Takeru places the tray of water, pills, and hot porridge on the bedside table, before laying a kiss on his sleeping wife's forehead.
From his lips he feels the heat still emanating from her clammy skin. Not good, he thinks, but at least she's finally asleep.
She'd spent the most of the night fighting through coughing fits, while he spent most of it trying to help her through them — bringing her cups of water and pumping up the humidifier they had acquired for this very situation.
The autumn chill had set in and as usual the kindergarten was a breeding ground for so many bugs that Hikari was never quite able to track which one she'd caught (was it from Kiyomi who came with some sniffles yesterday, or Kenta who she kept needing to teach how to wear a face mask, after a full morning coughing around the classroom?) Somehow the kids were almost never sick enough to miss class, but always just sick enough to spread whatever they had.
And whatever it was, Hikari always caught it.
Of course she loved all the children regardless, but she was ever envious of their resilience. They could come in ill one day and be better the next. Their teacher though was not quite as lucky. Perhaps it came with age, or the sheer magnitude of exposure to so many children all the time, but each infection would always grip her for at least a week (sometimes two, if she were exceptionally unlucky.)
And Takeru dutifully tended to her every time.
He himself was surprisingly hardy, for one so intimately exposed to someone who was so often ill. At even the slightest sniffle, Hikari would always try to distance from her husband — dodging kisses and banishing herself to the couch in the couple's living room — but Takeru would have none of it.
"In sickness and in health," he would say, kissing her forehead, before carrying her like a bride, back to the warmth of their bedroom.
The first few times, Hikari tried to fight it, but she would always find herself too tired, too worn — and his chest, too warm — to truly protest. Trying her best to stifle her coughs while he was so close, she could never help but curl onto the comfort of his embrace before he lays her down, and secures her under the covers of their shared duvet.
They had replayed this scene just yesterday. At the time she was still somewhat able to control the coughing, but over the night it had gotten worse. The fever had set, and Takeru was starting to worry.
First he called their family doctor who prescribed the usual (observation, bed rest, and symptom relievers, of which they had sufficient supply), then he called both their supervisors to inform them that neither of them would be able to report for the day.
The head teacher (who he heard herself sniffling through the phone) was a bit more sympathetic than his editors. He had a handful of revisions and a major deadline coming up, but he would deal with them later. What mattered now was that his wife needed him, and he wouldn't let her go through this alone.
He eventually got her to take some medicine around dawn, when the temperature she had hoped to sleep off had only risen (not that she was able to get much sleep at this rate anyway.) Now mid-morning, he knew he should wake her for her next dose soon enough, but he took one look at her still flushed, but just recently resting face and could simply not bear to disturb it.
Five more minutes couldn't hurt. In the meantime he could prepare her a cool cloth.
Before leaving the room, he kissed her once more on the forehead out of habit. To his surprise, she coughed and her eyes squinted open in the light of the mid-morn sun.
"Good morning," Takeru says with a smile. "How are you feeling?"
"What time is it?" she replies, still squinting despite the mild light.
"Time to take your medicine."
"So much to do" she says, suddenly sitting up, before another bout of coughs hit and push her back into the pillows.
One of Takeru's hands is immediately rubbing her back, while the other offers her a cup of water from the tray. When the fit has settled, and she's taken on the cup, he replies: "The only thing you need to do is take your medicine and stay in bed, love."
"The kids need me!" she rasps as loud as her battered voice could manage.
"To rest. And to get better," he says, taking the cup back and places it back on their bedside table. "I called our bosses and they both said we could take today off." (Takeru's boss sighed more than said, but this detail was irrelevant.)
"What?" Hikari asks, perhaps processing just a little slower today.
"As usual," her husband replies with a smile, reaching out to smooth her now ruffled hair, and secure some free strands behind her ear.
Hikari closes her eyes. He could almost believe she'd fallen back into sleep, if not for her furrowed brow and her clenched fists pressing tight creases upon the duvet.
She had noticed the bags under his own eyes, from having dealt with the whole of last night up with her, and how he wasn't focused at his desk, hard at work for the deadlines she knew were looming fast ahead.
He's about to take the opportunity to bring up the medicine again when, between shallow breaths, she says, "I'm sorry this is usual, Takeru-kun."
But in a heartbeat, he says, "No sorries. I'm just happy to be with you now," placing a hand on hers, still tight upon the duvet. Though the morning light is causing her head to spin, she looks up to find only sincerity in his eyes, that had seen her through better, and through worse, and everything in between.
And she can't help but believe them.
"How about you take this so we could get you back up and running soon?" he continues, pulling some pills from the bedside table and offering them to his wife.
She nods, accepting the medicine and water he offers and taking them as fast as her hurting throat could manage.
"There you go. You'll be better in no time," Takeru says with a satisfied smile.
"Feeling better already," she says with a weak grin, before another fit of coughs.
"Well, we're not in a rush," he says, once again smoothing her now tousled hair. His hand lands briefly by the side of her neck, feeling her hurried pulse, and temperature he hopes may soon return to normal. "And I'm just glad I get to spend today with you."
She can only nod, looking now suddenly so sleepy.
"I made you some porridge, would you like some?"
"Later?" she asks, though Takeru sees she is clearly more than halfway back into slumber already.
"Well, It's right here when you need it," he says delicately, tucking Hikari back snugly under the duvet, and laying another kiss on her forehead.
"Thank you," she manages, her hand folded on his nestled tenderly on the crook of her neck.
"Anytime," he whispers, lips barely brushing the soft strands of hair now framing her sleeping face. He takes a deep breath to appreciate her sweet, familiar scent, before heading to pull the curtains, lest the light interrupt her much needed slumber.
As finally settles back into bed with her to get some much need rest for himself, he takes one last look at his wife, resting peacefully in his arms, disturbed now only occasionally by a light cough. He is sure she is fast a sleep but as he entwines his arms in hers, he feels her burrow deeper into his embrace.
At times like these, he remembers the promise he made a lifetime ago, in a similar situation, in another world. He couldn't have imagined then that he would end up still keeping this promise years later, or that it would be so significant that he would feel the need to profess it in front of their families, their friends, and back to her, on that happiest day of his life.
Despite the frequent displeasure of seeing her like this (as an obligatory occupational hazard of working with young children), and these sudden disruptions to their regular programming, he decides there is truly nowhere else he would rather be than by her side when he need be.
this is a lot of self-indulgent fluff i just wanted to write out because i'm a sucker for the caretaking trope i actually write more serious stuff under another username but made this account dedicated to this level of shameful self-indulgent fluff 😩 i guess expect more mind numbing, tooth-rotting fluff cause we are going there