Spring had arrived, bringing with it a lot of improvements over winter: plants coming back to life, warmer temperatures, damper air, more clement weather overall. However, it did bring with it the problem Riku was currently facing for yet another year of his life: the classic, yet deeply unwanted, hay fever season.

Pollen had always been one of his fatal weaknesses. It was everywhere around this moment of the year: all flowers were in bloom and, as such, they were spreading this powder in the air, which then made it into his airways. Never a fun time to go through.

People around the residence were always more careful about whatever entered the rooms, these days. However, nobody could truly prevent the pesky pollen from reaching him, so he just tried to spend as much time as possible in his room, reading books and trying to prevent his allergies from acting up like they'd usually do.

That was always the issue with spring and flowers blooming again. He really liked their colours and their scent, but they were always full of pollen preventing him from enjoying them like everyone else! He couldn't hide the truth from his friends anymore too: they had known about his asthma for some time by now and hiding anything about it from some of them in particular would only backfire terribly.

A knock on his door made him think "oh, speaking of the devil", but he still thought it could be someone else paying him a visit in his pillow fort.

"Yes?" he said, trying to sound as welcoming as possible with his slightly congested voice.

As nonchalant as ever, Iori entered the room and closed the door behind him, making sure to wear a mask on his face too. Was that mocking him or was that just not to catch allergies he couldn't get anyway? Mean.

Iori leaned against the wall next to the door, arms crossed.

"Have you made sure to take your medicine, Nanase?"

He was at it again with speaking to him like that…

"Of course I did! Why do you say that as if I was five anyway?"

"I'm simply making sure you don't have another surprise attack on us. One was far more than enough."

What a brat…

"I take care of myself just fine! You don't need to monitor me like a child, Iori!"

"I guess scaring us all was enough to make you change your mind then, right?" he scoffed back.

"I don't think you should speak about health when you broke your arm last year…"

Iori's embarrassed face was priceless and totally worth it, as always.

"Tou-ché!" he enthusiastically said to emphasize on his small victory over his friend's usual calm and collected stance.

Iori cleared his throat as he took his "cool and sharp" attitude back, once again looking straight into the other boy's eyes.

"I guess this means you're ready to take your shift for the groceries, am I right?"

"Obviously, who do you think I am?! I feel so bad for having to make Sogo take my turn instead because I couldn't…"

"For once, it's not your fault. Don't dwell too much over it."

Urgh… That kid really knew where to hit to hurt, didn't he?

"You're implying I'm guikty of what, exactly…?"

"Nothing of importance right now. If we stick around here, the store will close and we'll still have nothing in the fridges for everyone, so let's hurry and stop bickering like that."

"Let's do these groceries then!"

One Riku had made sure to cover his face with a mask and taking with him his inhaler just in case an attack would happen (all under Iori's judgemental stare, of course), the two made their way to the convenience store without much troubles: the road was calm, no car almost ran over them and there was no cats they'd want to desperately pet (no matter how many times Iori'd deny that, Tamaki always proved him wrong on that anyway, if his shirts weren't giving him away already).

The pollen was obviously around, making it pretty hard to retain sneezes in. It'd be embarrassing and tedious to stop every thirty seconds to sneeze, so he decided the best course of action was to just try and not sneeze. Better try ignoring it, even if there was always that glare in his direction whenever he just tried to keep everything in.

The way back was where things got off the rails, as some people would put it. It wasn't a very big round of shopping, lucky for them, otherwise they'd have had to ask Tsumugi or Yamato to drive them there and wait for them to put bags inside the car's chest. It was more of a half-grocery stock-up thing anyway: they had just bought some food for half the week. Nothing too big to do!

That was where the pollen started to be his biggest enemy once more. It was difficult not to let the bags go whenever he wanted to let out the pressure building up inside his sinuses, shaking hands clutching onto the plastic yet feeling so weak and almost fragile.

Before he knew it, Riku had started hyperventilating, but he still wanted to get to the residence as soon as possible and hide inside his pillow fort again. It wasn't going to end well for him or the stuff he was bringing back with him at this rate. He needed to find something…

Okay, so. The two bags he had in his hands were too heavy to hold in only one hand if he wanted to use his inhaler. If he stopped to do so, putting the bags on the floor and taking a breath in his inhaler, Iori would notice. What to do, what to do…

"Nanase."

Iori's voice broke him out of his train of thoughts, right as his mind started to turn into turmoil. He had put his bags onto the ground, which Riku did afterwards. They seemed to have stopped… so everything got out in a bang.

It started innocently enough, as always, with just the sneezes he had kept in. That was however the tip of the iceberg, as he soon remembered how it felt like to choke on his cough: as he was unable to breathe much when sneezing, it had delved down into almost stopping to breathe. It was a chain reaction of symptoms.

Eyes filled with tears and thoughts filled with the fear of dying today, he barely realized he was getting sat down against a small wall. Hands were browsing through his pockets, eventually finding his inhaler before helping him use it.

It was a literal breathe of relief: even if the situation was beyond confusing at that point, he could breathe again thanks to this very welcome clearly needed, help. Things didn't need to make sense as long as he would be okay. It was all fine and it was all going to end well.

He closed his eyes, feeling both exhausted by almost asphyxiating and of the sudden soothing vibe taking a hold of him.

When Riku woke up, he was in his bed and room again, as if he had never gone out to buy the groceries in the first place. The atmosphere was damp and warm, probably so he wouldn't irritate his breathing again. There was one person next to the bed and, well, he was kind of the obvious possibility.

"You're awake again, huh," Iori said as if he was just noticing so.

There were a few questions in the back of his mind, but his throat felt dry and he still felt tired from the entire and earlier ordeal.

"Needless to say, you've scared everyone yet again, Nanase," Iori scolded him like a child again, as he always did, before sighing and resuming. "Why didn't you tell me about it? I could have done something about it."

"I thought I could last until we were home… Sorry…"

"Huh. To be fair, we weren't this far from the residence. It would have still been much better for everyone involved to have told me about it. I'm not just here to be your morality pet."

And yet, there was a small smirk on Iori's face, as if he was amused.

"I guess that's how you are. You never want to worry people. That's cute," he interrupted himself to clear his throat, but instead just looked away and lowered his voice, "… in a way."

Riku laughed lightly at it.

"That was a compliment, right…?"

"If you wanted it to be. I guess."

Iori was digging his grave of embarrassment, but that was quite the show to watch.

"At least it's all well, now… I hope I haven't made everyone worry too much…"

"You should spare your breathing right now," he got interrupted, before the other boy took a cup on the nightstand and gave it to him. "Here, take this, instead. It'll do you good."

Riku didn't need to even taste it to know what it was.

"Warm milk with honey… Thank you, Iori…!"

He got a dry and almost cold "you're welcome".

That kid did care, didn't he?