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Rei honestly didn’t know what happened. When he went to bed he was fine. Maybe a bit more tired than usual, but otherwise he physically felt totally normal.
Just before 6am, he woke up with his stomach twisting itself in knots. Usually his body gave him some warning when he was about to throw up, but this time Rei barely made it to the toilet before it happened.
“Rei? You okay?” Apparently, in his haste to get to the bathroom, he had woken up Kazuki. Rei tried to respond, but was too busy puking his guts out to speak. “Oh sweetheart…” Soft, gentle hands brushed the hair off of Rei’s face and neck.
Rei had no idea how long he spent with his head in the toilet, but Kazuki stayed with him the whole time, holding his hair, rubbing his back and murmuring words of sympathy.
Finally, after what felt like hours, it seemed like his stomach was empty. Rei stayed slumped over the toilet, ready to just pass back out right there.
“Hey come on, no sleeping on the toilet.” Kazuki, very gently, tugged on his hair. Rei grumbled at having to be moved, but complied anyway and was rewarded by Kazuki pouring mouthwash into his mouth.
He swished it around, grateful to the burning mint for washing away the acidic aftertaste, and spit it into the toilet. “Come on…let’s get you cleaned up.” Kazuki coaxed. Rei felt so drained that he couldn’t move, so after a moment Kazuki just picked him up. Instead of going straight back to bed like he was expecting, Rei’s sweat soaked pajamas were peeled away and he was placed on the stool in the shower, with Kazuki kneeling behind him.
Everything was fuzzy, and Rei was somehow also still incredibly nauseous even though there wasn’t anything left in his system. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the sensation of the warm water and on the small circles of the loofah scrubbing his back.
“Can you lean on me so I can clean your front?” Kazuki coaxed. Rei did as he said. He felt Kazuki’s bare skin rather than the fabric of his clothes. It was a nice surprise, and helped distract him from how unbelievably ill he still felt.
Rei was only half conscious by the time Kazuki finished washing the rest of his body, his face, and his hair. Once they were done, he vaguely registered Kazuki carrying him back to the bedroom and putting a clean set of pajamas back on him.
“Here” Kazuki sat beside him on the bed and handed him a glass of ice water. Rei felt so dehydrated that his first instinct was to guzzle the whole thing down, but Kazuki pulled the cup away before he could.
“Easy! You’ll throw up again if you drink too fast.” Rei’s body was screaming for fluids, but he did as Kazuki said and slowed down.
“Sorry I woke you.” Rei said. Kazuki was a lighter sleeper than he was, but could still tolerate a decent amount of noise, so Rei must have really been loud when he scrambled out of bed.
“No worries. I was already kind of half awake.” Kazuki pressed the back of his hand to Rei’s forehead. “You’re a little warm, but that might be from the shower. How do you feel now?”
Rei groaned in response. The water was already threatening to come back up, his head was pounding, and everything felt fuzzy.
“Poor thing.” Kazuki cupped his face and stroked his cheek sympathetically with his thumb. The coolness of Kazuki’s hands felt incredibly nice against Rei’s feverish skin. His touch once again helped to distract Rei from how terrible he felt.
Kazuki poured some various meds, presumably for Rei’s stomach, out and handed them to him. He stayed with Rei for as long as he could, but eventually had to leave to go make breakfast and get Miri ready for school.
Rei could usually still be pretty functional when he was sick; he once took out an entire gang while battling pneumonia and a sinus infection. He also used to throw up on a fairly regular basis from overtraining when he was a kid, so his body was used to that to an extent. To have something affect him like this was unusual and, frankly, a little scary. Kazuki didn’t seem to think it was anything dangerous though, and Rei trusted judgement, knowing that if anything, Kazuki usually overreacted to injuries and illnesses.
It felt wrong to not join Kazuki and Miri for breakfast, but whatever this sickness was completely sapped his strength, to the point where Rei didn’t think his legs would even support him if he tried to get out of bed. Plus, the medication Kazuki had given him was starting to take effect, so Rei was getting drowsy.
Just as he was about to pass back out, their bedroom door creaked open. “Alright, go say bye to Papa Rei.” He heard Kazuki whisper. Rei opened one of his eyes to see Miri approaching his side of the bed. They were both wearing surgical masks.
“Good Morning Papa! Miri said cheerfully.
“Morning Miri.” Rei mumbled. Her sweet little voice gave him the strength to reach out and pat the top of her head.
“Papa Kazuki said you were sick.”
“A little.” That was an understatement, but Rei didn’t want to scare her.
“Papa Kazukiiii, I wanna stay home and take care of Papa Rei.” Miri turned to Kazuki with her best sad puppy dog eyes and pout.
“That’s really sweet Miri, but you need to go to school.” Kazuki chuckled.
“But he’s sick!”
”He’ll be okay. He just needs to rest for a little while.” Kazuki said reassuringly.
“Okay…But you have to take really really good care of him while I’m at school.”
“I will.”
“You have to make him soup and put a washcloth on his head and let him have as much soda as he wants.” Miri said firmly.
“Yes Ma’am” Kazuki said dutifully, even giving her a playful salute. “I’m sure Papa Rei would love it if you made him a get well card at school today”
“I’ll make you the bestest get well card ever Papa Rei! I promise!”
“Okay.” He smiled, genuinely looking forward to it. He always loved seeing her drawings.
“We better go so you can get started on that.” Kazuki coaxed.
“Okay. Bye bye Papa!”
“Have a good day” Rei smiled. He watched as they walked hand in hand back out into the living room, chatting about ideas for Rei’s get well card.
Rei fell back asleep shortly after, and didn’t wake up again until about midday. He was still nauseous, and generally out of it, but resting all morning at least revived him enough to get out of bed.
When he went out into the living room, the air smelled of chicken and herbs. Kazuki stood at the stove stirring a large, steaming pot.
“Hey! How are you feeling?” He asked.
“Like shit.” Rei walked over to him and pressed his forehead against Kazuki’s back. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this sick” He groaned.
“I’ve definitely never seen you this sick. Usually I have to force you to rest” Kazuki put the lid on the pot and turned around to face him. “On the bright side, I’m pretty sure I know what’s wrong with you. You know how over the weekend Miri’s school had a potluck? Ms Anna told me that a bunch of the kids and parents are home sick right now, so they think one of the dishes gave everyone food poisoning.”
“Food Poisoning?” Rei had been poisoned countless times before, but never from food.
“Seems like it, which means you’re not contagious, so that’s good.” Kazuki gently removed Rei’s mask for him and tossed it to the side. “It must have been something you ate but Miri and I didn’t. Any ideas?” Rei’s eyebrows knit together as he tried to remember their plates.
”Did you guys have the Lasagna?”
“I didn’t…and now that I’m thinking about it I don’t think Miri did either. That must have been what it was. I’ll let Miss Anna know when I go pick Miri up later.” Rei nodded, then winced as he was hit with a wave of vertigo.
“Woah there. You should sit down.” Kazuki said when he saw Rei swaying from side to side. Normally Rei would protest to being babied so much, but everything was spinning too much, so he let Kazuki lead him over to the couch.
“Hm…you feel a little warmer than this morning..” Kazuki swiped the thermometer they usually used for Miri over his forehead. “38…low grade fever.” Kazuki mumbled to himself. He went to the kitchen and grabbed a wet washcloth to put on Rei’s head.
“You’re supposed to take the fever meds with food. Do you think you can keep down a little bit of soup?”
“I can try” Though Rei was still nauseous, he body was aching for food and electrolytes. Plus, the soup smelled amazing, despite how difficult the idea of eating sounded.
Kazuki brought him over one of the tiny plastic bowls that Miri usually used for snacks. It was chicken broth with bowtie pasta and what looked like spinach floating in it.
“It’s not too spicy is it? I put a ton of fresh ginger in there to try and help settle your stomach.” Kazuki asked when Rei took a small bite. It definitely did have a little kick, but not in the same way a peppery dish would. Rei could also taste lemon and something sweet mixed with the salty broth.
“It’s good.”
“Glad you like it.” Kazuki smiled. Rei was trying to be better about verbally complimenting Kazuki’s cooking, since it seemed to make him happy.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had soup like this before.”
“That’s because it’s a Kurusu secret recipe!” Kazuki said proudly. “It’s got all kinds of stuff to help you recover. Ginger for your stomach, lemon for immunity, honey for…” Rei continued to listen to Kazuki list each and every ingredient of his ‘secret’ recipe. By the time he had finished, Rei had managed to eat most of the tiny bowl of soup, so Kazuki gave him medicine to bring his fever down.
“Is there anything else you need?” Kazuki probably was asking if Rei wanted more soup or tea or something like that, but the thing Rei wanted most was just…him. His touch, his presence, his voice, all of it made Rei feel much less miserable.
Not knowing how to express that verbally, Rei just reached out and grabbed Kazuki’s shirt sleeve.
“You want me to keep you company?” Kazuki chuckled fondly. Rei nodded. “Sure, just give me a couple minutes, okay?”
“Kay.” Rei turned on the TV and began flipping through the channels to find something to watch. Kazuki went back to the kitchen briefly and then ducked into their bedroom. When he came back down the stairs, he had taken his apron off and changed out of jeans and into a pair of sweats.
“Miss Me?” Kazuki teased. Rei rolled his eyes, but honestly yeah, he kind of did. He had also begun to feel cold, so he snuggled up to Kazuki immediately when he sat down on the couch.
They ended up deciding to watch some cheesy spy movie. Actually, maybe it wasn’t supposed to be cheesy, but the action scenes were so unrealistic that he and Kazuki spent the whole movie laughing and critiquing the way they held their guns and whatnot.
By the end, Rei was feeling significantly less horrible, partially because of the medication, but also just because Kazuki’s presence always just inexplicably made him feel a little better. Kazuki took the remote and began scrolling through channels to find something else to watch. As he did, Rei noticed the date and the time in the top right corner of the screen.
“Wait. It’s Tuesday. Don’t you have work today?” Rei suddenly remembered.
“Oh, I switched shifts with someone, I work Thursday now instead.” Kazuki said with a wave of his hand.
“Why?”
“One of the other bartenders wanted Thursday off so they could go to a concert. Plus, I promised Miri I would take care of you.”
”You didn’t have to do that…I could have handled it.” Rei grumbled. It wasn’t that he was ungrateful by any means, but he felt guilty knowing that Kazuki was spending his day off dealing with him being sick.
“I know, you’ve really come a long way when it comes to taking care of yourself.” Kazuki’s smile softened, and the arm around Rei’s shoulders tightened. Rei wasn’t expecting the sudden praise, and felt the heat of what was either a blush or a fever seep into his cheeks.
“I like taking care of you though. Plus, we’ve both been so busy. I’m just happy I get to have you to myself for a little while.” Kazuki smiled and left a little kiss on Rei’s temple.
Rei didn’t really know how to respond to that. He grew up having to deal with illnesses and injuries on his own, so to have someone so concerned about him felt odd in the best way.
“I…” before Rei could finish the sentence, another wave of nausea hit him like a truck. “Nn…” Rei buried his face in Kazuki’s neck and took deep breaths through his nose, trying to suppress the urge to vomit again.
“Oh no… feeling bad again?” Rei nodded. He was shivering now too, so Kazuki pulled him into his lap. “You just need to hold out for another hour or so and then you can have more of the nausea medicine.”
With a light touch, Kazuki started to rub Rei’s stomach over his shirt. It was slightly ticklish, but for some reason it was helping a lot. After a few minutes Rei’s stomach settled enough to where he could relax again.
“I thought when we left the Organization we wouldn’t have to worry about being poisoned anymore.” Rei grumbled.
“Food poisoning isn’t the same as being like…poison poisoned you know.” Kazuki chuckled.
“It might as well be.” Rei had been trained to withstand poison from a young age, but this made him feel just as bad as some actual poisons did.
“Maybe a distraction would help. Wanna play one of your games?”
“Sure.” Kazuki leaned over and grabbed Rei’s controller from the coffee table. They shifted into a slightly different position, and once Rei was settled between Kazuki’s legs and leaning back against his chest, he began to scroll through his games.
“Fire Emblem might be nice.” Rei said to himself. It was slow enough to not take a lot of energy, but complex enough to keep Rei’s mind off being sick.
“Ooooh yeah! I’ve been dying to find out what happens next in that one!”
“You know you can just play it yourself right?” Rei chuckled.
“Nah, I’d rather make you do the hard part.” Kazuki’s arms wrapped around Rei. Rei smiled to himself at the feeling and leaned further back into him.
About halfway through the battle, Rei’s stomach started to turn again. He still had to wait to take more medicine, so he trudged on, hoping that ignoring the problem would make it go away.
Though he was trying to pretend he was fine, Rei must have tensed up, or maybe his breathing had gotten a bit faster, because Kazuki somehow noticed. His hand slipped under the bottom of Rei’s shirt, and he again started rubbing slow, soothing circles along Rei’s stomach. Rei really had no idea why it was helping so much, but it did. Even when his stomach settled again though, Kazuki didn’t stop.
“Thank you.” Rei mumbled. Kazuki didn’t say anything, but Rei could feel him smiling when he leaned forward and gave him a peck on the cheek.
Given the fact that Rei was so sick, today should have been terrible. However, thanks to Kazuki taking care of him and being by his side, things ended up being okay. Sure, Rei still felt physically pretty bad, but he also felt comfortable, cozy, and incredibly loved, so he knew he would be okay.