A/N: I've been kinda busy and this has gone far too long without an update. Sorry about that. I'll also be editing most of the previous chapters throughout August; nothing major, just some tweaks to improve the overall writing and content. Thanks for your continued interest and a colossal amount of hits! For Vena, for inspiring me with her JxA cuteness.


-The Princess and the Genius-
Sickness (1.0)

The rain started unexpectedly, until a quiet stroll through the park became an expedition in a torrential downpour, wading through soggy grass with only one umbrella between them.

Aelita reached out her hand to catch droplets in her palm, pressed next to Jérémie beneath the colourful canvas shelter. Beads of water were already sliding relentlessly down his glasses and his hands were white-knuckled with cold as he clutched the umbrella handle to hold it steady over both of them, noting with a touch of despair that they had quite a ways left to walk.

"Your first downpour, Aelita," Jérémie commented as he shivered, silently bemoaning his lack of jacket. Not for his sake, but because if he had a coat he would have gladly given it to the girl beside him. As it were their damp clothes had already begun to clung uncomfortably to their skin but for Aelita's part, she neither noticed nor cared.

"It's wonderful," she said, wide-eyed, squelching through puddles with an expression of bemused delight. Jérémie hunched his shoulders and sniffed.

"The novelty will wear off eventually," he replied.

"Then I suppose I should enjoy it whilst it lasts!" She turned to him, wet hair plastered over her forehead, and grinned from ear to ear. He guessed her intentions not a second too soon, and quietly pressed the umbrella handle into her palm. Aelita shot off like a rocket, leaping from one puddle to the next, sending water drops leaping through the air as mud splattered her legs.

And you only live once, Jérémie thought with a wry smile, and in moments he was running too. Besides, she has the umbrella.

He couldn't catch her up in her excitement and his poor state of athleticism, and they arrived back at school ten minutes apart. He stumbled in, red-faced and breathless and shivering; she was waiting for him with a cooling mug of hot chocolate, a dry towel in hand.

He took them gratefully. They walked to the common room side by side. Jérémie opened his mouth to say something, scrunched up his nose and-

"AAAAAACHOO!"

"Jérémie, what's wrong?"

"It's nothing," he said, and continued to say it later when he sneezed; first every now and then, and then every few seconds, and then so loudly that he was met with glares from the other students until he left the room.

/

The morning afterwards, when he woke up puffy-eyed and red-nosed and stuffed up with cold, even he couldn't deny it.

"I'm dying," he groaned, head pushed into his pillows with a pile of crumpled tissues overflowing the waste-paper basket. Aelita cried out in alarm, and the others shook their heads.

"Figuratively," Jérémie added weakly. "Sorry, Aelita."

She sat with him all day as he alternately sneezed and dozed. She refused to let him switch on his computer or worry about XANA, and as frustrating as that was he was secretly grateful. In return, he never complained about being sick or getting soaked to the skin the day before.

In fact, remembering the expression on Aelita's face as she leapt through puddles in the downpour, he couldn't quite find it in his heart to regret it.