Crazy Holiday
1st chapter - first part
"What do you mean by "respiratory disease", doctor !?" Vice- commander Fuyutsuki burst out in sheer astonishment, preceding the one who had urged the medical response. As a rule, Gendo Ikari didn't lose his own composure, while hearing the unexpected news from doctor Akagi Ritsuko, the blond scientist, who had stopped talking just a moment before, showing her concern for the casualty.
"I mean what I mean, vice-commander. According to the childrens' last check-up report
, each of them is suffering from a luckily slight respiratory illness. Still things could get worse, so a measure of caution is required." Ritsuko answered resolutely.
She didn't feel at ease maintaining the appearance and demeanour of the cold scientist reporting emotionless data, though the commander's attitude demanded such neutrality.
Actually, Gendo didn't let himself get upset, unlike his subordinate. Without batting an eyelid, he replied, "In your opinion, what's the reason for the children's illness, Dr. Akagi?"
Ritsuko rummaged through her file-folder, then she approached the commander's desk, and set the reports down.
"According to the following test results ,I believe the pilots' disease is related to excessive inhalation the Link Connect Liquid, that's all."
"The LCL?!?" Vice-commander Fuyutsuki couldn't restrain himself from yelling in surprise again.
"How could it happen?!! LCL doesn't affect the human breathing apparatus, We tested it, and every time we confirmed it!"
"That's right. The Link Connect Liquid isn't toxic at all. Yet, the three pilots have been inhaling a large amount of it for a long time, which possibly weakened their lungs, exposing their respiratory system to serious infections.
Both Fuyutsuki and Gendo stood speechless. They knew her as a reliable doctor: Ritsuko pronouncing a wrong diagnosis was rather an unheard-of, than a rare occurrence.
"We can't manage without LCL as long as we want the Eva Units to work properly," uttered Gendo, arranging his glasses upon his nose, as he was prone to.
Ritsuko didn't surrender, since she still had an ace up her sleeve. "Yes, I know it. That's why I'm here," she answered quietly.
Fuyutsuki's amazement at the doctor timeliness was immense: "Do you mean you've already found out the way to solve the problem?"
"That's not exactly what I meant, yet." Ritsuko couldn't restrain herself from smiling with satisfaction. "I think there's a simple remedy for this ! "
Doctor Akagi's quiet and cheerful tone of voice couldn't quiet down Fuyutsuki Kozo, who kept on showing an incredulous look. But, commander Ikari did not slip at all from his inexpressive attitude of coolness.
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The day after.
8:00 AM . Major Misato Katsuragi's apartment.
"WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHATTTTT?!?"
It was Asuka Soryuu Langley, the German pilot of Evangelion Unit 02, overreacting to the content of the letter Ritsuko had just handed her.
"Shhh!! No reason to yell like this!", said Ritsuko, taking her shoes off on the landing; she smiled at the German girl reaction: it was quite predictable, after all.
"You are you kidding, Ritsuko, aren't you!?" Asuka went on. She was not able to keep back her happiness, while reading the letter again to make sure she had grasped the kanji meaning.
"No, I'm not kidding. According to last check-up, it seems you're quite weak because of breathing large amount of LCL. So Nerv organised a short holiday for you in the mountains, that will be very healthy and you will recover your strength completely," calmly explained the blond while taking up another letter from her tote bag. Shinji had already left home. Indeed, it was Ikari and Ayanami's turn to do the cleaning at school, that very day.
A burst of laughter came from the pretty redheaded girl " So, do you mean we're going on holiday!?", she went on, with a smirk on her face.
"Something like that...." Ritsuko said, making her way through her friend's apartment.
"YAAAAAATTAAA!! GREAT!!! It has been a long time since I last went on holiday!" Asuka went on jumping happily, just like a child finding the present she longed for under the Christmas tree.
Ritsuko smiled at the Second Children's naïve joy. The pilots had been forced to give up the school trips because of their military duties, it was a reasonable explanation of Asuka's joyful outburst.
Yet it was quite strange that Misato hadn't mentioned it to her the night before. When the Major had heard the news about the holiday, and that she and Ritsuko would attend in the role of guides, her response was not so different from Asuka's.
Misato's absent-mindedness surprised the doctor and reminded her why she had paid her friend a visit.
"Asuka, Misato is in her room, isn't she ?!" Ritsuko asked, while slowly moving towards the Major's room.
Asuka nodded, putting her hands on her hips "Yeah. She has no intention to get up this morning. Shinji said maybe she doesn't feel well, and he insisted that you should come and have a look at her! Bah! I think that's only an excuse to stay home from work, then possibly meet Mr. Kaji while baka-Shinji and me are at school!" she exclaimed disappointedly, shifting back her hair with a swift hand motion.
" Maybe....Misato jumps at every excuse, whenever she has a chance of lying on a bed with Ryo-chan", Ritsuko uttered, her own hand rested on her friend's room door.
"That's what I thought! But baka-Shinji didn't think so! He's such an asshole ! What surprised me more was that she didn't drink her coffee! " she said, her eyes pointing at a tray on a distant table, bearing an almost untouched cup of coffee.
The word `coffee' reminded Dr. Akagi that she had not yet swallowed her favourite drink, because of her haste to get to Misato's.
Before entering her friend's room, she crossed the distance between herself and the coffee tray, and started to sip it, pretending to avoid waste.
"Ah! I didn't know you wanted any! I'll make coffee for you!" Asuka offered. That moment she felt so happy she would have even been able to praise baka-Shinji! You can just imagine hot she felt about making coffee for the one who had brought her the happiness.
Ritsuko shook her head while finishing her coffee in one gulp. "No, thank you! Misato's cup was almost full to the brim", she said, resting the cup on the tray while getting near to the redheaded German.
"Yeah ! She just had a sip, then she said she felt sick !" Soryu shrugged. "What if she's pregnant ?! ", she added, being in a joking mood.
Forcing herself to imagine a pregnant Misato, Ritsuko finally burst out laughing. After all, it wasn't that impossible! It was time to go and inspect the case.
"Ok, let's see." Ritsuko opened the shoji*: Misato's bedroom was soaked in a dim light. She had to pay attention not to trample on the pile of clothes and cans of beer, which lay scattered on the floor. Ritsuko sighed in a disconsolate way.
*Gosh, what a mess ! How can Misato live surrounded by tons of chaos?", Ritsuko wondered, advancing at a slow pace into the darkness.
Out the blue, in the shadowy room, the doctor could hear strange moans, which made her aware that her friend had finally woken up
"mmmmm... is that you, Ritsuko?" Misato called in the darkness. That was when Ritsuko caught a glimpse of the Major lying on her futon.
"Tell me, Misa-chan...have you lifted an elbow? Are you pretending to be ill, just to call for Kaji's help and cuddle?" Ritsuko chided Misato, being used to her illness, caused by the enormous amount of beer that the Major consumed daily.
Misato turned on her side, covering her eyes with her arm to shelter them from the light filtering into the room, since the door was ajar. "Spare us your wisecracks, Ritchan. I felt so weak yesterday night, that I couldn't even have a drink !" she complained, in a pleading tone.
Though she found Misato's wails convincing, Ritsuko didn't let herself be convinced easily. Katsuragi-san was really wasted on the military; she was such an actress! She was supposed to not be wanting in intelligence, since she was the leader of the military operations at headquarter, and the one responsible for tactical manoeuvres. Ritsuko kneeled down by Misato's futon in order to verify what was wrong with her friend. She had not given up her scepticism, and somewhat amused look, in a spite of the funniness.
"Really? Did you happen to have consumed your entire stock of beer? Are you suffering from something like withdrawal symptoms?" Ritsuko stopped joking at once when she touched her friend's forehead, finding that it was wet with sweat, moreover it was burning like a red-hot iron. Ritsuko's look immediately turned attentive. "Misato, your forehead's burning!" she uttered worriedly while looking in the darkness for Misa-chan's arm in order to feel her pulse, which confirmed her suspicions.
"You don't think that it's because of the beer, do you Ritsuko?" Misato grumbled, referring to Ritsuko's recent sarcasm.
Ritsuko almost felt guilty, to have pulled her friend' leg like that before. Katsuragi's illness was not a figment of her imagination, as Ritsuko had wrongly supposed. "Yeah. I believe you've got a fever. We' d better take your temperature," she said before standing up and looking around for the lightswitch. "Have you got a thermometer, by chance?" she asked again, nearing the wall next to the entry door, where she had glimpsed the switch, paying attention not to stumble over her untidy colleague's clothes.
Misato tried to remember, by concentrating a bit. "Mmm...yeah, it should be in the first drawer of the nightstand." It would have been hard even for a healthy person to unearth something hidden under such a chaotic mess. Just think how it would be like for a sick person like Misato to dig it free!
Katsuragi-san frowned, with a groan of disapproval, when some irritating rays, emitted by the overhead light spread all over the room, dazzling the Major's eyes. She pressed the cushion to her face, trying to shelter his eyelids, still used to the dimness. However as they slowly got used to the light, Misato carefully loosened her grip on the cushion pressed against her face.
The Major tentatively opened one eye, trying to catch sight of her friend wandering through the room. It was to no avail, so she was obliged to open her other eye too, finally pulling the cushion away from her face.
Ritsuko was rummaging through the first drawer of the little bedside-table, still searching for the thermometer, but it was evident to her that it wouldn't be that simple to recover it, amid the myriad of knickknacks that Misato had secreted in the drawer.
"Where the hell...." Before Ritsuko finished the sentence, something inside the drawer attracted her attention. Misato first thought that her friend had finally found out the thermometer she had been searching for; though still feverish Major realized that wasn't what Ritsuko had found.
Katsuragi's look immediately changed, when the doctor, having glanced at her friend maliciously, took out of the drawer an opened packet of condoms, holding it with her fingertips.
" Well done! You do the right thing, having a personal stock of these... Kaji may forget to buy them, before coming to you, don't you think?" Ritsuko definitely loved to be ironical about some embarrassing details of Misato's private life; anybody would have loved to: you only have to watch Misato's purple colouring, which slightly differentiated from the purple-coloured blanket, which she had pulled up over her mouth. Fever had certainly gone to her head, if she had directed Ritsuko towards that very drawer.
Misato got up, out of a blue, almost oblivious of her sickness. She then sat right back down, waving her hands as a sign of denial. "Er...you know... It's not like that, Ritsuko!! Those things are not....." Ritsuko was the one who broke off Misato's stammered apology, by putting the ill-famed thermometer into her mouth, which she had finally recovered from the messy drawer.
"Tossing like that will only serve to raise your temperature. Please, relax." Ritsuko smiled, trying to quiet her friend down. "What's wrong with you? You can't let your hair down without running the risk of having a baby!" she taunted again, playfully.
"Grrrrrr... Stop it, Ritsuko!" Despite of the metallic bulb under her tongue, Misato couldn't restrain herself from reacting to her friend's taunts.
Dr. Akagi waved her hand, pleading with Misato to cut the quarrel off "Ok, ok. No reason to get angry! It was a witty remark ..." Misato would have said something even against Ritsuko's last words, but her retort was cut off by the faint sound signals emitted from the thermometer, which meant that it had already got the young woman's temperature. Before Misato could do anything, Ritsuko pulled the instrument from her mouth, then she carefully stared at the numbers shown on the liquid crystal display.
"Thirty-nine degrees Celsius; it's rather high," she whispered, rather worried. "You'd better stay home and rest for today. In all likelihood you must have caught cold recently," Dr. Akagi went on, turning the thermometer off then putting it in its case.
"In case you feel ill, please call me, ok?"
"Oh, I'll survive." Misato uttered with a smile, though she felt her anomalous temperature was wrapping and quickly possessing her . She could see Ritsuko towering over her. Dr. Akagi kept on staring at her friend with concern for some moments. Despite her witty remarks, and their countless bickerings, Misato remained her best friend and also the only one Ritsuko could consider to be a true friend. Maybe she wouldn't admit it, still it was natural for her to worry about Misa-chan...
"Why did you fall ill now? You know, we're about to leave..." Ritsuko knew it wasn't Misato's fault, so she smiled while saying those words, trying to soften her irony.
"Baah! Don't worry, I'll wake up like new tomorrow!" Misato knew that in all likelihood, she wouldn't be all right tomorrow; still pronouncing those words comforted her. She knew such an opportunity wouldn't happen again: an unexpected fever wouldn't restrain her from taking part in the trip!
"I hope s..." Ritsuko stopped talking all of a sudden, and it was not because she'd found another condom box nor any other embarrassing detail. On the contrary....
Her gaze rested on something about Misato's face, which made her look serious once again. She hadn't even noticed it before. Possibly, some locks of her friend's hair had hidden it from her view. However, during their conversation, she'd had had an impression that something unusual was concealed behind the ear of her sick colleague
Dr. Akagi was stood still, a thousand thoughts crowding her mind...
"Uh? What-what's up, Ritsuko?" Misato couldn't help but perceive the visible alteration of behaviour in her friend, so she called for Ritusko's attention by expressing her worry.
The doctor didn't answer by words of mouth.
She was wholly taken up with what she had seen, so she didn't mind to reply to Katsuragi-san, but she bent forward to her friend in order to have a better look of her. She then stared at her intently, to identify what she had fleetingly glimpsed...
"Wait a moment, you-" she could only stammer while focusing on a strange spot, next to her friend's ear. It looked innocuous at first sight, but on closer look.....
A worrying idea flashed through the doctor's mind like a bolt from the blue and she tried to move away, being scared it could be real.
"Ehm...Ritsu...ko?!" Misato, getting more and more troubled by Ritsuko's attitude, called the doctor to account. "What's wrong with you?"
Such behaviour from Dr. Akagi had never boded anything good..
Ritsuko did not even pay attention to Misato's remark. She was too busy examining that strange spot, searching for something proving her idea wrong: yet the examination result was not comforting at all...
"Mi-Misato, listen to me. Are you itching... here?" she asked fearfully. Ritsuko's last hope would have been a negative answer from Misato.
Misato couldn't still grasp the reason why her friend was so scared. She decided to answer anyway. "There? Yup,it itches and how!" When Ritsuko touched the pink spot, Misato felt the unpleasant sensation renew so she instinctively scratched it in order to weaken the itchy annoyance.
Ritsuko found herself so bewildered that she couldn't even urge her friend to stop scratching the pink spot. Till then she'd fervently hoped she was wrong, but from that moment on she had no doubt. She still tasted the bitterish flavor of Misato's coffee. It made her realise that if Misato's illness was due to a virus, she'd drunk from an infected cup.
"Mis-Misato you've got..." she barely succeeded in uttering those words, cold sweat drops forming on her forehead.
Misato stared at her in dismay, all the while scratching the spot. "What?"
"THE MEASLES!" Ritsuko had succeeded in keeping calm before such a threat for a long time by making a great effort, but there's a limit to everything, especially to human patience, so she stood up suddenly, moving away as far as possible from her sick friend. As everybody knows, the measles are not that dangerous; it's only a bit annoying, but very, very infectious.
Such a disease was very infectious particularly for those like Ritchan, who neither had caught it, nor were immunized by inoculation. That was the doctor's biggest regret, even if it was definitely too late to cry over spilt milk.
Asuka heard the whole scene, although wasn't really aware of what was going on. The German, standing on the threshold, cast an eye on the flat for the last time before leaving. It was when she heard Misato and Ritsuko's desperate yells spreading all over the rooms, even reaching as far as the entry door. She wouldn't have reacted that way if she'd known how things were like. As it was, she huffed then shook her head.
"We're the ones supposed to be CHILDREN, aren't we?" So she left the apartment and headed towards school, ready for another deadly boring day.
End of the First chapter
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Author's Note ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
~*~ Shoji is the japanese term for the sliding doors, made by wood and rice paper, which keep the inner rooms separate
~*~ Many thanks to Faby-chan for this translation! ^_^ and many thanks to Douglass Week and Daniel Snyder for the correction too!
~*~ Do not forget to review!! And if you wanna talk with me please send an email to: [1]reichan@inwind.it
or visit my fanfic website at: [2]http://members.tripod.it/aoitears (both in italian and in english)
~*~ The next chapters? Well...I hope to write it soon! ^_^;
References
1. mailto:reichan@inwind.it
2. http://members.tripod.it/aoitears
1st chapter - first part
"What do you mean by "respiratory disease", doctor !?" Vice- commander Fuyutsuki burst out in sheer astonishment, preceding the one who had urged the medical response. As a rule, Gendo Ikari didn't lose his own composure, while hearing the unexpected news from doctor Akagi Ritsuko, the blond scientist, who had stopped talking just a moment before, showing her concern for the casualty.
"I mean what I mean, vice-commander. According to the childrens' last check-up report
, each of them is suffering from a luckily slight respiratory illness. Still things could get worse, so a measure of caution is required." Ritsuko answered resolutely.
She didn't feel at ease maintaining the appearance and demeanour of the cold scientist reporting emotionless data, though the commander's attitude demanded such neutrality.
Actually, Gendo didn't let himself get upset, unlike his subordinate. Without batting an eyelid, he replied, "In your opinion, what's the reason for the children's illness, Dr. Akagi?"
Ritsuko rummaged through her file-folder, then she approached the commander's desk, and set the reports down.
"According to the following test results ,I believe the pilots' disease is related to excessive inhalation the Link Connect Liquid, that's all."
"The LCL?!?" Vice-commander Fuyutsuki couldn't restrain himself from yelling in surprise again.
"How could it happen?!! LCL doesn't affect the human breathing apparatus, We tested it, and every time we confirmed it!"
"That's right. The Link Connect Liquid isn't toxic at all. Yet, the three pilots have been inhaling a large amount of it for a long time, which possibly weakened their lungs, exposing their respiratory system to serious infections.
Both Fuyutsuki and Gendo stood speechless. They knew her as a reliable doctor: Ritsuko pronouncing a wrong diagnosis was rather an unheard-of, than a rare occurrence.
"We can't manage without LCL as long as we want the Eva Units to work properly," uttered Gendo, arranging his glasses upon his nose, as he was prone to.
Ritsuko didn't surrender, since she still had an ace up her sleeve. "Yes, I know it. That's why I'm here," she answered quietly.
Fuyutsuki's amazement at the doctor timeliness was immense: "Do you mean you've already found out the way to solve the problem?"
"That's not exactly what I meant, yet." Ritsuko couldn't restrain herself from smiling with satisfaction. "I think there's a simple remedy for this ! "
Doctor Akagi's quiet and cheerful tone of voice couldn't quiet down Fuyutsuki Kozo, who kept on showing an incredulous look. But, commander Ikari did not slip at all from his inexpressive attitude of coolness.
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The day after.
8:00 AM . Major Misato Katsuragi's apartment.
"WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHATTTTT?!?"
It was Asuka Soryuu Langley, the German pilot of Evangelion Unit 02, overreacting to the content of the letter Ritsuko had just handed her.
"Shhh!! No reason to yell like this!", said Ritsuko, taking her shoes off on the landing; she smiled at the German girl reaction: it was quite predictable, after all.
"You are you kidding, Ritsuko, aren't you!?" Asuka went on. She was not able to keep back her happiness, while reading the letter again to make sure she had grasped the kanji meaning.
"No, I'm not kidding. According to last check-up, it seems you're quite weak because of breathing large amount of LCL. So Nerv organised a short holiday for you in the mountains, that will be very healthy and you will recover your strength completely," calmly explained the blond while taking up another letter from her tote bag. Shinji had already left home. Indeed, it was Ikari and Ayanami's turn to do the cleaning at school, that very day.
A burst of laughter came from the pretty redheaded girl " So, do you mean we're going on holiday!?", she went on, with a smirk on her face.
"Something like that...." Ritsuko said, making her way through her friend's apartment.
"YAAAAAATTAAA!! GREAT!!! It has been a long time since I last went on holiday!" Asuka went on jumping happily, just like a child finding the present she longed for under the Christmas tree.
Ritsuko smiled at the Second Children's naïve joy. The pilots had been forced to give up the school trips because of their military duties, it was a reasonable explanation of Asuka's joyful outburst.
Yet it was quite strange that Misato hadn't mentioned it to her the night before. When the Major had heard the news about the holiday, and that she and Ritsuko would attend in the role of guides, her response was not so different from Asuka's.
Misato's absent-mindedness surprised the doctor and reminded her why she had paid her friend a visit.
"Asuka, Misato is in her room, isn't she ?!" Ritsuko asked, while slowly moving towards the Major's room.
Asuka nodded, putting her hands on her hips "Yeah. She has no intention to get up this morning. Shinji said maybe she doesn't feel well, and he insisted that you should come and have a look at her! Bah! I think that's only an excuse to stay home from work, then possibly meet Mr. Kaji while baka-Shinji and me are at school!" she exclaimed disappointedly, shifting back her hair with a swift hand motion.
" Maybe....Misato jumps at every excuse, whenever she has a chance of lying on a bed with Ryo-chan", Ritsuko uttered, her own hand rested on her friend's room door.
"That's what I thought! But baka-Shinji didn't think so! He's such an asshole ! What surprised me more was that she didn't drink her coffee! " she said, her eyes pointing at a tray on a distant table, bearing an almost untouched cup of coffee.
The word `coffee' reminded Dr. Akagi that she had not yet swallowed her favourite drink, because of her haste to get to Misato's.
Before entering her friend's room, she crossed the distance between herself and the coffee tray, and started to sip it, pretending to avoid waste.
"Ah! I didn't know you wanted any! I'll make coffee for you!" Asuka offered. That moment she felt so happy she would have even been able to praise baka-Shinji! You can just imagine hot she felt about making coffee for the one who had brought her the happiness.
Ritsuko shook her head while finishing her coffee in one gulp. "No, thank you! Misato's cup was almost full to the brim", she said, resting the cup on the tray while getting near to the redheaded German.
"Yeah ! She just had a sip, then she said she felt sick !" Soryu shrugged. "What if she's pregnant ?! ", she added, being in a joking mood.
Forcing herself to imagine a pregnant Misato, Ritsuko finally burst out laughing. After all, it wasn't that impossible! It was time to go and inspect the case.
"Ok, let's see." Ritsuko opened the shoji*: Misato's bedroom was soaked in a dim light. She had to pay attention not to trample on the pile of clothes and cans of beer, which lay scattered on the floor. Ritsuko sighed in a disconsolate way.
*Gosh, what a mess ! How can Misato live surrounded by tons of chaos?", Ritsuko wondered, advancing at a slow pace into the darkness.
Out the blue, in the shadowy room, the doctor could hear strange moans, which made her aware that her friend had finally woken up
"mmmmm... is that you, Ritsuko?" Misato called in the darkness. That was when Ritsuko caught a glimpse of the Major lying on her futon.
"Tell me, Misa-chan...have you lifted an elbow? Are you pretending to be ill, just to call for Kaji's help and cuddle?" Ritsuko chided Misato, being used to her illness, caused by the enormous amount of beer that the Major consumed daily.
Misato turned on her side, covering her eyes with her arm to shelter them from the light filtering into the room, since the door was ajar. "Spare us your wisecracks, Ritchan. I felt so weak yesterday night, that I couldn't even have a drink !" she complained, in a pleading tone.
Though she found Misato's wails convincing, Ritsuko didn't let herself be convinced easily. Katsuragi-san was really wasted on the military; she was such an actress! She was supposed to not be wanting in intelligence, since she was the leader of the military operations at headquarter, and the one responsible for tactical manoeuvres. Ritsuko kneeled down by Misato's futon in order to verify what was wrong with her friend. She had not given up her scepticism, and somewhat amused look, in a spite of the funniness.
"Really? Did you happen to have consumed your entire stock of beer? Are you suffering from something like withdrawal symptoms?" Ritsuko stopped joking at once when she touched her friend's forehead, finding that it was wet with sweat, moreover it was burning like a red-hot iron. Ritsuko's look immediately turned attentive. "Misato, your forehead's burning!" she uttered worriedly while looking in the darkness for Misa-chan's arm in order to feel her pulse, which confirmed her suspicions.
"You don't think that it's because of the beer, do you Ritsuko?" Misato grumbled, referring to Ritsuko's recent sarcasm.
Ritsuko almost felt guilty, to have pulled her friend' leg like that before. Katsuragi's illness was not a figment of her imagination, as Ritsuko had wrongly supposed. "Yeah. I believe you've got a fever. We' d better take your temperature," she said before standing up and looking around for the lightswitch. "Have you got a thermometer, by chance?" she asked again, nearing the wall next to the entry door, where she had glimpsed the switch, paying attention not to stumble over her untidy colleague's clothes.
Misato tried to remember, by concentrating a bit. "Mmm...yeah, it should be in the first drawer of the nightstand." It would have been hard even for a healthy person to unearth something hidden under such a chaotic mess. Just think how it would be like for a sick person like Misato to dig it free!
Katsuragi-san frowned, with a groan of disapproval, when some irritating rays, emitted by the overhead light spread all over the room, dazzling the Major's eyes. She pressed the cushion to her face, trying to shelter his eyelids, still used to the dimness. However as they slowly got used to the light, Misato carefully loosened her grip on the cushion pressed against her face.
The Major tentatively opened one eye, trying to catch sight of her friend wandering through the room. It was to no avail, so she was obliged to open her other eye too, finally pulling the cushion away from her face.
Ritsuko was rummaging through the first drawer of the little bedside-table, still searching for the thermometer, but it was evident to her that it wouldn't be that simple to recover it, amid the myriad of knickknacks that Misato had secreted in the drawer.
"Where the hell...." Before Ritsuko finished the sentence, something inside the drawer attracted her attention. Misato first thought that her friend had finally found out the thermometer she had been searching for; though still feverish Major realized that wasn't what Ritsuko had found.
Katsuragi's look immediately changed, when the doctor, having glanced at her friend maliciously, took out of the drawer an opened packet of condoms, holding it with her fingertips.
" Well done! You do the right thing, having a personal stock of these... Kaji may forget to buy them, before coming to you, don't you think?" Ritsuko definitely loved to be ironical about some embarrassing details of Misato's private life; anybody would have loved to: you only have to watch Misato's purple colouring, which slightly differentiated from the purple-coloured blanket, which she had pulled up over her mouth. Fever had certainly gone to her head, if she had directed Ritsuko towards that very drawer.
Misato got up, out of a blue, almost oblivious of her sickness. She then sat right back down, waving her hands as a sign of denial. "Er...you know... It's not like that, Ritsuko!! Those things are not....." Ritsuko was the one who broke off Misato's stammered apology, by putting the ill-famed thermometer into her mouth, which she had finally recovered from the messy drawer.
"Tossing like that will only serve to raise your temperature. Please, relax." Ritsuko smiled, trying to quiet her friend down. "What's wrong with you? You can't let your hair down without running the risk of having a baby!" she taunted again, playfully.
"Grrrrrr... Stop it, Ritsuko!" Despite of the metallic bulb under her tongue, Misato couldn't restrain herself from reacting to her friend's taunts.
Dr. Akagi waved her hand, pleading with Misato to cut the quarrel off "Ok, ok. No reason to get angry! It was a witty remark ..." Misato would have said something even against Ritsuko's last words, but her retort was cut off by the faint sound signals emitted from the thermometer, which meant that it had already got the young woman's temperature. Before Misato could do anything, Ritsuko pulled the instrument from her mouth, then she carefully stared at the numbers shown on the liquid crystal display.
"Thirty-nine degrees Celsius; it's rather high," she whispered, rather worried. "You'd better stay home and rest for today. In all likelihood you must have caught cold recently," Dr. Akagi went on, turning the thermometer off then putting it in its case.
"In case you feel ill, please call me, ok?"
"Oh, I'll survive." Misato uttered with a smile, though she felt her anomalous temperature was wrapping and quickly possessing her . She could see Ritsuko towering over her. Dr. Akagi kept on staring at her friend with concern for some moments. Despite her witty remarks, and their countless bickerings, Misato remained her best friend and also the only one Ritsuko could consider to be a true friend. Maybe she wouldn't admit it, still it was natural for her to worry about Misa-chan...
"Why did you fall ill now? You know, we're about to leave..." Ritsuko knew it wasn't Misato's fault, so she smiled while saying those words, trying to soften her irony.
"Baah! Don't worry, I'll wake up like new tomorrow!" Misato knew that in all likelihood, she wouldn't be all right tomorrow; still pronouncing those words comforted her. She knew such an opportunity wouldn't happen again: an unexpected fever wouldn't restrain her from taking part in the trip!
"I hope s..." Ritsuko stopped talking all of a sudden, and it was not because she'd found another condom box nor any other embarrassing detail. On the contrary....
Her gaze rested on something about Misato's face, which made her look serious once again. She hadn't even noticed it before. Possibly, some locks of her friend's hair had hidden it from her view. However, during their conversation, she'd had had an impression that something unusual was concealed behind the ear of her sick colleague
Dr. Akagi was stood still, a thousand thoughts crowding her mind...
"Uh? What-what's up, Ritsuko?" Misato couldn't help but perceive the visible alteration of behaviour in her friend, so she called for Ritusko's attention by expressing her worry.
The doctor didn't answer by words of mouth.
She was wholly taken up with what she had seen, so she didn't mind to reply to Katsuragi-san, but she bent forward to her friend in order to have a better look of her. She then stared at her intently, to identify what she had fleetingly glimpsed...
"Wait a moment, you-" she could only stammer while focusing on a strange spot, next to her friend's ear. It looked innocuous at first sight, but on closer look.....
A worrying idea flashed through the doctor's mind like a bolt from the blue and she tried to move away, being scared it could be real.
"Ehm...Ritsu...ko?!" Misato, getting more and more troubled by Ritsuko's attitude, called the doctor to account. "What's wrong with you?"
Such behaviour from Dr. Akagi had never boded anything good..
Ritsuko did not even pay attention to Misato's remark. She was too busy examining that strange spot, searching for something proving her idea wrong: yet the examination result was not comforting at all...
"Mi-Misato, listen to me. Are you itching... here?" she asked fearfully. Ritsuko's last hope would have been a negative answer from Misato.
Misato couldn't still grasp the reason why her friend was so scared. She decided to answer anyway. "There? Yup,it itches and how!" When Ritsuko touched the pink spot, Misato felt the unpleasant sensation renew so she instinctively scratched it in order to weaken the itchy annoyance.
Ritsuko found herself so bewildered that she couldn't even urge her friend to stop scratching the pink spot. Till then she'd fervently hoped she was wrong, but from that moment on she had no doubt. She still tasted the bitterish flavor of Misato's coffee. It made her realise that if Misato's illness was due to a virus, she'd drunk from an infected cup.
"Mis-Misato you've got..." she barely succeeded in uttering those words, cold sweat drops forming on her forehead.
Misato stared at her in dismay, all the while scratching the spot. "What?"
"THE MEASLES!" Ritsuko had succeeded in keeping calm before such a threat for a long time by making a great effort, but there's a limit to everything, especially to human patience, so she stood up suddenly, moving away as far as possible from her sick friend. As everybody knows, the measles are not that dangerous; it's only a bit annoying, but very, very infectious.
Such a disease was very infectious particularly for those like Ritchan, who neither had caught it, nor were immunized by inoculation. That was the doctor's biggest regret, even if it was definitely too late to cry over spilt milk.
Asuka heard the whole scene, although wasn't really aware of what was going on. The German, standing on the threshold, cast an eye on the flat for the last time before leaving. It was when she heard Misato and Ritsuko's desperate yells spreading all over the rooms, even reaching as far as the entry door. She wouldn't have reacted that way if she'd known how things were like. As it was, she huffed then shook her head.
"We're the ones supposed to be CHILDREN, aren't we?" So she left the apartment and headed towards school, ready for another deadly boring day.
End of the First chapter
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Author's Note ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
~*~ Shoji is the japanese term for the sliding doors, made by wood and rice paper, which keep the inner rooms separate
~*~ Many thanks to Faby-chan for this translation! ^_^ and many thanks to Douglass Week and Daniel Snyder for the correction too!
~*~ Do not forget to review!! And if you wanna talk with me please send an email to: [1]reichan@inwind.it
or visit my fanfic website at: [2]http://members.tripod.it/aoitears (both in italian and in english)
~*~ The next chapters? Well...I hope to write it soon! ^_^;
References
1. mailto:reichan@inwind.it
2. http://members.tripod.it/aoitears