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“...I told you not to get up until you were feeling better.”
The statement comes out before he even bothers looking up from the paperback book in his hand. There’s nobody else that it could be, after all— they’d been alone in the house since morning, since the begrudging decision to call out of class together if it meant a certain someone had incentive to feed himself properly. Yet still, Rio can’t help but lift his gaze in concern as Matoba makes his painstaking way towards the couch.
Almost nothing has changed compared to earlier. He’s still clad in pajama pants and a sweatshirt, with a thick blanket draped over his shoulders; none of which seems to fully quell the shivers wracking his body. His movements are less his own and more like that of a baby deer just learning to walk for the first time, legs wobbling with each uncertain step. As he approaches, Rio catches a glimpse of his feverishly-bright eyes beneath the tangled mess of red hair.
“...got lonely…” is all Matoba mumbles in response, before flopping down at Rio’s right. His breaths sound all the more shallow and painful up close, punctuated by the occasional tiny, rattling cough. Rio can feel the heat from where their bodies connect, the other’s forehead pressed awkwardly against the soft side of his bicep.
This is the part that even he fails to understand— the way the distance between the two of them had closed so suddenly, when it seemed all but insurmountable before. The side of Matoba that emerged upon falling ill is uncharacteristically honest with his desires, craving for physical affection in a way that feels almost incongruous to his usual behavior. It’s not even as if Rio dislikes the idea of reciprocating as much as he just doesn’t know how, for once in his life met with a situation so out of the ordinary that he, too, can’t manage to adapt.
For a second, he finds himself studying Matoba’s face, observing the miniscule details he’d never been given the chance to notice before. There’s a faint dusting of freckles along the bridge of his nose, now partially obscured by the reddish flush of his skin, and his eyelashes are surprisingly long and delicate-looking, like those of a doll. He watches as they flutter a little uneasily, hardly fighting against the first waves of sleep as they threaten to pull him in.
I suppose it can’t be helped, then, Rio thinks to himself, shifting the book from his right hand to his left to rest a palm on the small of Matoba’s back, careful not to agitate his already sensitive nerves. If he’s comfortable enough to sleep here, it works out for the both of them; at least until somebody else gets home, or Matoba’s condition improves enough to be embarrassed. But for right now, Rio amuses himself with the knowledge that so few had ever witnessed this aspect of the other he finds himself privy to now.
Amidst the silence, a thought takes form on his tongue, one he can’t bring himself to say out loud— yet something tells him he has more than enough time to do so.