Len woke up with a start at the sound of his mother's harsh voice, cutting through his sleep and jolting him awake. He looked over at her, furrowing his brows. He was a little bit dazed, having just woken up. She looked at him expectantly, and he widened his eyes in realization. He got out of bed and turned the overhead light on. Len walked over to his dresser and pulled out a pair of basketball shorts and a t-shirt, getting ready for school. Seeing that he was awake and out of bed, the worry that he would fall back asleep was gone, and his mom went back to her room to get a few more hours of sleep before she had to get ready for work.
Len shuddered, his body overtaken in a wave of cold. His whole body broke out in goosebumps. After thinking about how he was feeling that morning, he thought he might have what could be the beginnings of a cold and decided to take some medicine just in case. After he got dressed, he grabbed his backpack and went downstairs to the kitchen. He made a cup of coffee to wake himself up, and as that was brewing, he took a few Tylenol in hopes that it would get him through the day and keep the symptoms from getting worse. He was starting to develop a headache, which for some reason, was the only form of pain he just could not handle. He always found it strange that it affected him so badly. He could make it through the school day with an upset stomach or a sniffle, but headaches were always horrible for him. He was always too embarrassed to go to the nurse for it, because he knew he didn't have a fever, and she wouldn't send him home for a headache. He also couldn't do anything for a headache. You can't take medicine to school. With a stomach ache, you can wrap your arms around it or rub it and sometimes that helps a little, but you can't do the same thing with a headache. It just made him miserable the whole day. Best to avoid that issue and take medicine early on.
The coffee was ready in a few minutes, and he still had about fifteen minutes before he had to leave for the bus. He looked at memes on his phone to pass the time. He coughed harshly several times, confirming his suspicions that he had a cold. He was glad he made the right decision to take the medicine. He was close to finishing his coffee when it was time to go out to the bus, and since he didn't have any to-go cups, he put the rest in the fridge and decided to drink it when he got home. He hesitantly took a handful of tissues from the box on the table and stuffed them in his sweatshirt pocket. He likely would need them.
The bus ride felt like it was taking forever. He couldn't put in his earbuds because he felt like he had fluid in his ears or something. He wiped his right ear out with a tissue, but the tissue looked clean when he looked at it. It was just an uncomfortable feeling. He frowned and hoped it wouldn't get any worse than that.
Ten minutes into the ride, his friends, Miku and Mikuo hopped on. As usual, Mikuo took the spot beside Len, and Miku took the seat across from theirs. She usually sat next to Rin, who was close to the last person on.
"Heyo," Mikuo said cheerfully. Len waved tiredly and looked out the window. He normally didn't talk much in the mornings anyway, but that day he wasn't up for a conversation at all. Mikuo didn't push it and simply talked to his sister across the aisle.
The half an hour bus ride came close to an end with Rin and several other students getting on at a stop by the school. By that time, it had become quite noisy with so many kids talking to each other. The noise was starting to give Len a slight headache, and he prayed that it would go away. He looked around the bus, no longer wanting to stare out the window. He just wanted to get off. It took him a moment to notice that Mikuo wasn't sitting next to him anymore. Instead, Rin had hopped beside him without him even realizing it. She was talking to Miku and Mikuo, who were sitting next to each other across the aisle. Len shrugged it off and figured Mikuo got bored, since Len didn't want to talk. He went back to looking out the window until the ride was over and everyone got up to leave their seats.
Len grabbed his bag from the floor beside him, pulling it up into his lap. There was no use standing up yet; everyone in front of him had to leave before they could move. He was sitting in about the middle of the bus, more towards the back than the front. His unofficial "assigned seat" since the beginning of the year.
Rin poked him playfully while they waited. She smiled at him, hoping to get a smile and a laugh back, but he simply looked at her, unamused. She furrowed her brows.
"What's wrong?" she asked. It wasn't like him to respond that way. Normally he would either poke her back or laugh and do something else like it.
Len sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Nothing, I'm just tired…" he mumbled. Rin pursed her lips, but accepted that answer. There was a gap in the line of students leaving the bus, so she jumped in, leaving a space for Len. She motioned for him to get in front of her. He stood up slowly, his vision getting fuzzy at the edges. He felt light headed. He didn't want anyone to know though, so he just did his best to walk get front of her and pretend everything was fine. He was embarrassed to show weakness. He didn't want to fall in front of everyone. Slowly but surely. He got in front of her and walked off the bus. By the time he got to the bus steps, his vision cleared, and he was steady enough to go down them quickly. The people behind him were annoyed at how much time he took to get off, but he couldn't care less. Rin walked beside him on the way inside. She tried to strike up a conversation, but he just replied with "mhm", or something similar. It wasn't much of a conversation.
Len stopped by his locker and put his head on it. It was starting to pound, and he was nervous that it wouldn't go away. After a few seconds of letting the coolness of the metal seep into his skin, he pulled away and opened his locker. He turned his phone off and put it in his backpack, then put that in the locker. He technically didn't need his binder for first period, since it was a mostly computer based class, but there were days when he needed a sheet of paper or something, and it came without warning. He took it just in case.
Before school, he usually stood with his friends outside of the band room, since all of his friends were band geeks like him, but he didn't think he could tolerate being poked at for fifteen minutes before class started. Instead, he sat down at his desk for first period and waited for the bell to ring. As time passed, more and more students took their seats.
Once the bell rang, the teacher asked everyone to open Google Classroom and work on the assignments posted. The students complied and got their designated laptops out from the shelf and began working.
Len worked quietly for a while at his desk. Thankfully, his headache had subsided. However, a little over halfway through class, he felt himself start to get hot. He wasn't sweating, and the room wasn't hot, but he felt like he was on fire. His throat started to tingle, and he felt himself get light headed again. He tried to act normal, but he felt like he was about to throw up. He held his mouth firmly shut in an attempt to keep his stomach contents in, but he was genuinely worried that if he asked to use the restroom, his stomach would seize the opportunity and send his partially digested meals back up the moment he opened his mouth. He didn't want to just leave the room though. He didn't want the teacher chasing after him and embarrassing him more when he found out why he left, then have to go back and explain to the students why he suddenly ran away. He didn't think he would be able to hold it in though...He really didn't want to puke on the floor in front of everyone.
Len slowly stood, hesitantly looking at the door, then made his way over to the teacher's desk. Unable to make his voice any louder, he whispered to him, "I'm gonna go to the restroom, because I feel a little bit nauseous…" He didn't look at him as he said it.
"That's fine," the teacher replied. He didn't want to make a big scene about it, and it's not like he was going to stop him from going. The last thing he wanted was for someone to throw up in class.
Len walked out the door without looking at anyone, knowing at least one person heard what he said and was staring at him. He was too embarrassed to look back. He walked quickly to the restroom, despite wanting to move slowly. He looked at the open stalls hesitantly. He really didn't want to throw up…
He let out a shaky breath and took off his sweatshirt. He was getting too hot, so maybe that would help. He looked in the mirror, noting his pale skin. He fought the urge to vomit and took some deep breaths to try and calm himself. Vomiting was always unpleasant, obviously, but it just seemed to suck the life out of him when he was done. He wouldn't have been able to continue through the day if he threw up. But he would also be too embarrassed to tell the nurse, and then be stuck in school, miserable.
He stood in front of the mirror for a few minutes, breathing steadily, trying to calm himself. He felt a little bit better. The urge to throw up had diminished, and now he was just a little bit shaky.
"Hey Len?" a voice called from the entrance of the bathroom. He looked over to see who it was. It was Oliver, a kid from his first period. "Are you okay?" he asked. Len nodded instinctively and stood up straight, trying his best to hide how uncomfortable he felt. "Yeah, I'm fine," he said. Oliver nodded back. "Mr. Kamui sent me here to check on you," he said. He turned around and left, and Len quickly followed. It couldn't have been more than five minutes that he was gone. People use the restroom in five minutes, so why did the teacher send someone so soon? Well, if Len said that he was going to the restroom because he was nauseous, then five minutes was enough time to get sick. Sending someone to check on him made sense in that case.
When they got back to the classroom, Len sat back down at his desk and put his sweatshirt back on, then resumed working. He refused to make eye contact with the teacher. He couldn't handle the embarrassment.
The bell rang fifteen minutes later, and Len was more than happy to get out of that room. He put his laptop away and grabbed his binder, heading upstairs to chemistry. He sat down in his seat, which was in front of Rin's. It was the one class they had with each other. They were working on a project together in chemistry. Since they were working on it all week, the students just knew to begin working on it when they got to class.
"Did you fill out the rest of that paper last night?" Rin asked. Len looked over his shoulder.
"What paper?" he asked back, clearing his throat afterward. Rin pulled out her folder and took out a paper labeled "Know, Need to Know, How to Know". "This one," she said, handing it to him. Len got out his folder and looked through it until he found his copy of the paper. It was filled out, but he could have put more effort into it.
"Yeah," he said, handing it to her. Rin skimmed over it quickly, then handed it back.
"Okay, I got part of the lab report done, so now we need to look at the results of our tests from yesterday and try to classify these chemicals," she said. Len nodded absent mindedly and took out the paper from yesterday with their data. He was starting to feel sick again, but didn't want to draw any attention to it.
"I think this first one is baking soda, since it reacts with vinegar," Rin said, pointing to a spot on her paper. She looked up at Len to get his input, but he just nodded and wrote down "baking soda" as the answer. Rin shrugged it off and moved on to the second chemical.
"I'm pretty sure this one is potassium, since it said it explodes when it reacts with water on the label, and none of the other substances on our list do that," she said. Len nodded again and wrote down "potassium". Rin looked at him for a moment, wondering why he wasn't talking. Normally his coffee kicked in by second period and he was wide awake.
"What's the matter?" she asked. Len didn't look at her.
"What do you mean?" he asked quietly.
Rin frowned. "You're just being really quiet is all," she said. Len shrugged.
"I'm just tired," he replied softly. Rin bit her bottom lip and stared at him for a moment, debating on whether or not to accept that as an answer.
"But you had coffee this morning," she argued. "Did you not sleep well last night or something?" Len put down his pencil and sighed. He looked at the floor, unsure if it was wise to tell her how he was feeling.
"First period I got really nauseous to the point where I had to go to the restroom just in case I actually threw up," he mumbled. "I didn't puke, but I still don't feel very good…"
Rin's eyes softened after hearing that. "Are you alright? Why don't you go to the nurse?" Len sighed again and put his head down on her desk. Rin played with his hair a little.
"I'm embarrassed…" he mumbled. He didn't want to tell his friend he didn't feel good, let alone someone he'd never even met before.
"I'll go with you," Rin offered. Len raised his head a little bit. He looked her in the eye. Rin saw how pained his expression was and felt bad for him. She hated to see such a sweet, innocent guy in so much distress. It hurt her just to look at him.
"Really?" he asked. Rin nodded. Len sat up and rubbed his eyes. Rin took that as her cue to stand up. She waited for him to stand as well, then took him by the hand and led him over to the teacher's desk.
"Mrs. Ann?" Rin called out to get her attention. She looked up from her computer at the two students standing in front of her.
"What's up?" she asked. She looked at them expectantly.
Rin looked over at Len before speaking. He had poor posture and just looked exhausted. "Len told me that he felt sick," she said.
Mrs. Ann looked at their interlocked hands and then back up at Rin. "And why did you need to lead him over here like a lost puppy?" Rin furrowed her brows in confusion.
"What?" she asked. Mrs. Ann chuckled a bit.
"He doesn't need someone to hold his hand and walk him over to my desk," she said. Rin was a bit irritated at how the teacher was reacting to the situation.
"He told me he didn't know where the nurse was, so he asked if I could take him there," she said. Not the whole truth, but she twisted it around to be a reason for her to go with him.
"Or you could have just told him where it was," she replied, amused.
"I feel light headed, so I wanted someone to go with me so I don't fall down the stairs…"
The teacher looked at Len for a moment, then ultimately nodded and let them both go. When they got out of the room, Rin looked at Len and huffed.
"What the heck? Why was she being so frickin rude?" she mumbled angrily, keeping her voice down so the teacher couldn't hear her. Len shrugged. He honestly didn't care. He just wanted to get to the nurse as soon as possible. Rin let out a heavy sigh and shook it off, trying not to stay upset over the situation. It did her no good to stay mad.
As they approached the stairs, Rin felt Len's grip on her hand tighten. She looked at him worriedly. Was he really afraid that he would fall down the stairs?
"Hey, are you actually feeling light headed?" Rin asked, pausing in her walking. Len stopped beside her, standing just above the first step. He looked at her and nodded. There was no use in lying about it. Rin furrowed her brows in concern. She let go of his hand and put his arm over her shoulder, wrapping her arm around his back. She didn't feel comfortable walking down the stairs without supporting him if he was feeling dizzy. They slowly walked down the first flight of stairs with ease, taking their time. Len started to get a fuzzy greyness around the edges of his vision as they approached the second flight, however. He stopped walking and told Rin to wait. Rin complied, afraid that he was about to collapse. Len slowly knelt down until he was sitting on one of the steps. He put his head in his hands, squeezing his eyes shut.
"I think I'm about to puke," he mumbled worriedly. He didn't want his friend to see him like that, weak and vulnerable. Unable to take care of himself. Rin saw it differently though. She sat down beside him and put her hand on his back, rubbing large circles into it to show him that she was there and wouldn't leave him to deal with this on his own. She was really scared for him now. What started out as just feeling a little bit nauseous turned into major dizziness and lightheadedness, which could lead to him falling down and hurting himself even more.
"You're okay," she told him. "If you feel like you need to, just let it out. Worry about the mess later. Don't try to force it down though." Rin rubbed his back and watched him worriedly. At least he was sitting down. There was less of a risk of him hurting himself from falling if he was closer to the ground. The only issue is that he was on the stairs. Rin contemplated just carrying him the rest of the way to the nurse. He was light enough for her to pick him up. It's not like she would have trouble holding him.
"Could I pick you up and carry you to the nurse's office?" Rin asked. "That way you don't have to walk." She pat his back a few times.
Len sniffed and swallowed. "I guess…" he mumbled. Rin took that as her cue to put her arm under his knees and her other arm around his back and lift, hoisting him up into the air. Len shifted around to rest more comfortably in her arms. He let his head fall on her chest and put his hand on her shoulder to secure himself. He still felt incredibly nauseous and he was afraid he would get sick all over her. He prayed that she hurry to the nurse's office.