Title: A Common Cold
Summary: Tyson's the one with a chest cold. So why is Kai the one suffering? And how much patience does he have?
Pairings: Miguel/Kai
Warning: Humor. Not much romance or Fluff.
Disclaimer: Don't own Beyblade.
Just a silly little idea that I received while reading a magazine while traveling on the bus one day. It's stupid and pointless and that's about it…Enjoy!
Running his hand through his hair, Kai raises an eyebrow when he steps out of his bedroom he's lodging in while staying at the dojo, noticing that his teammates are not outside training like they should be doing. He strains his ears and hears feet shuffling around in the dining area of the dojo. Rolling his eyes towards the heaven, Kai makes his way towards the room, knowing all to well what's happening here. It's happen several times before, and no doubt will happen in the days to come.
Tyson just doesn't like to train, the lazy slob.
Stepping into the room, the scene of his teammates fussing over a certain bluenette greets him. He walks over to the table and sits down, momentary glancing down at his bowl of cereal and then turns his gaze to Tyson's hangdog face.
"Okay," Kai inwardly sighs. "What's wrong this time? Yellow fever? The black death? Oh, I know, the mad cow disease?"
"I don't feel so well," Tyson moans pathetically. "My head aches and I can't breathe without coughing." To demonstrate his point, he went off into a coughing fit that made the table shake and windows rattle. Immediately, everyone gathers around him, rubbing his back and telling him to take deep breathes to calm himself. When he recovers, he slumps against the table and gazes at him tragically. "I think I have the flu."
"Nonsense," Kai quickly replies, waving a hand at him in a tiresome manner. "It's just a cold, Max had one last week and you didn't see him laying around, moaning like he was dying."
He receives another coughing fit as his answer. He resists the temptation to roll his eyes towards the ceiling once more and bites the inside of his mouth to prevent himself from saying anything derogatory, knowing all to well that his fellow teammates will immediately jump to the poor boy's defense.
"I don't think Tyson should train today, Kai," Hilary says as she moves to feel Tyson's forehead for a temperature. "He is burning up."
Kai regards that answer with a small hint of alarm. Now that he looks more closely, Tyson doesn't look that good at all. His eyes are red and blood shot, and he does look a little pale. Maybe he isn't exaggerating. For once, mind you, with Tyson, it's hard to tell. One time he had his ingrown toenail removed, and wailed on like he had his whole leg amputated.
Glancing at the blatant concern on his teammates' faces, Kai smiles wryly. He's not going to win this battle, so his not going to try. After all, he'll be the one suffering from a headache by the time he's finished arguing.
He presses his lips together in a fine line when he hears a knock at the front door. He knows its Barthez Battalion, here to train with them. Tyson must have forgotten about that.
"Right, back to bed with you," Kai says briskly as he places his hands on the table and pushes himself up onto his feet. "That's Miguel and the others at the door. I'll tell then that training is canceled for the day, and then I'll ring the doctor to take a look at you."
Tyson's face immediately brightens and he sits up straight. "Thanks Kai," he says happily, picking up his chop sticks and starts hoeing into his food. "Need to keep my strength up."
Kai quickly turns his back on him, hiding the irritating twitch in his right eye. The least the little puke could have done is pretend a little more.
Opening the door, Kai takes a step back, smile wearily at the tall handsome blond. "Hey," he whispers softly, letting his blond heartthrob kiss him on the cheek in greeting. "Training has been canceled today," he tells them as he lets them inside, closing the door behind them. He moves forward to give Miguel a gentle kiss on the lips, and then steps back to lean against the door. "But you can hang around here if you want."
"Why has practice been canceled?" Miguel enquires as he steps inside, stopping to stand in front of Kai, surprise evident in his big blue eyes. Kai is by no means a training Nazi his teammates like to portray him as, but cancel a training session on such short notice definitely raises a few eyebrows.
"Tyson's sick," Kai tells him, emphasing the word sick, not bothering to hide his disbelief at all. "He's convinced he has the flu."
The looks of understanding flittering across their faces and they nod their heads in unison. They know that Tyson tends to exaggerate his symptoms just a bit. Ok, a lot. His overacting is legendary in this part of Japan, the local doctor all too familiar with him.
Speaking of the doctor, he's going to be more than a little irate when he discovers he has to asset Tyson once again.
"It's just a chest cold," Dr Mizuno tells Kai as he places his stethoscope away after a mere ten minute examination. "Keep him in bed for a couple of days and he should be fine."
"Thank you, doctor," Kai says as he leads the older man through the dojo and to the front door.
"Thanks for coming; you know what he's like."
"All to well."
Kai bids the kindly old man farewell, and then closes the door behind him. He turns to move into the lounge room where the two teams await news on Tyson's condition. Kai shakes his head in disbelief that even after all this time his teammates still believe that Tyson really does become deathly ill on such short notice.
"Well, how is he?" Max asks as soon as Kai steps into the room, his big blue eyes shimmering with concern.
"It's just a cold," Kai tells them, a small voice inside his head saying, 'I told you so' over and over again. He shakes his head to clear it, turning back to the task at hand. "So, yes, training has been canceled today and tomorrow too, most likely. You're free to do whatever you want."
"Yes!" Daichi pumps his fist into the air. "With Tyson sick, I can train on my own and become stronger! Haha!" With his arms in the air, Daichi pushes past Kai and running full speed outside, his laughter gradually getting softer as he moves away into the distance.
Well, at least someone is getting some practice done today, Kai muses to himself, once again resisting the urge to roll his eyes.
"That's not a bad idea," Ray says as he unfurls his legs from underneath him and stands to his feet, stretching his arms over his head. "I might head to the river and do some mental training. Anyone want to come?"
"I will," Claude says as he gives a small shrug of his shoulder. "Haven't got anything better to do."
"What are you going to do, Kai?" Max asks.
"What choice do I have?" Kai mutters bitterly. "I'm the captain here, so as a part of my duty, I have to stay here and watch over the lard ball, I mean, Tyson."
"You better take it easy with Tyson," Hilary scowls. "He's not well."
"No kidding," Kai once again mutters bitterly under his breath. Sometimes, he doesn't know why he bothers with this team anymore.
"Do you want me to stay, too?" Miguel asks as he places an arm around Kai's shoulders and pulls him up against him.
Although he's still a little uncomfortable with public displays of affection, Kai leans against Miguel, already dreading the days to come. "That's nice of you," he replies with his voice barely above a whisper. "But I love you too much to let you suffer like that."
Miguel chuckles in reply, receiving looks of confusion from the other members in the room as they didn't hear a thing. "It's only for a two days, right? Everything will be fine."
That's more than could be said for Kai. Two days have been and gone, and Kai is the one who's now suffering from headaches and fatigue. Two days he has been running back and forth from Tyson's bedroom to the kitchen, his teammates nagging in his ear. If he wasn't demanding a cooked meal 'to keep his strength up' he was asking for ice cream 'to sooth his sore throat'.
The last two days have been difficult, more so when Hilary appears to check to see if he was treating Tyson carefully, only to receive a whine in the ear when Tyson tells her a bunch of lies on how his been treating him unfairly.
The scary thing in all of this is that Kai is starting to understand why people go on killing sprees.
"This cough's really taken it out of me," Tyson whines as Kai removes his seventh bowl of ice cream from his room. A second later, and with much effort, Tyson releases a feeble string of coughs and smiles at him in triumph. "See?"
"All I see is you milking this for all it's worth," Kai finally snaps, stopping himself from hurling the bowl in his hand directly at Tyson's head. "Dr Mizuno said you'd be fine in a couple of days."
"Well, I'm not," Tyson says, sulkily crossing his arms over his chest and throwing himself back on to the bed. "For all you know, if I get up too soon it might kill me."
Promise? Kai inwardly pleas.
"I wouldn't worry about that," Kai snarls. "If you lie there much longer I'm going to kill you anyway. Now get dressed and get out of the room." With that, Kai turns on his heel and storms outside. He's on the verge of pulling his hair out. Tyson's the one with the cold, so why is Kai the one suffering?
A moment later, Tyson appears from his room, the sulky pout still on his lips. He didn't go far, however. He moves into the lounge room and turns on the TV, sitting in a defiant manner, looking as though he'll refuse to budge for anyone. Kai glares at the teen before moving around the dojo, going about his business. But every now and again, he hears that hacking cough. It manage to grow louder and more frequent when the others arrive to check up on him, Hilary immediately fussing over him, getting him a glass of water or a bowl of ice cream with ever single hack.
Kai hopes to God that Hilary doesn't start nagging him again. He's afraid of what he might do.
Leaning against the window of his room, Kai grasps the window sill with white knuckles, grinding his teeth together. Urge to kill…rising. Two arms suddenly wound themselves around his waist, and Kai finds himself immediately falling into them. All the annoyance, anger and frustrations turn into fatigue, and he moves to bury his face into Miguel's shirt.
"Are you alright?" Miguel asks softly.
"He's driving me crazy!" Kai confides in him. "I swear if I hear another k-hack from him, I'll kill him. I'm not sure how yet, but I will."
"It'll be ok," Miguel soothes, rubbing small circles on his back to comfort him. "He'll get over it soon."
"I hope so."
Unfortunately, two days later, he's still trying to hack up his lungs. He uses his cough whenever he wants sympathy. However, after so long, it's been frown upon. Even Hilary, his ultimate supporter, is finding his cough unconvincing and annoying.
It's like living with a demented woodpecker. It never stops. Morning, noon and night, k-hack, k-hack.
Finally, Kai has enough. "Stop coughing!" he orders. "There's nothing wrong with you."
"There is!" Tyson protests. "That flu has left me with a weak chest."
Weak chest my ass, Kai inwardly seethes. That weak chest isn't stopping him from arguing and scoffing everything in sight.
"Right, I'm getting you some cough medicine," Kai snarls, his eyes narrowing dangerously. "And for your information the doctor said you only had a cold."
"A fat lot he knows," Tyson huffs childishly.
Before he loses control and slaps him, Kai turns on his heel and storms through the front entrance, pushing past a startle Spanish team.
"Kai!" Miguel calls out, obviously concern about Kai's less than spectacular mood.
"I'm getting cough medicine!" Kai snarls back in reply, his hand curling tightly into fists my his sides as he storms through the masses of people, some even diving comically out of his way when they see him coming.
Reaching the chemist in record time, Kai storms up to the front desk and pounds his fists on the bench in front of him. "Cough medicine, please."
The elderly pharmacist noticeably winces before offering a weak smile. "What kind of cough is it?" he asks. "A chesty one or an irritating ticklish one?"
"The irritating one," Kai quickly replies.
The elderly man nods, moving to pick a small brown bottle of thick liquid and presenting it to Kai to see. "You'll need this one then." he places the small bottle in a small white paper bag. "Is there anything else?"
Kai opens his mouth to snarl a short no, but something catches his eyes; another brown bottle. He smiles a wicked, vengeful smile. "Yes, I'll have that bottle too."
"Certainly," the pharmacist replies, picking up the bottle and placing it in the small white bag. "That's 21 dollars all up."
Saturday morning rolls around, and Miguel hesitantly pushes the front door open, cautiously stepping inside the familiar dojo. He pauses for a moment, hearing nothing but silence. It's quiet…maybe just a little too quiet.
Kai hasn't gone and commit homicide, has he?
"Kai?" Miguel calls out, looking for any sign of his dual hair love.
"In here," Kai's voice drifts out from his room. Miguel follows the voice, pausing to momentary glance in the lounge room, surprise to find Tyson sitting quietly at the table, reading. Miguel blinks and hurries to Kai's room.
"What on earth?" he asks as soon as he steps inside, confusion evident in his eyes. "What have you done?"
Kai simply laughs from where he is sitting at his computer table. "You were right, his cough did clear up," Kai tells him, opening a draw and pulling out a small brown bottle. "He took two doses of this last night and I haven't heard a peep out of him since. Worked like a charm."
Miguel glances at the label - and glances at it again, before his eyes widen in alarm. "Kai, this isn't a cough mixture. It's castor oil!"
"I know."
"But that's a laxative," Miguel gapes at him. "That doesn't cure a cough."
"Oh yes it does," Kai says as he winks at him. "He picked up the bottle I bought for Gramps by mistake. Now he's too frightened to cough!"
X3 Ah, inspiration comes from the most unusual places, doesn't it? I really should stop picking on Tyson. But, if I do, who else can I pick on? -looks lost-
Please review.
