"Gokudera!" The teacher snapped. The entire class turned around to look at the chain-smoking boy. He sat up from where his head had been resting on his desk. "What is the answer to question twelve?"
"X=13?" Gokudera guessed. He hadn't been paying attention to the teacher, focusing instead on the rough scratching in the back of his throat and the fluctuating temperature of the room. The teacher frowned and the bell rang. Tsuna and Yamamoto packed up there things and Tsuna cast a concerned glance at Gokudera.
"Gokudera, stay after for a moment." Gokudera rolled his eyes and picked up his bag, shivering despite the long-sleeved fall uniform. Tsuna paused, looking at Gokudera again.
"Go on Tenth, you don't have to wait for me." Tsuna looked unsure, though Yamamoto still had his typical grin on his face.
"Are you sure Gokudera?" Gokudera nodded and walked toward the teacher's desk.
"Ah well then, we should head home now. It looks like it's going to rain soon." Yamamoto said, grinning. "See you tomorrow Gokudera!"
Gokudera ignored Yamamoto and scowled at the teacher. Once Yamamoto and Tsuna had left, the teacher spoke up.
"Don't make a habit out of sleeping in my class, Gokudera. The next time it happens, I'll hand you over to Hibari." Gokudera rolled his eyes and turned o leave.
"Yeah, alright." The teacher just shook his head as Gokudera shuffled out of the room, still shivering.
He ways halfway home when Yamamoto's oddly-prophetic words came back to bite him in the ass. With no warning what-so-ever, the sky opened up and started pouring buckets of ice-cold rain onto Gokudera. Shivers grew into full-blown bodily shuddering.
Gokudera was just about to settle into a self-pitying gloom when the rain stopped hitting him. The rain hadn't stopped, he could still hear it, and he hadn't stepped under any awnings that he knew of…
"Hey Gokudera!" Gokudera turned to glare up at Yamamoto's grinning face. He was holding an umbrella over both of them.
"Go away baseball idiot." Gokudera trudged out from under the umbrella and continued towards his tiny apartment. Yamamoto caught up a couple steps later, just as Gokudera's body fell into another violent fit of shuddering.
"It's raining pretty hard isn't it? It doesn't look like it'll let up anytime soon, so why don't you come hang out at my house until the weather looks better." Gokudera ignored Yamamoto and shrugged the friendly arm off his shoulder.
"Why haven't you left yet?" Gokudera asked, turning abruptly to glare at Yamamoto. Yamamoto grinned and laughed.
"You look like you could use some hot tea. Come on, it's not that far!" Yamamoto said, dropping a hand onto Gokudera's shoulder to steer him in the right direction.
"I'm fine!" Gokudera snapped. Of course, fate hated him and a tickle in the back of his throat made him sneeze as soon as he'd said it. Yamamoto laughed and pushed Gokudera into the sushi shop.
"Of course. Hi dad! We'll be upstairs." Yamamoto's father looked up from the sushi counter and waved.
"Okay Takeshi." Gokudera sighed and followed Yamamoto upstairs. He stood awkwardly in the middle of Yamamoto's bedroom, dripping water on the floor and shivering violently. Yamamoto returned momentarily with a towel in hand.
"You'll catch a cold if you stand around in wet clothes like that. Here." Yamamoto said, still smiling blithely. Gokudera took the towel and stared at it uncomprehendingly for a moment before Yamamoto grabbed it again and started drying off his hair.
"Oy, I can do that myself idiot!" Gokudera snapped, smacking Yamamoto's hands away and drying off his hair. Yamamoto laughed and went to dig through his closet. Once he had finished with his hair, Gokudera shrugged off his jacket and bag. The dress shirt underneath the uniform jacket was translucent with water and Gokudera wrapped himself in the towel as Yamamoto approached him with a small stack of clothes.
"These should fit you." Yamamoto handed Gokudera the clothes, Gokudera looked at them perplexedly. "You can wear them while your clothes are drying."
Gokudera flushed and stormed off into the bathroom. He blamed the sudden heat in his cheeks on a fever and dried off; changing quickly into the clothes Yamamoto had given him. The shirt hung loosely on his shoulders and Gokudera noticed that it was one of Yamamoto's baseball jerseys. The pants practically fell off and dragged on the floor as he exited the bathroom.
Gokudera shivered violently again, hugging his arms around him. Yamamoto wasn't in the room so Gokudera looked around awkwardly. There were posters of baseball stars on the walls, a cluttered desk shoved in one corner and Yamamoto's bed, barely an arm's length away.
"Oops, I guess they're still a bit big." Yamamoto joked, setting a tray down on the least cluttered surface of the desk. Gokudera jumped at sound of Yamamoto's arrival and whirled around. On second thought (or first really) whirling was not a wise course of action. Gokudera stumbled and Yamamoto caught him by the arm before he fell.
"Careful Gokudera." Yamamoto said, more serious this time. Gokudera snatched his arm back and glared up at Yamamoto. A fit of sneezing ruined the ferocity.
"You're cute when you sneeze." Yamamoto said laughing.
"Shut up stupid baseball idiot!" Gokudera shouted, swinging a punch at Yamamoto's face. He caught the fist easily and used it to pull Gokudera into a kiss.
The next day, Yamamoto had a black eye and Gokudera fell asleep in class again. After narrowly escaping Hibari's wrath, Tsuna, Yamamoto, and Gokudera walked home. Yamamoto slung a friendly arm over Gokudera's shoulder and Gokudera elbowed him in the ribs.
Usually Gokudera hates idiots who do stupid things like kidnap people and give them their shirts when they don't want them, but Yamamoto was starting to become an exception to the rule. Maybe idiocy is contagious.
Yamamoto sneezed.
Maybe it wasn't idiocy.
-------Author's Note-------
This is a part of my challenge to myself. I took three tables of words, and randomly chose three words, one from each table for my prompts. I'm trying to improve my writing skills through short exercises. If you want to help me, give me three numbers between one and ninety-five and a fandom/character/pairing and I'll try to write it.
The prompts for this story were contagious, shirt, and exception.
Thanks for reading and please review.