Work Text:
As if he isn’t already feeling bad enough, she has to show up after school to add insult to injury.
The stack of papers in her hand is probably print outs for homework he’ll need to do, despite feeling so sick it’s like he’s dying a slow, painful death.
He groans, turning his back to her. He pulls the covers up more snugly around himself, intent on ignoring her.
Satsuki sighs, putting her hands on her hips while she surveys him critically. Her brow is creased—with annoyance and exasperation, and maybe just a tiny bit of sympathy.
“I told you not to play when the weather is so unstable, didn’t I?” she says at length.
She takes the couple of steps to the other side of his room, throwing the curtains open so he can have some sunlight in.
The late autumn sun doesn’t offer much in terms of warmth or light, but it’s better than the den of evil he’s turned his room into with all the negative energy and lack of aeration.
She opens the window while she’s at it. A little fresh air could do wonders for him.
Daiki growls ill-temperedly from beneath his comforter.
“Did you come here to gloat?” he snaps testily. His retort doesn’t come across as sharp as he would’ve liked to thanks to the scratchiness of his voice. “If that’s all you wanted to do, feel free to show yourself out. I seriously don’t feel like dealing with you right now.”
She deigns him with a crooked grimace he doesn’t see because he’s still sulking with his back to her. She sighs deeply, suddenly reminded just how difficult Dai-chan gets on the rare occasions that he gets sick.
“I’m not here to mock you,” she tells him quietly, in the nicest tone she can manage. It’s tough, because when he’s being so wilful it’s next to impossible to play nice. But when he sneaks a peek out of the corner of his eye over his shoulder at her, she feels spurred on. “I just wanted to check how you’re doing. Auntie said this morning that you’re not feeling well.”
She sits on his bed next to him, her eyes carefully scrutinizing him and trying to estimate the depth of the damage.
Daiki glares at her with no heat behind it from his spot beneath the covers.
“I’m still sick, as you can see,” he points out smartly.
It makes her want to slug him, but she contains that urge for the time being.
“Indeed, you are. And here I was thinking you were just lying through your teeth to get out of attending school for the day,” she tells him in cruel honesty.
His brows knit over his eyes and he opens his mouth to lash back. She gives him no chance as she places the palm of her hand against his forehead without any preamble.
It’s effective in shutting him up for the time being.
“Hmm, seems like at least you don’t have a fever…” she mulls aloud, putting her bag and print outs down by his bed.
Daiki scowls severely at her.
“I’ll be fine. Just let me sleep the day off,” he all but whines out. His childhood friend gives him a dubious look.
“That’s a rather irresponsible stance to take on your own health. You need to eat something nutritional, and to drink lots of water.”
She rolls up her sleeves and a peculiar feeling of dread settles securely over Daiki’s stomach as the implications catch up to him.
“You’re not planning to use the kitchen, are you?” he asks fearfully.
Satsuki is about to respond to him normally when she notices the aghast look on his face. It makes her blood boil. Sick or not, this time she does smack his shoulder none too gently.
“Ow! Sick person here, recuperating?!” Daiki wails out, glaring heatedly up at her in wake of her assault. Satsuki returns the look with equal fervour—he’s having none of that entitled crap fly with her today.
“Then act like a sick person and do as your caretakers say, you ingrate!” she chastised, going off to the bathroom to fill him a glass of water.
She ends up spending her afternoon looking after the grouch that is her childhood friend dealing with his severe case of a cold.
It’s funny, really, how Daiki rarely ever gets any diseases. But when he does, he always, always acts like it’s the end of the world, like he’s dying over a case of the sniffles or something.
He’s such a big baby about it that she can’t help finding it somewhat cute despite herself.
She feeds him the porridge his mother prepared for him, for when he felt like he had the strength to venture downstairs to get some food. She makes sure to be particularly condescending when he continues acting as if he’s going to die over just this measly cold.
The truth is that maybe she’s having just a bit too much fun nursing him while seizing every chance to pick on him. And, despite feeling slow and sluggish, Daiki isn’t stupid.
She tucks him back in bed after she helps him change into another set of sleepwear. She runs her fingers through his hair, an infuriating smug little smile pulling on the corners of her mouth as she peers at him from above.
“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” she asks rhetorically, the mirth bubbling in her tone and working on Daiki’s very last nerve.
He grit his teeth and endured, because no matter how he looked at it, having her there did end up being great help.
“I guess I can let you sleep for now, then. After all, you need all the rest you can get, if you’re ever to get over this cold.”
“Finally,” he mutters moodily, glaring daggers at the wall to his side with evasive eyes.
Satsuki feels her free hand tighten on her uniform’s skirt, but she reminds herself that he’s always like this—he’s just a little worse now because he’s perpetually cranky on account of his deteriorated health. It’s nothing out of the ordinary for him not to appreciate the things she’d done for him out of the goodness of her heart.
Or the fact that she’d spent her invaluable afternoon dealing with his grouchy self instead of doing something for her.
And although she’d chosen to help him out driven by a certain amount of selflessness, Satsuki was still a teenager. As such, having someone so blatantly disrespect the effort she’d spent on them didn’t sit quite right with her.
She’s just a girl still, so she doesn’t think she can be blamed for reacting on impulse, and wanting to get back at him just a tiny little bit, if at all possible.
“Would it kill you to say ‘thanks’ every now and then?” she inquires tersely, truly at the end of her wits.
He throws her an evil look out of the corner of his eye.
“What am I supposed to be thanking you for?” She feels her temper flare at this. “You’ve been taking every chance you can to make fun of me since you got here. Am I supposed to be grateful for that?”
She flushes, recoiling as though scalded by his comment.
“That’s not all I’ve been up to, is it?” she points out.
He has the gall to huff dismissively in response.
“Somehow the damage control you’ve been trying to make pales in comparison to the amount of damage you’ve tried to inflict.”
And that really is it. She can’t handle it anymore. Cold or no cold, he has no right to talk to her that way. Well, sure, he was right that she probably took it a little bit too far than absolutely necessary.
B-But it was absolutely his own fault for making her have to resort to this kind of nonsense to make it worth her while, you know?!
“You’re such a big baby, Dai-chan,” she admonishes, getting up from her seat at his bed. Her comment makes him whip his head in her direction to give her the evil eye. “You sure talk big for someone who can’t even pull himself out of bed.”
“It’s what happens when you get sick, you moron,” he points out snappily. He ends up in a coughing fit because of the strain he’s been putting on his voice since her arrival.
She gives him a deadpan expression.
“And why did you even get sick to begin with?” She shakes her head, lamenting his complete inability to think forward. “I told you not to play when the weather is like that. You got sick because you worked up a sweat when the wind was so cold. But do you listen to me when I try to warn you, before things go to hell? Of course you don’t. You always know best, right?”
Her know-it-all tirade makes the very last of his patience slip.
So what if she’s right? So what if he does know he was an idiot not to listen to her when it happened? Now it’s too late, he’s already sick as a dog, and does she really need to rub salt in his wounds like that?
If she’s as mature and grown-up as she likes to make herself seem in front of their parents and friends, can’t she just be the better person in this situation and let it go?
He would’ve been fine with her leaving him to wallow in his self-pity of his own idiocy. He would’ve been fine with her quietly looking after him if she couldn’t leave him be when knowing he’s sick.
But there’s just no way he would take it silently when she has the gall to be a smartass about it while she grudgingly nurses him.
He’s miffed with her holier than thou attitude, so he pulls her in towards his bed. His hand grabs her wrist before she can get out of his reach, and he drags her bodily towards him.
He gives her a kiss much too deep for her to be comfortable with in any sense.
When he relinquishes his hold on her, she bristles as she rights her pose, staring outraged down at him from her position by his bed.
“W-What are you doing?!” she squawks out, putting a hand to her mouth to protect herself from any further assault.
Daiki’s cheeky grin and its effect are somewhat dampened by the heaviness of his eyelids as he regards her.
“Passing you my cold,” he tells her impishly, a disproportionately dashing smirk twisting his lips.
It’s not fair that he can pull off such expressions when he’s been in such a pathetic state all day—it just isn’t fair!
She sputters, taking a step away from him cautiously.
“T-there’s no such thing as passing on colds, stupid! At most we’ll both end up sick in bed!” she chides him. He only chuckles in response to her fluster.
Her face turns red when she realizes this is a fight she’s already losing. She might as well sound the retreat before she made more of a fool of herself.
She bids him goodbye hastily, not turning to take another glance at him anymore.
She still can’t believe the boldness of him in doing that. The last time he’d kissed her was when they were ten, on a dare. This time was nothing like it.
She must’ve really pushed his buttons without realizing it to have made him take such drastic measures to shut her up.
Her face heats up in embarrassment as she lets herself out of the Aomine household.
For the remainder of the day, she tries to convince herself that she isn’t constantly thinking about how soft his lips felt upon hers.
She’s also most certainly not dwelling on the flutter it brought in her stomach when he pulled her down by the back of her neck to kiss her. No, sir.
Satsuki wakes up the next day feeling sluggish and boneless.
She doesn’t think much of it, until she feels the crippling headache settle in when she gets out of bed.
She can’t find the strength to stand upright as she goes to brush her teeth in the bathroom. Her eyes feel heavy and every single muscle in her body is sore.
She crawls back in bed, hoping to feel better after getting just a little more rest.
The pink-haired girl is scandalized when she sees Dai-chan, all perky and fully healed, standing in her doorway, mock-saluting her and asking her how she’s doing.
“Why?!” she all but wails out, burying her head under her covers in outrage.
She wants to slam her fist in his face when he acts all high and mighty as he sits next to her on the bed, offering to take care of her this time instead.
She chews on her bottom lip in barely contained anger and humiliation, knowing this was going to be the beginning of a rather long day. She never thought it was possible that he could really pass her on his cold.
Truthfully, though, the Dai-chan who grins like an idiot while he nurses her to health, exacting revenge on her for all the mockery she’d dished out before, is kind of endearing. She doesn’t really mind the way he picks on her as he feeds her the warm soup her mom made.
She doesn’t mind him babying her, because she feels so sick she doesn’t feel like existing for a day or two until it gets better.
And despite all the childish and playful little comments intended to get a rise out of her, she can’t bring herself to be really mad at him.
Because he’s there, thoroughly taking care of her, just like she had, even if he doesn’t miss a chance to snipe a prissy comment on her every now and then while he does it.
With Dai-chan, it’s not words, but actions that count.
If he’s there, taking care of her, instead of doing just about anything else, then she’ll take small pleasure in being important enough to have deserved such treatment.
If there’s one thing she does regret, though, it’s that had she known she was going to be sick in bed anyway, she would’ve made that kiss a more memorable one.
“What is it?” he asks her curiously, as he holds the spoonful of soup to her mouth.
She blushes and quickly averts her gaze from him.
“N-Nothing,” she stammers gracelessly, hoping he didn’t catch her staring at his lips like she had.
Yes, she decides. She most definitely would’ve made it a more worthwhile kiss if she’d known this was how it would go down in the end.