook said they were pretty well booked for the day-- Tamaki had a nearly full schedule, and the others were busy enough to justify holding club hours that afternoon. His own schedule was, thankfully, clear. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t booked any appointments today, but he certainly wasn’t complaining about it. Now he just had to keep himself conscious and upright until the end of the day, and then somehow find the energy to get to the parking lot, and then into the house, and then to bed.
Good Lord.
“You should take a nap,” Tamaki crooned, hands falling on Kyoya’s shoulders and kneading, and Kyoya was full of aches and pains. It hurt. He grimaced. “The books can wait an afternoon.”
“I don’t think they can,” Kyoya said, voice more of a croak that he was expecting. He cleared his throat, and it split back open. He swallowed thickly. It burned. “Don’t draw attention.”
“You already have our attention.” Hikaru appeared on Kyoya’s left, apparently out of thin air, and Kaoru promptly appeared on the right.
“Yeah, what’s with the face mask?”
“Are you sick?”
“Diseased?”
“Mommy caught a love bug from Daddy.”
“Ew,” Kyoya said evenly. Tamaki was rubbing his shoulders again. Kyoya sighed and considered admitting defeat, but no, Ootori’s didn’t admit defeat to anything. It was only a few more hours. There was no need to be melodramatic.
“Our guests will be arriving in a matter of minutes,” Kyoya said, rubbing his eyes under his glasses. He was sweating. Why was he sweating when it felt so cold? He felt sick. He needed to get a grip before the club activities started. “So if you please--”
All he’d wanted to do was stand up, go rinse off in the restroom, and get ready for the club to start. It should have been easy: stand, walk, return. Basic human functioning. Unfortunately, when he got to his feet his head immediately filled with static, and his vision tunneled. He had a brief, panicked moment where he was absolutely certain he was going to throw up, and then his vision went black and he felt himself collapse.
His legs buckled, but he snapped back to consciousness to the sound of yelling and something catching him under the arms and hauling him upright. His head was still spinning. He needed to lie down. He--
He was being lifted?
“Put me down, moron,” Kyoya ground out, and he was just a bit too heavy for Tamaki to get a steady hold of him. Kyoya squirmed, tried to kick free, and Tamaki stumbled, nearly sent them both sprawling, but then--
“Let me,” Mori said, and Kyoya was properly hefted up this time, much to his indignation.
“This is ridiculous,” he complained, voice cracking and threatening to give out entirely. Mori’s shoulder digging into his stomach wasn’t doing his nausea any favors, and if Kyoya actually threw up he was never showing his face again. The twins were laughing at him, while Tamaki and Honey buzzed around nervously.
“You shouldn’t work when you’re sick, Kyo-chan, you’ll only make yourself feel worse,” Honey was saying, as if he held any authority to be scolding him. Then Kyoya was being dropped, gently, onto a sofa in the corner of the room.
“Men! Thermometer!” Tamaki ordered, voice still booming and making Kyoya’s head throb. He winced. Tried to sit up and get to his feet, but Tamaki planted a hand in the middle of his chest and pushed him back down.
“Yes sir!” the twins crowed.
“Today’s mission is ‘make Kyoya take a nap’!” he declared, and somehow got his hands on a thermometer, that he was now trying to force into Kyoya’s mouth. Kyoya batted his hands away from his face.
“You have actual work to do!”
“Doesn’t matter!”
“Knock it off!”
They wrestled for a moment, dust cloud forming around them and onomatopoeia kanji floating through the surrounding air, as Kyoya tried to get off of the couch and keep Tamaki’s hands away from his face, and Tamaki kept pushing him back down and trying to force the thermometer into his mouth. Kyoya considered biting him. He might have been a little delirious.
Before he got the chance, Tamaki did something insane (re: fairly normal, for him). He climbed onto the couch and sat heavily in the middle of Kyoya’s stomach, pushing Kyoya’s head back down with a finger in the middle of his forehead. He frowned down at him. Kyoya glowered back.
“Just let me take care of you!” he complained “Why are you so stubborn?”
Kyoya just glared.
Tamaki pouted.
Kyoya glared harder.
Tamaki turned on the puppy dog eyes.
“Fine,” Kyoya spat. He wormed a hand out from under Tamaki to tug his mask all the way off and pluck the thermometer from his hand. He stuck it under his tongue and crossed his arms over his chest.
Tamaki nodded, apparently proud of himself. “See? Was that so hard, mi amor?”
He was lucky that Kyoya couldn’t speak around the thermometer.
There was more fussing. Honey came around with an armful of blankets, and the twins bobbed around making unneeded comments that tested Kyoya’s patience. They also dragged in a privacy screen from somewhere. Tamaki took the thermometer from him when it beeped, knuckle skimming Kyoya’s bottom lip and making his nausea rise again, different this time. He pressed his hand to Kyoya’s forehead as he read it with a frown.
“You said it wasn’t bad!” he hollered. “What does this look like!?” He waved the thermometer in front of Kyoya’s eyes, too fast to read.
Honey leaned in to look and frowned. “Thirty-nine degrees is really high...”
“That’s it!” Tamaki declared. “I am taking you home and putting you right to bed!”
“Our guests are arriving,” Mori said from the doorway. Tamaki drooped.
“I’m taking you home and putting you to bed later!” he amended. Kyoya would have rolled his eyes if it didn’t hurt so much. He still couldn’t breathe when Tamaki climbed off of him and straightened his clothes out, but now he was cold as well. His body shivered, absolutely out of his own control. He detested it.
“Stay here and rest,” Tamaki said, taking the pile of blankets Honey had found and spreading them over Kyoya, tucking them in unnecessarily. “Daddy will be disappointed if you get up,” he winked. Kyoya considered throwing up on him on purpose.
“You need to stop calling yourself that.”
“Sleep.”
“Fine.”
Tamaki reached out and took the glasses off of his face, folding them gently and setting them aside on a nearby table. He then leaned in, unbearably close, and Kyoya’s heart stopped for a moment before Tamaki’s lips pressed against his forehead. He brushed Kyoya’s hair off of his face. He grinned.
And then he was gone.
Kyoya wondered briefly if it was a fever dream.
And then he was out.
---
Kyoya woke a short while later to the sound of something being set down next to him, and he found Haruhi and a colorful glass bottle on the coffee table.
“You should use a coaster,” he said, voice barely a rasp, and Haruhi turned to look at him, startled.
“Didn’t mean to wake you, senpai,” they said, nodding. “I was at the market anyways, and this juice always made me feel better when I was little.”
Kyoya glanced at the juice, then at his fellow host. Huh. “Thanks.”
They turned and left, and then Tamaki’s voice was once again too loud and too close. “HARUHI, THAT WAS SO SWEET OF YOU!”
“HEY! PUT ME DOWN!’
“YOU DO HAVE NURTURING INSTINCTS, JUST LIKE A GIRL!”
“I SAID KNOCK IT OFF.”
Kyoya sighed, dragged a pillow over his head, and relished in the sweet, muffled darkness. Soon club hours would be over, and he’d be subjected to a long evening of Tamaki fussing over him and trying to play nurse. For now, he enjoyed his sliver of sick, achey peace.