Archive of Our Own

It would never matter that you’d been ill a fairly abundant number of times in your life, you would never get used to it. You were, in fact and for lack of better terms, sick of being sick. In retrospect, the only person there was to really blame for how painfully weary you were of being unwell was yourself given that you’d ended up that way so often of your own volition. Being under the weather was essentially old hat to you by this point, illness and injury a constant simply because it was how you’d elected to help others, how the unique abilities you’d possessed since childhood allowed you to do so. This time around, though, it felt like there was ample room for being exhausted of feeling crappy. After all, your Stand hadn’t been the root cause for your current pitiful state. As life and luck would have it, you’d come down with the flu all on your own and not as a result of deciding to do so to make someone else better.

“This really, really sucks,” you mumbled, staring tiredly up at your bedroom ceiling.

Too fatigued to do anything other than lay in bed yet too awake to sleep, you couldn’t do much more with your slowly passing time than think about whatever happened to cross your mind. Boredom was an awful thing to deal with and allowed little room for distraction from the aching state of your body. It was easier to be hyper aware of every single thing that made you feel wretched when there was nothing you could really do to take your attention away from your sickness. Even being stuck in class would have been preferable to the present. At least while you were at school you had good friends to keep you company and there was no better way to get through the droning tedium of math class than secretly exchanging notes with your pals. Especially since having Stands made discreet message sharing so much easier.

“Are they still even at school? What time is it right now?”

You shifted onto your side, tugging an arm out from beneath your bulky comforter to reach out, groping across the expanse of your nearby nightstand to get a hand on your alarm clock. How it had gotten pushed to the far side and just out of reach you didn’t know, but a good few seconds of straining made you relent to the call of being lazy. You were sick. Laziness was totally valid and fair. With the flitting of wings, a small cluster of silvery phantom birds appeared around the alarm clock, Nightingale nudging the device around to let you see the numbers on the digital display. They disappeared and you rolled onto your back once again, yanking your arm beneath the blankets once more with a shiver. Although your fever had come down a bit, you still had chills in the worst way and your body ached like crazy. Luckily, you supposed, the only other symptoms you had involved a mildly sore throat and you could be thankful not to be coughing up a storm or struggling to breathe through a congested nose. With as often as you’d been ill, you could have enough presence of mind to know that for as awful as you felt, you’d felt much worse before.

Closing your eyes for a few minutes did not lead to sleep as you wished it would, the attempt given up on in no time at all. With your mother being at work, the entire house was incredibly quiet and the silence caused a ringing in your ears that felt as distracting from comfort as it was uncomfortable. Your head hurt too much for you to want to bother trying to get a head start on a report you had due in the coming weeks for history class nor did reading hold much appeal. Just the same, you had to do something to make the monotony of laying still less bothersome and though your muscles protested, you sat up. Adjusting your pillows up against the headboard gave you a more comfortable place to lean back to and your mother had been thoughtful enough to drape your favorite over-sized knit cardigan atop your covers. You donned it with a few quiet grunts, feeling a little warmer by having it on, and for a short spell you did feel slightly better for the change in vantage point. Looking around your room, you dedicated a little time to trying to find something you could occupy yourself with, even if it was only thoughts, temporarily thinking of ways you could decorate your little space in the future. Some new posters or stuffed animals might spruce things up some or maybe you could even see if your mom might be willing to pick you up a little stool for one corner of your room. You’d been meaning to get one so you had a place to sit, other than your bed, whenever you felt like picking up the guitar you’d gotten from your father.

Eventually, layout changes became uninteresting and you found your head craning down, staring at your own hands folded atop your lap. You traced your thumb across a long, shallow scar you’d had across the back of your right hand since you were eleven, the color lighter than it had been when you’d first received the wound. You could remember precisely how you’d come to have it, just as you could recall every single scar you had on your person from head to foot, your skin littered with a fair number of them. It was almost funny to think of how people reacted whenever they saw how many you had, often admonished by others as you claimed clumsiness for being the reason for every mark which marred your skin, excluding one. Up until you’d moved to Morioh with your mother, nobody would have second guessed that you were accident prone. Making friends with fellow Stand users had been a big change and in the year and a half since, it had been a massive relief not to have to pretend to stumble or hurt yourself to hide the truth.

Affliction transference wasn’t exactly something that people could do at will, but you’d been healing people of injuries and illnesses for years by taking them upon yourself. Your Stand had manifested to you while you were young and you’d learned fast that you could give people your wounds as easily as you could take them away, a childish accident involving a school yard bully revealing that your abilities could hurt as much as help. You’d never hurt another soul since that frightening elementary school mistake and your body bore the signs of your willingness to only use Nightingale for good, to heal instead of harm. As you pushed back the sleeves of your cardigan to map out every little mark you could find, you tried to imagine how many more there might have been had you not begun to be more sparing with your Stand a handful of years back.

Healing little wounds, taking minor sicknesses from friends or classmates, had never seemed like such a bad thing. Your parents had taken your sickly and accident prone nature in stride for a long time, never really afraid of you often being unwell until you took a risk that had saved a life nearly at the cost of your own. A hand touched your chest and though your shirt covered it, you swore you could feel the surgical scar that trailed down the center, symbolic of a hard lesson learned. To that day, you never regretted that you’d chosen to become sick to save your father, to give up your healthy heart to make his well. Scaring your parents in the process and making them endure their child needing major surgery was something you wish could’ve been avoided, especially where your mother was concerned. She’d taken to worrying over your bouts of illness more after your surgery, especially after the divorce, and though she had no knowledge of Stands, you sometimes wondered if she understood that something about you was different. You still helped, you still healed, but you tried to be more cautious of it if only for the sake of letting her have a little more peace of mind.

It certainly made it easier to deal with Stand-based wounds when you had a close friend who could actually fix you up without it being to his own detriment. Thinking of Josuke and how he fussed at you every single time you stole even so much as a skinned knee from him or another friend had you smiling, repaired heart growing warm at the thought. Okuyasu, Koichi, and Yukako had all come to join him in giving you the occasional earful if ever you showed up bleeding or sick for any reason other than you’d ended up that way naturally. You never in a million years expected to meet other people with strange abilities when your life in Morioh had begun, but it had been a welcome twist of fate since the very first day you’d helped Okuyasu with a bloody elbow without realizing that your helpful little birds would be visible to him. In months, a life of fleeting friendships often ending due to you being the weird sick girl in class had become so much better, bonds certain to last giving you new happiness. Living in Morioh made you glad to have Nightingale, thankful for the connections it had helped you make. Yours had been a slightly lonely childhood, but you were happy that you’d finally found your group, your people, once you’d made it to high school.

“I wish they were here,” you whispered, knowing that speaking your desires out loud wouldn’t magically bring them to fruition.

You startled at the sound of the doorbell, pulled fast from memories and longing by the echo of the chime all the way upstairs to your room. Being home alone meant there was no one else who could answer and with no one having been expected that day there was truthfully no way of knowing who had come by. There could have been a package or certified mail waiting to be intercepted and though you were tempted to just ignore whoever was outside, you would’ve felt bad for doing so. Plus, even brief human interaction was something to do, wasn’t it? Groaning, you tossed the covers off your legs and got out of bed, your limbs capable of the walking even though you ached like absolute hell all over. You grabbed the mask your mother had left you from a coat hook on the back of your door, donning it as you made your way down the stairs as fast as you felt able to, calling out that you were coming after the second ring. It was doubtful that the person outside could have heard you, but one never really knew.

A third ring came just as you got your hand on the knob to the front door, pulling it open without bothering to look through the peep hole when the doorbell had left you feeling rushed to answer. Once you poked your head out, mild frown concealed by your mask, you were surprised to find Josuke standing on your doorstep, still in his school uniform even though he ought to have been home by now. You were happy to see him regardless, certain that the crinkling of your eyes had to make your hidden smile obvious, and you pulled the door open even further now that you knew who had come by.

“Hey, Y/N. How are you feeling?”

“Well, I feel about how I probably look and I’m pretty sure I look like crap right now, so..yeah.”

He frowned, clearly not liking to hear that you were still feeling so lousy, and when you stepped back from the door he took the hint to come inside. He set aside his school bag as he carefully stepped out of his expensive shoes, surprisingly more cautious of them than of being near somebody who might unintentionally get him sick. Such was the way of a fashion addict, you supposed.

“I figured as much,” he said, continuing the conversation. “Your mom said you were still pretty rough when I called this morning.”

“You called this morning?”

“Yeah. I wanted to check in and see if I needed to bring you any homework. You’re usually pretty serious about keeping up with things whenever you’re sick and I figured you’d appreciate it if somebody brought you what you need to keep on track.”

Although you didn’t live especially far from Josuke’s house or the school, he’d still gone out of his way to drop by and you were appreciative of his thoughtfulness. It wasn’t necessarily out of character for him to be so helpful, but being reliable with school stuff tended to be more Koichi or Yukako’s forte and it was a little more surprising for Josuke to have taken care of things instead. Surprising, but in a very good way. You looked like utter garbage and there was no denying that you were self-conscious of letting him see you in such a state, but there wasn’t much to be done about it. Plus, he’d seen you sick plenty of times, so it wasn’t anything new for you to look crappy around him. It would’ve been a nice change of pace, though, to see him look rough a time or two to even out the playing field, but Josuke always looked gorgeous and well put together from his pompadour to his fancy shoes.

“I appreciate it a lot. I dunno how well I’m gonna be able to focus, but homework is at least something to do.”

“Bored?”

“Painfully.”

Josuke picked his schoolbag up, stuffing it under his arm, and jammed his hands into the pockets of his coat. He shifted his stance from one leg to the other, seeming to temporarily let the framed photographs on the walls grab his attention. Did you really look so gross just then that maintaining eye contact was a chore?

“Want some company for a little while?”

The prospect of having somebody to talk to after being cooped up by yourself all day sounded magical and you grinned at the offer of his presence. Getting to hang out with Josuke in general, whether you were sick or not, was one of your favorite ways to spend your time. He was always great company, good for insightful chats as well as amused hysterics over the silliest of things. Having the world’s biggest crush on him probably helped too, but you weren’t exactly keen to mention that as of yet to anyone, let alone Josuke himself. Pining in silence wasn’t necessarily the most fun thing in the world, but you were sure it was preferable to potentially scaring off one of your best friends if he was as uninterested as you feared he was.

“I do, but I don’t want you to get sick.”

“Hey, fastest way to get over a cold or the flu is to give it to somebody else, isn’t it?”

He smiled, bright and cheery, the look far too innocent not to be deceitful in some way. No matter how absurdly smitten you were, there was no denying that Josuke had a mischievous streak wider than Morioh’s shoreline.

“You seem awful keen to get sick, Josuke.”

“I mean, is it so terrible to want one of my nearest and dearest friends to get well faster?”

“Right. I’m sure the idea of getting sick has absolutely nothing to do with the biology test we’ve got next week.”

“Dear Y/N, you wound me with such accusations. You know I take my education very seriously.”

“Your last report card suggests otherwise.”

“Hey! Aren’t you suppose to be polite to guests?”

“Josuke, would you like something to drink?” you asked him, voice so syrupy sweet it was downright obnoxious.

“Nah. I’m good.”

“Is it all right if we go up to my room then? I kinda wanna get back under the covers. Fever chills and all that.”

Shifting from pouty sulking to expressive concern in mere seconds, Josuke nodded his agreement and let you lead the way despite that he knew it himself. Josuke had been over to your house on plenty of occasions, though usually always with at least one other person if not your entire close-knit little group. As you made your way back towards the stairs to the second floor, it clicked to you that you’d never actually been alone with Josuke at your house and definitely never without your mom being home. It seemed silly to get worked up over such a thing when you were both just friends with no plans on doing anything inappropriate and you were also sick to boot. Being flustered over what really should have been something totally inconsequential felt pointless, foolish, but you felt that way even so, the heat in your face almost comforting when your body kept wanting to shiver.

Once you made it to the stairs, you glanced up towards the landing at the top with a groan, aching limbs already feeling like they wanted to fight against making the climb. It probably would’ve been more taxing had you been about to attempt such a thing that morning or even yesterday when you were much sicker, but it wasn’t about to be fun either way.

“You can go ahead of me, Josuke. I’m probably gonna be pretty slow moving.”

He angled his head as you stepped aside, pretty blue eyes gentle in their assessment of you, and his full, tortuously kissable lips pulled into a frown.

“Last time I had a bad fever I remember my whole body hurting. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have made you get out of bed to answer the door for me. Homework could’ve waited until after your mom came home.”

“It’s all right. I’m aching, yeah, but not like I was yesterday. Don’t feel bad. I’m still really glad you came.”

You wanted to pat his shoulder or his arm, touch him in general, but you thought better of too much closeness even if you had no plans to take your mask off. Instead, you waved your hand at the stairs to give him the go ahead to start heading up. Josuke looked towards the top of the stairs, staring for a few long seconds. He then turned his head to do the same thing in your direction, looking at you long enough to make you feel confused about what he was thinking. He finally moved before you could ask him what was wrong, stuffing his belongings into your hands followed by bending at the waist, lifting you up into a bridal carry like you weighed as much as the bag he’d given you.

“What are you doing?”

“Carrying you up the stairs.”

“Josuke, you can’t carry me up the stairs!”

“Why not? Trust me, Y/N, I’m stronger than I might look, so carrying you isn’t gonna be hard.”

“It’s different when you’re lifting somebody up and trying to go up a flight of stairs! We’ll both get hurt if you fall!”

“Yeah, not gonna happen.”

A glittering flash of pink sparked behind Josuke as he took the first step up, Crazy Diamond floating at his back with its hands held out. The Stand looked ready to act the second Josuke showed any single signs of teetering and even if it failed to prevent the two of you from falling, you could easily heal Josuke’s injuries while he healed you after. That was what you’d reassured him the two of you could do for one another if ever you both got hurt. You healed him, he healed you, and in the end you healed each other. It was a deal you’d made within a mere few months after becoming friends. Remembering that promise was reassuring, as was Crazy Diamond’s presence in general, but it didn’t stop you from wanting to fret as Josuke took one step and then another, cautious and slow.

“You’re sure I’m not too heavy?”

“Nah!” he told you, grinning even though his voice sounded strained from his efforts. “I’ve got this, Y/N! Just relax, okay? I’ll have you in bed again before you know it.”

His face was so close when he had you in his arms, held against his chest like a precious commodity he dared not to drop, and despite your worries for the proximity in your sickly state, you couldn’t help feeling a little happy. You’d never been quite so near to him as you had in that moment, not even when you’d sat shoulder to shoulder as you shared his headphones during bus rides to other parts of town. Being in his arms was something you had on your mind fairly often, a thought you’d indulged in after you came to terms with having feelings for him six months prior. These weren’t the circumstances that you’d always hoped for when you wished to find yourself in such a position, but that didn’t take away from how nice it felt to know what being held by him was like. He was being so sweet, so chivalrous really, and even though you knew it was out of friendship, it was still nice to imagine for just a moment that it was due to him wanting to impress you.

That being likely was definitely doubtful, though. You had, after all, witnessed how Josuke reacted to his many admirers at school and it was always with the same polite dismissal or deflection. He’d had a pretty staggering number of students, of all gender identities, hand him love letters or profess their attraction without him ever showing a lick of interest. You were a close friend, so he was more outwardly friendly with you than he was those hopeful attention seekers. He hadn’t, however, shown even the smallest sign that you could see that he regarded you in a romantic way different from how he responded to those who also crushed on him. He was a self-professed true love kind of guy and if you had to guess, you weren’t likely to be the true love he was waiting for. If you were then you had been painfully oblivious to any clear indications.

It wasn’t so terrible, though. When it had first occurred to you that your feelings for Josuke had changed, you’d been scared and even a little confused. There was no specific moment or event that you’d been able to pinpoint when your feelings had shifted. You’d only had the realization that they were no longer platonic and you’d worked your way through the resulting freak out which came with discovering that your friend was somebody you wanted to date. With a little thinking and plenty of fretting, it clicked to you how much sense it made to like Josuke. He was genuinely kind to everyone who didn’t give him a reason to be otherwise and funny as hell, not to mention courageous and so gorgeous you’d noticed even before feelings had been caught. Eventually, you not only came to terms with your crush, but decided that it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Experiencing that first real sense of liking someone was a nice feeling despite the likelihood that it was unrequited. Until the day came when you might have to battle the heartbreak of seeing him start dating somebody else, you didn’t mind harboring secret affection.

Maybe, when you found the right time to come out with it, you’d even tell him the truth.

Josuke was a little winded by the time he carried you into your bedroom, though he looked to be trying all that he could to hide it from you, probably out of pride or something. You kept your lips sealed and didn’t point it out, feeling the softness of your mattress beneath your body as Josuke laid you down upon it. Before you could let him know that it wasn’t necessary, he pulled the covers over your form to tuck you back in, lifting up your head so he could slide your pillows back to where they ought to be.

“I can sit up okay, you know.”

“I’m sure you can, but we can chat just fine while you’re tucked in all cozy and warm. Need another blanket or anything?”

“Nope. I promise, it’s plenty toasty under here.”

“Glad it hear it.”

He grabbed the bag he’d set aside before he’d thrown the covers over you, opening the flap to drag out a purple folder you knew likely had your school work for the day inside. Laying it down on the low table near your bed, Josuke stuck his bag out of the way and headed towards your desk to grab the chair you usually occupied whenever you studied. Dragging it nearer to your bedside, he turned it backwards and had a seat, crossing his arms over the backrest to rest his chin on them. Staring at you in silence, you could picture his mind making an audible ticking noise as he rummaged through whatever thoughts that came from looking at your face. The pink of his tongue briefly appeared to worry the tiny, barely-there scar that he had on his bottom lip, one he’d apparently gotten when his older nephew had clocked him a few years back. God, it was still so weird to imagine all the things that had happened since he’d received that wound, all the stories he and the others had shared continuing to blow your mind despite that you believed them. You really hoped Morioh wouldn’t find itself stricken by another frightening Stand user serial killer one day.

“So, you really got sick normally this time? You didn’t get like this because of Nightingale?”

“Nope. This is a premium, high-quality, all-natural flu. Pretty sure it was courtesy of the sick guy that sat next to me on the bus recently, but who really knows?”

“You’re really sure?”

He squinted, eyes screaming suspicion, and you scoffed in spite of being amused by his expression.

“Well, if you don’t believe me, catching this yourself is usually a surefire way to tell if I’m lying or not. I’m never contagious after I use Nightingale to take a sickness from someone. I have no clue why, but I don’t remember anybody ever getting sick from me after I’ve done an affliction transfer.”

“I guess that’s true, otherwise all of us would’ve gotten sick being around you plenty of times.”

“Yeah. Gotta trust me on this one, Josuke.”

“It’s not that I don’t. I just..”

Josuke trailed off and his eyes darted away from you, staring unfocused at something else in your room he didn’t seem to actually care about looking at. He lowered his chin from his arms to hide half of his face behind them, from nose to chin as he tried to decide how to proceed. The tips of his ears and the very tops of his cheeks that you could see colored, a soft red growing deeper as he went temporarily quiet. With an eventual and seemingly inevitable sigh, he picked his chin back up onto his arms. His eyes, however, couldn’t seem to find their way back to your face.

“You know we all hate it when you’re hurt or you’re sick, especially when it’s ‘cause of your Stand. It’s not like we don’t admire how much you go out of your way to help people, but it just sucks to see somebody you care so much about in pain like that. And it’s worse when it’s like this. I don’t like it when you’re injured, but at least when it’s that I can actually do something. Crazy Diamond can’t fix an illness, so when it’s this kinda thing there’s nothing I can do. I feel helpless. I wanna make you feel better and I can’t.”

“You already have, Josuke.”

He finally looked back your way when you said those words, expression still a little bit sad despite the return of eye contact. You offered him a smile, one that you hoped came across despite the mask you were wearing. Even thought he’d tucked you in so cozily, you made yourself sit up again and doing so prompted him into action, leading him out of his seat to park his bottom on the edge of your bed. His hands gripped your shoulders, firm despite staying gentle, and he started to push you back down, not that his doing so would deter you from saying more of what you wanted and needed him to hear.

“You came to see me. You brought me my homework. You’re keeping me company. None of those things are going to magically make this flu go away, but emotionally they make me feel so much better. All I was doing before you showed up was laying in bed, all by myself, thinking about how awful I feel. Now, I’ve got my favorite guy here to distract me from that and I’ve always heard that people tend to recover faster whenever they’re in better spirits.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“It’s still better than nothing, though.”

Josuke didn’t look entirely convinced, but his lips trembled as if he was trying very hard not to let himself smile over the sincerity of your claims. He wanted to heal you and in this case he couldn’t, the sense of being in any way helpless one he never cared for. You hadn’t been there when his grandfather had been killed, but he’d told you about it himself once before and how much it had hurt not to be able to do anything. Although the pain of that loss in his life had gotten easier to carry, it hadn’t gone away and he had confessed that he still sometimes lamented that Crazy Diamond hadn’t been able to do anything for his grandfather, not even when he’d only been a mere few seconds dead. Josuke didn’t deal well with limitations like that, with not being able to help when that was what his Stand was so good for. It made sense for the people he cared about being sick to bother him as much as it seemed to.

It wasn’t like you didn’t understand where he was coming from either. Even though you weren’t feeling well, it took no effort at all for Nightingale to appear, the little birds landing on Josuke’s arms, perched soundlessly, without the chirping that their more real counterparts might make.

“There are things that my Stand can’t fix either. If I could take it away whenever you were feeling guilty for something you shouldn’t feel bad about then I’d do it in a heartbeat. But, sadly, Nightingale doesn’t work like that. We both have healing Stands with limitations and as much as that bites, there are things we can do on our own. So, if I’ve gotta insist that you’re helping me feel better until you eventually agree, then I just won’t shut up until you believe me.”

He released your shoulders to cover his face with his hands, Nightingale fluttering away with his movement, and Josuke’s groaned was a lengthy one that suggested a pain his expression did not convey when his palms dropped. His face was practically on fire for how red it looked and you didn’t think you’d ever noticed him blush quite so intensely before, your heart fluttering from how adorable he was. Josuke being embarrassed didn’t happen terribly often, but it was a treat whenever it came about, his cuteness off the charts. How anyone got by in life without being as smitten with him as you were was just plain baffling. You gripped the edge of your blankets, dragging them up beneath your chin, and found yourself wishing you could just hug him. Maybe your crush would be the end of you some day.

Not really sure what it was exactly that had him feeling so rattled, but endeared by him nevertheless, you gave him a moment to collect himself, patiently quiet. The color on his face eventually softened, but it didn’t go away completely, cheeks and ears still touched by a light pink once he dared to look your way again. A tiny, pleased smile made itself known, made him look cute still, though in a different way, and it was all you could do not to hide under your blankets to conceal how much you were smiling yourself. Remembering that it was blocked by the mask helped keep you from ducking beneath the sheets.

“I’m really your favorite guy?”

Oh fuck, you really had said that, hadn’t you? A denial rose up in your throat, but you couldn’t bring it to the air when Josuke seemed so delighted by what you’d admitted to. You never would have expected him to look so happy to have a preferential place in your heart, even one he had to think was strictly platonic, but his soft little grin said he liked what he’d heard very much. He seemed to realize how flustered you were becoming to boot, smile growing wider until it began to lean towards mischief. Encouraging Josuke when he was touching on his devious side was never a good idea, particularly not if you hoped for him to behave, but you didn’t want to deny the truth either. Sighing to feign disinterest, you turned your head to the side to avoid looking at him.

“Of course you are. Who else would it be?”

“Most people in our group would probably say Koichi.”

You could see how he’d have that assumption. Most people who met Koichi tended to come to adore or admire him in some fashion. He managed to fit a massive amount of heart, courage, and dependability into a very short stature. Everybody knew him as someone they could rely on, whether for help with homework or advice and that made it pretty easy to see why Yukako had fallen for him. Hell, everyone in your small circle of friends had aspects of themselves that made them seem easy to fall for. They were all extraordinary people. But, for you personally, there was only ever going to be one person in the group who captured your attention and your heart. Your fate had probably been sealed the first time Josuke had ever smiled at you.

“Koichi’s a great guy. So is Okuyasu. Yukako’s awesome too. I adore the hell out of everyone, but they aren’t you. They don’t make me feel like..”

Words halted, things that were probably too much to say and share going quiet. Josuke, too invested in what you’d begun to speak aloud, lost his teasing smile to a look of imploring curiosity. When you didn’t continue, glancing back at him only to look away all over again, Josuke lightly tugged at your blankets, not so much to remove them as to gain back your attention.

“What do I make you feel?” he asked, words soft, almost a whisper, easily heard in such a quiet house.

“Like..”

You sighed, trailed off again for a moment, looking back to him and the searching way he was gazing into your eyes.

“I don’t know if I can say it, Josuke.”

“Can you try? Whatever it is, I really wanna hear it.”

He reached for one of your hands, bidding you to release your near death grip on the blanket so he could slip his thumb under the curl of your digits, fingers cloaking your knuckles. The gesture both relaxed you and made your heart race at the same time, comforting and exciting all at once.

“Please?”

There was anything you could have said in that moment. A lie or a cover story or something to throw him off from what you were truly thinking and what you’d been feeling for so long. Unspoken things weren’t necessarily so easy to uncover when he hadn’t been looking for those unsaid words, but being outright deceitful was a different story altogether. Making something up felt wrong even if saying the truth was risky, scary, and you wondered if maybe in the end you could blame things on your fever if you ended up regretting what you were about to say. That would just be another lie, though, and maybe continuing to hide was just as awful as the idea of stretching the truth.

Maybe you wouldn’t scare him away if you just confessed. The hold of his hand seemed to hint that he wouldn’t go running.

Hopefully.

“What do I make you feel, Y/N?”

“Like I have a fever all the time.”

“I..make you feel sick?”

Josuke looked expressively horrified by the very prospect and you were quick to reassure him otherwise.

“No! I mean you make me feel warm. You know, happy warm. But, also warm like my face is always hot and I’m scared I’m blushing constantly or something. And you make my stomach get all fluttery and sometimes sorta knotted up. And you make my heart race too now and then. I guess it is sort of like feeling sick, but not unwell or bad. I just..feel a lot whenever I’m with you. Whenever I think about you.”

“I really make you feel all of that?”

“Yeah. Almost all the time.”

“For how long?”

“Since I figured out that I like you.”

“And that happened?”

“Months ago.”

Despite having been so insistent on keeping you laying down and tucked under the covers, Josuke was quick to pull the blankets down to your waist, hands looping under your shoulders to sit you up again. The swiftness of it all had you feeling dizzy, surprised, and though it wasn’t as warm without the blankets covering your body, Josuke’s nearness more than made up for the loss of heat. If anything having him so near, an arm curled around your back, made you feel even hotter after a moment. One of his fingers tickled the shell of your ear, a shiver rushing along the length of your spine as he found the strap of your mask to pull it off. The barrier was tossed away and your hands splayed against his chest, the zippers that decorated his undershirt cool against your palms.

“Josuke, you’ll get sick!”

“I don’t mind,” he said, a whisper of words you felt against your lips as he leaned in close. “I don’t care.”

He kissed you too quickly for you to reciprocate, unable to close your eyes past the initial shock and lean into the press of his mouth when he pulled away so sudden, yanking himself back.

“Shit! Sorry! I should’ve asked if it was okay first! Is it..I mean, can I..”

He wanted to do it again. Josuke Higashikata had kissed you and he wanted to kiss you a second time. It took you a moment of gawking at him to really process it, your expression as surprised as his was apologetic, but you managed to pull yourself together the longer you stared at the wash of red that flamed across his features. The remorse on his face was not born of regret for kissing you at all, but more regret for kissing you without being sure you wanted him to first and you very nearly asked him how he could ever think that you wouldn’t want his kisses. Your lips worked, no sound coming out at first, until you felt close to squawking like your little phantom birds might have had they been real. Josuke, with all his talk of true love and waiting for somebody special, never would have kissed you if he hadn’t been right in the same boat you were. There was no way you could picture him doing such a thing if he hadn’t been crushing on you back in the same way for however long it had been.

Holy shit, Josuke liked you back!

“You can! As many times as you want! I mean, I don’t want you to get sick still, but you can kiss me. Or I can kiss you?”

Josuke leaned back in, another all too quick peck pressed to your lips before you could respond, but when he drew back this time he was smiling, happy rather than horrified.

“We can kiss each other.”

“Yeah. We can do that.”

You were able to return the third kiss, Josuke staying put rather than pulling away, and you melted into his arms like you’d been waiting and wanting to do for months. They were clumsy kisses for certain, slow presses and partings of lips that were too eager for any finesse of any kind. Each lingering peck surely lasted too long before the next was initiated and your teeth pressed together on accident at least once before either you or Josuke felt brave enough to part your lips again. His arm stayed put around you, holding you to his chest as you tried to learn the feel of one another, the right way to angle your heads and the right pressure to use. When Josuke finally lifted a hand to your cheek, cupping feverish skin gently, you whimpered and welcomed the first brief, brave swipe of his tongue drifting between your lips. It was out of shyness for having tried to kiss you more deeply or concern for how hot your face felt that had Josuke finally leaning back to look at you and you met his gaze head on, no longer too nervous to let him see your face.

His pouty lips looked fuller, parted with a few slightly uneven breaths, and the vivid sapphire of his eyes seemed impossibly bright from the late day sunlight that your thin curtains let in to the bedroom. He smiled happily, blushing up an absolute storm and he was so stupidly, wonderfully beautiful that you wanted to start kissing him all over again. Your throat was still sore as all hell, your body ached, and the body heat you got from having him so close still only did so much to keep your chills away. You felt awful, but so good at the exact same time and you didn’t know if you’d ever been so happy to be sick in your whole life.

“So, just putting it out there in case what just happened didn’t get it across, but I really, really like you.”

“For how long?”

“Since forever ago. A couple of months after we met.”

“What?! You’ve liked me for that long?”

Josuke chuckled at your shock, rubbing a hand against the back of his head, either from embarrassment or as an attempt to make sure his hair was still laying right. Possibly for both. The idea that he’d been harboring a crush on you for an even greater amount of time than you’d had the hots for him was revealing and a definite surprise.

“Josuke, if you’ve had a crush on me for that long, why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“Well, I mean..”

He smirked, sly in his usual way, and had Okuyasu been at his side you would have prepared yourself for the inevitable emergence of some world-class tomfoolery. Instead, you just braced for incoming snark.

“Ladies first, right?”

“Josuke!”

You gave him a playful shove, just enough of one to make him let you go, and he cackled as you flopped back against your pillows in a pretend huff. He may have been joking, but he did have a fair point that you could have easily confessed sooner as well, which you inevitably had. If he’d been truly waiting for you to be the one to say something first then he’d certainly gotten his way and you were positive that he was deep down pleased about how things had turned out. Even if you wanted to be mad, you wouldn’t have managed. It was hard to be salty about anything when the boy you liked had admitted to feeling the same and given you the first few wonderful kisses of your life. Still laughing, Josuke pulled the blankets back over you until they were tucked just under your chin, your mask left aside atop the covers. You could wager he didn’t see much point in you keeping it on now that he’d ever so briefly had his tongue in your mouth. It still seemed worth pointing out, though.

“You realize you’re probably gonna get sick now for sure, right?”

“Totally worth it.”

“I’ve never seen anyone look so smug about getting ill.”

“If I’m gonna end up in bed for a few days feeling like hell ‘cause I finally got to kiss you then I’ve got a good reason to be. I stand by what I said. Totally worth it.”

“You’re a dork.”

“And you’re the one who likes this dork.”

You didn’t deny him, the truth too obvious for you to even try, and Josuke continued to look beyond pleased with himself. Though you were settled safely beneath your covers again, hestill sought out your hand at the edge of your comforter, drawing it out just far enough for your fingers to link. The playful pride on Josuke’s face trailed away into softness and the drift of his thumb smoothing back and forth across yours made your unwavering giddiness grow, feet faintly squirming under your blankets.

“Hey, promise me if I do get sick that you won’t use Nightingale to make me better.”

“I won’t. I promise. Not promising that I won’t visit you, though, risk of getting sick again naturally or not.”

“What guy doesn’t want his girlfriend to visit and fuss over him when he’s under the weather? I’m fine with that as long as we’re both careful.”

Hearing him call you his girlfriend so casually, like addressing you with that title was the easiest thing in the world, made you feel deliriously happy, so much so that your feet kicked under the blankets again with renewed excitement. Josuke had to have noticed, but he didn’t look towards the movements or say a word to address it, too busy bouncing the ball of his foot against your floor with his own form of jittery joy. You gave the hand you held a little squeeze, willing your body to relax and go still, turning your head to the side so you could let your heated brow press against his knuckles.

“Girlfriend, huh?”

“Yeah. As long as you wanna be. I mean, do you wanna be? Will you?”

You nodded your head with a great deal of enthusiasm and Josuke whooshed out a heavy breath, as if he’d had just enough doubt about your answer that getting your agreement had him feeling relieved. Being uncertain even after everything you’d both said and the series of sweet kisses you’d only just shared let you know that you’d have to tell him often, as well as at length, how much you cared for him. The last thing you’d ever want was for Josuke to doubt your affection for him now that he knew it was there in the first place. The two of you apparently had spent far too long quietly pining instead of being vocal about what you felt, what you wanted, and with all the hidden layers peeled back there was no more reason to be covert about things. With what your heart held being out in the open, you realized you felt a little less shy about voicing your feelings.

“I like you a lot, Josuke.”

The bounce of his leg picked up its pace a little, just for a moment, and then abruptly stopped as he rubbed a hand over his beaming face, smiling all the while.

“God, you’re so damn cute. You’re actually the cutest girl I’ve ever seen in my life and I just wanna start kissing you again, holy shit.”

Rather than do just that, much to your disappointment, Josuke stood up completely. He bent over your body to ease your arm back under the blankets despite that you could do that much on your own. You stayed put, as he seemed to want you to do, and you watched him drag the chair he’d previously been using back to its original spot, feet leading him to the door soon after. If he hadn’t left his school bag where he’d settled it you might have thought that he was leaving. Stilling in the doorway, Josuke looked back at you, leaning his shoulder against the frame, smile as gentle and kind as his voice.

“I’m gonna take care of you until your mom gets home, so what do you want from downstairs? A drink or anything? A little food?”

“A drink would be good since my throat still feels pretty sore. Maybe some ginger tea with a little honey? If you really don’t mind.”

“Not at all, babe. I’m on it.”

The unexpected pet name had you feel ready to combust and Josuke didn’t seem to notice at all, looking to be in good spirits as he started to head down the hall, Crazy Diamond appearing behind him to no doubt help hunt around the kitchen for what he needed. You weren’t sure if Josuke had dropped the name on you so casually for the thrill of knowing he’d flustered you or just because it had felt right to him, but you took comfort in glancing at the clock on your table. If anything about the endearment had involved some of his playful nature then he’d more than get a little embarrassing payback when your mom came home from work in the next ten or so minutes. She had a good habit of getting back at the same time every day, damn near like clockwork.

You wondered how Josuke would react to being found rummaging around your kitchen, intent on making you tea while coming face to face with your mom after the two of you had confessed your feelings in an unsupervised house. Picturing how flustered he might get by being greeted by your mother now that he’d officially become your boyfriend had you giggling, wishing you were out of bed to witness whatever adorable awkwardness might soon occur downstairs. Knowing Josuke, even if he wasn’t too flustered about it all, he’d probably still do what he thought would be respectable by letting your mom know that he’d asked you out just to be sure that she was okay with it. He could be sly with the best of them, but before anything else Josuke was a really good guy who tried to do the right thing. Charming as he was and with as much as your mom liked him, you knew he’d have her complete approval.

Cupboards audibly opened and closed downstairs as Josuke tried to find the tea and honey, making no attempts to call out to you for directions when he was intent on you trying to rest as much as possible. You closed your eyes as you laid and listened to his search, feeling more at ease than you had in several hours.

Being sick, for as common as it always was, definitely didn’t bother you as much this time around.