Work Text:
You sneezed three times, each one rising in pitch before stopping. With a sniffle you stared sadly over your breakfast at the calendar across from you on the wall. December 23rd, it declared. Winter break was starting this afternoon for Ikemen Academy.
But for the past four days, you had been completely and totally sick. Your body was worn and you had headaches that did nothing to help you sleep. Therefore, your grandmother simply suggested that you stay home, since break was starting soon enough.
However, you had a problem with that, due to a text you received from your promised other that morning:
Did you get any winter break packets before calling out sick?
You felt your cheeks grow cold at that comment, not realizing that you needed to pick up any such thing. And it was too late to ask him to get any for you now – by the time you had woken up and checked the message, it was 11:22 AM – far too late for him to go around to teachers and pick it up for you. Besides, who was to say he would do it anyway? …You liked to think he would.
You had replied that you hadn’t, but he didn’t text back, which was understandable – he was probably trying to handle his class on the last day of school, where they were all eager to get out for break and have the day be over.
“Are you going to eat?” your grandmother asked pleasantly, and you looked down to your food, instantly moving to dig in.
“Just thinking about school,” you muttered, and she sighed, sitting down across from you.
“It’s break, and I’m sure one of those nice boys can bring any of the materials to you. Did you at least e-mail a teacher?”
“Yes,” you half-lied, wondering if texting counted.
“Good. So that settles any worries.” She smiled warmly and ate as she spoke, beginning to discuss her plans tomorrow about going to the block party and how it was best if you didn’t go, so as to not get all the other older ladies sick. You nodded, fine with staying home rather than going to watch them exchange cookies and talk until late into the night.
The rest of the day came and went with watching her in the kitchen to bake for the party, then helping clean up so that you would both have a tidy house come Christmas morning when your family came to visit. She left at six on Christmas Eve, promising to be back by ten. You waved her off and shut the door, moving to your room to fall onto your bed and watch shows until she got home. A few texts came in from your friends wishing you a Merry Christmas, and in the lull of an anime opening, your fingers found way to Kyouya-sensei’s texts, opening them and reading the message he had sent that morning.
I hope you get well soon.
You smiled at reading that, but that feeling was suddenly lost as another text came up right before your eyes.
Are you home right now?
You paused at the text, knowing who the sender was and wondering why he would even bother asking such a question.
Yup. My grandmother’s out at the Christmas Eve block party. It’s just me. Aren’t you at a party too?
The reply was instant.
No.
The text exchange made you a little excited, but nervous. What was he asking then? You were still sick, and with snow was falling outside, there was no way you would make it an enjoyable time for you both with shivers and sniffles.
Another text popped up while you were lost in thought.
I’m bringing homework. Can I call you for directions?
Your eyes widened as you typed out the short reply: Yes.
You flung yourself out of bed to attempt to look somewhat presentable, thinking that greeting your teacher in a nightgown you had worn for two days straight, messy hair, and an obviously sick wasn’t the best idea. Pulling on a loose t-shirt and pajama pants, you were about to begin brushing your hair when your phone rang.
“Hello?” you said, switching hands as you began to attempt to smooth out your flyaways with a brush.
“I’m at Ikemen, and if my memory is correct, you live twenty minutes away from the school?”
You half-smiled at the sound of his voice, but it was quickly replaced by a wince as you tugged at a knot.
“Twenty minutes walking. It’s only about five minutes away if you drive.”
“What street should I look for first off the main road?”
“Look for Romance Lane, that’s the first turn. Can’t I just—“ You sucked in a harsh breath as you pulled at another nasty clump of hair.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” you muttered, deciding it best to wait to comb out that particular snare.
“I’ll put the phone down and talk again after I turn on the street, wait for me.” You heard a clatter as it obviously was tucked into the cup holder, and you went back to pulling at strands, waiting to hear his voice from the speaker.
Three minutes later, you settled by the door, staring at your ring absentmindedly until you heard him again.
“Pulled over. Now where?”
“Wouldn’t it just be easier for me to give you my address so you can put it in your phone’s GPS?”
He was silent for a few moments. “No. Which street?”
You sighed. “I live on Fae Street, number 16. That’s off of Beauty Street. You should see it a couple streets down.”
“Got it.”
The phone clucked again and you looked out the window by the door, watching for when the car headlights pulled up and stopped outside the house.
“That you looking out the window waiting for me?” You heard the smile in his voice as the car door opened, and you blushed.
“You be quiet,” you muttered.
He laughed as he reached to the passenger seat, lifting his workbag and locking the car before closing the door behind him.
You moved away from the window and unlocked your front door, looking out at him as he approached, ending the call with a click. You bit back a laugh when your realized why he couldn’t use his GPS.
“You still have a flip phone,” you said, a small giggle slipping out.
“Yes, I hear that from Haruka and Viktor all the time. It serves my purposes very well, thank you. I can still text on it.”
“Is that a Lurky Dino keychain hanging from it?”
The phone was hastily shoved into his coat pocket as he moved to open his bag. “Here, I was able to get the homework… but it’s only the math, I’m afraid.” He held it out to you, letting you take it and flip through, looking at all the problems that proved to make your head spin.
“This is a lot for first years…”
“It’s shorter than most packets from before. You should have seen some of the ones from previous years.”
“This is shorter?” You stared in disbelief as he shrugged. You shivered involuntarily from the cold, feeling it beginning to chill your bones without a blanket wrapped around your shoulders.
“It happens. Anyway, if that’s all you needed, I’ll get back. Don’t stay out too long.”
“Wait. You said you weren’t going back to any parties. Are you just home alone?”
Kyouya paused, looking back. “I… I didn’t have any plans for Christmas, really.”
“Well, here, I had a present I was trying to finish for you before school, but I got sick and couldn’t bring it in. Come on!”
“I-Isn’t your grandmother going to possibly come home?”
“She’ll talk for hours, that’s how it always was at parties. Just for five minutes!”
Kyouya sighed, stepping inside cautiously as if an alarm was going to go off the second he crossed the threshold. He glanced around the house as he scraped his boots, appreciating the incredibly open space that was clearly meant for two people to live comfortably. Stepping through, he saw the small kitchenette and hallway leading down towards private rooms, before turning to walk towards the living room area instead. A Christmas tree was propped up in one corner with no presents underneath, as they were most likely waiting for the actual day and other family members to come over so they could see the pile grow then be unwrapped together.
“Achoo!”
Kyouya jumped at hearing the sneeze behind him, spinning around to confront you with a heaving sigh. “You gave me a fright.”
You sniffled and gave a weak grin, stepping around Kyouya so you were facing him at every moment until you reached the tree. Kneeling down, you slid the gift underneath, before leaning back. “Come on, open it!”
Kyouya gave you an even look, before sitting down by the tree as well, crossing his legs and reaching for the bag, which looked hastily wrapped. Wasting no time with the tissue paper, he put a hand in and pulled out a small, soft, toy-like object… that upon studying in detail, he realized was a crocheted Lurky Dino. The small beady eyes shone with the Christmas lights, and the small bundle just fit into his palm. Kyouya could tell that the yarn was of a higher quality, admiring all the little details in his pattern and tail.
“It’s acrylic yarn,” you ventured, smiling. “In case it gets dirty sitting on your desk or anything, you can wash it.”
“A-and why do you think I’d put this on my desk?” he said, cheeks a little pink. You smiled, knowing that he had been fully intending to do just that.
“It’s built to sit on a surface, the bottom’s weighted,” you continued, moving to scoop it from his hands and show it off. “Honestly, I worked really hard on it.”
“It shows,” he said, moving first to take it back, but instead, his hand quietly wrapped around yours, and his eyes shifted to meet your gaze. “Thank you.”
You blushed slightly, still not used to the touch in your relationship. You both stayed distant from each other and tried to not let it show in your conversations back in school, but to have this element because you were in private… your other hand moved to wrap around his.
“Merry Christmas, Kyouya—“ You paused, suddenly, and tilted your head back. You felt Kyouya pull out of your grip as you sneezed again, four times, before you settled down with a couple of audible sniffles.
“You really are sick,” you heard him mutter.
“Thanks for the statement, Captain Obvious.” You let out an airy laugh, and he chuckled as well, moving back to squeeze your hand and put the gift back into the bag.
You saw him out after that, waving from the doorway as he went to his car, placing the present carefully on top of his workbag before waving at you and slamming his door, pulling away with a sigh as he thought about how he could have stayed longer if he was a student like you. If there wasn’t anything wrong.
He moved to the radio to distract himself, letting the Christmas music drown out the silence until he got home.
Christmas with your family came the next day, and the morning consisted of you waking up to the shrieks of your siblings as they came barreling through the door, singing a happy Christmas carol and greeting your grandmother with yells of joy. With a sigh, you rolled over, hand going instantly for your phone to check text messages. All the usual on Christmas morning – the messages from your friends wishing you Merry Christmas, with varying degrees of capitalization and emojis. You responded to a few of them, one of them being Kyouya’s text, which read, simply: “Merry Christmas.” You typed back the same reply, just adding a little heart on the end before sending it off. With a sigh, you fell back into bed, wondering how much more sleep you could get…
“Are you awake?” you heard your father call through the closed door. With a laugh, you sat up slowly, gauging if you had woken up with a headache or not. “I’m up, I’m up, don’t worry.”
“Come on out, your siblings are looking forward to giving you presents.”
You eased out of bed as his footsteps receded, walking to your closet to pull out the gifts you had been hiding. As you did so, your left hand sparkled – the ring.
Your grandmother hadn’t questioned it a bit, knowing that it must have been from school, probably thinking it from one of the 3rd year boys. However, your parents might begin to ask too many questions, and that worried you. So despite how you felt, you slid the ring off and tucked it away into a cup of pencils on your desk, thinking it the safest place as you gathered up the presents and walked out into the living area, your siblings mobbing you to help carry everything over and sitting you down to talk over hot chocolate and the sound of tearing paper. As you sat there in the moments of silence, you wondered how Kyouya was spending his Christmas. Your finger tapped absently against your mug, hoping that he wasn’t too alone this morning. You had your family to celebrate with, and you wished he could be there, too. Then he might have someone to celebrate with that wasn’t just himself.
After Christmas brunch, you crept back into your room and seized your phone, going through another mass of texts notifications before finding his.
“Hope you’re having a happy Christmas.” It was sent about forty minutes ago, and the idea of it made your heart ache. Quietly sneaking your phone out with you, you were able to use it alongside your siblings, who had received new tablets or videogames, while still talking to your parents.
“I’ll pretend you’re here by talking to you. It would be a happier Christmas with you here.”
His replies were slower than you were used to, but they gave you gaps large enough to talk to your family with. They happily asked you about your grades and schoolwork, and you managed to avoid the topic of missing your schoolwork by saying that you had a friend scan it for you, which made your parents happy for your preparedness.
“Just having you text me is enough. Besides, Haruka’s due back tonight and we’ll probably go out.”
“Sister! Sister, play with us!” Your siblings pulled you down into a game as you replied to him, taking your spot around the board as they dealt out pieces.
“Well, have fun. Wish I could go too.”
His next text, coming only after a single turn of the dice, was simply: “We’re going to bar/restaurant.”
“Oh, excuse me then. :P”
“You’re forgiven.”
You were instructed to get off your phone while you played with the kids, giving them your undivided attention for the holidays. Lunch came around later and your grandmother had promised to make a soup due to your cold – but instead, you were presented with toasted sandwiches and chips, your grandmother apologizing because she didn’t buy the right ingredients. You waved it off with a smile, just making sure to drink plenty of water with the salted and dry food, but not before taking a photo and sending it to Kyouya.
“I wanted soup. :( I’m sick and this isn’t gonna be as good as it could be.”
As you munched on them and tried to prevent your brother from stealing your chips, your phone buzzed and showed another text from him.
“I can’t view the photo too well. But I’ll assume it’s not soup.”
Flip phone, you thought with a smile. “Good guess.”
“I only used the facts I had at hand.”
The rest of the night continued with sporadic texts between you both until you and him had to depart for your respective dinners, leaving you a little sad. You were at least happy that he was spending the night with someone, and that someone wasn’t Viktor-sensei, who always proved to irritate him more than keep good company.
However, before you sat down to eat, you received one last text. Your phone declared it to be a picture message, and you opened it.
“Hope this sends. I think it suits this desk better than the one at school.”
The picture loaded and you put a hand to your mouth.
The image was a little grainy and clearly taken by a first-time, flip phone photographer, but there was your little Lurky Dino was sitting on a desk, next to a picture that you had given Kyouya of him in his Halloween costume and then one of you in yours on Halloween night when you had gone out for candy.
“I think so too.”
Your parents left late the next evening, toting your exhausted siblings out the door. You grandmother and you rested after cleaning up the house again, happily collapsing to bed and falling asleep until the next morning.
You woke up without really registering what time it was, just that when your hand went to your phone, you felt a small sheet of paper on top of it. Opening it, you read the contents aloud, written in your grandmother’s looping cursive.
“Out to get food… I promised you soup… then going to senior bowling club, be back by three…” You sighed and laid your head back, blinking the sleep away and debating it was even worth waking up.
Your phone buzzed, as if saying, “No, you need to wake up and you gotta do it now.” With another groan, you reached a hand around to find it, squinting against the bright light.
Your face paled, your body suddenly waking up as you sat up in a hurry and began to text the number back, letting him know you were awake.
You’re finally up. I’m coming over again. When is a good time?
You glanced to the clock, feeling a chill when you saw it read “12:06 PM”.
Now’s good, I suppose. Grandmom’s out and won’t be home until three.
You slowly got out of bed, still feeling a little sick. You hoped that the sickness wouldn’t last all throughout break… especially since Kyouya had said two nights ago that he wanted to go out on some sort of outing with you, saying that you could go over the math packet together.
I’ll be over soon. Twenty minutes or so.
You replied back to confirm you got the text, then went to get ready for company, even if he wasn’t staying as such. After eating breakfast, you moved to pull the ring off your finger to take a quick shower, realizing it wasn’t there. With a quick dash back to your room, you grabbed it from the mug, relieved to see it was still there and hadn’t moved.
Twenty-two minutes later, Kyouya pulled up and got out of the car again, looking left and right before walking up to the door. You noticed he had his work bag again, but also in his hand was a thermos.
“What’s that?” you asked, pointing to the object.
“Well…” He looked away from your gaze, focusing rather intently on your curtains. “You said you wanted soup on Christmas Eve. And you’re still sick. I may have made some last night, accidentally, when Haruka came over again. And made too much.” Still not looking your way, he held out the thermos, allowing you to take it. “Merry Christmas. Return it to me when we meet up for that homework packet.”
“You made soup because you were thinking about how I wanted soup.” You gave a small laugh as you opened the lid and looked inside at the contents. “It smells delicious!”
“T-That’s not it,” he muttered, but he his shoulders dropped with relief at hearing you liked it. “Anyway, just get better soon, okay? Winter break’s not going to last forever, and while school means I’ll get to see you every day, I’d like to see you outside of that environment.”
“Got it, sensei!” you said proudly, giving your largest smile. He smiled softly at seeing that, not daring to move in and kiss you.
“See you soon,” he said, turning and walking to his car again, and you waved, stepping back into the house, and as he glanced to you before climbing into the car, you blew a small kiss, causing him to hastily get inside and pull his seatbelt on. You gave a small laugh and closed the door, going right to the kitchen with a hum to heat up the soup.
You already felt better after just seeing him.
“Ah! There you are!” You saw him wave from a corner of the café, and you beamed at him, moving right over to his table and settling down, pulling the packet out of the bag along with a calculator and all your pencils and pens.
“Glad you could make it,” he said, pushing his coffee mug aside as a waitress came over and took an order, allowing you to get something before starting on the packet.
“Me, too.” You clicked a pencil and flipped to the next section you had, but Kyouya took it and insisted on going through what you had already answered, taking a pen from your stack.
“Hang on, let me look over it.”
“No, just tell me if they’re wrong or right!”
“I’m not gonna do it for you,” he said, giving a look. “I wrote this packet, why would I just give you answers?”
You paused, repeating the words in your head. “You… did this packet?”
“Of course. Every math teacher does the winter or summer packet for all classes each break. It’s to make sure we understand what we’re teaching, and to take the hassle off all teachers and keep the packets consistent. …However, I’m often the one found doing it.”
“Doesn’t that get stressful? And why were you picked this year for the winter packet?”
“Because I’m single,” he said with a wry smile. “The others didn’t want to take the burden because they wanted to leave school earlier for their family holiday trips. And because I’m one of the younger teachers.”
“Oh, you’re single now,” you said, giving a smirk.
“You chose to wear that ring,” he said coolly, but the glance at your hand gave his true feelings away. “For reputation’s sake we are both single. … First mistake on your packet.” He clicked the pen and marked it, and you leaned across the table to check the question.
“No, that’s totally not wrong!”
“That is, and we’ll be going over why.”
“That’s not wrong!”
“Are you doubting your math teacher, who wrote this packet?” He gave a smile and moved on to the next page, marking a few more along the way and flipping back to go over what he had marked up.
The rest of the “date”, as only you called it, went well. He insisted that you didn’t pay, since he said he needed to make up for the lost time that he wouldn’t be able to pay for the next three years. You got through almost all of the packet with him there, to the point where your Google crutch was like a distant memory.
“Thank you for this,” you said as you walked out, pausing before the turn to the bus stop.
“You’re welcome,” he said, giving that same small smile you liked so much. “I would like to do it again.”
“Me, too.” You glanced around before reaching out to squeeze his hand for just a moment. “I’ll see what I can do.”
As you stood at the bus stop and watched his car leave, everything seemed to be content. You were happy with this for now. It was what worked… what had to work.
You were just glad you got to see him. Maybe getting sick hadn’t been so bad after all.