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“Hey…”
“Hm?”
“You, uh- you need a break.”
“My schedule-“
“You need to shower.”
Wifies paused. Looked up at Ken, then at his watch, then frowned.
Playing the schedule card might have been a bad idea, when he’d apparently been working for two hours longer than specified. Into his rest period, when, yes, he was meant to have gone for a walk and showered.
“…Ah.”
Ken’s smile was soft, in that comforting way he got when Wifies or Wato was overworking themselves. No tricks, no mischief. Just care.
“I can tidy up for you. And email your professors. But you need to wash.”
Like always, something inside Wifies twinged. He was meant to stay on top of this. His revision schedule was perfect, just sometimes things dropped off it, and sometimes he got to the end of the day and the only thing he could imagine doing was curling up in bed and neither crying nor sleeping.
And Ken handled it. Without a word, understanding that Wifies had limits, and even if it was his own fault he couldn’t handle them for himself, he needed help. Motivation was hard. Sometimes just getting out of bed was hard.
Slowly, Wifies nodded, trying to put years worth of gratitude into a chastened sort of smile.
“I’ll… shower then, I guess.”
“Really?”
Ken looked at his desk, and up again, and Wifies got a sinking sort of feeling. He was so tired. He was always tired, but right now he knew that if he moved, that would be him done for the day. If he got in the shower, he’d just stare at the wall until he passed out or Wato asked when he’d be done.
He hadn’t showered in what must have been more than a week, because of that. Ken was a saint for not saying something before now. Wifies felt awful about it, because he always did, but he was struggling for an appropriate response. Everything that normally kept him running was going into his studies, right now.
“…maybe not.”
Ken moved behind him, and the next thing Wifies knew, she was pressed against his shoulders, hugging him gently, rubbing his arm with one hand.
“Ok. I can help.”
Wifies didn’t deserve this. Not when he barely felt like he was returning anything.
He didn’t deserve Ken, with his boundless energy and kindness, only asking for a little affection and loyalty in return. Wifies couldn’t remember how long ago it was, that they’d stopped being just friends, by any textbook definition of the word.
It had just happened. Ken had noticed him, really noticed him, in a way Wifies had never felt before. She’d started bringing him food. Coming up to him after he cried, or sat in bed all day staring at nothing, or just sitting with him. And Wifies went studying with him, whenever she got lonely, always there to hold her hand.
It was something. Something with Wato, too. Wifies and Ken helped when he got in his own head about something, got overstressed about a deadline or an email he was dreading the idea of having to send.
It was something that meant Ken could be hugging him like this, like a cat draped across his shoulders, and offering to shower with him, and Wifies didn’t say no.
“That… that’d be nice. Thanks.”
“No problem.” Ken nuzzled against his head, and Wifies really, really didn’t know what awful karmic repayment he’d have to make on this in another life. “C’mon. Up.”
He needed that. Wifies wasn’t sure he’d move, otherwise. Something about sitting at his desk all day, barely even drinking, definitely not eating. It consumed his world, a dozen hours or more at a time. Made his head worse, or better, depending who you asked.
With Ken’s hands in his, Wifies stood up, his legs protesting enough that he nearly collapsed into her, and they both came out of it giggling. It was embarrassing, being helped to his feet like a baby deer, but it was Ken. He didn’t mind.
Wifies lifted his head, at one point, and Ken was grinning down at him. He bristled, just because it was weird seeing her from this angle, and managed to stand up, solely out of spite.
“You should be shorter than me.”
“Well, it’s your lucky day.”
Reaching up, Ken tapped Wifies’s nose, and he blinked, caught a little off guard. She wasn’t normally this willingly adorable. Maybe he looked worse than he felt.
Wifies had honestly lost track, of what feeling good was meant to look like. He got up, sometimes, he ate food, sometimes, he did his work. That felt good. In its own way.
He slept in the same bed as Ken and Wato each night, and that felt good. A warmth in his heart, blossoming through the cracked, reflective plates filling his chest cavity, beaming back pinpricks of hope through the darkness.
Ken’s eyes had turned sad, by the time Wifies refocused on her face, and there was a gentle hand on his cheek, which he melted into with hardly a thought.
“You need a break. A real one.”
“Two more weeks. Then it’ll all be over.”
Ken hummed. She didn’t believe him. Wifies didn’t believe him, either. Exams were never the end of it. Then he had summer schools, extracurriculars, lectures he was attending or speaking at.
“Three weeks. Then I’m taking you and Wato to a party.”
Wifies must have made a noise of sheer despair, because Ken giggled, his fingertips digging in for a second as she petted his cheek.
“Or we can just hang out here?”
“…Better.”
“Then we’ll do that.”
Wifies smiled. Ken must have too, making a huffy sort of sound, and dropping his grip to his wrist, tugging both of them towards their shitty dorm ensuite. They’d gotten lucky, mostly by virtue of being a preformed trio that had scored points with the faculty before term even started, and willing to take the weird three-person rooms.
Inside, Ken let Wifies sit on the floor, mould be damned, because exhaustion hit him like a weighted blanket the second he left his desk, and he could already feel himself slipping. If he’d had to stay in Ken’s arms, Wifies would already have been asleep. It was only the constant, base paranoia of the world that was keeping him awake, normally so easily washed away by his friends.
Water started running. Wifies looked up, feeling a little dead inside, as Ken started stripping in front of him.
“C’mon. Clothes, off, now.”
Frowning, Wifies moved to struggle with his hoodie, only to realise he couldn’t fully remember when he’d even put it on. Days ago, probably. He’d barely left their dorm, it wasn’t like he’d had anyone to dress up for. He’d thought he was matching normal fashion for exam-week, but maybe he’d been getting more dirty looks in the library than he’d realised.
Another thing to feel numbly guilty about. It wasn’t real guilt. Just a hollow where it should have sat, tingling sometimes in a phantom pain of something Wifies had never quite been able to feel. Disgust at himself, maybe.
It would all be worth it.
Ken, now wearing just her plain white underwear and sports top, crouched in front of him, rolling his eyes.
“Arms up. God, valedictorian-to-be, and he can’t even undress himself. I pity the ladies.”
“What ladies?” Wifies scoffed, letting Ken wrestle with him to get the hoodie over his shoulders. “I’m barely even pulling men, let’s not test my limits.”
“Ah, you should experiment. It’ll get you out this crappy dorm.”
Wifies held his breath, as the fabric caught around his face, and he got it the rest of the way off with a huff of exertion. He wasn’t wearing anything underneath. Their dorm was warm enough, and he’d rather not have anything else touching his skin and bothering him.
His sweatpants were easier. Those he had changed, he remembered, at least twice in the last week. Maybe at most. Wifies didn’t have too much faith in himself at the moment. Ken didn’t have to help him with it, at least, and he was stupidly, spitefully proud of that.
As much as he was anything. Wifies just wanted to crawl into bed beside Ken and Wato and sleep, but Ken was right, he was always right, and even their patience with him would run out if he didn’t at least shower.
“Ready?”
Wifies looked down at himself, at his boxers, still on, and shrugged. He’d be fine with it. Better than the awkwardness of being naked in front of Ken. Whatever they were to each other, that felt weird.
Ken helped him up again. Wifies didn’t like how unnatural his own body felt, ligaments tightening to pull him upright, motor cortex sparking to tell his legs to keep him there. But it felt plastic, moving around him like an oiled machine.
Ken must have noticed his slight nausea at the reminder of a physical form, because she was taking his hand, flipping it palm-up, eyes lingering on his every step of the way. Wifies nodded, smiling a little, as he ran short, sharpened and painted nails up and down his bare forearm, sending tingling rushing through his body.
It felt like something, which was more than Wifies could really manage on his own. Even better, it felt soothing, like white noise in his veins, and he relaxed, letting Ken circle his palm, reigniting cramped muscles and tracing over ink stains.
His mind was drifting again, when Ken did his other arm, taking the same care and concentration with it as she did everything else. Wifies felt like crying, in a happy, exhausted sort of way. He was just so tired, and he’d barely spoken to a human in weeks, let alone let his friends touch him and remind him that he was human too.
“Better?”
“So much. Seriously.”
“Good. Water time.”
Wifies rolled his eyes, letting Ken shove him into their actually decent-sized shower, and lean past him to switch on the water. It immediately blasted into his face, ice cold, and if that didn’t snap Wifies out of his own head at least a little, then nothing would.
He recoiled, only to hit Ken, and flinch again, then regret it instantly.
“Oh- Ken, I’m sorry-“
“No, no, you just stay right there.” Ken reached past him, flicking the temperature dial up. “Thinking again?”
“Yep. More.”
“Application of intellectual property on NFTs?”
“Entirely applicable, up until the point of sale, providing the contract is properly drawn out. Which it rarely is.”
“You’re doing great.” Ken punched his shoulder, just gently, and Wifies grinned for no good reason at all. “That means you have to take the rest of tonight off.”
“I can’t get distrac-“
“To sleep. With me. And Wato. And food might be involved.”
The water was warming up, and Wifies felt like falling asleep right there again. He managed a vague nod, turning towards the water like a sunflower under a clear sky.
“That… that sounds ok.”
Ken hummed in pleased satisfaction, and Wifies let himself hold onto that for a while. It felt nice.
Then small, warm hands were spread across his back, and Wifies yelped. It was an improvement on a few hours ago, when he was fairly sure he wouldn’t even have had the sensory capacity to register it, but he still startled more than he cared to, as Ken withdrew sharpish.
“Oops. Uh- soap?”
“Sorry, I-“ Wifies shook his head, glancing over his shoulder to Ken’s guilty expression. “Yeah, sorry. You’re good. Go for it.”
He really should be helping. But there was no arguing with the force of nature that was Kenadian with a goal in mind, and Wifies knew when he didn’t have the energy available to fight.
“Sure? You’d better not be lying to me.”
“You? Never.”
Ken grinned, and Wifies felt awful. He lied to everyone. At some point or another. The line blurred, as reality dissolved around him, and nothing was really true anyway apart from what people wanted to believe.
But Ken didn’t need to know that. Another, gentler lie, to keep whatever this was safe. Wifies didn’t feel bad about it, as Ken went back to working soap and shampoo across his body and into his hair, and he didn’t even do anything. Just stood there.
Inside him, something itched to be productive. It was a dim spark, dimmed by too many days he hadn’t even been able to get out of bed until his self-hatred was making him nauseous, but Wifies didn’t normally like someone else doing everything for him.
Ken was an exception. She and Wato were always his exceptions. Ken was the one Wifies wrote his notes to, when it got bad, and Wato was the one he’d want to find him, at the end. He’d thought about it too much. The period of being on, awake, always, the world moving too slowly around him to keep him occupied.
Wifies had run out of normal things to think about before university. There was only so much, in the universe, to fill the gap in his attention span. That was when it had all started getting darker.
Ken got it. Ken didn’t have the same need to fill the emptiness as him, but Ken was just as active, maybe more so. Quick, but in a fascinatingly intellectual way, not Wifies’s near-inhuman style. He could bounce back and forth, a thousand different tasks at once, never slowing long enough to spiral.
Ken was washing his hair like Wifies was something worth caring about, and he wanted to cry, just a little bit.
“How’d you feel about taking your pants off?”
“Bad. What?” Wifies turned around, nearly getting shampoo in his eye as he frowned. “No?”
“You need to wash.”
It sounded so matter-of-fact, when Ken said it, looking up at him in that determinedly serious way. Wifies looked down at himself, like an idiot, and yeah, the fabric felt awful, but Ken was here.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Bro- I’m not getting naked-“
“I can leave.”
Ken was actually serious about this. It was stupid, how much Wifies didn’t want to finish even showering alone, but it was stupider to say no.
“…fine. Just… wait for me. Please.”
“Always.” Ken grinned, and ducked out of the shower, grabbing a towel as she headed out.
Wifies stared at where he’d been, then shook his head, and shampoo actually got in his eyes that time.
This was stupid. He could do things by himself.
——————
Ken was sitting against the wall, when Wifies came out, wearing the clothes he’d had to awkwardly ask for through the door when he felt vaguely nauseous at the idea of putting his dirty ones back on.
Ken had given him his clothes, which was nice. Sometimes Wato and Wifies swapped trousers, but Wifies was normally pretty firm about keeping the hoodies he liked. It took a while, to find good ones, that didn’t itch or make him feel like death.
He didn’t feel like much of anything right now. Just tired, looking down at Ken, and receiving a small, sleepy smile in return.
“Wato got back.”
A nod to their sofa, and Wifies waved to Wato, who nodded back. They got up, as Ken pushed herself to her feet, stretching like a cat in the sun. It was cute.
“I did.. the food thing.” Wato shrugged, offering what looked like yoghurt. “Or we can go sleep.”
Wifies looked down, and considered the cost-benefit ratio of throwing up at the idea. Food wasn’t going to work with him, right now. And he didn’t want to upset Wato, but he really didn’t want to eat that either.
“You can say no.” Ken’s fake-whisper in his ear made Wifies startle, awkwardness freezing him in place. “We can do breakfast. If you just want to sleep.”
“…Yeah. Sorry, Wato. It- looks really good.”
“It’s good.” Wato shrugged, and Wifies’s stomach turned. “Sleep is good too. How’s it been going?”
“Pretty good.” Finally, Wifies relaxed a little, smiling genuinely with a small laugh. “Pretty good. I’m doing something.”
“Killing yourself slowly.” Ken tutted, one arm dropping to around his waist as he dragged Wifies towards their bedroom. “God, I’m proud of you two, but-“
“We know, Ken. Don’t act like you’re an epitome of self-care.”
Wifies laughed, at that one. Wato had hit his mark. Even if Ken bristled, and made a sharp noise between a sigh and a scoff, the other two were laughing.
“Come on, idiots. Bed.”
“Bed.” Nodding in agreement, Wifies leaned on Ken, taking the opportunity to be a bit of a nuisance himself. “Carry me.”
“Absolutely not.” Ken sounded almost scandalised, but only pushed Wifies off as far as she could manage without actually dropping him. “Wato, take him.”
“Sure.”
Surprised, Wifies didn’t have time to reconsider his life decisions before his feet were leaving the floor, and he shrieked, clinging to Wato’s neck in a way that left his heart racing. His head spun alongside his vision, and Wifies could hear his own ragged breathing, as he fought the urge to strangle his friend.
“Wato- Wato, please- please don’t do that.”
He needed to breathe. He wasn’t breathing. He should be breathing. It was just Wato, picking him up like a maiden rescued from a fire. Ken was giggling. Wifies needed to breathe.
Wato put him down gently, and Wifies didn’t like how he stumbled, feeling weak on his feet for no good reason as his heart pounded through his eardrums.
“You good? Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It- yeah, it’s fine.” Wifies managed to find his balance on the completely unmoving floor, and gasped again, hands on his knees as he tried to get his heart rate under control. “Just… warning. I need warning.”
He hadn’t seen that coming. That had freaked him out, and now his cheeks were glowing, because he was hyperventilating over his friend doing something he hadn’t expected them to.
Ken nudged him, and Wifies nodded, breathless as he was guided through to their bedroom, and could sit on their bed to try to recover properly.
Wato appeared beside him, taking his hand awkwardly, and Wifies clung on, nodding to reassure both of them. That. That was what he wanted. His heart was just beating a little too hard, and between this and the shower, he almost felt normal.
Almost normal. That would be so nice to feel.
“Hey.” Wato nudged his shoulder, and Wifies looked up, feeling small and lonely and so different none of that would ever matter. “Lie down?”
Wifies stared. He was thinking. In some separate part of himself, there was thought occurring.
Thought that was removed from his control, as Ken carefully spread her bodyweight over him, until Wifies’s forearms gave out, and he hit his own pillow with a small noise of surprise knocked out of him.
“How’s that?”
Wifies sensed Ken was far too pleased with himself, and didn’t even mind. If he could still make his friends happy, that was a win.
Also, it did feel nice. Like a weighted blanket. Face-down on his bed, with no pressures on his dignity or commitments, Wifies could almost relax. Inertia was in favour of rest, now. His constant, aching yen to be productive was almost soothed.
“…nice.”
Wifies felt Wato’s hand on the side of his temple, turning his head gently so he could breathe without filtering it through fabric. It was appreciated, even if he rolled his eyes as they fluttered shut.
“You’re really cute when you’ve worked hard.” Ken rubbed her cheek against Wifies’s shoulder blade, giggling. “Which you have. Despite the killing yourself slowly thing.”
“Thanks.” Wifies scoffed, sinking a little deeper into the mattress. “Sleeping now.”
“Good plan.”
Wato stroked his hair, gently, and Wifies could hear them smiling. He might be smiling too, to be honest, happily soaking in the warmth radiating into him from Ken.
“Ken’s asleep, isn’t she?”
“Mhm. You can too.”
Wifies nodded, vaguely. It was nice to be clean, and warm, and tired. Really tired, with the option for rest within reach.
Wato was still petting his hair, and Wifies didn’t even hate it, as he melted into his friends’ warmth.