#while japanese cold medication often contains caffeine to help people who are working... i would not like to take that stuff lmao

[fruchtfleisch-art]

Something like ‘home sick from work’ or ‘picnic’ could be interesting prompts for the microfics! :)

Three things: (1) my friend Danny has a lovely illustration/microfic of a Kirashino picnic here, please go admire it and the absolutely insane top-down angle it was drawn at.

(2) I apologize for how long this took... I started writing and then immediately got sick myself, which helped me come up with descriptions but really hindered my ability to write them down 😭.

(3) If it wasn't obvious by the slow post rate of these last few prompts, my free time is back to being somewhat limited, so this is the last microfic! Thank you so, so much to everyone who sent a prompt in! I'll definitely run something like this again someday, it was really fun :) This batch will be posted up on AO3 soon, after I rest a bit.

Kirashino microfic #6/6?: Home sick from work

It’s a proven fact: Yoshikage Kira does not take sick days.

That doesn’t mean he’s never been sick, necessarily, but he’s not the type to laze around in bed when he doesn’t feel well. The last time he caught the flu bug circulating in his office, he set a nighttime alarm for his twice-daily dose of fever reducer, wore a mask all week, and stayed out of the break room. His supervisor had praised him for his commitment and excellent work ethic.

“Kawajiri Kosaku”, on the other hand, has called out sick for three days, and is completely fed up with the whole ordeal. It just doesn’t make sense. He’s young, he has a strong immune system, and he takes excellent care of himself. He should be feeling better by now, or at least a bit less like week-old roadkill.

Three days in, and it’s all Kira can do to lie on the Kawajiri’s couch, desperately craving sleep he can’t have. Every time his eyes slide shut and his mind goes quiet, the tight, sharp ache in his throat prods him back to listless wakefulness, forces him to sit up and hack another wad of bloody phlegm into the nearest tissue. It’s miserable work. His chest hurts from coughing.

Time passes in sludgy fits and starts, the dawn light outside growing steadily brighter. The next time he rolls over to cough, it’s agonizingly bright, and Shinobu is standing in the doorway, a shopping bag tucked under her arm. When did she get here?

“Sorry,” she says quietly. “I didn’t mean to wake you up. How are you feeling?”

Instead of leaving, she comes in to tidy up his sick den, picking up trash and empty cups. It’s irritating. The whole point of him staying downstairs is to prevent infecting the one healthy person left in the house. What’s he supposed to do if she gets sick?

“Shinobu,” he tries to say, but his voice breaks with a raspy squeak. He tries again and nothing comes out.

“Hayato is feeling a lot better today,” Shinobu says cheerfully, giving no indication she heard him. “So I’m sure you won’t be far behind.”

Kira doesn’t want to hear about the disease vector she calls her son, doesn’t want to even think about him. The idea of Hayato contaminating him, of his virus squirming its way past his immune system, replicating, clogging his airways with gunk and boiling his brain to fevered mush is…

Another thick, sticky cough bubbles up and forces him forward, tears pricking his eyes as mucus shifts painfully in his chest. Shinobu is there with a pack of tissues when the cough is finally productive, brings a glass of water when he’s done with the tissues.

“That sounds awful, sweetie. Can I help?” She brings her shopping bag over to the couch. A thin blue box emerges from the shopping bag. From the box, like magic, emerges a fresh bottle of SS Bron.

Shinobu! Wonderful woman! His own Florence Nightingale. He didn’t even know they were running low on cough medicine. He watches her measure out a few milliliters of cola-colored syrup into a spoon, the harsh sunlight bouncing off the rim in a blinding white circle.

The light.

“T-” Kira says. Swallows hard, throat working a slimy circuit. Tries again: “Time is it?”

“Almost noon. Why?”

His last dose was at eight o’clock, not even four hours ago. It hasn’t been nearly long enough for him to have another. Didn’t she read the label?

Horrible woman! Is she trying to give him brain damage? Kill him?

He bristles, ready to admonish Shinobu for her carelessness, but the moment he opens his mouth she brings the spoon to his lips. A barely-there sweetness trickles over his tongue.

“Don’t worry about that. You need the rest,” she says, smiling fondly at him. “I’m not keeping you on a schedule, honey. You just work on feeling better.”

That’s not it, not at all! Kira isn’t worried about oversleeping. He’s worried about missing too much work and contagion and how he has, just now, possibly overdosed on codeine. He would happily explain this to her, but his throat is packed with ground glass and forcing out anything louder than a sigh is painful, terribly painful.

Shinobu bends down to kiss his cheek, then places a cool hand on his forehead. He closes his eyes as her fingers push through his sweat-sodden bangs, scratch lightly at his scalp.

It’s humiliating, being petted like a dog, or a… something. That’s it. Humiliating.

He’s too sick to move, though. So, so, sick.

Might as well make himself comfortable.