#i know that tanuma's fish arent in his room but guess what ? they are now

[goodlucktai]

Prompt :) Tanuma gets mild to moderately ill, and the only person around to take care of him happens to be Nishi, who is surprisingly great at it. Cue Tanuma realizing yet again that the friends he’s met through Natsume genuinely love and care about him, in a way that has nothing to do with Natsume at all. (I am a *sucker* for my son feeling *appreciated* and *loved*)

x

Two hours after his father left, the front door rattles open again. 

It takes Kaname longer than it usually would have to figure out that’s probably not a good thing. 

But by the time he lifts his aching head, and starts puzzling out how he’s going to deal with a potential burglar when just sitting up causes the whole room to spin, a familiar face is peering into his bedroom. 

“Oh, you’re up,” Nishimura says brightly, stepping further inside. “Didn’t wanna wake you if you weren’t.”

Kaname stares. He wonders for a split second if he’s hallucinating. 

“You look like you’re gonna fall over,” Nishimura goes on, frowning at him. “Lay back down, dummy.”

No, that’s definitely Nishimura. Kaname lays back down. 

“What are you doing here?” he asks, watching as his friend sets a plastic bag on his desk and shrugs a backpack to the floor. “I thought you had plans.”

“I did, up until my friends got sick. You and Natsume are like magnets for every single bug that goes around, I swear.” Nishimura takes a seat in Kaname’s computer chair, spins it once on principle, and stops himself when he’s facing the bed. “We can go some other time.”

He spent the last two and a half weeks gushing about the new Natori movie, all but vibrating with excitement every time it came up in conversation, and now he’s poking idly through some comic books he’s already read as though one is just as good as the other.  

Kaname feels a stab of guilt. It goes straight through him, pinning him down. 

“Sorry,” he says. It’s important that he says it. “You could still go if you wanted to.”

“Duh,” says Nishimura. “Obviously I don’t want to.”

“Obviously,” Kaname parrots weakly. 

It turns out Nishimura has come prepared. The plastic bag, bearing the familiar 7-Eleven logo, contains bottles of Pocari Sweat, a cold compress, and little plastic cups of grated fruit. He sets up shop with the relative competence of someone who knows what they’re doing. 

Kaname watches, blinking slowly. The guilt gets smaller and smaller, like every companionable second is another blanket laid over top of it to make it quiet. 

It’s really nice to have a friend here with him, even if Kaname isn’t very good company. He’s never had a friend come over when he was sick before. 

“Well, your old classmates were missing out. They sound like morons anyway,” Nishimura says plainly, reading Kaname’s mind. Or maybe he said that out loud. “You did, Tanuma,” Nishimura goes on, grinning by now. “Man, you’re out of it. Drink some of this.”

He twists the cap off a bottle of Pocari before handing it over. He’s at ease in this role, sitting on the edge of Kaname’s bed so Kaname has something to lean against when he’s a little unsteady sitting up. He lifts the bottle out of Kaname’s hand when it starts to list, and doesn’t seem to mind that Kaname’s head has found a home on his shoulder. 

“How come you didn’t go to Natsume’s house?” Kaname mumbles. 

Almost immediately, he regrets the question. He’s not sure if he wants to hear the answer. Isn’t it good enough that Nishimura is here, whatever the reason? Isn’t he lucky that his friend came to see him, even if Kaname was only the second choice?

“Both his parents are home, what’s he need me for? You didn’t even have any electrolyte drinks. Totally hopeless.” Nishimura digs his phone out of his pocket and holds the screen where they can both see it as he scrolls through Youtube playlists, completely prepared for the inevitability of Kaname falling asleep on him. “When you wake up, we’re gonna bully Acchan into bringing us dinner.”

Kaname can’t help it; he laughs. His yokai fish are swimming in shadows on the ceiling, and his friend has found a baby goat compilation to watch, and Kaname feels much better than he did twenty minutes ago. 

“Pancakes,” he decides.

“Whatever you want, buddy,” Nishimura says, with the easy sincerity of someone who means it.