❈♍❈

A Month Passed By

♍

A month had passed since Kame last moved into the apartment. He had now accustomed to the new living condition, even though there were times where he yelled at Koki for his pigsty life, and felt inferior towards Jin whenever the old man was in a bad mood. He had learned two pivotal points about Jin: one, when the man is tired, don’t irritate him; and two, Jin is an idiot at heart.

The first point, it was obviously stated in his jeans incident; the latter, well not going to lie but Kame couldn’t remember how many times Jin misplaced his phone. An example of that was when they first had their guys’ night out at the club that Ryo managed. Somehow in the middle of the night, Jin lost his phone, making everyone worried when no one could contact him. The guy immediately bought the exact same phone the next day but only to find his lost phone the day after under the couch where they sat on the night before. Everyone thought it was just a onetime incident; but, this same situation happened again two nights after Jin had bought his phone. Kame nicknamed Jin as the Bakanishi from then on.

 “Bakanishi!” Koki loudly yelled out. Jin jumped up from the sofa, irritation showed on his feature.

“What is it?” Jin gritted out, sitting back down on the sofa.

“Those dishes are not mine!” Koki pointed at the sink, glaring at Jin.

“They are your mess; I ate out last night,” Jin said shrugging.

“I was out ALL DAY yesterday and only came back like now, how is that they are mine?” Koki defended his innocence. Jin turned his attention back to Koki, replaying the scene from last night in his memories. It was indeed true that Koki wasn’t home the day before, but he had stopped cooking late at night when he got his new part-time job, so those dishes couldn’t be his. Then there was only one answer to this.

“Kazuya?” Jin uttered out warily, unsure if he was right. Koki looked back with the same expression.

“Did you see him this morning?” Koki asked, checking the time on his watch, “it’s already 3pm, he should be at his part-time job now,” he added.  Jin made his way to the front door to check the shoes cabaret and was surprised to see Kame’s shoes still there.

“His shoes are here,” he stated, turning to Koki.

“Oh !” Koki quickly dashed to the hallway, heading to Kame’s room. Jin immediately followed from behind; still didn’t know what going on.

“Kazu-chan!” Koki called, pounding onto the wooden door, yet there was no answer. “Kazu-chan! Are you ok there?” Koki shouted again, pounding harder on the door with one hand, and the other hand grabbed onto the door knob, trying to turn it. The door was locked. Koki made a quick run to his room, coming back with the spare key. Jin’s face turned slightly shock, worries showed on his face.

“Maybe he is sick,” Koki hurriedly explained to Jin, at the same time, unlocking the room and entered the tidy room. Koki and Jin glanced over to the bed, just as Koki expected, Kame’s disheveled figure was stretching out on the bed, legs dangling off the edge, with a pillow covering his face.

Koki hurried over to Kame’s bed, lifted up the pillow to feel the younger man’s forehead. He was shocked to find the burning heat contracting his hand.

“! He is having a high fever!” Koki said in panic, he turned to Jin to give out the order, “can you call his work place to inform them that he is sick and would like a week off? The number is on the magnet called Moonlit Cabaret,” Jin nodded at the instruction and walked out of the room to do as told.

Jin waited for someone to pick up on the other side, after a few rings, the phone was picked up and a female voice answered, “Kazuya, why aren’t you here yet?” he could feel the slight anger in the clinging tone.

“Uh…Kamenashi-san is not in the condition to work today, I’m afraid that he is going take a week off from work,” Jin hesitated, waiting for the other to reply.

“Eh? Really? Is he sick?” the female voice turned shock and concerned.

“Un,” Jin gently grunted, “he has a high fever,” he added to the information.

“That boy never knows how to take care of himself,” the woman sighed out, “Ok, tell him to come in when he is well, and I’ll come over to visit him after work today,” the woman informed, Jin just nodded.

“Ah! Before I forget, are you his new roommate? Because you don’t sound like the usual four freaks that Kazuya hanging out with,” the woman asked, slightly curious. Jin snickered at the nickname.

“Yea, I’m the new housemate,” he answered.

“Good, so Koki’s apartment, yes? Just making sure that he is not moving again,” the woman questioned.

“Yea, Koki’s apartment,” Jin assured the other. The woman signed in relief and bid Jin farewell before hanging up. Jin hung up the phone and walked back to Kame’s room. He found the younger man was now in a more comfortable position on his bed, and was tripped out of his working clothes, while Koki ran back and forth from the kitchen and the room.

“Don’t you have work?” Jin said, pointing to the clock. Koki cursed at the bad timing, he was worried but he couldn’t just leave Kame like that. “I’ll look after him, and his boss, I assume that she is, said she would come after work,” he added.

“Good! I think there are some meds in the bathroom’s medicine cabinet, let him take one every four hours; and I believe Mi-chan would supply him with water and food, maybe additional meds when she is here,” Koki informed Jin of the whole process. Jin just nodded taking in the instructions.

❈

Kame foggily opened his eyes, he felt his head becoming heavy, it felt like a thousand weights hung on his head. He could feel the temperature in the room was rising by second as well, was he sweating? He wondered to himself, bringing a hand to the back of his neck and touched the damped skin.

“Why am I sweating in winter?” Kame mouthed the question, turning his head to the side, unable to bring his body up.

“You should sleep some more,” he heard Jin’s warm voice advised.

“Do I have a fever?” he asked, unsure if that is the right one.

“Indeed you do, and you should not moving too much, your head will be dizzy if you do,” Jin commented, touching the forehead of the younger man, “I should bring in more icepacks,” he told himself and walked out the room.

Kame was left alone in the room, he touched his forehead feeling a warm wet towel. “So I have a fever,” he concluded to himself. He didn’t know that overworking could lead to this, not that he didn’t know better but he thought maybe one more hour of work wouldn’t hurt him but that had proven to be wrong, he was now in bed and motionless. Every nerve on his body aching from the fever, he felt lazy and not wanting to move anywhere.

When he heard footsteps coming back to the room, he asked in a weak voice, “did Koki inform my work place about my condition?”

“I called them, and your boss said she will come over after work,” Jin informed, replacing the towel on Kame’s forehead with a new one. The cool touch from the new towel gave Kame a delight feeling, it felt wonderful to have something to cool down the heated skin.

“She would make a fuss about this, I’m sure,” Kame commented.

“She seems worried about you,” Jin said with a chuckle.

“Of course, she is my cousin,” Kame smiled weakly.

“Really? I didn’t know,” Jin said surprised. He brought his hand to Kame’s nape to check for the temperature, “look like it has cool down since this morning,” Jin said, handing Kame the meds, “and you need to take these, you want to eat something before taking them?” Jin wondered. Kame lazily nodded his head, closing his eyes to relax. Jin picked up the old towel and headed out of the room to prepare something for Kame.  

“Jin,” Kame called when Jin was at the door, “What about your work?” he asked with concern.

“I have someone to fill in for me. I don’t think it is wise to leave a sick and motionless person at home alone,” Jin said with a smile.

Kame mouthed out a small “thank you” to express his gratitude, unable to bring himself to be coherence in this condition.  

“Don’t mind it, we’re housemates after all,” Jin smiled warmly and exited the room to give Kame some peace time. Kame turned back to his sleep, it had been such a long time that he had been taking care by someone. He had grown used to always do things by himself when he moved to Tokyo right after graduation with his cousin.

However, due to the living condition and the job hunts, they both rarely had time to take care the other. They would always come home late and crashed their beds; time passed by and thanked to Mi-chan’s new job that Kame was able to take up the bartender position at the hostess club. At first, they were discriminated by their neighbors for their choices of occupation, the look-down stares were unbearable, but they soon grew numb to them. They were glad to find themselves in a better living condition when Mi-chan was promoted to be the number 1 hostess of the club and Kame had becoming the favored bartender to all the guests. They finally had the life they had wished for. Of course, coming with this glamorous lifestyle always comes with separation. He found himself moved out of their share apartment because of the made-up rumors in the club about Kame and Mi-chan relationship, which resulted in her almost failing status. Even though Mi-chan didn’t mind, Kame wouldn’t let something trivial as that to affect their career. Therefore, his decision to move out was saving them both from a major loss in their incomes.

He exhaled a small sigh, it was such an old story but times like these, he always tended to come back to those memories and held on them dearly. He had learned throughout those years that no one would take better care for you than your own self.  With such principle, he never once bothered his friends about trivial matters, unless they were considering as a major problem by them.

“Are you having those ‘! My life is a mess’ moments again?” a sarcastic voice brought him back to the reality.

“Mi-chan,” Kame whispered.

“You should stop when I told you to last night, look at you now!” Mi-chan, as Kame called here, voiced out walking over to Kame’s bed and feeling his forehead.

“It was a good extra paid,” Kame retorted.

“To get this sick, it was the worse paid!” Mi-chan spat back.

“I’m sick here, can we move that conversation to another day?” Kame lazily requested.

“What I am going to do with you?” Mi-chan heaved out a heavy sigh, she knew her cousin would turn into this mess.

“How was the club today? Anyone missed me?” Kame joked.

“It was ok, not too crowded because our gorgeous bartender was not there; and the girls were pouting because of you that they lost some sales tonight,” Mi-chan joked back with a wide grin.

“Awwww~ I’ll give them all the double sales next week, promise,” Kame said with a small grin.

“Sure sure, now take your rest. Have you eaten yet?” she asked, turning on her heels.

“I think Jin is making something in the kitchen awhile ago,” he said.

“I’ll check on that, now rest and get well soon! It’s a command!” she said with a loving smile. Kame nodded and closed his eyes, hearing the door closed seconds later. 

 

❈♍❈

The Next Morning

♍

Kame lifted his hand lazily to his eyes to block out the morning sun shining on his pale skin. He could feel that the fever has just gone down a bit; his body tended to take a longer time to recover from a cold or fever. He wouldn’t dare to think about how long it would take if he was seriously injured, it would be months! He could hear the small cheerful conversation outside of his room, maybe it came from the living room. He slowly crawled out of his bed, dragging heavy steps out of the room. He felt the need to feed his empty stomach before another set of pills being forced down his pipes.

“Morning, Kazu-chan, feeling better?” Mi-chan called from her seat on the couch. Kame turned to the voice and nodded indolently. He felt someone’s presence was next to his as a hand moved to his forehead to check for the temperature.

“It has cooled down now,” Jin’s voice said with a sigh of relief.

“How long have I been sleeping?” Kame asked, eerily remembering the last time he had a meal the night before.

“You slept the night away without food, if that is what you concern,” Koki said, taking Kame by the arm as leading the younger male to the stool bar.

“Have some porridge,” Jin displayed the bowl of hot substance in front of Kame. The younger male made the disgust face as he looked at the liquid substance.

“I don’t like porridge,” he mumbled childishly.

“Well you don’t have another choice, hurry up and finish it,” Mi-chan commanded from her spot, still looking through the magazine. Kame turned back to give her his puppy eyes, hoping that the girl would feel pity on him.

“Sorry Kame, your trick is not working; I want my employee back as soon as possible,” Mi-chan said with a grin.

“”Whatever,” Kame said shrugging. He looked dreadfully at the bowl in front of him, heaving out an unpleased sigh; it was either that or an empty stomach. He picked up the spoon and tried to force down the first scoop.

“You make it look like we are feeding you poison,” Koki said with a chuckle.

“This IS poison!” Kame pointed to the bowl.

“Drama queen,” Mi-chan said shaking her head.

“You’re one yourself!” Kame retorted.

“Only at work!” Mi-chan strike back.

“Geez, you two stop your bickering and Kame finish your food, you need to take more rest,” Koki said with demand, successfully stopped the pair whom about to start their “war”.

Jin watched the scenario from his corner in the kitchen, finding the amusement in this little family. Indeed, this was refreshing. He smiled to himself as he watched Kame being childish while he is sick, and Koki becoming a demanded brother towards the pair.

“That’s so creepy,” Kame noted as he turned to look at Jin briefly. Jin arched his brows at the latter. “Smiling to yourself is creepy,” Kame answered him. Jin chuckled at the remark.

“Just found out something new about you guys, that’s all,” Jin said with a smile, continued on with his food.

“Ok…as long as I’m not part of your teasing at later time, then I’m fine with whatever discovery you just made,” Kame shrugged, finishing the last bit of the porridge. “DONE!” he announced with cheer.

“Now back to bed!” Koki demanded, shooing Kame back to his room.

“Awww…Com’on!” Kame whined, not wanting to be back to his room so soon.

“TV only makes it worse for your headache,” Mi-chan said, knowing exactly what Kame wants, “I already set up the recording schedule for the drama you’ve been watching, so you can catch up on it when you feel better, good?” Kame gave a thumb up and obediently walked back to his room.

When Kame closed the door to his room, Jin turned to the two figures in the room with a confused look, “is he that obedient when he is sick?” he wondered.

“Not really,” Mi-chan answered, “he is a real pain, a 23-year-old baby if you ask me,” she added.

“He tended to lose his guard when he is sick, that’s all~ don’t get surprised if he suddenly becoming unreasonable,” Koki informed Jin what to expect in the situation.

“I’ll have to go now, need to catch up with some friends,” Mi-chan said as she was already on her way out. “Can you look after Kame today as well, Jin?” she asked.

“I have work at late hours today, as long as someone home before 9pm, then that can do,” Jin informed and Koki nodded understanding.

“I’ll be home around 7pm,” Koki told Jin his schedule.

“Ok, fine by me,” Jin nodded.

“Make sure to wake him up so he can take his meds,” Koki reminded.

“I took care of him yesterday, so I already know the routine,” Jin assured the other.

“Ok, see you later then,” Koki finally exited the room and left for his work along with Mi-chan.

Jin turned back to the quiet apartment; he had a patient to take care of and an apartment to clean. This place had turned into a pigsty just after a night.

❈

It was around 11am when he had finished with the cleaning in the house, he checked the time on the microwave, mumbling to himself about checking on Kame. He made his way to the younger man’s room when suddenly the door creaked open revealing a half-awake Kame. The younger man focused his vision on Jin as he squinted.

“Ah, morning Jin,” Kame said lazily.

“Morning to you too, have a good rest?” Jin asked with a smile, ruffling the younger man’s hair.

“Yea, much better now,” Kame said, bringing a hand to his forehead to check his own temperature.

“Do you want to eat something?”

“As long as it’s not porridge, I’m fine with anything.”

“Unfortunately, it’s the only thing that is heated.”

“Then I’ll wait until decent food is made,” Kame said with disgusted look.

“It is a decent food,” Jin replied, shaking his head.

“I want something else,” Kame pouted, giving his best puppy eyes at Jin.

“So this is the childish Kame that they mentioned,” Jin chuckled at the sight, finding the younger man cute when is sick, and not being a sissy.

“I don’t know what they told you, I really don’t care right now, I just want good food that is decent” Kame said with a small smile, feeling his head a bit dizzy.

“Wash your face, you look like a mess,” Jin commented, heading out to the kitchen to find something for Kame. The younger man walked staggering on the way to the bathroom.

It wasn’t long until Kame reappeared in the kitchen, settling down onto the stool to wait on whatever that Jin was making. He glanced over at the untidy sink and the stained stove, grunting his face at the scene. If he was not sick, this would not going to happen; however, he was not one to do the work while sick, he did not like to prolong his illness for more than a week.

“I hope you will clean them up afterward,” he commented when Jin carelessly threw the pan into the sink.

“Of course I will,” Jin said obviously.

“Just saying,” Kame shrugged, not bothering to go on, as long as the place is clean that’s all he cares.

“Have some of this,” Jin placed the bowl of soup in from of Kame, the younger man unsurely looked at the creamy milk soup.

“…”

“I might not be the best cook, but at least my food is edible for most people,” Jin explained, knowing what the younger man was thinking. Kame nodded, picking up the spoon and scooped a spoon of hot creamy liquid for a taste testing.

“This is pretty good,” Kame said with approval as he scooped another spoon and downed it into his empty stomach, happily splurging on the soup. Jin smiled with satisfaction.

“Glad you like it,” Jin beamed as he turned back to the sink and began on his cleaning.

Kame’s eyes followed Jin’s every move as the older man worked on the cleaning, he wished that if only Koki is like Jin, then he wouldn’t have to come home with a mountain of mess to clean. This felt like he is taking up the second job because he stayed at the place for free, so doing the house work as a payment? Logic yet hates it, he thought. Once he finished the soup, he walked around the bar; however, Jin stopped him half way.

“I’ll wash it, you’re still sick, it’s not good to be in contact with water,” Jin said as he took the bowl from Kame’s hand, shooing the man back to his seat. Kame obediently followed the order, he was not one to refuse the help. He made his way to the sofa in the living room, and the TV. He kept flipping the channel, seemed to not be able to find the right one to watch, more like he was not interested in any of the shows on TV at this time.

Jin walked to the sofa and sat next to Kame when he had done with the dishes and the kitchen had becoming spotless and sparkle. His eyes glued to the TV which jumping from channel to channel continuously.

“Is this your habit of watching TV?” Jin asked after a few seconds. Kame turned slightly to Jin’s side with a “huh” but eyes still not leaving the TV.  “I mean changing the channel,” Jin added.

“Not really, just I don’t seem to find something interesting,” Kame said, shrugging.

“Stop it, or you will get a headache,” Jin advised, trying to take the control away from Kame. However, the younger man fought back and took the remote away from Jin as possible.

“I don’t want to,” Kame said in the childish tone, scooting to the far side of the sofa. Jin just shook his head, letting the other do as please. He felt like he was looking after a four-years-old.

After a short while, Kame dropped the remote control on his side as the dizziness had got to him. Jin saw that the TV had stopped jumping and Kame’s eyes were closing to adjust the state of focus.

“Didn’t I tell you so?” Jin said with concern, stretching over to the remote control to take it away from Kame. “Lie down if you need to,” he added. Kame nodded to the command, slowly setting his head down on the armrest of the sofa, stretching his legs to relax which resulted in them lying on Jin’s laps.

“Sorry,” Kame mumbled an apology as he pulled back his legs.

“You can stretch them, it’s not good to have them curl up,” Jin assured Kame. The younger man nodded a thank you and let his legs resting on Jin’s laps comfortably. He tried to let sleep take over his tired body; however, the armrest under his head seemed to hate him due its height which is not to his liking.

“You need a pillow?” Jin asked when he saw the discomfort on Kame’s frowned face. The younger man opened his eyes to reply.

“Nuh uh,” Kame said in his childish tone, “this is too high,” he pointed at the armrest pouting, “and I don’t want to lie on the flat surface here,” Kame pointed to the soft mattress of the sofa, “can’t seem to breath well on flat position,” he added.

Jin gave it a thoughtful observing, then spoke out his suggestion, “you can use my laps as pillows, if you don’t mind,” he offered. Kame’s eyes twinkled with hope.

“Really?” Kame asked to be sure.

“Yea, sure.” Jin just shrugged.

“Thanks!” Kame happily said as he twitched his position over and placed his head contentedly on Jin’s laps, closing his eyes at the comfort. “This feels nice,” he commented.

“Of course, you have human laps for pillow, what is better than this?” Jin laughed heartily, he moved his eyes back to the TV to watch the drama that is showing. Kame sighed out happily, letting sleep to take over; not too soon after he was drifting into dreamland.