'So what do you think 's wrong with him? ' Suguru asks, voice quiet as he speaks, wary of waking Satoru up just after he 'd managed to drift off.

Shoko frowns where she leans over them, two fingers on Satoru 's neck feeling for his pulse point, her brows furrowed, lips thin. 'I don 't really know, ' she admits, frowning. 'It 's definitely not a viral fever, but ' ' She trails off, sinking down onto the balls of her feet to pillow her head on her arms, halfway onto the bed.

'I can 't think of anything that could cause this. Physically, he 's as healthy as he was just last week. ' She shrugs, and Suguru doesn 't bother to control his expression as it sours.

'Healthy people don 't just up and melt down, ' he grouses, and Shoko taps her fingers along the mattress.

'Sure. But I think you 're forgetting that Satoru 's not exactly normal, ' she says, and Suguru bristles, about to open his mouth to ask exactly what

that

means, when Shoko holds up a hand and sighs, swinging her short hair out of her face.

'Dear god, don 't attack me, ' she mutters, and cants her head in the direction of where Satoru lays, pressed up against him and breathing just a little too shallowly for his liking. 'I

meant

that he wasn 't raised like we were. He 's a clan kid. '

He frowns again at that, eyes narrowing. 'So? What the hell does that mean? '

Shoko looks at him for a long moment, chewing on the inside of her cheek like she does when she wants a smoke, before she answers. 'It means that he grew up with different standards and expectations. He 's supposed to have been inhumanly perfect his entire life, ' she explains, and there 's a bitter note in there that 's dissonant from the rest. 'Is it really so strange that he 's breaking down now, when he 's finally got people around him to treat him like a human being? '

Suguru can 't help but tense slightly at the wording of it, at the thoughts of how they 've only recently begun to get along like friends, rather than tacky, shounen rivals. 'You don 't mean that literally, do you? ' He mutters, meeting Shoko 's subdued brown eyes over the white fluff of Satoru 's hair, cast nearly blue in the shadows of his darkened room turned deary by the storm.

'You 've heard the rumors of how clans treat their children, haven 't you? ' Shoko says instead of answering, and Suguru swallows down the sour taste that coats his tongue. He has. They 're disgustingly brutal, and he 's always written them off as exaggeration for his own peace of mind.

He looks down to where Satoru sleeps against him, drooling onto his shirt and tucked as close to him as he can get but still shivering. Maybe his own peace needs to be set aside, he worries, if half of the things he 's heard are as true as nobody wants to believe them to be. He 's probably got a lot of responsibility tucked against him in the form of white hair, obnoxious glasses, and way too many complexes for just one person. It makes him want to shiver, to imagine what sort of life would drive somebody to the brink that Satoru 's been hovering on for the past few days.

'You 're not worried about his temperature? ' He asks, primarily to change the subject as he drags a hand down his face. Shoko gives him a deadpan thumbs up, and lets him without any fight about it.

'Nah. You said it hasn 't moved in a while? ' She asks, and he nods, straightening the temperature tally in his head.

'Yeah. ' She nods, patting the mattress with both her hands held out flat.

'Then it probably spiked, what, an hour ago? I 'll bet he 's sweating it out now. ' Suguru watches as she stands up again, stretching slightly before she starts to wander out of the room with a wave over her shoulder. 'Just get some water into him when he wakes up. Otherwise, you 've got nothing to do but be exceedingly gay together. '

'I 'll kill you, Shoko, ' he hisses, as loud as he can reasonably get without waking up Satoru, and knows Shoko heard him from the grin on her lips as she turns the corner, keeper of a secret just like his.

'I have terrible friends, '

he thinks, and doesn 't mean it in the slightest.

A light pressure against his skin has him looking down, confused as to what it is, until he realizes that it 's Satoru 's eyes moving rapidly under his lids.

'Oh, '

he thinks,

'that 's probably not good. '

He waits for a long, tensed minute for a reaction, eventually relaxing again when none comes.

'Imagine, '

he thinks wryly,

'Satoru blasts me to smithereens in his sleep. '

He slides his gaze downward, watching the soft rise and fall of Satoru 's chest as he breathes, the slight part of his lips, the rosy hue of his flushed cheeks. He can 't help the annoying, fuzzy feeling that turns him soft and gooey at the fact that Satoru chooses him, of all people, to sleep on.

He 's even pretty when he 's passed out and feverish, a fact that is infuriating as much as it is enthralling. After all, Suguru is the person who gets to reap those benefits; maybe more than he already does, eventually, if they keep spiraling towards something bigger.

He sighs, and drops his head down to his pillow. He can 't even pass the time by reading, because his current book is on the other side of the dorm, and he 's got a human tether.

'I hope Shoko is wrong, '

he thinks, holding onto the soft skin of Satoru 's waist a little tighter. He doesn 't know what the alternative would be if she is. Is it better, or is it worse, if she 's right? He lays awake at barely twelve in the afternoon to the backdrop of a storm beating on his window, the delicate stranger of his best friend slotted against him, and can 't figure it out.

'Stop moving, ' Satoru mutters, delicate brows pulled down into angry clouds over his eyes, a white contrast to his flushed, pink cheeks.

'I didn 't even do anything, ' Suguru protests, only to get Satoru tugging his hand closer to his face, ignoring him in favor of getting a close up of his cuticles. He wields Shoko 's nail file like a weapon as he surveys where to start, and Suguru can 't help making a face at the sound and feeling of the grinding when it picks up again.

White hair tickles his chin as Satoru works, too intently focused on shaping his nail into a curve to notice how Suguru watches him. It 's weird, this single minded focus, the theme of the day really. Usually, Satoru 's everywhere all at once, doing everything and anything. It 's rare to see him so 'zoned out. The way he 'd woken up had probably been weirder, though, Suguru thinks, absently noting the clash of rain against the window as thunder rumbles faintly from behind the mountains.

Blue eyes had blinked open against his collar an hour after he 'd finally fallen asleep, and after a solid three minutes of Satoru laying as tense and still as a rock, staring at nothing, the first thing he 'd said was, 'does Shoko have a nail kit. '

'What? ' Suguru had muttered, perplexed for the millionth time in one goddamn day, and had had to stop Satoru from spilling out of his bed like a clumpy liquid. 'I 'll go ask her, just stop trying to get up, ' he 'd grouched, glaring at Satoru 's feverish face, the hazy look in his eyes that hadn 't quite comprehended his words.

'Okay, ' he 'd mumbled, and agreed to stay there if Suguru found a nail file and clippers.

'This is so weird, '

he 'd thought, as Shoko had handed over a small nail kit she 'd gotten as a gift a few years back and never used with nothing much save a shrug,

'the weirdest Saturday of my entire life. '

A stop by the kitchen for a glass of water, a straw, along with one of the books he 'd left on the coffee table in the living room, and he 'd been padding back to his room.

The sight of Satoru sitting up in his bed, blankets draped around his waist and tangled between his bare legs, eyes unfocused in front of himself with the backdrop of a stormy window casting him into shadows, had had him stopping for a moment.

'He looked 'beat down, '

he thinks, and sets the weight of his chin on top of Satoru 's soft head. In his lap, sitting sideways with his legs slung over Suguru 's thigh, Satoru holds his right hand captive to manicure, of all things. He 's too warm through his shirt, a furnace burning up compared to the chill of his room from where he 's leaning on his chest, and Suguru thinks that he 's far too boney when Satoru 's sharp hips dig into the flesh of his calf as he shifts.

He 's been switching between their fingers with a single minded focus, swapping between doing one of his own nails, to one of Suguru 's, to one of his own again. It 's a little mind boggling the plain intensity he 's been filing with, like this is somehow deathly important or something. When Satoru lets his hand go in favor of switching back to his own, Suguru shakes it a little against his shirt, blowing the dust off his skin.

He has to admit it does look good, when he scrutinizes Satoru 's work, wondering when the hell he learned how to sculpt goddamn fingernails. Three of his fingers are rounded and perfectly shaped, his cuticles magically gone. It 's nicer than his hands ever actually look, since the extent of nail care Suguru bothers to participate in is using lotion regularly. He 'd paint them, but usually he just leaves them alone, never quite in the mood to be questioned by nosy people about his fashion choices.

Satoru 's also weirdly quiet as he works, and when Suguru tilts his head to look down, he frowns at the sight of his hands trembling slightly as the file runs along his middle finger in shaking but experienced sweeps. Frowning, he curls the arm he 's got around Satoru a little tighter, drumming his fingers along the edge of his stomach.

He hasn 't really been chatty since he woke up, an oddity if Suguru ever saw one. 'When did you learn how to do this, ' he asks, just to fill the silence, and Satoru twitches slightly, though he doesn 't look away from where he 's intently filing down his middle finger to match the two others he 's already done.

'A while ago, ' Satoru mumbles, and then doesn 't say anything else. Suguru rolls his eyes up to the ceiling, refusing to sigh. He isn 't surprised when his hand is grabbed again, relaxing his fingers as he lets Satoru have at them. Clearly, he 's in a mood.

'Why is this so important, '

Suguru wonders, eyeing where he left his book just a foot down the bed. He was in a good part of it, too. The protagonist was about to figure out the series ' long mystery, something he 's been excited to read about for days now, too busy with classes and missions to get any time to. When he slides his eyes back to Satoru again, they catch on a detail he missed before.

'Why is he filing his own nails so short? '

Suguru wonders, looking back to his, and then Satoru 's again. He 's not crazy; his nails are still mostly the same length as they were before Satoru ground them down- short, but with some distance from the quick. When he looks at Satoru 's, he barely sees any white at all. They 're shorn nearly to the skin.

He can 't help a confused frown from pursing his lips, shifting his head so that his cheek is pillowed instead of his chin. It 's not like it matters so much, and if he 's not going to get any answers, then he may as well stop asking. Maybe it 's not how they were originally going to spend their Saturday, but it 's not like it 's a worse alternative.

A snapping sound has him looking down again. 'S-shit, ' Satoru mutters, left hand curled face up, shaking where it hovers over his lap. His fingernail 's snapped, running a jagged line up through partially-filed white until it hits the pink of the underside. He 's frozen where he sits, squeezing the file too tight, and apparently sanding too harsh.

'Ow, ' Suguru murmurs in sympathy, reaching up to hold Satoru 's hand where the nail 's broke, calming some of the trembling with the steadiness of his own.

'Here, ' he says, 'let me fix it, ' and rummages around in the blankets for where the nail clippers have disappeared to. Once he finds them, he 's careful to cut only along the white of Satoru 's nail, to hold his wrist tighter so it doesn 't shake, snipping off the broken piece so it doesn 't catch and tear further. It leaves behind an uneven gouge, but something better than what Satoru might have been able to do, what with the tremble wracking his hands.

When he looks up again at the lack of any overbearing comments about how he 's doing it wrong, he sees that blankness from earlier creeping onto Satoru 's face. He stares down at their hands, an emptiness in his foggy eyes, a ghost living in his own feverish skin.

'What happened to you, '

he hears in the back of his mind, alongside the swarm of worries that have been gnawing on his ankles when he walks too slowly and lets them catch up. Satoru had been fine the morning they 'd left on separate missions- complaining about a headache, sure, but fine.

'What happened, '

he wonders, watching awareness slowly flicker, dim, flicker, dim again in Satoru 's blue eyes, still lost over the sight of their hands.

'What happened while I was gone? '

No one, least of all him, had known what to do when Satoru had stumbled around like a drunk back at the plaza in front of the school doors when they 'd both gotten back from their respective missions. No one had said anything, because no one had been there but Suguru when Satoru had swayed nearly to his feet and then frozen, straightening back up in a way that didn 't allow for gravity, looking up to the sky like he 'd never seen it before. It had almost been a relief to carry his unconscious body to the infirmary, because he hadn 't been conscious to fall to his knees again looking like he 'd seen hell itself.

He believes Shoko. She 's got a point, with her bitterness of a childhood she never speaks about, but he won 't believe that 's

it.

Freedom from a shit family isn 't the blank stare of blue looking down at a torn nail, and not seeing it at all.

'Satoru, ' he tries, and gets a pair of furrowing eyebrows for it. 'Satoru, ' he says again, slightly stronger the second time, and watches as pinkened lips part for a moment, close, thin as they press together. He keeps watching in a bubble of wary anxiety as Satoru brings the hand he isn 't holding up to his face, dropping the nail file somewhere in the sheets to trail his fingertips down one eye, under it, up into his hairline- coincidentally shoving back white, cloudlike bangs. It 's almost like he 's looking for something, Suguru thinks, before Satoru blinks again and rattles out a low sigh.

'...You okay? ' He says, something like a nervous smile ticking at his lips, and Satoru finally turns to look at him. He stares for a moment, a lost thing swimming in his eyes- something drenched with what he can only call hopelessness he almost thinks he 's imagined it 's smothered so quickly- before swaying where he sits, tipping heavily down onto Suguru 's shoulder like a thrown rock.

'Uh, ' he tones, not really sure what to do. 'Satoru? '

'...Was it the right arm? ' Satoru mumbles, tilting his head slightly as he looks back and forth down at his own hands. 'Or was it the left? ' Roughly, he swallows, and his exhale sounds jittery as it leaves his nose.

'Of 'what? ' Suguru dares to ask, slowly bringing his hands up to set on the small of Satoru 's back, twisted slightly with how he sits sideways but faces forward.

'Frankenstein 's monster, ' he answers, as if it makes sense.

'...Right, ' Suguru sighs, clueless and frustrated for it. For the couple months he 's gotten to know him, he 's learned that though Satoru says more than a lot of bullshit, most of it has some sort of meaning, even if he 's the only person who has it.

'What was the monster 's name? ' He tries, a trick question if he knows any when Mary Shelly never gave it one, but he 's got an inkling Satoru isn 't exactly talking about her book.

'You don 't have to worry, ' Satoru says, sounding just as spacey as he looks when he lifts his head up to meet Suguru 's eyes, 'it had a different one than you did. ' His own are a little sunken with weight, almost like it takes lifting tons to keep them open, his chapped lips not quite smiling but not quite frowning.

'...Thanks, ' Suguru mutters, trying to keep the unease from his tone and off the features of his face.

'Is it a who? A what? Maybe a curse? '

He thinks, brain rambling as Satoru 's eyes fall, trailing wandering fingers up to his forehead again, sifting under his bangs as they run along seemingly nothing. He 's heard Satoru speak in half-truths before, and the idiot has no filter whatsoever; maybe speaking in similes is a defense for constantly dumping the contents of his brain into speech.

'Don 't, ' Satoru murmurs, and then his head turns, eyes darting to the window and the sliver of glass visible between the partially drawn curtains. They flicker for a moment, bouncing between things he can 't see, distances he couldn 't fathom, before his lips are parting slightly and a sharper inhale breaks the quiet.

'We should really- in Sendai, ' Satoru stumbles, words jumbling together as he does little better than try to lurch to the edge of his bed in a movement that mostly only has him tipping to the side, balance shot with the glazed look making his eyes shine.

'Hey, ' he starts, startled, grabbing the sides of Satoru 's shoulders to keep him from slumping over into a puddle of a person, noting the sheen of sweat still dotting his forehead. 'You 're still sick, we should really be going back to bed, ' he stresses, eyes darting to clammy hands curling in the front of his shirt for a moment before flicking back up to halfway lucid face.

'But, ' Satoru murmurs, more of a string of consonants than anything, 'there 's all the 'and the patchwork one ' ' He trails off, evidently thinking hard but sort of getting nowhere, when he 's fever flushed and still hot to the touch.

'Maybe it was a dream, '

he wonders, brows furrowing, watching Satoru slide his gaze back to the window, something heavy sagging his whole body down.

A small sound gets his attention after a moment, a quiet, 'Suguru? ' that Satoru barely says above a whisper as he keeps his eyes turned out into the dreary world beyond the glass.

'Yeah? ' He asks, volume softening to better meet the small thing his name was spoken with, and feels the tightening of fingers in his shirt better than he knows what 's on Satoru 's addled mind.

'You 'd come home, wouldn 't you? ' Satoru asks, watching the rain fall and patter on the grass and greenery outside, a melancholy to him that Suguru 's never seen him wear, before. 'If it all ended? '

Silently, he slowly shuts his mouth, swallowing uneasily. It 's 'disturbingly somber. Too reminiscent of the dim look he 'd worn after his nail had broken, the defeated thing that had sat in his bed alone. He doesn 't like it, the willowyness; the empty feeling of it.

'...Course, ' he says, instead of pressing for what home might mean. What ending might mean. It feels almost 'wrong to, when Satoru sits against him with all the trust in the world, looking as if he 'd been shoved out of his body and then reassembled back together backwards. There 's a fragility hidden to him, a delicate thing running like gold filled, spiderwebbed cracks along fine, shattered porcelain.

Blue eyes turn heavily to look at him, piercing, even weighted down by haze and the fog of a fever. They move almost imperceptibly, jumping from his left eye to his right to back again, seemingly roaming his face for a moment before they settle, before they still.

'...I wanna remember, ' Satoru whispers, a painful want to the desolate words, 'I don 't wanna fall again. '

Maybe his mother did raise him to be soft, because he can 't stand it when something stings at his eyes, wrapping his arms around Satoru 's thin shoulders, too bare and caved in when they 're always held high and cocky. 'Yeah, ' he finds himself automatically reassuring, 'you won 't. It 'll be fine. It 'll all be fine, ' rambling anything that comes to mind because if he could just say one good thing to smear that awful look off his face, maybe then he could breathe.

He feels Satoru 's head pillow on his shoulder, one of his hands unhook from the front of his shirt to twine into the back. Silently, he nods, and then doesn 't say anything else.

He keeps quiet when Suguru tilts them back down into the pillows and rumpled blankets, either worn out or left with nothing to let fall past his shut teeth anymore, somehow not putting up a fight at the thought of sleeping again.

They lay there as the rain patters on, as the shadows grow longer, as Satoru decomposes with something he won 't say anything about. Suguru lets him, not knowing if he should just sit in the dirt, or be looking for a shovel.