This chapter is thanks to spot6600 and for Dman4869 for discussing a...theory with me.
Maya-desu: Thank you so much!
I don't own KHR.
Before tonight, Hayato had believed that he wouldn't get sick for the rest of the year simply because he had survived getting shot not that long ago. His body had gone through a lot and since he was a generally healthy kid, then that meant that his illness quota for the year had to have been fullfilled.
But now here he was, offering all the food he had eaten in the last twenty-four hours to the porcelain goddess that resided in the bathroom nearest to his bedroom. Hayato would laugh at his naive past self if he had the energy.
"Ugh," Hayato groaned as he tried to flush the toilet with one side of his face firmly pressed against the cool porcelain seat. Since his arm was weak and shaky, it took a couple of tries but eventually, all the digusting evidence that he had been sick here had been flushed away. Hayato sighed as he closed his eyes while his stomach churned and a fainter sense of nausea lingered within his body.
Yep, this wasn't a fluke, he was definitely sick. Oh joy.
Seriously, what good can come out of being sick?
"Hayato?" Hayato cracked his green eyes opened to reveal that his sister was standing in the open doorway with a concerned expression on her face.
"Hey," Hayato croaked like having his face on the toilet seat was a normal day occurrence before flinching when he smelt the residues of vomit on his tongue.
"Oh, so you did throw up," Chrome said softly as she walked into the dimly lit bathroom and knelt by Hayato's side.
"You heard?" Hayato asked, a bit confused before he remembered that her room was right next to the bathroom (they all finally moved into their own rooms not very long after they had decided to stay).
"Well, yes, and you have...leftovers on your chin," Chrome kindly pointed out as she ripped off a small wad of toilet paper and reached forward to wipe his chin only to stop herself about halfway. Hayato weakly smiled in appreciation as he took the toilet paper that Chrome held out for him and wiped his chin clean of the evidence himself. He may be sick, but he wasn't that sick.
"Sorry that I woke you," Hayato apologized softly as he threw the toilet paper in the toilet bowl.
"It's okay, it's not your fault, you're sick," Chrome said sincerely as she gently rubbed circles on Hayato's back, which actually comforted Hayato more than he expected. "Do you want to try going back to bed?"
"No, I'm going to puke again, I can feel it," Hayato declined as he closed his eyes again, his head still lying on the cool porcelain toilet seat. "This is my bed now."
"What is your bed now?" Hayato wearily opened his eyes and saw that the new voice belonged to Elena, who was peering into the bathroom. When her blue eyes landed on Hayato, her slightly bewildered expression instantly changed into one of concern.
"Oh, you threw up didn't you?" Elena asked as she walked into the bathroom. Hayato just grunted in reply as he closed his eyes again while another bout of nausea climbed up his chest.
"Oh honey, you poor thing," he heard her say as he felt another hand rub comforting circles on his back. "Are you feeling okay Chrome?"
"Oh yeah, I'm okay," he heard Chrome say. "I just woke up when-"
Then the bout of nausea surged into his throat and with now wide-opened eyes, Hayato quickly leaned into the toilet bowl and retched up more contents from his stomach. As he did so, he felt Elena pull his hair back so that it wouldn't get caught in his trajectory. Hayato appreciated that.
"How many times have you thrown up now?" Elena asked after he was done while Hayato watched Chrome reached over to flush the toilet.
"Uh...two times?" Hayato answered as his mind went over the last few minutes. Then he recalled what happened when he first woke up, which made his eyes go wide with realization. "Actually...make that kind of three..."
Then Hayato, despite himself, actually started to whimper a bit.
"I threw up on the bed."
"Oh, did you wake up throwing up?" Elena asked, causing Hayato to nod.
"I closed my mouth so soon as I could but...some also got on the floor. I'm sorry."
Then, either because of embarrassment, guilt, or because of how sick he felt, Hayato actually teared up a bit. Frustrated with himself, Hayato tried to stop more tears from coming but that unfortunately made him tear up even more.
"Aw, it's okay, that happened to me once," Elena assured him sincerely as Chrome ripped off another wad of toilet paper and handed it to Hayato.
"Really?" Hayato asked hopefully as he looked up at Elena with the wad of toilet paper in his hand.
"Oh yes," Elena confirmed with a nod. "But at least you went in the toilet. Me, I just went straight for the closest drain that led to the ocean...which happened to be the sink. Poor Daemon had to clean that up."
Chrome giggled, and despite having little to no energy, Hayato giggled as well.
"What's going on here?" Hayato looked at the doorway to see that this time it was Giotto who was standing in the entrance to the bathroom. His curious expression and smile quickly disappeared once he took in Hayato's probably pretty pale complexion.
"Oooh noo," Giotto said in horror. Then he turned to Elena. "How bad?"
"He threw up twice so far," Elena answered calmly. "Three if you count him throwing up a bit in his bedroom on the way to bathroom. Chrome is fine though."
"But she won't be if she keeps hanging around Hayato, c'mon hun, let's get you back to bed," Giotto said as he beckoned Chrome over to him.
"But..." Chrome started to protest, looking conflicted as she looked from Giotto to Hayato and back to Giotto again.
"It's okay," Hayato told her, even though there was admittedly a part of him that didn't want her to go quite yet. "I don't want you to get sick too."
"...Okay," Chrome said reluctantly as she got up and went over to Giotto who grabbed her hand.
"Don't worry, he'll be okay," Giotto assured her before he gave Hayato a reassuring smile. Then he turned back to Elena. "I'm gonna get Knuckle, are you okay with handling things for a little while?"
"Oh yeah, I got this," Elena replied confidently as she rubbed another comforting circle on Hayato's back. "I'm just going to get the one of the smaller hospital rooms ready for our little patient as well as find a bucket so Hayato doesn't have to stay here all night. Are you okay if I leave you here by yourself for a little while Hayato?"
"Yeah," Hayato approved as he closed his eyes and laid his head on the toilet seat once more. "The toilet is nice and cool."
"Oh, looks like you might a small fever, poor guy," Hayato heard Giotto say in sincere sympathy. "And Elena, go ahead and put him in one of the bigger hospital rooms."
"You sure?"
"Yeah, my intuition says we're going to need it."
KHR
Giotto was right. After a long night of sleeping restlessly and puking four more times (or was it six? He lost count), Hayato woke up to the unmistakable of someone retching. Realizing that the sound didn't come from him, Hayato turned his head to see Takeshi sitting up in the bed right next to him.
And his head was practically in the gray bucket on his lap.
"You too huh?" Hayato asked despite knowing the answer when Takeshi was finished.
"Oh...morning Hayato," Takeshi weakly chuckled as he picked up his head to look at Hayato, revealing a ghostly-white face. "Yep, looks like we're sick buddies!"
"How are the others?" Hayato asked as he looked around the room. When he saw that it was only him and Takeshi in the room, Hayato felt a bit relieved.
"Fine I think, though Lambo was asking for you when he didn't see you at breakfast," Takeshi answered making Hayato smile as his heart felt warm. "Tsuna was worried and sad that he couldn't visit you, and Mukuro definitely wanted to see you but then Kyoya gave him the look. Though he's none too happy either."
"Yeah, I bet," Hayato chuckled remembering how despite being conscious about his health, Kyoya would always look over them almost like a mother hen when they got sick at the orphanage.
It really showed how much he trusted the Vongola that he didn't feel the need to take over the caretaker job himself.
"Wait, when you did get sick?" Hayato asked as he looked at the clock hanging on the wall, showing that it was shortly after nine.
"At breakfast," Takeshi answered as he carefully and judging by his face, kind of painfully placed the bucket on the ground next to his bed. "I felt a bit off before but it wasn't until I drank some orange juice that I actually felt like I was gonna throw up. And that's all I had too, a sip of orange juice. Who knew that innocent ole orange juice would be the one to do me in?"
"You're not gonna die," Hayato scoffed as he risked sitting up. It was a bit slow going, but thankfully it wasn't nearly as difficult as it could have been.
"I know, but my stomach thinks it is. And I haven't been able to stop it from wanting to puke yet so I guess it's winning the game right now," Takeshi replied with a dry laugh as he leaned back into his slightly propped up pillow with a sigh. "...Wanna watch T.V.?"
Hayato looked ahead of him and saw that there was a T.V. propped up on the ceiling.
"...Yeah, as long as we don't just watch sports."
"No problem, I was gonna let you pick first anyway," Takeshi agreed as he grabbed the remote sitting on the small table between their beds and held it out for Hayato. "Since you were sick first."
"Thanks," Hayato said with a small but sincere smile as he accepted the remote. He then turned on the T.V. and after skipping through the channels, settled on a channel that was playing a movie about a kid who finds a strange egg near a lake. As the movie played on revealing that the Loch Ness Monster was in the egg (making Hayato very happy and intrigued), he realized that he actually felt a bit better than he did last night. He hadn't even puked once since he woke up.
Poor Takeshi though had puked three more times since they started watching the movie.
"Hey guys." Hayato looked away from the movie and saw that G was peeking his head around the door. He then walked into the room, with Asari and Knuckle right behind him. "How are you guys feeling?"
"A bit better, I haven't thrown up since last night," Hayato answered as G walked over to him and placed the back of his hand on Hayato's forehead.
"That's good, and you don't feel that hot," G said with a small relieved smile.
"Well, his fever wasn't that high to begin with," Knuckle commented as he put a thermometer into Takeshi's mouth. Asari meanwhile sat down on the bed right by Takeshi. "I'd imagine that it has gone down a bit by now."
"What about you Takeshi? Have you thrown up any more since breakfast?" Asari asked as he gently wiped some slightly sweaty strands of hair off of Takeshi's forehead. Due to the thermometer in his mouth, Takeshi didn't verbally answer but instead held up four fingers.
"Ugh, I hate the stomach flu," Asari winced in sympathy while Takeshi leaned against Asari's chest right as the thermometer beeped.
"Hmm...101.2 F (38.4 C). A bit higher than before, but at this point it's not unexpected," Knuckle stated after he took the thermometer out of Takeshi's mouth. Then he turned to face Hayato. "Now let's see if your temperature really has gone down."
Knuckle then put the thermometer in Hayato's mouth, who accepted it without complaint as he went back to watching the movie while G brushed his fingers through Hayato's messy hair. When the thermometer beeped not long after, Knuckle took the medical instrument back.
"100. 4 F (38 C), definitely lower than the last time," Knuckle said with a smile while Hayato tried to recall what his temperature was when Knuckle took it last night. He believed it was 101.5 F (38.6 C), but he wasn't sure. He was pretty exhausted by the time Knuckle took his temperature and diagnosed him with the stomach flu (not to be confused with the regular flu).
"Well, since you said you haven't thrown up since last night and that you were feeling a bit better, do you want to see if you can handle some gatorade? If you can keep that down then maybe in about an hour we can see if you can handle some oyster crackers."
Before Hayato could answer that, Mukuro suddenly walked in like one of the empty beds was his.
"Mukuro! What are-"
"Relax, I'm just checking myself in," Mukuro interrupted Knuckle nonchalantly as he headed straight for Hayato's empty gray bucket, picked it up, and without missing a beat, threw up.
"...And a third one bites the dust," Takeshi commented as Knuckle moved to comfort and help his new patient.
KHR
Ryohei was the fourth one to bite the dust. Several hours after Mukuro checked himself in, the hospital room door opened to reveal Knuckle carrying in a very pale Ryohei. Apparently Tsuna found him passed out on the bathroom floor, effectively making their little brother scream. Luckily that had woken Ryohei up so he was able to convince Tsuna that he wasn't dying and had just fallen asleep on the floor after throwing up. And according to Knuckle, right after he had managed to calm Tsuna down, Ryohei promptly went back to sleep.
Considering how Ryohei was snoring slightly in Knuckle's arms right at that very second, Hayato had no trouble believing him.
It had been mid-afternoon when Ryohei joined the group, and now it was shortly after nine, and so far no one else had gotten sick. Hayato hoped that it would stay that way, he really didn't want Tsuna, the one who brought him into this family, to get sick too. Or Lambo, he was just a baby. Or Chrome, her body still wasn't the strongest. Or Kyoya, Hayato hadn't forgotten being terrified when he had thought that Kyoya had died when he had pneumonia earlier that year.
Then he heard a small groan. Looking away from the television, Hayato looked at his brothers and saw that they were all fast asleep. Even Ryohei, who had been periodically waking up to throw up only to fall asleep immediately afterwards ever since he got here. Hayato thought that he would at least try to stay awake when Daemon put in Rocky for him, but not even ten minutes in, Ryohei was out again. Hayato wasn't worried though, this wouldn't be the first time Ryohei slept through the worst of an illness.
When the person who uttered the groan didn't make the noise again, Hayato went back to the movie (which was admittedly slightly interesting). Unlike Takeshi and Mukuro who had both stayed up throughout the whole day, Hayato took a nap not long after lunch (which just consisted of oyster crackers and gatorade for him, and just a sip of gatorade for Takeshi). As such, Hayato wasn't surprised that he was the only one still awake.
Then Hayato yawned, making the silver-haired boy think that maybe he should at least try to go to sleep. The movie was almost done anyway...
"No..." Hayato instantly perked his head up and looked over all his sleeping brothers, the voice too soft for him to make out which one it was.
"No...it can't be fake..." Hayato, his ears on high alert and having an idea of who it was, quietly got off the bed.
"They have to be real..." The words a bit more louder and sounding quite heartbroken this time, Hayato took a few steps towards Mukuro.
"They have to be..." Mukuro muttered as he tossed and turned in bed, his eyes tightly screwed shut. Hayato sighed. Mukuro didn't vomit as much as the rest of them did, but his fever had been the highest (and still was) out of all of them. Of course he would get a nightmare tonight. And apparently, it was quite a whopper.
Hayato then crossed the rest of the distance between them and without a moment's hesitation, got onto Mukuro's bed.
"Mukuro, wake up!" Hayato exclaimed softly as he shook Mukuro's arm. But even though Mukuro wasn't the heaviest of sleepers, Mukuro still kept his eyes tightly shut.
"I can't have had made them up..." Mukuro whimpered as he continued to toss and turn. Hayato felt a pit sink deep into his still uneasy stomach.
What...what in the world was Mukuro dreaming about?
"What's going on?" Hayato looked away from Mukuro and saw that Takeshi was now sitting up in bed and was rubbing his tired eyes with his fist.
"Mukuro's-"
"I don't wanna be alone..." Mukuro then whimpered, sounding so heartbroken that Hayato's own heart felt like it was going to break. Then thanks to the glow from the T.V. and the moonlight streaming in through the window, Hayato saw Takeshi's eyes widen in realization.
"I got Ryohei," Takeshi said before he grabbed his pillow and threw it straight at their older brother's face before Hayato could say anything. As Ryohei woke up, completely startled, Hayato just decided to turn back to Mukuro and try once more to get him out of the nightmare.
"Mukuro, wake up!" Hayato cried as he shook Mukuro's arm, his voice louder this time now that he didn't have to worry about waking his other brothers up. When Mukuro's eyes still didn't open, Hayato grabbed both of Mukuro's shoulders and shook him like he was a rag doll. "Wake up!"
Then, with a sharp inhale of breath, Mukuro woke up with his heterochromatic eyes wide open. As Mukuro gasped for air, his forehead and blue hair wet with sweat, Hayato couldn't help but sigh with relief. For a moment there, he had been afraid that Mukuro was too sick to wake up.
"Hay...Hayato?" Mukuoro panted as his feverish eyes landed on Hayato.
"Yeah, it's me, you're okay," Hayato assured him, making sure to keep eye contact with his brother as he sat back so he could give him some space.
"Yeah, you're extremely safe." Hayato turned his head just in time to see Ryohei arrive at the side of the bed, his pale face now wide awake. While Takeshi walked to the other side of the bed, Ryohei reached out and wiped Mukuro's sweaty forehead with his thumb. "We're all safe to the extreme."
"It was just a fever dream," Takeshi added as he climbed onto the bed and scooted closer to Mukuro. "Whatever you dreamt wasn't real."
Mukuro didn't answer as he looked at Ryohei and then at Takeshi. He was wearing an expression that Hayato honestly couldn't decipher but for some unknown reason, he didn't like it.
"...Pinch me."
"What?" Takeshi asked as he tilted his head in confusion.
"Pinch me," Mukuro repeated, both looking and sounding utterly desperate. "Please, just-"
Hayato then reached out and pinched Mukuro's arm as hard as he could.
"Ow!" Mukuro winced in pain as he closed his eyes tightly shut.
"Uh...I know that he literally asked for it but did you have to do it that hard?" Takeshi asked.
"Asks the one who just threw a pillow at Ryohei," Hayato quipped back as Mukuro took a deep breath.
"...Touche."
"It's okay, it was an extreme situation," Ryohei said as Mukuro creaked his eyes open like he was seriously afraid that this was a dream and that his nightmare was actually the reality. Hayato couldn't help but to grit his teeth a bit.
Just what in the world did he dream about?!
"Oh thank goodness," Mukuro said, his voice quivering as he tried to look at all three of them at once. "For a moment...I thought..."
Then Mukuro covered his eyes with his arm right as his face started to scrunch up. Hayato, Takeshi, and Ryohei waited quietly with bated breath as Mukuro took a deep but very shaky breath.
Was he finally going to tell them what one of his nightmares had been about?
"That I had never left the Estraneo...that they were right...that I really had...m-made you guys all up as a...c-coping mechanism...that...that you weren't r-real at all."
Hayato felt like someone just sucker-punched his heart. The resulting emotions were so overwhelming and complicated that Hayato had to grip his knees tightly in order to keep them in check. He didn't know whether he wanted to curse Mukuro's fever for making his brother have that cruel nightmare, to find some way to kill the Estraneo again for traumatizing his brother (and for taking his sister's eye while he was at it), or to cry at how desperate Mukuro was for them to be actually real.
Were all his nightmares really this awful?! Or did the fever just kicked this one up a notch?!
"Mukuro..." Ryohei breathed out, sounding just as emotional as Hayato felt.
"I...I was-" Before Mukuro could finish his sentence, Takeshi suddenly laid on top of him and wrapped his arms tightly around their older brother.
"You're not alone," Takeshi told him vehemently as his voice quivered, looking like he was seconds away from crying himself. "We're here and we're real."
"Yes, we're very real to the extreme," Ryohei joined in as he quickly leaned over and joined in on the hug, not even bothering to hide his tears. Hayato, unable to hold back anymore, then joined in on the hug as well.
Not that he wanted to hold back anyway.
"Yeah, you might be an illusionist but there's no way you're that good enough to make us all up, not with all our personalities," Hayato added with no real scorn.
"...Mufufu, do you really think I don't have the imagination to think you guys up?" Mukuro chuckled as he lifted up his arm to reveal that while his eyes were a bit red, they had a playful twinkle to them.
Hayato chuckled in relief in response.
"Nope!"
"Mufufu, I guess that's true since I wouldn't have ever imagined that you guys be this heavy. Seriously though, you guys need to get off, I need to breathe," Mukuro requested with a small smile.
"Oh sorry!" Takeshi apologized as they all got off of Mukuro, who then sat up. While he was clearly still feverish, he was still looking much better than when he had first woken up.
Hayato was thankful for that.
"Hey, I got an extreme idea! Since we're all sick and we're all sleeping in the same room anyways, wanna push the beds extremely together? For old time's sake?" Ryohei proposed as he wiped the tears off his cheeks.
"Now that is a good idea," Mukuro agreed with a wide and excited smile.
"Then let's do it!" Takeshi exclaimed as he quickly got off Mukuro's bed. Then they all worked together to push Mukuro's bed and Hayato's bed closer to each other. Hayato couldn't help smiling as they did so.
Looked like some good came out of being sick after all.
Fun fact, what happened to Elena happened to me in high school. I had Finding Nemo on the brain and instead of a hot guy, it was my sister who had to clean my mess up. My poor older sister.
So what did you think? Please leave a review on your way out and I will update shortly. Until then, stay safe, sane, and have a good day or night! See ya!