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Tamon was coughing up a lung while hugging a trash can turned puke bucket as close as possible. He had been bedridden since yesterday with an awful cough and he’d thrown up WAY more than his usual amount. So the only thing he could do was sleep, and the only way he could fall asleep was listening to ASMR. He wasn’t sure when the habit first started, but he’d been listening to people cracking wax covered slime open to fall asleep for months.
Right when he was about to fall asleep he heard his phone ding, he picked up his phone, and as expected, it was from Zaki. Suspiciously Zaki hadn’t texted him all day, which made Tamon way more disappointed than it should’ve.
The message only had an mp3 file attached, that was around 7 hours long. Maybe it was some new albums Zaki had somehow pirated before release again. But when he started the audio it was nothing like that.
“Hey Tamon, so I know you're sick and missing a bunch of school is a pain in the ass, so I’m going through some notes that I took.”
Tamon couldn’t help but smile when he heard Zaki’s voice. It had only been two days, but he had already started missing him… and the others- of course.
“And you might notice that the microphone is like suuuper close to my mouth, Mogari snitched and said you listened to ASMR, weirdo~. So this is the closest you’re gonna get-.”
Oh my god. Zaki was recording ASMR notes for him so he didn’t miss much of the lessons, and because he knows Tamon likes ASMR. He was basically making heart-eyes at the screen. This was one of the sweetest things someone had ever casually done for him, which either means that Zaki is really sweet, or Tamon’s life is really sad. Even Zaki calling him a weirdo was swoon worthy. He unpaused it, eager to hear more of Zaki’s voice, but a little disappointed that he had to hear him struggle through explaining his poor notes.
“-So, sorry you’re not gonna hear any keyboard clacking, or whatever’s in those videos. I’m an ASMR virgin, so I don’t really know what else I'm supposed to do…You can just sit back and somehow relax while hearing my weird mouth sounds-... I’m already weirding myself out.” Zaki took a long pause, Tamon could hear every breath that he took, like he was whispering in his ear. “Let me get back on topic, okay chemistry, so…um all I wrote down was some word I can’t even read and “bonds”... Hope that’s helpful,” Zaki said sarcastically.
Tamon shouldn’t have been surprised, he sits next to him all the time, he’s seen his notes. He’s seen that Zaki might be on par with Mogari levels of bad at taking notes, except that it’s not like he lived in the mountains his whole life, with no formal education, so he has no excuse. He realized that Zaki probably has 0 useful study info for him, and that this whole thing was probably just him rambling for hours. But of course Tamon was still going to listen to it.
As he listened to Zaki struggling to remember anything that happened during class, he started falling asleep. Zaki was right, he really could just “sit back and relax while hearing his mouth sounds”, but he’d prefer to word it any other way. He fell asleep about 7 minutes into the audio, not able to resist the fatigue and how relaxing Zaki’s voice sounded.
…
“FUCK, NOOOOO-”
Tamon is forced awake by the sound of Zaki screaming, he quickly sits up and looks around his room. For a split second, thinking that Zaki was there with him, but his room was still and empty. He sat in disbelief, looking over to his phone, eager to pause the chaos.
The time on his phone read 2:34 am, and the recording was a little more than halfway over.
“What…?” He said drowsily, as if Zaki would be able to reply back, sounding like he was still half asleep. He rubbed his eyes and unpaused the recording-
“OOOOOO WHY DOES THIS ALWAYS HAPPEN TO ME!”
Tamon turned the volume down as fast as possible, pressing on the volume buttons as hard as he could, which really wasn’t that hard because of how weak being sick made him.
“...Wait, oh my god, am I still recording?” Zaki’s voice breaks and he starts laughing. Tamon is sitting in bed looking half dead, with the straightest face ever, and Zaki is laughing his ass off. “Oh my god, dude, I’m so-o sorry, I forgot I was recording, and I just got a huge spoiler.” He’s still struggling to get his words out through fits of cackling, as if he knew he just woke Tamon up. Tamon started smiling, Zaki’s real laugh was a little rare, so it was nice to just listen to him, and hear the smile in his voice.
Maybe Zaki’s laugh was a cure or something because Tamon was starting to feel a tiny bit better, so he grabbed his phone and went to the kitchen to make some tea to calm his burning throat, that he hopefully won’t throw up. He turns on the stove and waits for the water to heat up, then leans back on the counter and closes his eyes to give Zaki his full attention.
Zaki’s still struggling to recover after his intense bout of laughter. Hearing his deep breathing Tamon can almost see his chest softly moving up and down. He wondered what it would be like to rest his hand on Zaki’s chest, and feel his heartbeat. Tamon could feel his whole face heat up at the thought of even touching Zaki that closely. Zaki was never really a fan of physical contact, so in fleeting moments when he would let only Tamon touch him, the unintentional favoritism would make him dizzy. Or when Zaki would put his hand on Tamon’s shoulder for an exorcism, he would wish that it would last forever.
Tamon sighed, “I’m down bad,” he said to himself, kinda pathetically. He wasn’t even focused on what Zaki was actually saying anymore. Just listening to the way he was panting, trying to catch his breath, was enough for him to focus and pine over. Then as if a switch flipped, he felt a flood of nausea suddenly hit him. Maybe it was just the sickness coming back in full force, or maybe his stupid crush was making him regress, and even thinking about Zaki was making him nauseous. The feeling started rising from his stomach into his throat, and he hunched over to the counter. He puked right there, in the kitchen sink.
“Egh, gross,” He said, while wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His head felt fuzzy, and his earbuds felt like they were pounding sound straight into his brain. He splashed water on his face, and felt warm blood running down his upper lip. A classic anime nose bleed, he really was down bad. “God, I’m such a looooser,” He said, annoyed, but slightly laughing at himself.
Tamon was able to refocus on Zaki’s still playing voice, it was a little funny hearing Zaki recount some dumb story, while he was bent over the kitchen counter, throwing up. He heaved himself up off the counter, poured his tea, and went to go brush his teeth.
“Dude I completely forgot this was supposed to be for studying…how long have I been recording?...4 HOURS?!”
Tamon was washing his face, trying not to laugh at the fact that the audio somehow had about 3 more hours left.
He headed back to his room and carefully set the hot tea down on his bedside table, before completely collapsing on his bed. His brain still felt fuzzy, and Zaki’s words didn’t feel like they made real sentences. He was too tired to tell what Zaki was actually saying, just closing his eyes and visualizing his face, imagining how his mouth formed around every syllable. He felt his entire body heat up, and he covered his eyes in shame, turning to the wall.
It only took a minute after that for Tamon to be completely asleep. But in his almost concerningly deep sleep he missed amazing dialogue from Zaki, like:
“If I was in a zombie apocalypse, the first thing I would do is immediately kill myself.”
And
“Being possessed was crazy, I was like, trapped in my own mind, completely naked for some reason. I felt like I could barely walk after, so thanks for offering to carry me. But I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU GUYS FOR FORGETTING MY SCHOOL CLOTHES, FUCK YOU FOR THAT!...” Zaki then complained about having to show up to school on Monday in a girls uniform, for the next 20 minutes.
But most importantly was what Tamon missed at the very end of all 7 hours of recording.
“Holy shit, this is probably gonna be like 7 and a half hours. I only talked about my notes for the first hour or two. Whatever. Since you should’ve fallen asleep by now, I’ll share a little confession before I end it. I wouldn’t have done this for anyone else~”
Zaki may have correctly predicted that Tamon would be asleep, but what he couldn’t have predicted was that he would regularly re-listened to the audio file.