Work Text:
"Dai-chan," Satsuki says, her voice annoyed and only a little bit worried, "come on. It's just a bee sting."
"Easy for you to say!" Daiki can't quite keep the whine out of his voice, or the tears from rolling down his cheeks. He's not supposed to cry—he's seven, almost eight now, a big boy, and big boys don't cry over stupid things like bee stings, especially not in front of girls and especially not in front of Satsuki, who will remember it forever. "You're not the one who got stung!"
Angrily, he swipes the back of his hand over his eyes and glares up at her from where he's sitting on the ground, knees scuffed and stained with grass and mud, his left sandal missing from when he'd tripped and gone sprawling right into a patch of flowers. The bees minding their business there hadn't been too welcoming, and okay, maybe kicking at bees with a bare foot wasn't the smartest idea, but they'd been coming for him. What else was he supposed to do?
Now there's a puffy red lump on the ball of his foot, getting puffier by the minute, and it hurts. In the middle of the lump is a patch of white, and in the middle of that is— "Something's still in here!"
"Let me see." Satsuki swats his hands away as she kneels down to inspect his foot, ignoring the new grass stains on her pretty white sundress. Gently, she scrapes the white and brown blob off with a nail, lifting it up to eye level for a closer look. "I think this is the venom sac," she says, eyes round with interest. "Dai-chan, this is so cool."
Daiki's eyes nearly pop out of his head. "Venom?" His voice doesn't come out as a squeak. It doesn't. "Isn't that, like, poison? Am I going to die?" He can feel the tears welling up again and bites his lip to keep them in check.
Satsuki scoffs. "You're not going to die, silly. Don't you remember that documentary we saw on TV? People don't die from bee stings. Unless they're really allergic," she amends, and eyes his foot uncertainly. "Are you allergic?"
"How should I know? I've never been stung before."
Satsuki is still staring at his foot. She looks at the—the venom sac on her finger again, then leans in and puts her nose up almost against the swollen flesh around the sting. Daiki shifts uncomfortably and tries not to cry more.
"I think the stinger is still in there," she concludes after a minute, and Daiki promptly fails. "I don't think I can get it out, and it'll probably hurt if I try. Come on, let's go back. Auntie will know what to do."
She stands up, brushing the sac off her finger and then the grass and dirt off her dress. Daiki tries to follow suit, pushing himself up with all of his weight on his right foot, then gingerly setting his left foot down. He hisses as a wave of pain shoots through it, accompanied by a fresh onslaught of tears. "Ouch!"
Satsuki returns from where she'd gone to retrieve his sandal and sets it down next to him. "Can you walk?"
He tries nudging the sandal on and nearly bawls when it brushes against the swollen underside of his foot. "Satsuki, it hurts," he whines, and immediately regrets it. She's never going to let him hear the end of this when they get back.
Satsuki purses her lips, then sighs and leans over to pick the sandal up again. She turns her back to him and bends her knees in a crouch. "Come on," she says over her shoulder. "I'll piggyback you."
"No!" Daiki recoils in horror, as much as is physically possible without falling over while balanced on one leg. "You can't! I'm supposed to be the one carrying—" He shuts himself up, flushing red, but luckily Satsuki doesn't seem to notice.
"Who's the one who can't walk?" she shoots back. "Besides, I'm bigger than you—"
"Only by a little, and I was taller two weeks ago—"
"—and I'm older—"
"We're not even four months apart! I'll be the same age as you next week—"
"—so I should be the one taking care of you—"
"Who wants to be taken care of by some ugly—"
"Dai-chan," she snaps. "Do you want to go home or not?"
Daiki closes his mouth and glowers. If the boys at school heard about him getting piggybacked home—by Satsuki, no less—he would never live it down. Or if word got out to the guys on the street court… he shudders. He'd have to beat each and every one of them three times over just to salvage his reputation.
But Satsuki's no snitch. Sure, she likes to tease him, but only when he teases her first, and never when any of their classmates are around. She hadn't even said anything about the bedwetting last week, to him or to anyone else. She could have told everyone at school, and he probably would've deserved it, too, after the whole frog incident, but she hadn't, so— so maybe she wouldn't this time either.
"Dai-chan." Her voice is softer now. Patient. "Come on."
"Fine," he concedes, and awkwardly clambers on, cautiously settling his hands on her shoulders, grumbling all the while. She hooks her arms under his legs and straightens up before setting off at a steady trot, his sandal still clutched in one hand, her own slapping against her feet with every step she takes.
Satsuki's not exactly weak, he grudgingly admits. She's set a quick pace that will get them home in no time. Her shoulders seem wider under his hands, her arms holding him in place stronger than their slenderness suggests.
He feels… safe. Secure.
Worn out from all the crying he'd deny he did that day, Daiki allows his head to droop, cheek pressing against the back of hers, eyes sliding shut. As he drifts off, lulled by the swaying and the rhythmic clop clop clop of her footsteps, a thought crosses his mind, and he mumbles into her hair, "How am I going to play basketball like this?"
He thinks Satsuki's laughter sounds a little short of breath. "Oh, Dai-chan," she says, and he can hear the smile in her voice. "You really are a basketball idiot."