Life Sucks

Summary: Misaki has his wisdom teeth removed while Usagi is off on tour promoting his newest book, so as to not worry him… however, he wasn't expecting it to still hurt by the time he got back.

A/N: A tribute to the removal of my own wisdom teeth. Trust me… for those who haven't gotten it done; it is extremely difficult to explain the pain… My step dad decided to make my life even worse by making my favorite meal (batter-fried shrimp, grilled salmon, and other things) the day I got them removed, so I couldn't eat it. T_T

However, my boss made it all better, and sent me some Chinese won ton soup with soba noodles. =^_^= The noodles were soft enough for me to eat without having to chew them, and it was delicious~ Hooray for awesome bosses.

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Life sucks.

Misaki thought this sentence, albeit differently each time, every time his brain received another throb of pain from his lower right jaw. It would have been better if the pain had been balanced, but he could barely feel anything from the two missing teeth in his upper jaw, and his left side was numb.

His lower right, however, was another story.

Life sucks. Utterly, completely, undoubtedly SUCKS.

Another throb shot through him, and he let out a squeak of pain. What the hell! You had to be kidding! He'd taken the pain medication! Why wasn't it working? More importantly, he looked like an idiot, wearing that infernal rabbit-ear contraption that kept ice in contact with his tender cheeks.

He groaned, and wondered how the hell he'd ever been talked into doing this…

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"Ah… Well, Takahashi-san," Misaki's dentist said, smiling brightly. "You're a bit of a late bloomer!"

"What?" Misaki deadpanned, staring at him as if he had lost his mind. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Your wisdom teeth are coming up," the doctor explained, pointing out said teeth in Misaki's X-ray. "They're at an extremely sharp angle… In fact, they're practically sideways," he commented, tracing the root of the tooth. "They'll have to be removed… We can make an appointment for you, at your earliest convenience," the doctor assured him, smiling.

Misaki thought for a moment. He wouldn't want to be recovering from anything, even if it were something trivial like this, when Usagi was around… Aikawa had said something about a book tour in a few weeks, just for a few days.

"Would the weekend of the 27th be all right?" Misaki questioned, sitting up.

The doctor checked his schedule. "That should be fine, Takahashi-san," the doctor agreed. "All right… Let me explain the procedure," he stated, making himself comfortable in a chair, placing himself near Misaki.

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The swelling will be at its worse forty-eight hours after the operation, my ass, Misaki thought angrily, changing the ice in his pack for the third time in the past twenty minutes. Why couldn't this stuff stay frozen?

He caught sight of his reflection in a glass, and frowned. His cheeks were huge – he looked like a frikken chipmunk, for crying out loud.

Growling in annoyance, he took out his new best friend – a snack cup of pudding.

He'd found that he couldn't eat much at once, and he had to eat sparingly throughout the day. One of these handy little things was the perfect size for one of his miniature 'meals', and it was soft enough for him to actually eat. Yoplait yogurt also served this purpose, though he sometimes had trouble swallowing fruit chunks from some of the varieties. He'd steered clear of anything cherry or strawberry, thankfully.

What had made up his diet for the past three days had chiefly been his beloved pudding cups, yogurt, and applesauce, though he'd felt well enough to eat some fish on the second night – just to have that leisure taken away from him overnight, as his cheeks swelled up to about twice their previous size.

He sighed heavily. He had to get better before Usagi-san got home – after all, if he didn't, that overgrown man-child was sure to just blow this out of proportion, and who knew what would happen then?

He downed another pain pill, and forced himself to drink a glass of water (not the easiest task).

He yelped as the pain from his mouth spiked again, and dropped the glass. It shattered into a hundred pieces on the floor. He cursed, carefully stepping away from the sharp shards, and grabbed a broom, carefully sweeping it into a pile. He picked out the large chunks, and swept the rest into a dustpan. He noticed a small spot of red on the tile when he lifted his foot. He sighed, and placed himself on a kitchen chair, placing his foot on a knee and working the small chunk of glass from his flesh.

After he managed to tease it out and practically scalded himself by accident rinsing it out, he wrapped it in a bandage, and again thought about how much life sucked at the moment.

Misaki somehow managed to sit himself down on the couch, and snuggled up with a blanket, replacing his ice on his aching cheeks. His eyes closed lightly. He wasn't going to sleep, just drowsing…

It seemed like only a moment when he felt wetness spreading from his collar down his shirt. His eyes snapped open, and he cursed, sitting up and ripping the ice pack off, growling. The ice had melted again already, and on top of that, the plastic bags inside had popped. Great.

He forced himself back into the kitchen, and began re-making his ice pack. It couldn't be done fast enough, and it felt like heaven when he put it back on. Even if he looked like an idiot, at least it numbed the pain some more.

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Another thing Misaki had learned since getting his teeth removed: he had never realized how hard simple, humble pasta was. He'd thought it would be fine, since it was normally considered on the soft side. However, he soon learned the error of this thinking, and packed away the leftovers of his attempted spaghetti dinner for Usagi.

It would help if it hadn't been the teeth he used for chewing that were the most affected by this. He could only chew with the teeth directly behind his canines for it to be comfortable, and that made for rather awkward chewing. Which had resulted in the banning of food that needed chewing.

Currently, Misaki was sulking from the failure of aforementioned pasta dinner, wrapped up in a blanket from head to foot. His gums were killing him… it was obvious that they were not meant for chewing. And, for some odd reason, he'd found that the gum that had once covered the tooth had not, in fact, been stitched down as he'd assumed. Instead, it had been left to hang. How the hell did it make sense for the doctors to leave a loose flap of SKIN, let alone skin this TENDER, just hanging there, where it was constantly being ripped at when he attempted to move his jaw more than half a centimeter?!

He groaned in pain again, covering his head with a pillow. His pain pill hadn't kicked in yet. And Usagi was due home any minute… This sucked. He couldn't even get the swelling to go down. He decided on a course of action after a few moments of deliberation: the "play-dumb" card.

He'd act like he didn't know what Usagi was talking about if he mentioned his cheeks looked puffy, he'd ignore him if he mentioned any pained expressions, he'd shrug it off if he mentioned the unnatural amount of pudding cups and applesauce in the refrigerator—

The door opened, and slammed shut. Misaki listened as Usagi unzipped his coat, and counted the seconds as he hung it up in the closet, and stepped into the living room. "I'm home," his lover called.

Misaki sat up, putting on a – hopefully – innocent smile. "Welcome home, Usagi-san," he greeted.

Usagi blinked, but smiled and walked over to Misaki, a smirk soon sprouting from the smile. He'd gone a week without talking to his beloved, let alone touching him. Time to get his past few days' worth of Misaki.

Misaki made an innocent sound of surprise as Usagi leaned down, capturing his lips in a quick kiss. Usagi loved it. He chuckled, leaning forward even further, trapping his lover underneath him. His hooked a finger under Misaki's chin, and tipped his head up, stealing another kiss from the boy.

Misaki didn't fight it, or jump away screaming as he usually did. Neither did he join in, as he did during one of his rare affectionate moods. That efficiently confused Usagi. However, he decided to think nothing of it, and continued his assault. It could be that Misaki was just too tired to fight back tonight.

He half-pried Misaki's lips open, allowing his tongue to explore, For some reason, Misaki's mouth was a lot smaller than he remembered… And for some reason, it had a different feel, a different shape – like he'd lost a tooth or something?

Misaki yelped suddenly, and jumped back, clutching at his face. He'd lost a few shades, and was now rather pale. His eyes were wide, his face stuck in a position that showed extreme pain. Tears were building up at the corners of his eyes, not that the stubborn college student would allow them to fall.

"Misaki?" Usagi moved closer, worried. "I'm sorry, are you okay? What happened?"

"It-it's nothing!" Misaki said, instantly – too quickly. There was something up.

Usagi raised an eyebrow. "Misaki. I can tell you're lying to me."

"R-really, Usagi-san… I-It's nothing…"

Usagi stared at the younger for a short span of time, before deciding he'd get to the bottom of this matter at another time. After he'd replenished his dangerously low 'Misaki-powered' battery.

Misaki gasped as Usagi let a hand slide up his shirt, glaring up at him. Was it just him, or were Misaki's cheeks a little swollen? Oh well. There were more important matters to be attended to at the moment.

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Misaki groaned, obviously exhausted. He glared at Usagi, who was leaning against one of the many bears that ordained their bedroom, content for the first time in four days.

Usagi laughed at Misaki's expression, then stood. "Need anything? Water?"

"I'm fine," Misaki bit out, rolling over with some difficulty, refusing to look Usagi in the face any longer. Usagi felt slightly guilty – after all, three times was a lot to ask from him – but knew that his rage wouldn't last long. Misaki usually slept on the other side of the bed; however, out of habit, he always slept half in the middle, half in Usagi's half on the nights when they made love, and would sometimes even cuddle up to him, if he was in an affectionate mood.

That's what he needed – one of Misaki's affectionate days… Ah, that would be heaven…

Usagi glanced over at the other boy, who seemed intent on falling asleep clear on the other side of the bed. Oh well… He'd fix that when he got back.

Usagi slipped into the bathroom, and ran the faucet. After gulping down a glass of water, he noticed a small bottle sitting innocently near Misaki's toothbrush. Curious, he picked it up, reading the gibberish that the pharmacy had printed onto it:

"Hydrocodone Bitartrate & APAP… 7.5mg/750mg… blah blah blah… Takahashi Misaki… Take 1 tab every 4-6 hours, as needed for pain… What?"

Usagi re-read the prescription a few times, confused. Pain? What pain?

Misaki entered the room at a tiptoed run, and deadpanned when he saw the bottle in Usagi's hand. "Oh no…" he muttered, quickly turning and attempting escape.

"Misaki, what's this?" Usagi questioned, looking over at him.

"Uhm… It's… It's for…"

"Did you hurt yourself?" Usagi questioned, stepping closer. "I noticed the bandage on your foot earlier, but I didn't think it was anything serious…"

"I-It's not for my foot," Misaki assured him, laughing nervously.

Curiosity killed the cat. Or, in this case, the rabbit. "Then what's it for?"

"Nothing, okay?" Misaki sighed. "I'm completely fine—"

"If you're fine, then we can throw these out, then," Usagi shrugged. This made sense to his logic. He uncapped the bottle, and prepared to toss them into the toilet.

Misaki yelled out and grabbed the bottle of pills from him, frantic. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he hissed.

"So you need them," Usagi deducted. "Which means something is wrong."

Misaki gulped, looking both ways for a way to escape. There was only the bathroom door, but he had a feeling Usagi could grab him before he could fully escape…

"Misaki."

Misaki stared at him for a few moments, before finally mumbling something under his breath. It was obviously an explanation, but Usagi couldn't make it out, even if Misaki's voice had been amplified. "I can't hear you, Misaki," he pointed out, crossing his arms over his chest.

"They're for my mouth," Misaki repeated. "I… had my wisdom teeth removed. It hurts, so the doctor prescribed those to me," Misaki explained, finding the carpet interesting suddenly.

"Is that all?" Usagi asked, blinking. "Honestly, Misaki. Why didn't you tell me? They say it doesn't hurt, but if you need medication, then they're obviously lying…"

"Because I didn't want to worry you," Misaki replied, shrugging. "And because… well… I had a feeling you'd turn something trivial like this into something huge…"

Usagi placed a cool hand on Misaki's cheek. He now knew why it was swollen, and he felt slightly guilty for making the poor boy, who hadn't been feeling well, go through such a rigorous 'exercise' regimen. "Well, you're wrong," Usagi said simply.

"I am?" Misaki asked, looking genuinely surprised.

"Yes. Because this is no trivial matter, Misaki… You're taking the next week off of school to recover from this, and you're not to leave this room—" Usagi continued, scolding Misaki as if he were a small child for not telling him of this sooner.

Misaki sighed, knowing he was defeated.