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Chapter 37

…

The next day, the house was relatively quiet, but Tanaka thought nothing of it. He had to leave the house early for urgent work, so he left a note on the fridge for his boys. And with that, he left the eight terrors sleeping like logs in their respective rooms.

"Achoo!" Shouichi sneezed loudly, waking a sleeping Yukio out of his deep slumber. "Achoo!"

"Shou?! Is everything alright?" Yukio asked as he swung off his bed and scooted over to his bed friend's.

"Yeah..." the bespectacled teen replied, albeit really stuffy. Yukio placed his hand on his forehead and neck and found that he was burning up.

"Shit!" He yelled out.

Quickly, he exited the room and dashed down in the kitchen, where he stumbled upon Tanaka's note. Great, he thought in sarcasm. Taking out the ice-tray, Kasamatsu emptied the contents into a bag and returned upstairs to place it on Shouichi.

"Thanks Yuki."

"No problem."

Just then, he heard another sneeze. That didn't come from Shouichi. Immediately, he blanched, fearing the worst. He dashed out of the room, only to see Kazunari leaning on the wall, looking half dead.

"Kazunari! Get back to bed immediately!" Yukio barked. He threw the boy's hand over his shoulder, and carried him back to his bed. It was there that he noticed that Tetsuya was sick as well.

"Oh shit, no." He mumbled. For a quick check, he dashed towards the others' rooms and found the same exact thing. "Good God, it's an epidemic." He gasped out.

Without any further ado, Kasamatsu set out to work. He went into the bathroom and got their towels, dipping it basin of water that he already prepared. Then, he headed to their rooms, gently placing the wet towels on his boys' foreheads. He stopped by Shuuzou and Tatsuya, who were the closest, then went down the hallway to attend to the others.

For a while they seemed to have calmed down, so in that time, Yukio set out to make some porridge. Rice porridge to be exact. Whenever he or his brothers were sick, his mother always made them rice porridge, so he'll do the same.

Quickly, Yukio searched the kitchen for the ingredients, laying them out on the counter. Then, he washed the rice thoroughly ensuring that the water was clear before he started to add anything else to it. When he was satisfied, he combined it with milk, sugar, salt and enough water since he was making it for seven boys.

He left it on the stove and ran upstairs to check on his boys. They were still sleeping soundly, however, he had to change their towels. Doing just that, by the time he returned to the kitchen, the porridge was boiling, and so he reduced the heat to let it simmer.

Occasionally, he stirred it until the rice was tender.

With a grin, he added another cup of water to make a paste, after which he added cinnamon, vanilla, condensed milk. He allowed it to cook for a few more minutes while stirring.

Soon, his porridge was finished.

With a triumphant smile, Yukio served their portions but only carried one upstairs. He couldn't feed all of them at once, which meant, he'd have to use the microwave to reheat the others'.

Reaching his room, he heard Shouichi let out a nasty cough, before sneezing his nostrils out. A lot snot ran down his nose, and instead of feeling disgusted, Yukio felt worried. While they've both been sick before, neither of them was never alone. An adult or two was always nearby, but now, Yukio had to fend for himself until Tanaka came back.

Changing his towel again, Yukio cleaned up the snot from Shouichi's nose and proceeded to feed him the porridge.

"Come on, say 'ahh'." Yukio instructed gently after he had cooled it. Shouichi complied, slurping the meal slowly. There wasn't much on the spoon anyway.

"How...how are..." Shouichi tried to speak, but his throat was so damn dry.

"They're sick too." Yukio sighed, pushing another spoon into Shouichi's mouth. "But don't worry, I've got you all covered."

Shouichi smiled at his best friend. "Don't exert...yourself...too...much..."

Yukio made a smile. "I'll make no promises."

For the rest of the time, Shouichi hadn't spoken and when his bowl and reached half, the point guard had fallen asleep, Yukio slightly panicking thinking that he was dead because people don't just fall asleep like that.

But with him sleeping, Yukio decided to move onto Tetsuya and Kazunari's room. He brought both their porridges, as with them being in the same room, he could feed them at the same time.

And like with Shouichi, he changed their towels, before gently waking them up. Although Kazunari put up a resistance at first, Yukio has his means to get the boy to obey.

Unlike Shouichi though, the two boys never spoke much, only grunting and nodding or shaking their heads whenever Yukio asked a question. The Blue Elite didn't mind the quiet, however, he was still worried. Kazunari was the chatter no matter which state he found himself in, and for him to clamp up so much, Yukio was beginning to start contemplating on calling an ambulance.

Or seven in his case.

Making yet another trip down to the kitchen, this time, Yukio took up another pair of porridges, heading to Kotarou and Shige's room. Yes, the two shared a room even though Shige doesn't even live there and his house was somewhere down the street.

And like the others, Yukio changed their towels, before feeding them to porridge. This time, these two were extremely talkative, even though they were bumbling a shit-ton of incoherences. Yukio chuckled at this, and even added to their foolishness at times.

"Yuko~" Kotarou slurred, even forgetting to pronounce his name right. "Why do you have an apple on your head?"

"I want to eat it~" Shige added, reaching for Yukio.

Yukio was confused about this "apple" so when he touched his head, he realized that he had mistaken placed a red kitchen towel there. Doing so many things, for so many people does shit to a person.

"It's a bad apple, Kotarou." He said. He then turned to Shige, "it's not edible."

"What's ebibble?"

Yukio had to stifle down his laughter. Shige reminded him so much a baby, he didn't know whether or not he should laugh at the sick boy.

"It's nothing to worry about, just go back to sleep, okay?" Yukio said while ruffling the top of his head. Kotarou got jealous, and made a pout, forcing Yukio to ruffle his hair too.

And lastly but not least, Yukio made his way to Shuuzou and Tatsuya. These two were coughing down the place, since Yukio had to feed the others and warm up their porridges before tending to them. But now that he was there, he made sure to take utmost care of them.

He changed their towels ―by the time they got better, he'd be a master of changing towels―and fed them the porridge. But Tatsuya seemed to the hardest hit by the cold. Yukio surmised that maybe while everyone else had scrambled to get under the stand, he had dragged Kagami out in the rain to talk.

But then again, he had been out in the rain too so wasn't he sick?

He shrugged it off as having a superior immune system when a voice took him out of his thoughts.

"Dad…?" Tatsuya croaked out when Yukio fed him the porridge.

Frightened, Yukio didn't know how to react. Due to the fever, Tatsuya was probably hallucinating. Was that even possible? Yukio asked himself. But, deciding to play along, Yukio said:

"Yes, Son?" In the most manly voice he could muster. He's heard Tatsuya's father speak before, so he tried his best to imitate it.

"Your voice sounds different..." Tatsuya trailed off.

"Must be the drink I had earlier." Yukio replied without missing a heartbeat. He scooted over to Shuuzou and fed him his porridge, when the boy muttered something beneath his breath about reading a story.

Yukio drew back. What the hell?

"Dad..." Tatsuya called out again. "Where did you go?"

Yukio scooted back over, and smiled to his temporary son, "I just went out with some..." he trailed off, trying to think up something. He didn't know what the life of an adult was like, especially one of Tatsuya's father. Tanaka-san's life was pretty cool and chill, but Tatsuya's Dad seemed to be the businessman who didn't have time for casual friends.

"You went out with your friends again…?"

Relenting, Yukio said, "Yeah, yeah I did."

"Mum is gonna kill you..." Tatsuya made a weak laugh here, Yukio freezing up a bit. He hated to see them like this; so sick, so weak, so vulnerable. Just yesterday, all his boys were taking down street teams, just yesterday they were up and running, fiery at best. Just yesterday, all eight of them felt like they could move mountains― which they did―it was just yesterday that his boys were alright and not sick.

So much could change in a span of some hours, and right now, Yukio couldn't take it. They weren't supposed to be so sick and pathetic, they were supposed to be healthy and ready to slaughter anything that comes their way.

"Ya..." Shuuzou's voice brought back Yukio to reality. "...read me a story..." he slurred. He reached for the older teen, which prompted Yukio to quickly scoot so as to prevent him from falling off the bed.

Yukio made a smile. Even though they were like this, it won't be forever. "Alright. Which one would you like?"

"Fullmetal Alchemist."

Yukio couldn't believe his ears. But, he supposed, sick Shuuzou gets what sick Shuuzou wants.

So, with the utmost best of his abilities, Yukio read to Shuuzou and Tatsuya by default, in between changing their and the other's towels and feeding them porridge.

Soon after, Yukio had to move all of them into one room to as to better attend to them, since he was beginning to get worn out from running all over the place. He prepared futons for them, and although he figuratively wrung out his back trying to move the heavy logs, Yukio was happy at a job well done, when all were in the room.

"Now, let's continue." He said as he opened up the manga yet again.

…

…

When Tanaka reached home, he noticed that the house was rather quiet. At this hour of the day, either his boys have gone out or something is seriously wrong. They're never this quiet.

Marching up the stairs, Tanaka found that first three rooms were empty. He continued on to Shuuzou and Tatsuya's room, where he heard Yukio's voice. He sounded rather animated, making sound like effects and talking with far too much emotion.

When he reached the door, there, he saw the Blue Elite with a manga in one hand, and changing the towels of his brothers with his other. He never broke his momentum, every movement seemed rehearsed or well practised, Tanaka wondering how he became so versed.

But reality dawned on him that seven of his boys were sick, and one had to do all the work by himself.

Touched, Tanaka entered the room and held Yukio on his shoulder. "I'm back, you can ―" He broke off when he saw the look of Yukio's face. Tanaka could see the tiredness printed out on his face, his eyes had bags underneath and his bright steel-blue eyes seemed a little bit dull.

"Tanaka-san, you're back." He said, a little in shock.

"Yukio...sit down. You might collapse any minute now."

Said boy just stared at the man. "I'm fine. I'm just a bit tired that's all. I'll sit when they get better."

"What happened to greed…?" Kazunari droned out. "...don't end it there..."

"Hai, hai." Yukio chuckled, and resumed his reading. They were loving it, even if they weren't in their right minds at the moment. Tanaka-san could look on in astonishment. He was proud of the dedication Yukio showed towards them, so Tanaka did what he could to best assist. But even so, one thing rested on the landlord's mind:

Yukio was one hell of a boy.

…

…

The very next day, everyone was well and back to their regular selves. Everyone, except Yukio. He was roasting with fever, and sniffed too many times for someone not crying. Shouichi noticed that his best friend was still resigned to bed, covered under the sheets and decided to take action. He rounded up everyone, and soon they were all entering the room with grins on their faces.

"Yuki~" Shouichi sang, holding an ice-packet.

Yukio, knowing what was happening, started to fret. "No, I'm fine. I can ―" he broke off when he tried to get up but failed miserably.

"Don't worry, Yu-chan, we'll take good care of you." Kazunari said. And for the first time, Yukio felt a shiver crawl up his spine, worrying if he'd make it out of their "care" in one piece.

"Fuck."

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