Shirotani Tadaomi x Riku Kurose fanfiction

Disgusting.

The people.

The public benches.

The ground.

The contaminated air.

The entire world. All of it was disgusting, reeking of bacteria awaiting to invade your poor, defenceless, dirty body. Even if you wore protective clothing for your hands, whenever you spoke you let in all the germs you longed to avoid. The dirty cells tickle at your throat, teasing you as it begins to work its way on killing you from the inside. The worse of it all, is that you feel every single touch caressing your insides gradually spreading the disease until you finally begin to decay.

Shirotani Tadaomi was currently waiting impatiently for his manager to get checked out from the hospital since an accident occurred just moments ago. He was feeling rather guilty as he could have potentially saved Mr. President from harm if it had not been for his personal issues. His white gloves felt a little tighter as he began to blame himself for the casualty.

A doctor peered out of the room, motioning for Shirotani to beckon. He explained how Mr President suffered from a broken leg and bruised ribs, concluding that he had to spend some time in the hospital to recover. Shirotani had already contacted Mr President's family members beforehand and assured him that they would be arriving soon. During their conversation about what he should do in Mr President's absence, Mr President rose his eyebrows.

"Ah, young man!"

That certain tall young man with the bicycle and backpack hung around the doorway, leaning on one side of the wall with a blank face. His hair was dark and long, his fringe absently cut around his face in order to casually frame it. With folded arms, he inclined his head towards the pair.

"I'm sorry that I couldn't prevent you from breaking your leg, jii-san."

Mr President waved it off. "Oh, no no! Thank you so much, young man. I am indebted to you with my life. I wouldn't even be here had you not saved me from that car."

"Then I'm glad you are fine, jii-san," He turned on his heel as he added his last sentence. "I must leave for work now. Goodbye."

As soon as he left, Mr President turned to Shirotani in a panic. "Ah Shirotani-kun, go follow him! At least give him your contact details so I can arrange some sort of gratitude towards him."

Startled, Shirotani complied although his thoughts were of that Mr President should just let the guy get on with his life. However perhaps Shirotani could offer his thanks for saving the President during that time. So he ran down the stairs and caught up to the saviour who was waiting by an elevator, watching it with interest.

Panting slightly, Shirotani held out his own personal business card. "Hah... um- sorry for disturbing you but please accept this on behalf of Mr President. He'd like to thank you personally someday so please if you need anything, don't hesitate to call this number."

The stranger blinked at him as his hand hovered over the card. "Tadaomi Shirotani... Does Shirotani-san have mysophobia?"

What?

He could feel his stomach jerk with uncertainty of the situation, his queasy state reminding him to escape from this scene as soon as possible. "H-huh?"

"There's blood seeping through Shirotani'-san's gloves," He pointed out before slipping the card out of his hand and replacing it with another one. "You should get some help."

Right after the elevator bell rang, the stranger disappeared into it leaving Shirotani alone with his dizzying thoughts. He was shocked, alarmed and frozen, his heart thrashing so hard and loud he could feel his pulse throbbing through his ears. Glancing at the card in his hands, he caught sight of paw prints and the clinic "Shimada Psychosomatics" printed at the top along with a number and name . Kurose Riku.

He shook his head, shivering as the interaction replayed in his mind. How did Kurose Riku know about his self-conscious secret just from talking for a couple seconds? Was Shirotani doing something wrong? Did he look weird in the slightest? Remembering how he mentioned his bloody gloves, Shirotani grimaced at the look of them as well as the card in his ownership. Where could this card have been? On the desk of his office, a place where people touch with their hands, potentially place their germ-infused sole of their shoes, a place open to human contact.

His hands felt itchy, contaminated.

Before he went up to the President, he made a trip to the bathroom where he thoroughly washed his scarred hands, dismissing the pain of opening up old wounds to which he had to plaster up all over again and lastly slipping on a new pair of comforting white gloves after his hands had air dried.

However as Shirotani moved to dispose of the infected gloves with a piece of tissue, he glanced at the business card with Kurose Riku's name imprinted on it. Then before he knew it he found himself wrapping the card in layers of tissue, pocketing it, analysing himself in the mirror which led for him to wash his hands again from the familiar itch that appeared.