Chapter Text
You are born with a “print” on your body.
It can appear anywhere on your body, most commonly on the wrist or the length of your arm, and manifests as a pattern at first, just a vague shape or two, lines that intertwine, splotches, dots, etc.
It’s a name.
Or it will be, once you get to that part of your life.
Everything feels hazy in Nagisa’s apartment as he lies on the couch in his living room, both legs dangling off of the armrests while he breathes shallowly, his lungs making this sound that’s kind of like a plane taking off and then plummeting to its doom.
Which is actually a relatively good analogy for the way he feels right now.
Really shitty.
The lights are bright overhead and even with the arm he has slung over his eyes, they still pierce his temples in the most painful way possible. He regrets not turning them off the moment Haruka left with Nagisa’s cat in tow.
He blinks, closes his eyes, tries to calm the raging headache he has, thinks.
No, wait, that was yesterday.
Yeah, right, it’s a new day already. Right.
Nagisa groans anyways.
He really wouldn’t know anymore—he’s been asleep so much (and not even continuously, just half-hour intervals that confuse him a lot) that his stomach isn’t even complaining anymore, having already accepted that its owner is too lazy and too sick to do anything other than complain about how he’s too lazy and too sick.
Wow.
That is really shitty.
Wow.
Nagisa hears a vibration in the general area above his head and feels around for his phone, almost giving up when he doesn’t find it within thirty seconds. It takes thirty seconds more before he can open his eyes through the migraine splitting his head in half.
It’s an alarm he doesn’t remember making, but it was most definitely him who made it, if the thousand grammatical errors are anything to go by.
youre noT THT SCK go out n get meds DON’T MAEK HARU-CHN GETIT 4 U or its gbye 2 bochan
Nagisa groans again.
There’s a storm threatening to drown the city, the wind howling cruelly outside with heavy rain clouds looming across the skies that promise to make landfall any moment now.
It’s been a rough week, the shop where Nagisa works having accommodated more customers than usual over the past few days because of an ongoing seminar in a nearby hotel, and it was only made rougher by the fact that Nagisa contracted the flu early on Tuesday when a rude stranger on the train sneezed right in his face during rush hour.
(The bastard wasn’t even wearing a face mask. He should’ve been arrested or something.)
Despite the immune system Nagisa boasts about every once in a while, the incident had him leaving the train station with a runny nose and an itchy throat. When his boss started fussing over his overly pink face, he insisted that all his sneezing and coughing and general ickiness had all to do with his allergies and nothing to do with actually being sick, and that he’d be better within a few days.
“Don’t worry, Ama-chan!” he’d said stubbornly while coughing through a face mask and into his sleeve as he put on his apron.
Miho was not pleased.
Nagisa was put on accounting duty after fighting with Miho for a whole half hour to just let him work, on the condition that he get better within the next day. However, after a mere five hours of gradually worsening symptoms (to the point wherein Nagisa fainted on top of his lunch due to a fever—or maybe it was just because he hadn’t slept properly), Miho had threatened him with the usual ‘I will fire you’ line just to get him to stop coming to work for the next few days.
And Nagisa did stop, though he was full of reluctance to actually do it.
Now, two days afterwards, he’s braving the cruel, cruel weather just to get medicine for his swollen sinuses, and that’s not to mention the store closest to his house is closed because the owners are out of town for the month and there was nobody to manage it while they were away.
Nagisa snivels underneath his face mask and waits for the train doors to open.
He really shouldn’t have waved Haruka away as quick as he had—at the fifteen year mark of their friendship, one would think that Nagisa would have already outgrown his dependency on the older man, but no, at twenty-three years old, Nagisa is still as irresponsible as ever.
Can’t even take care of a cat to the point that his best friend has to confiscate the cat.
A cold wind makes Nagisa’s blonde curls dance as he steps out of the train.
Haruka had asked if he needed someone to take care of him, but since an overflowing amount of stubbornness constitutes the most of Nagisa’s personality, he had refused and proudly said, “’M not gonna die, Haru-chan! Don’t worry!”
Haruka had answered him with a deadpan glare that screamed ‘yeah right,’ and in retaliation, Nagisa had pushed him out the door with Bocchan and a shout of ‘have fun.’
Magnificent.
If Nagisa had known that his medicine trove was empty, he wouldn’t have done that.
But he didn’t.
So, yes, this whole week has just been absolutely miserable, he thinks while subconsciously rubbing at the inside of his wrist as he jogs down the stairs of the station into the town proper. He struggles to open his not-so-trusty penguin umbrella before starting to walk, body tucked into his warm coat as best as possible while Kyary Pamyu Pamyu blasts into his ears.
Just plain miserable.
It’s not too late to be out—the time only being around half past seven or so—but the area is quiet with just a few people out and about. Nagisa manages to cross a street with no problem even while the pedestrian stoplights are shining red. There are headlights in the distance when he looks before crossing another intersection, but the lights are a good ways away. The residents must have all paid proper attention to the storm warnings and locked themselves in their houses with the heat on full blast and hot miso soup in their stomachs.
The thought makes Nagisa slightly grumpier and his stomach growl painfully, because his kotatsu at home broke down sometime last month because of his cat messing with it, and because there’s no food in his cupboards due to Nagisa procrastinating on the grocery shopping.
(It was the weekend that Haruka had invited him to swim. Like hell was he going to refuse that.)
It’s then that he remembers that he hasn’t had any food since around eleven that morning, having slept through most of the afternoon because of his lethargy. He checks his temperature with the back of his hand and sighs upon the conclusion that he still has a fever.
Of course.
Lying around in bed really wasn’t gonna cut it, even if he insisted on it.
He burrows further into his coat.
Lightning flashes across the dark skies like some kind of morbid warning for Nagisa to hurry the hell up; he urges his heavy legs to waddle more once he sees the bright sign of the pharmacy down the street, the rumble of thunder resonating in his abdomen and egging him on even more. He starts to wheeze, using his umbrella as a mini cane as he tries to make a run for it—it doesn’t help (why did he think it even would) so he stomps instead in utter frustration as the rain begins to fall lightly.
Optimism makes Nagisa feel like he’s walking faster than he was before, and he’s thinking that maybe it’s not gonna rain that hard after all, oh sweet, but surprise surprise, it starts pouring once he’s halfway there, the rain drenching him and soaking through at least two layers.
The cold weather thundering over him is such a sudden relief to the uncomfortably clammy warmth underneath his clothes that he stays right there for at least five minutes and almost makes up his mind to stay there until he stops feeling so horrible, but then he remembers, oh right, he’s sick, and he regrettably waddles into the store.
He’s shivering incredibly once he puts his useless umbrella in the umbrella rack by the door, and his eyes start burning and watering at the intensity of the pharmacy’s incredibly white interior and the urge to sleep brought about by his sickness.
The sheer stupidity of his decision suddenly slaps him in the face and makes a watery, muddy grave seem like an incredibly good idea, but the thought is crushed at once by the thought of his cat staying in his apartment, alone forever, because his owner was dumb enough to stand in the rain while sick with the flu.
It would be devastating for little Bocchan to be left defenseless in a world like this.
Or actually, Nagisa thinks Bocchan wouldn’t actually notice. He’s a fickle little tabby who likes Haruka way more than he likes his actual owner, and Nagisa thinks he’d actually prefer if Nagisa were to die.
Nagisa pretends he’s not crying on the inside as he wanders into an aisle where he thinks the cup noodles are in, getting water virtually everywhere every time he moves. He pushes his hair back in an attempt to not poke his eyes out as he returns his earphones into his surprisingly not wet (maybe damp) pockets and grabs five cup noodles of assorted flavors.
The store is absolutely void of other customers, and it comes as a relief. How embarrassing would it have been if Nagisa’d vomited on some other customer’s shoes?
The answer is irrelevant because he’d probably be too dead to remember it happening anyways.
There’s only one person aside from him, and it’s an employee at the counter staring at him worriedly. Nagisa fidgets once he notices the man looking; he pulls his coat closer as a sort of barrier despite the awful wet way it sticks to his skin, setting the cup noodles in a stack on the counter while he rubs at his wrist out of habit.
Yeah. The room is starting to spin.
Great.
He shouldn’t have stood in the rain for as long as he did.
The employee is still staring at him worriedly and there’s a pause before he’s asking Nagisa how he can help in the standard salesman way, but the scowl to his lips does not disappear at all, the scowl actually deepening in what Nagisa thinks is concern.
Nagisa tries to look everywhere but at the tall man, brain processing as slow as molasses, and it’s an entire moment of embarrassment before his mouth catches up to what he wants to say, which is, “Oh, hi, um, I’m sick with the flu.”
He winces at how croaky his voice sounds. Ugh.
The employee—Rei, Nagisa reads off of his nametag—frowns, eyebrows rising to his hairline as he replies, “Y-yes. It would seem so, sir. Um.”
Nagisa nods, regretting the action when it makes his temples pulse, and announces the medicine he needs. “…maybe like ten paracetamol and… mefenamic,” he mumbles under his breath, gradually feeling worse with every second that passes by, and pulls his pink wallet out of the pocket of his raincoat (thank god it’s waterproof, thank you, Rin-chan).
“That’s gonna be—sir?” Rei cuts himself off before he can tell Nagisa the price, and Nagisa just wants to kinda throw a few bills into the employee’s face and be off. The room is now spinning uncontrollably and Nagisa feels sick, way sicker than ten minutes earlier and it’s horrible—there’s bile climbing his throat and it’s all he can do to push it back down.
He just really wants to go home.
“Sir? Do you need to sit down? You look green, like literally green—please don’t vomit, oh god—”
Nagisa shakes his head as if to say of course not, but it’s obviously a bad idea, another wave of nausea hitting him and he blinks, tries to push it down again, fully intending to open his eyes back up, but it takes so long for his eyes to open again that he just… maybe… tries to sleep.
Just for a little while.
Yeah. That sounds good.
Rei outright squawks in surprise as the customer suddenly slumps against the counter and slowly slips to the floor, turning into a puddle of wet clothes and red splotchy skin. He stares, shocked, at the stack of cup noodles to the side before he warily leans across the counter and calls, “U-um, sir? Sir? Are you okay?”
Obviously, the customer doesn’t answer since he is as unconscious as something that is dead, breathing so shallow that it's as if he's not breathing at all.
Rei promptly starts panicking over what to do as he jumps over the counter and tries to wake him up. The small man really hadn’t been kidding when he said he was sick—his skin is blazing, he’s sweating underneath his dripping clothes, and it’s all Rei can do to stop himself from fainting as well out of worry.
He resolves to start with bringing the customer to where he can rest, not really questioning if he would appreciate being brought into a stranger’s living quarters or not. He rushes to close the pharmacy properly, almost slipping on puddles while he runs around, before carrying the blonde man up the stairs to his apartment on the second floor, nudging the light switch on with an elbow and then promptly freaking out about where he should put the unconscious man.
The couch? The bed in his room? Which is a very private place, by the way—Rei’s never had anyone in there aside from himself and—his thoughts are interrupted when the man in his arms suddenly groans and he feels the water seeping into his uniform.
He resolves to place the stranger on the couch first, and the moment Rei’s arms are out from underneath him, the stranger starts shivering harder, face crumpled into what Rei can only describe as agony. Within the next second, Rei has a hand reaching up to rub at the back of his neck and the bridge of his nose and his forearms as he tries to talk himself into undressing this complete stranger, Rei, goddammit, just do it, he’s gonNA DIE—
Rei pulls at his hair and wipes his glasses clean with his uniform as a final attempt at gathering courage.
Okay.
Okay.
He can do this.
Trembling fingers hesitantly reach for the stranger’s damp raincoat, but quickly retract when the man suddenly speaks (“Haru-chan, don’t take my cat away—”) and his hand shoots out to grab at air. Rei waits for him to talk more, or maybe wake up so that he can undress himself, but the stranger doesn’t stir again throughout the five minutes Rei stands stiffly beside the couch.
Sleeptalking. Great. Oh god, great.
Oh god how is he supposed to do this.
He tries again with clammier hands and a pounding heartbeat, and manages to wrestle off the man’s raincoat, hanging it over a chair to dry.
Underneath the coat, the man wears a pink wool sweater, and Rei can only imagine how uncomfortable that must be. He props him up into a sitting position, causing the stranger to slump heavily against him and wow, you’d never expect someone with a frame like this would weigh this heavy, but he does and Rei struggles to pull the sweater off the blonde.
By the time he’s done, he’s flushed and breathing heavily.
Whether it’s out of embarrassment or actual exertion, it doesn’t really matter because he still has to take off a shirt, which is hopefully the last layer the stranger is wearing.
It has a penguin printed on the front. Cute.
More colour fills Rei’s cheeks as he easily takes the t-shirt off of the blonde.
He totally does not look at the man’s torso, because that is an inappropriate thing to do.
Instead, he turns towards the end of the couch to unlace the stranger’s shoes, pulling off pink converse and socks that are unpleasantly wet and slightly muddy—Rei forgets being flustered in favour of being appalled, holding the damp footwear at an arm’s length with only two fingers, setting them down on the chair where the rest of the man’s things are hanging off of.
The pants also come off, not without trouble (he can never understand why people wear skinny jeans) and more embarrassment on Rei’s behalf, and with almost another second’s hesitation, he gathers the stranger into his arms once again.
It’s not necessarily a long trip from the living room to Rei’s bedroom, but it becomes one when the blonde man suddenly wakes up and tries to sit up like how a person normally would—Rei loses his balance and drops the stranger, who panics once he realizes he’s falling and grabs the closest thing he can reach, which is, unfortunately, Rei’s neck.
You can almost imagine how horrible that turns out.
Ten minutes later, the blonde man is still asleep, but now rests comfortably in a nest of blankets on Rei’s bed, and Rei is in the living room alternating applying ice to his elbows, having hit both of them on the floor (they had clacked).
He makes a note to remember that his patient has an alarming tendency to do things in his sleep.