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Kaito walks into the AV room and almost walks right back out as soon as he registers the figure on the couch, done up in purple and white and a favored checkered scarf. He just wants to watch a documentary or something, it’s not worth getting harassed by Ouma over it.
Then he realizes that Amami’s here too, and he has to do a double take. It’s not weird for the two of them to spend time together, per se, but that time is usually spent by Ouma testing Amami’s patience (Godspeed, man) and generally bouncing all over the place. Amami recovers from Ouma’s Ouma-ness faster than anyone else, but not even Amami’s seemingly endless sisters (seriously, he’s mentioned like, seven different names at this point but he always clams up before Kaito can ask him about it) could prepare him for… All that.
Nothing could, probably. Ouma’s jarring in more than one way.
Right now, though, there’s a stillness uncharacteristic of any room with Ouma in it, largely attributed to the fact that Ouma looks like he’s out cold. Amami jolts when he walks in, a mildly guilty expression on his face that has Kaito briefly fearing the worst before he registers the lack of blood and the rise and fall of Ouma’s chest. His breathing is audible from across the room, actually, geez.
Amami’s kneeling in front of the couch, where Ouma’s pressed into the corner, upright with his arms crossed loosely over his chest. DVD cases are piled on the floor next to Amami, who’s frozen with one in hand. He relaxes when he sees that it’s Kaito at the door.
“Dude,” Kaito says, keeping his voice low in deference to Ouma. He definitely doesn’t want him to be active again. “Have you been stacking DVDs on him while he’s sleeping?”
Amami shrugs, shameless now that he knows he isn’t about to be scolded by… Akamatsu, maybe? He’s not sure there’s anyone else that would protest this, and she can be surprisingly petty, so who knows. “Yeah. You have to take every chance you get to mildly inconvenience someone. It’s like, sibling law.”
Far be it from Kaito to stop Ouma from suffering, but the closer he gets the surer he is that they’re about to have a huge problem on their hands.
He’s never seen Ouma sleep before—which is something he can say about everyone except Yumeno, who frequently falls asleep in places she really shouldn’t, and Saihara, who’s an absolute nightmare in the mornings.
Someone as paranoid as Ouma would normally never do something that would leave him vulnerable like this, especially not when one of their classmates was murdered and another executed less than 48 hours ago. Which means that something else is out of the ordinary here, and Kaito has a sinking feeling that he knows exactly what it is.
Ouma’s head is tilted towards his chest at an angle that makes Kaito’s neck twinge in sympathy. He feels weird looming above Ouma and Amami, so he lowers himself carefully onto the cushion at the other end of the couch. From this angle, he can barely see Ouma’s face, which is lightly flushed and sweaty. His lips are pale and slightly parted, kind of chapped from the whole mouth-breathing thing Ouma’s got going on.
Amami leans in to place another DVD on Ouma’s shoulder. It’s an impressive tower, resting precariously on the slope of his limp arm. He doesn’t seem too worried about waking Ouma up, but there’s a downward tilt to his eyebrows that ruins his unaffected exterior.
Kaito rests his arm along the back of the couch. His hand dangles where Ouma’s head would be if he were sitting on it properly instead of curled up sideways with his back to the arm. The proximity pretty much confirms his fears; any plausible deniability he had is wiped away by the palpable fever emanating from him.
“Hey, isn’t he kinda warm?”
“You noticed it too, huh?” Amami smiles ruefully. His hands clench around the cases in them. “To be honest, I was just walking by and happened to see him through the gap in the door.” He gestures to the perpetually jammed sliding door that leads to the hall. “I was worried, so I went around to check up on him, but it was pretty obvious he’s coming down with something. That’s why I decided to stay here. I didn’t want to wake him up, but I couldn’t leave him here, either.”
The why remains unspoken. Amami is almost as paranoid as Ouma is, he’s just better at acting like a normal person. He’s still kind of a weirdo, though, hence the stacking.
“If that’s the case, do you mind if I put something on? I’m pretty sure we can find something more interesting to watch.”
Amami makes a doubtful noise. Still, he picks up the rest of the DVDs and returns them to their shelves. He shrugs when Kaito asks him what he wants to watch, so Kaito rifles through the documentaries until he finds one about space that looks promising. Amami turns off the lights ‘for the atmosphere,’ and by the time Kaito’s finished setting up the projector, his vacated seat has been claimed by the other boy.
Kaito shrugs and takes the middle seat. Ouma’s down for the count and there’s plenty of room, so it should be fine. He won’t get sick if he doesn’t get too close. It’ll be fine.
/
It is, decidedly, not fine.
Ouma sleeps like a rock through the beginning of the documentary. After a while, he startles himself awake apropos to nothing, sending a spray of DVD cases cascading to the floor. He looks sort of out of it, from fever or because he doesn’t wake up well, Kaito can’t tell. The clattering confuses him more, and he looks at Kaito like he’s never seen him before.
“What the fuck,” he says, incredibly hoarse. Kaito hopes some of that’s from waking up because otherwise Ouma’s throat has got to be completely shredded.
“Oh, you’re awake,” Amami says casually, as if he hadn’t personally caused the small avalanche.
Ouma rightens his body from its slumped position and pulls his legs up onto the couch. Brushing the rest of Amami’s movies onto the floor, his eyes sweep around the room, eventually landing back on Kaito as if he expects some sort of explanation from him. Kaito looks to Amami for help, but the other boy simply smiles serenely.
“Well, you were sleepin’, and Amami was pranking you, and I wanted to use the projector,” Kaito offers, feeling as though this is mostly self-explanatory. There isn’t much else to do in the AV room, and while Amami and Kaito aren’t exactly the type for pranks, Amami is definitely more mischievous than Kaito is.
“That’s—What?” More openly befuddled than Kaito’s ever heard him, Ouma wilts, a slow forward motion that leaves his chest flush with his legs. He folds his arms over them, chin resting on top, blinking slowly. His gaze tracks lazily between the two of them, never truly settling.
Kaito exchanges a look with Amami, frowning.
“Man, are you feelin’ alright?” He asks. Like, the answer is obviously no, but Kaito’s feeling his way across the ice before putting all his weight on it.
“Peachy,” Ouma says, eyes now closed.
“Ouma-kun, why didn’t you stay in your room if you were sick?” Amami shifts so he can see around Kaito better. Kaito leans back into the cushion, somewhat concerned by the fact that he can feel Ouma’s fever despite the ten-centimeter gap between them. The documentary continues on in the background, but no one pays it any mind.
Ouma evades the question with one of his own. “Why are you acting like I’m the one being weird and not Momota-chan?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Even in this state, Ouma manages to piss him off. It’s remarkable, honestly.
“Well, Momota-chan is pretending that he cares about lil ol’ me,” Ouma says, matter of fact. He yawns, not bothering to open his eyes, continuing in an increasingly worrying voice, low and slow like he’s putting effort into making sure his words come out in the right order. “When he was happy to let Miss Assassin-chan put her hands on me like… Two days ago.”
The ice collapses underneath his feet. The conversation turns frigid in an instant. Kaito feels it like a blow to the stomach, a sharp pain followed by a dull ache that can only be guilt.
Amami sucks in air through his teeth. He gives Kaito a look that reads ‘yikes.’
Kaito opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. His knee-jerk reaction is to protest Ouma’s shitty nickname for Harukawa, but the quality of it is so poor and jumbled that it almost isn’t worth it. Ouma’s usually brighter than that with his nicknames, if not cruel then creative. He takes a breath and promises himself he’ll deal with the tension between the two of them later.
Ouma’s not… Wrong. Technically. Kaito hasn’t thought much about it since, but Harukawa did have to get talked down from strangling Ouma after the trial. He’d felt ashamed at the time, when Chabashira ended up doing what he was too stunned to. You know you’ve fucked up if Chabashira of all people defends a guy from a girl before you’ve even thought to intervene.
Ouma shrugged it off, though he made a point of criticizing the group’s ‘supposed leaders’ before skipping off to the elevator, appearing no worse for the wear. It occurs to him, suddenly, that he never bothered to check up on Ouma after that because he was busy trying to get through to Harukawa after she finally started leaving her lab during the day. Did anyone? Surely Amami would have, or Akamatsu. He pesters Saihara every day. And he hangs around Gonta and Kiibo, doesn’t he? Someone had to have asked after him.
Amami elbows him and Kaito realizes he hasn’t replied. His teeth click when he closes his mouth. Well. Time to fall back on the old hero routine. It’s reliable in situations like these, though he knows Ouma thinks he’s naïve for it. Joke’s on him, because Kaito thinks he’s the naïve one.
“What the hell? Why wouldn’t I be concerned right now?” Maybe he fucked up and overlooked something that, in retrospect, was pretty obviously the right thing to do, but that doesn’t mean Kaito wants to see him get hurt!
Even if Kaito absolutely hated him—which he doesn’t, Ouma’s just kind of a brat, and he was helpful in the class trial even if he was a bastard about it—one of the worst possible things that could happen right now would be if anybody were to get sick while they have no access to medical attention. Worse still would be an illness leaping from person to person and taking them out of commission en masse. It won’t reassure anyone that they can go back to the relative normalcy of a few days ago if they start dropping like flies.
“Ouma-kun?” Amami prompts, once again drawing Kaito’s attention back to the stilted conversation.
“Hmm.” Ouma hums, a reflexive response to his name. He’s lax in sleep, held up by his bent legs, cheeks streaked with rouge in the dark. The last bit of tension leaves his face quite suddenly, as if he were holding out against unconsciousness and finally lost. The blankness there is completely different from what Ouma usually puts up. It’s peaceful despite the general discomfort that always comes with fever.
“I don’t think you’re going to get anything out of him for a while.”
“Is it safe to keep him out here? Shouldn’t he be in bed?” Not only because he’s risking spreading germs all over the academy and to whoever he happens across, but because Ouma obviously isn’t himself. If it were something he could push through with some Tylenol and tissues, it would be one thing, but Ouma couldn’t even stay awake long enough to finish a short conversation. He didn’t even try to lie.
Amami snorts. “Well, first of all, Ouma-kun’s not an object. We’re not keeping him anywhere. But if it would make you feel better, you could wake him up and try to get him to go back to his room. Otherwise, I don’t see why he can’t stay here until he wakes up on his own. It might not be the most comfortable, but he clearly needs the rest.”
“I guess so,” Kaito mutters. Ouma doesn’t seem like the type to appreciate being fussed over and trying to put him on bedrest sounds impossible.
The documentary keeps playing, the narrator’s tone painfully bored as they talk about something Kaito finds infinitely interesting. As much as he loves space, his attention keeps wandering from the screen to the boy beside him. He catches Amami looking a few times as well, a small frown shaping his lips into a pensive curve. Maybe his latent big brother instincts are kicking in—he’s seen it happen around Yumeno and Kiibo, two people that share parts of Ouma’s childish personality and with their own brand of innocence.
Also, they’re all short. Amami’s smart enough not to pull any of that on Hoshi, or he’d be on the receiving end of some pretty intimidating stares.
By mutual, unspoken agreement, they let the rest of the documentary play out in relative silence. One of the points the narrator makes is hopelessly incorrect—this thing must be outdated by what, eight years? Ten?—but for once Kaito decides to let it go. Amami wouldn’t be upset if Kaito went on a twenty-minute tangent, but he’s too distracted to do more than scoff at the inaccuracy.
At some point, Ouma’s nose starts whistling when he breathes. For some reason, it makes Kaito smile. It’s slightly amusing and somehow endearing even though it really means that Ouma needs some tissues. He doesn’t so much as twitch when Kaito gets up to put the film back in its case and reshelve it, or when Amami turns the lights back on.
“He’s definitely gotten worse,” Amami tuts. His hand ghosts over the top of Ouma’s head, pulling back the section of hair that routinely rests against his nose, assessing his temperature with the back of his hand. “This feels really bad.”
Ouma sleeps through this, oblivious. The blush brought on by the fever is more intense now than it was earlier. Sweat beads thinly along his hairline, the attempt at thermo-regulation clearly not working well enough. Amami lets Ouma’s hair fall back into place with a sigh.
“We should take him back to his room.” Whether Ouma wants to go or not. They do not need whatever he’s got spreading around the academy.
Amami nods and reaches out to shake Ouma’s shoulder. “Hey, Ouma-kun? Wake up.”
Ouma, contrary as ever, keeps snoozing away. Amami shakes harder, drawing a small, strangled whine from Ouma’s throat. His eyebrows twitch, pulling vaguely downwards as a pout forms on his lips. One uncoordinated hand comes up to push Amami away, swatting blindly at the air next to him.
Kaito grabs his wrist before he manages to slap Amami in the face. He holds tight when Ouma tries to pull away but gentles his grip when his tugging gets more restless, almost frantic. Kaito can feel Ouma’s pulse beating under his fingers, the skin of his wrist distressingly hot, his struggling concerningly weak.
Pout deepening when he fails to retrieve his hand, Ouma opens his eyes blearily. He yanks his hand towards himself again, his gaze trailing up his arm to where his wrist is trapped in Kaito’s hold. He looks from their joined hands to Kaito’s face, his own showing no signs of comprehending the situation. The displeased expression there intensifies, offset by the glassy sheen of his eyes and the tiny huffs that leave his lips every time he exhales.
“We’re gonna take you to your room,” Kaito says. He doesn’t give Ouma his arm back, instead opting to shift his grip so that he can press his thumb properly against his pulse point. He has no reference for Ouma’s resting heart rate, but he’s not too far away from what Kaito estimates the ordinary range for someone of Ouma’s size and energy to be.
“Momota-chan?” Ouma mumbles, not acknowledging Amami’s existence with so much as a glance. Maybe the direct contact is channeling his focus. Maybe he doesn’t have the wherewithal to process more than what’s immediately in front of him. “You can’t. I don’t have…”
Kaito pulls on Ouma’s arm experimentally. He allows Kaito to swivel him to the side so that his feet touch the ground. With a little more prodding, they get him on his feet, but once he’s there it’s obvious he shouldn’t be.
“Wait, what are we—Where are we going?” Ouma suddenly rears back, bumping into the couch and almost falling back onto it. He’s upset, searching the room uneasily. If he were capable of making a break for it, he probably already would have—he looks two seconds from bolting out of the room.
Amami’s hands are raised, ready to catch Ouma if he stumbles again, which is really only a matter of time. He’s openly concerned about Ouma’s confusion, but he smiles reassuringly when Ouma finally notices his presence and jumps, startled. “Take it easy, alright? Overwhelming yourself won’t do you any good.”
How high does a fever have to be for major confusion to be a symptom? Whatever the answer is can’t be good. Ouma swings his gaze over to Kaito again, shifting uneasily. Seeing worry on his face, so genuine and extreme, might have felt like a victory in another context; it’s wrong to witness it like this. As a violation instead of a confession. It feels like Ouma’s looking to Kaito for answers once more, so he tries to reexplain what they’re doing.
“We’re trying to get you back to bed. You should be resting.” Remembering Amami’s comment about Ouma not being an object, Kaito softens his voice. No one likes being told what to do, right? It probably isn’t any less annoying when you have no idea what’s going on. “Is that okay with you?”
“To bed?” Ouma relaxes, looking like he’s about to melt out of his shoes. “Oh. Okay.”
Kaito has the feeling that shouldn’t have worked as easily as it did. Unwilling to look the gift horse in the mouth, he rolls with it.
“Is it alright if I touch you?” At Ouma’s nod, Kaito grabs his arm again, this time higher up so he can support some of Ouma’s weight. He’s doing an okay job of keeping himself upright, but Kaito doesn’t want to risk it. He holds him up with ease and turns to Amami. “If he tries to walk, it’s going to take forever.”
Also, once again, Ouma is short. He and Amami are too tall to put his arms over their shoulders comfortably.
Amami catches on quickly. He moves into Ouma’s line of sight before speaking to avoid startling him again. “Ouma-kun, can one of us carry you to your room?”
Ouma tilts his head back to look Amami in the eye, frustrated. “I don’t have one,” he insists. “That’s not how it works.”
Except that Kaito knows for a fact that it is how it works. The dorms were specifically constructed so that each of them would have their own room. Fighting with Ouma in this state would be a fruitless endeavor. His protests seem genuine even though they have no basis in reality; they’ve been staying in their rooms for days now.
Is that what he started to say earlier? Time to test a hunch.
“What about to bed? Can I carry you to bed?” Barely registering that he’s volunteered himself to be the one to carry him—Amami’s athletic too, but Kaito’s still stronger than him, so it makes sense anyway—Kaito trains his eyes on Ouma’s face to study his reaction.
Ouma’s head snaps to the side, making him wince. Some of the combativeness drains out of him, his features smoothing out at the change in wording. Still, he insists, “No. I can do it on my own.”
Doubtful. Kaito’s not convinced he wouldn’t forget where he was going before he made it halfway there. It’s progress, at least; whether Ouma has an actual aversion to his room (perhaps it’s the words themselves?) or his typical brand of difficulty is manifesting itself through the warped lens of illness, Kaito’s grateful. It’s a curious little mystery, but he’s got bigger things to worry about.
As if to prove he’s fine, Ouma tries to slip between Kaito and Amami. He trips over one of their feet on the second step, avoiding faceplanting only because Kaito hasn’t let go of his bicep.
“I don’t think you can,” Kaito points out, bemused. Is it really so hard for Ouma to accept their help? It would make all their lives so much easier if Kaito scooped him up without waiting for an agreement, but it’s kind of a dick move to harass your classmate when they’re ill, even if they’re usually the one harassing others. Consent is important, and Kaito doesn’t want to freak him out, but he also has a bad track record when it comes to being patient with Ouma.
Amami takes in Ouma’s pout with his hands on his hips, surveying him with his own blank expression. It’s not as thorough as Ouma’s get, features shifting minutely with his thoughts, but it’s pretty good. “You’re tired, aren’t you? You can go back to sleep faster if Momota-kun helps you.”
This seems to catch Ouma’s attention. He takes his time thinking about it, torn between his pride and his desire to lay down. Kaito wonders what he’s so hesitant about. Finally, he slumps into Kaito’s hold on his arm with extreme reluctance. “… I guess so.”
It only takes a couple minutes and a bit of shuffling for Amami to help Ouma drape himself over Kaito’s back. He could carry him bridal style, but he’ll let the guy keep his dignity for now.
“I’d like him to take me to dinner first, though,” Ouma mutters as he lets his arms dangle loosely over Kaito’s shoulders. He makes no effort to hold on, so Kaito keeps himself hunched forward slightly to compensate. Amami will stop Ouma from falling off if he leans too far back.
It’s nowhere near dinnertime, though.
“If you’re hungry, I can get you something to eat after we bring you to—” Don’t say his room, don’t say his room. “—Your bed.”
Behind him, Amami snorts. He waves Kaito off when he looks back, one hand plastered over his grin.
Ouma makes a disinterested noise. His head sinks down to lay on Kaito’s shoulder before they make it out of the basement. He’s kind of surprised Ouma had the strength to hold his head up for so long, let alone stand (mostly) on his own. Ouma’s body is a wall of heat along his spine, hot through all three of Kaito’s layers.
Ouma never supplies an answer to Kaito’s offer. Based on the way his legs dangle from Kaito’s grip and the limp hands resting lightly against his chest, he’s fallen asleep again. His breathing sounds worse up close, heavy and discomforted against his shoulder.
Somehow, he doubts getting ahead of this is going to be as easy as having Ouma rest for a couple days and making sure everyone washes their hands. Life in the Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles isn’t structured for simplicity, and it isn’t forgiving. That’s a lesson Monokuma won’t let them forget.
Amami walks alongside Kaito as they make their way from the school’s basement to the open air of the courtyard, opening and closing doors as needed. Thankfully, the dorms are next to the school, so the trip is short. Ouma’s maybe 45 kilograms; it’s not exactly taxing to carry him, but the unrelenting, scorching heat pressed against his back has him sweating before they reach the entrance hall.
Beneath the wisteria-laden trellises, Chabashira spots them approach the dorms with narrowed eyes. Yumeno sits beside her with her head down on their picnic table, watching idly as Chabashira shuffles a deck of cards. Amami waves at her before pulling open the door for Kaito to step through.
“I’m going to go get some things from the warehouse,” Amami says. “I think after we get some fever reducer in him it’ll be okay to leave him alone to rest. You good here?” At Kaito’s nod, he ducks out of the doorway with a flash of green hair and silver jewelry.
Kaito starts towards the stairs. As he reaches the top, he realizes that he has no way of getting into Ouma’s dorm. “Shit. Hey, Ouma?” He raises his voice a little, readjusting his grip on the other’s legs. “Wake up, man, I need your key.”
No response. Fuck, okay. Kaito moves away from the stairs, jostling Ouma and calling his name. After a couple minutes of awkwardly bouncing in place and trying not to yell, Ouma stirs, his hands dragging up Kaito’s chest to grip his shoulders as he straightens up.
“Put me down,” he demands, hazy yet harsh. He sounds surprisingly awake after his ten-minute powernap.
Kaito lets Ouma’s legs slip through his grip gingerly, bending down to replace his feet on the floor. Ouma leans against the wall with heavily lidded eyes. He looks mildly unsettled as he rummages around in his pocket and withdraws two skinny pieces of wire. Shuffling over to his door, he sticks them in the keyhole and moves them around with shaky hands.
He’s yet to see Ouma successfully pick a lock, and by the sounds of annoyance coming from his direction, he’s having trouble now, too. Kaito doesn’t doubt that he knows how to do it and knows it well, which makes it all the more perturbing that he’s having such a hard time.
“You don’t keep your key on you?” Kaito asks. Watching him struggle is less amusing when he keeps stopping to rub his eyes and looks like he’s about to either attack the door or cry from frustration.
Ouma gives him a disgusted onceover. “Of course I don’t! That’s asking for trouble.” His shoulders tense up at the admission, as if he hadn’t meant to voice it.
Kaito decides to dismiss it as more of Ouma’s paranoid bullshit. Even if someone wanted to steal a key, they’d have to get it away from their target without them noticing. Everyone (except Ouma, apparently) keeps their keys on them; it’s inconvenient for an inexperienced pickpocket, and he doubts that most of his classmates are sneaky enough to pull it off.
Ouma cracks the lock before the silence gets uncomfortable. He stuffs his lockpicks back in his pocket and rests his hand on the doorknob, looking back at Kaito expectantly.
“Oh, right! You should get some sleep.” Kaito takes half a step back, thumbing over his shoulder. “Amami will be back soon, but one of us can come check on you later if you can’t make it to dinner.”
“Okay,” Ouma says. He blinks, the corner of his mouth dipping down for the briefest of moments before he rearranges his face into a pale imitation of his usual teasing grin. “If Momota-chan and Amami-chan are so insistent on being my servants, I won’t complain!”
Kaito rolls his eyes. “Just make sure to take care of yourself. Don’t fuck yourself over by trying to do everything on your own because you’re too prideful to ask for help.”
Ouma muffles a raspy laugh under his scarf. He holds his hand there for a long moment, then lets it drop, exposing his fever-flushed face again. “Sure, Momota-chan.”
“Drink some water or something,” he insists, feeling like he should do something more. For anyone else, he wouldn’t hesitate to make sure they were taken care of himself, but Ouma’s an exception to almost every rule there is.
Opening the door no more than strictly necessary for him to get inside, Ouma waves him off. He moves like his entire body aches. It’s odd to see the usual fluidity of his movement—not graceful, exactly, but poised—replaced with stiff limbs and restricted motion. The door shuts firmly behind Ouma, hiding away any proof that there’s something amiss.
He considers his next move. Is calling a group meeting necessary when only one person is sick? They need to be receptive to taking preventative measures, which means that annoying the more volatile members of the class by dragging them away from whatever they’re doing isn’t ideal. At the same time, the idea of sitting on the information until dinner makes him antsy.
Resolving to ask Amami’s opinion when he returns, Kaito walks two doors down and unlocks his room. He’ll spend the rest of the afternoon hanging out here, in case Ouma needs something and decides to risk braining himself on the stairs instead of reaching out for help. He leaves the door halfway open and kicks back with a book Akamatsu gave him, keeping an eye on the hall.
This isn’t the best time to put his survival and medical training to the test, but there’s no way a little virus will pull one over on them. Kaito will make sure of it.