hey everyone! here's my new story...i hope y'all like it!

thanks to Silvie for suggesting this...i'm so excited for how this is gonna turn out!

thanks everyone please read and review!

HIRO

I'm so tired I can't see straight.

It's the end of the term—Halloween night, and my finals are tomorrow. I know it's Sunday, but I needed to study. I'm for sure going to fail math, but I feel okay about everything else.

I rub my forehead furiously, trying to stave off a migraine. I get terrible headaches whenever I have tests, probably because I put off studying until the night before and then cram for hours. Tonight I'm stopping a little early for Halloween.

The headache comes in full ferocity and I groan, putting my head down on my desk. Maybe I should just go to bed.

But no. Dashi wanted to have a Halloween party, and I'm going to oblige him.

I drag myself down the stairs and promptly miss the first one, tumbling halfway down and hitting just about every part of my body. It's a fairly regular occurrence, though, so I just get up, only a little bruised. I'm just tired, I guess.

Tadashi is standing in the kitchen with a giant box of donuts and a bowl of candy. I force a smile onto my face and try to look excited, but Dashi sees right through it. He always does.

"Headache?" he asks. I nod and he pulls a bottle of ibuprofen out of the candy bowl, tossing me two capsules. I down them both with a glass of water.

Tadashi breaks into a coughing fit and I look up, alarmed. "You okay, bro?"

He straightens up, clearing his throat. "I'm fine. Choir fever's going around, you know. I'm surprised you haven't got it yet."

I'm surprised, too—I'm always the first to get sick out of the two of us. Choir fever is especially dangerous—it's where a cold, cough, stomach bug, or combination of the three attacks a whole choir, usually because we spew germs everywhere while singing. And it usually strikes just before a concert, right when we can't afford to lose our voices. Tadashi and I sing in SFIT's advanced choir, and choir fever is going around at the moment. Thankfully, we've already had our fall concert and next up is the one in December, but that doesn't make getting sick any less annoying.

Tadashi holds out the bowl of candy. "Since we're too old to go trick-or-treating, I thought maybe we could just eat candy tonight. You want any?"

I dig through the bowl and select a Milky Way. "Thanks. Is this your idea of a Halloween party?"

Dashi smiles. "I'm not good at parties. I can't plan stuff like that." He starts coughing violently again and I start forward, but he holds up a hand in protest. "I'm fine. It's just a cough."

I'm not so sure. "What's the choir fever going around right now? Is it 'just a cough'?" I make air quotes with my fingers.

Tadashi sighs and gives in. "It's the flu. And I'm pretty sure I have it."

I rub my temples, struggling with the migraine. My head has started throbbing now, despite the Advil. Usually it get worse before it gets better, though.

"The flu, Dashi?" I groan. "You're gonna have to miss a ton of school and I'm gonna have to take care of you—"

"I'll be fine, Hiro! I can take care of myself—it's my job to take care of you!"

I snatch another Milky Way from the bowl and eat it while glaring at Tadashi. "I can take care of myself, Dashi! I'm fourteen!"

He sighs again. "And you're still my baby brother. You're so…small. Vulnerable. Defenseless."

"Weak?"

Tadashi hears the anger in my voice and his eyes widen. "No, Hiro. No matter what else, you are not weak."

I sit down on the couch with my arms crossed. Dashi sits down next to me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. "I'm sorry, Hiro. I didn't mean to hurt you. You're strong, I promise. You could take care of me easily."

I give him a half smile. "I so could."

Tadashi laughs and then coughs again. This time it lasts longer, and he does not sound good. I place a hand on his forehead and feel how hot it is before he jerks away.

"Dashi!" I exclaim. "You're burning up! Seriously, go to bed!"

"I'm okay," Tadashi insists. "It's just a low fever. It can't be that bad."

I run upstairs, get the thermometer, and shove it under Dashi's tongue. Pulling it out, I hold it about an inch away from my big brother's face. "102.3, Tadashi! That's too high! Go to bed!"

Dashi groans and pulls himself off the couch, grabbing the candy bowl. "Fine. But we're having a party upstairs."

I drag myself upstairs after Tadashi, my eyes threatening to close. I'm still really tired and I still have a migraine. Ouch. My poor head. It doesn't help that I have a history of head trauma—when I was two, I took a really bad fall off my tricycle while riding down the big hill on Main Street. I landed on the pavement, cracked my skull, and was knocked unconscious for several hours. I still get migraines where I hit my forehead on the road, and they can be almost as painful as the fracture sometimes.

Tadashi lays down and immediately begins consuming all the Twix bars in the bowl. "Hiro, come eat chocolate with me. It's good for you."

I roll my eyes playfully and take more Milky Ways. I'm pretty much starving from the hours of studying.

After a while, Tadashi falls asleep, Twix wrappers strewn across the bed and chocolate smeared all over his face. I smile and wipe the chocolate off, then remove all the wrappers. I don't want him to suffocate in the middle of the night. Then I retake Dashi's temperature and pull the covers over his sleeping form.

I can take care of my brother, but I don't want to. That much I know.

The next day, I wake up to Dashi coughing violently, plus a headache and a runny nose on my part. Great. I'm getting sick, too. And today we have finals.

I drag myself out of bed and take my temperature—101.2. Amazing. I still have to go to school, because I can't miss finals. Tadashi will have to go to school, too, and he'll probably be even more miserable than I am.

We take the moped to school, Dashi nearly crashing several times. Pulling up to the school—thankfully intact—we both rush to our first exams. I have math, Tadashi has English. Our worst subjects. Tadashi has dyslexia and I'm just plain stupid. In math, at least. A genius IQ doesn't show everything.

I suffer through an hour and a half of math, my head aching and my nose running. I sniffle constantly and everyone is quite obviously annoyed by it. By the end of the exam, my head is spinning with exhaustion and fever. I do not feel good.

Next up is thermodynamics. I can't concentrate—I feel really sick and tired, and I also just don't like thermodynamics much. English, physics, and robotics are even worse. I'm pretty sure I've failed everything by the time I drag myself back to the moped at the end of the day.

Tadashi comes out of school looking even worse than I feel.

"Hey," I rasp. "How'd it go?"

Dashi's only response is a groan. I wrap my arms around his waist as he revs the moped and we speed toward home.

I'm sinking into a fevered delirium when Tadashi starts coughing again. And he can't do anything about it, since he's driving. The coughing gets worse and worse, and I know we're gonna crash if Dashi doesn't pull over right now.

"Tadashi, pull over!" I yell, and it morphs into a scream as Tadashi's grip on the handlebars slips and the moped skids sideways off the road. The vehicle flips and I'm thrown several feet to the side, stopping abruptly when I slam into a streetlamp.

I try to sit up, but every muscle in my body screams at me and I collapse back to the concrete. Amazingly, I don't think I've hit my head—which is good because it was already killing me—and nothing feels broken. Not yet, at least. I haven't tried moving everything yet.

Turning my head, I can see Tadashi slumped over the moped, barely stirring. His forehead is bleeding and he doesn't look good.

I pull out my phone and call Aunt Cass. She'll know what to do.

"Hiro, baby? What's going on?"

I struggle to make my voice work. "Our moped…we just crashed, Dashi started coughing and he lost control…I don't think I'm hurt that bad, but Tadashi might be worse…so…we kinda need a ride?"

Aunt Cass immediately freaks out. "Oh my gosh, where are you? I'll come get you right away—you need to go to the hospital!"

"Main Street, outside the library," I tell her. "Hurry?"

"I'll be there as fast as I can."

She hangs up and I lay my head back down on the concrete. This is starting to hurt.

While I wait for Aunt Cass to get here, I manage to force myself into a sitting position and flex all of my limbs, checking for injuries. I'm pretty scraped up, with a big bruise on my back where I hit the streetlamp, and a cut under my eye is bleeding all down my cheek, which is swelling up. Pulling myself up with the help of the streetlamp, I survey the scene. Tadashi is collapsed over the moped, bleeding and motionless, and nobody is even stopping to help the two teenagers that crashed their moped. Why are people like this?

Aunt Cass pulls up in the truck and helps me load a half-conscious Tadashi and the moped into it, then speeds to the hospital, freaking out over me the whole time.

"How bad are you hurt, baby?" Aunt Cass asks worriedly. "You're bleeding. And you were already sick…"

"I'm okay," I mumble, one hand pressed against my bloody cheek. "Nothing broken."

Aunt Cass gives me a worried smile. "That's good. But you're bleeding all over, Hiro. Do you think you need stitches?"

"I hope not," I groan. "It is kinda a lot of blood, though."

We pull up to the hospital and drag Tadashi inside, despite his slightly delirious rambling about how he's totally fine and can walk by himself. The doctors take us into a CT scan room, running two scans at once. Turns out I was correct in assuming that nothing was broken. I'm just a little beat up, so they give me a bunch of band-aids. I do indeed have the flu, so I get some antibiotics as well. Hopefully I feel better soon—I have to so I can take care of Tadashi.

Dashi turns out to have the flu too, his ankle is broken, the gash on his forehead needs seven stitches to close it, and he's got deep bruising on his ribs and jaw. I'm incredibly lucky I wasn't hurt worse—getting flung off a moped is not a minor accident. Although my whole body is incredibly sore, so it's not a huge improvement from what Tadashi has going on.

We drive back to the café in silence and I immediately collapse into my bed as soon as I get upstairs. My back aches from crashing into that streetlamp and my cheek feels hot and swollen—not to mention that I still have a fever and a runny nose.

Aunt Cass gets me and Tadashi both out of school for a week to recover, which is really nice, but I have to take care of Tadashi, which is not. He has the flu worse than I do, and he's hurt worse, too. As a result, Dashi is in bed all day. Since Aunt Cass is working the café, I'm the nurse. I don't like being the nurse. I'm still sick and really sore, but I have to keep bringing Tadashi everything he needs—tissues, cough syrup, Advil, rice socks, thermometer, phone. I'm about ready to collapse by the end of the first day.

It doesn't help that I get my finals results. I'm amazed by them.

Math: D (no surprise there)

Thermodynamics: A

English: A

Physics: A

Robotics: A

Seriously? I was practically delirious while taking the exams. I could barely function. And I still got an A in every class that wasn't math. How?

Dashi got an A in everything as well—except English, in which he got an F. Poor guy. He feels really terrible about it. I don't know why no one will cut him any slack—dyslexia is a valid excuse to fail English. He can't read words properly—why dock him points for it? It's stupid.

Two days after the crash, I feel much less sick and my migraine has disappeared. Everything I hurt in the crash still aches, though, especially my back. The bruise hurts whenever I move. But my scrapes are healing and the swelling on my cheek is going down. Still, all I want to do is lay down in bed and never move again.

Tadashi doesn't seem to be recovering very well. All he can do is lay down in bed, and he's still running a fever. I check it and it's up to 103.5. That's really not good, so I keep giving him Advil and cough syrup and stuff.

After two days, Tadashi convinces me to stop taking care of him and to take care of myself.

"Go take a shower or something," he rasps. "You can't neglect your own personal hygiene for me."

It's very true, so I go take a shower. I pull off my shirt and wince at the sight of the huge, purplish-blue bruise on my back. It's at least eight inches across and tender to the touch—not to mention it hurts literally every time I touch it, move, or breathe. It'll take at least a month to go away. I can see the scrapes and scratches all over my torso, too, and those don't feel good either, despite the fact that they're all covered with band-aids and gauze.

The shower feels really good on my battered body, and I stay in there for at least an hour. By the end, my nose isn't congested anymore and I feel a lot better, though I still think I'm going to go lay down with a rice sock on my bruise.

I don't end up laying down—Tadashi needs more medicine. He seems to feel really bad about making me get everything. His ankle is broken, so he can't really do it himself, but I wish I didn't have to.

"I'm really sorry, Hiro," Tadashi rasps. "You don't deserve this. Why don't you just put everything on my nightstand—" He breaks off, coughing violently again. "Sorry."

I give him a weak smile, than wince as the cut on my cheek stings. "It's okay, Dashi. But I will put everything on your nightstand."

Finally, I go get my rice sock and collapse onto my bed, rubbing my back. Ouch. But it's feeling a little better, so that's good.

I sleep for what must be a long time and then wake up at around nine in the morning—I guess I slept for like twelve hours. My sock is cold now, but at least my back feels better. I sit up, rubbing my eyes, and yawn, "Hey, Dashi…how's it going…"

"Ugh" is Tadashi's only response.

"That bad, huh?"

"Yup."

I roll out of bed and put a hand on Tadashi's forehead. "I think you need a thermometer. Let me go find one."

I find the thermometer—under the bed, of all places—and wash it off, then stick it under Tadashi's tongue. I sigh when I see his temperature—104.7. It's just getting higher. This is a serious case of the flu.

I decide to go grab breakfast from the café, and I bring back a cinnamon twist donut for Dashi and several maple ones for me, which I immediately devour. Tadashi picks at his donut, stopping every twenty seconds to blow his nose or sneeze. Man, I hope he gets better soon or he won't eat.

After breakfast, I collapse on my bed with a rice sock. My injuries are starting to feel better and I almost want to go back to school—there's nothing to do here. I fall into a doze after a few minutes, but I'm jerked away abruptly when Tadashi starts coughing—and it doesn't sound like a normal cough. Something's wrong.

"Tadashi!" I exclaim, running over to his bed. "Are you okay? What's going on?"

"I'm—I'm okay—"

But I know Tadashi's not okay, because he's coughing up mucus and phlegm and—

Blood.