stormyexchange | A raindrop for writer

Title: You (no, you)

Pairing(s): Matsumoto Jun / Ohno Satoshi

Genres: Fluff, Sickfic

Rating: PG

Summary: Jun takes care of an overworked Ohno.

Warning(s): NIL

Author's notes:
to my recipient: here’s my little sickfic for you, I hope you enjoy it <3

to eri and dine: thank you for helping me as I worked on this (and the drafts before HAHA)

“Ohno-san, your presentation’s up next,” one of the interns, a young man named Ninomiya, calls out to Ohno, who’s first in the line of nervous employees who have to present their marketing strategy proposals to their CEO today.

Jun watches as Ohno stands and weakly gives him a thumbs up.

“You’re going to be okay, Oh-chan,” Jun says, looking even more tense than he does. “We’ve gone through this plenty of times.”

Ohno nods. “I know. It’s just… man, I really do feel awful.”

“It’s because you’ve been working such ridiculous hours for this,” Jun rubs his shoulders sympathetically, kneading Ohno’s stiff muscles. “But it’ll be over soon.”

“Can’t wait to head home to get some rest,” Ohno sighs. “Come over tonight? I could probably use the company.”

Jun chuckles and squeezes his hand tightly, once. “If it’ll give you something to look forward to.”

“You know I always look forward to having you over. You should just move in, already.”

“Not now,” Jun punches his shoulder, a smirk on his face. “We can have this discussion another time, not when you’re having an important presentation in 2 minutes.”

Ohno pouts a little, but chuckles when he sees Jun roll his eyes at him, mouthing, “Not in the office”, and grabs his file and laptop, heading to the CEO’s office.

Jun’s laptop is open with the files he’s supposed to be working on, but his eyes are on the man whose hair is neatly styled so it doesn’t obstruct his face, whose charming features and gentle demeanor had already made him pay attention when he’d first started working at the company. It had been 5 years since then, and 2 since he’d finally plucked up the courage to tell Ohno how he felt, only for Ohno to reciprocate those feelings.

He hadn’t expected it – outwardly, Jun was the opposite of everything Ohno was. He was outgoing and sociable, exacting and meticulous, hating it when things didn’t go his way. Ohno, on the other hand, only interacted within his small circle of friends, becoming almost completely silent in the company of others he didn’t know. He was what colleagues might call a yes-man, never expressing much opinion of his own, always happy to go with whatever everyone thought was good.

But when the two of them had to work together on a project assigned by the CEO, they found that they had more in common than they thought.

Jun had been pretty worried about the arrangement, because working with someone as laidback as Ohno would give him the freedom to do whatever he wanted to do without much conflict, but at the same time he was worried about whether Ohno’s work would be of the quality he wanted; and said as much on their first meeting together.

He’d prepared an entire speech about his expectations about Ohno’s work, outlining the distribution of responsibilities, and Ohno said not a single word other than “okay”.

This guy’s really like what everyone says he is, Jun had thought. Guess we’ll see what kind of work he puts out.

To his pleasant surprise, Ohno hadn’t just exceeded his expectations (the diagrams he’d done up were better than anything he could have done himself), but he’d gone the extent of helping to point out the parts in Jun’s work that he thought needed adjustments; his notes were detailed and he clearly knew what he was doing.

It wasn’t much, but that alone changed the way Jun saw Ohno. They’d frequently worked as a team after that, and as they spent more time together, Jun’s feelings of respect for a coworker slowly turned to something more.

He’d slowly started to notice things about Ohno that he hadn’t before: the way he dozed off at meetings with his eyes open so that no one could tell he was gone; the light smell of his cologne wafting in when he came into the office in the mornings, that Jun had started to look forward to every day at work; the way his shoulders shook when he laughed around Jun, his eyes smiling in crescents.

It was when they were drinking together after a long day at the office that Jun had said it.

Ohno had been doing something silly, impersonating a fish that he’d caught when he’d gone out to sea earlier that week.

His rational, inhibiting mind numbed by liquid courage, Jun had let his thoughts escape his mouth unfiltered – “You’re so cute, Oh-chan,” he’d said, smiling.

“No, Jun-kun, you’re cuter, you’re the best,” Ohno had leaned onto him then, pressing his cheek against Jun’s. It wasn’t often that Ohno was this affectionate with him, and it had emboldened him; even if it all went south, at least he could say that he’d done it in the spur of the moment, when they were both drunk and as good as unconscious.

He tilted his head then, and captured Ohno’s lips with his own, feeling their softness under his; and for a moment he sees Ohno’s eyes widen fractionally at the sudden movement before closing, letting Jun take the lead in deepening the kiss.

When they finally pulled apart, both of them breathless, Ohno had chuckled. “Wow, I’ve been wanting to do that for so long,” he’d said.

“Me too,” Jun admitted, a silly grin on his face.

“Kiss me again,” Ohno tilted his head, resting his cheek on his palm and smiling sweetly as he looked up at Jun. “I think I didn’t have enough that first time.”

“Oh, you’ll have more than enough when I’m through with you,” Jun had said, cupping Ohno’s face with his hands and taking his time, now that he knows he has all of it in the world.

“Try me,” Ohno had murmured against Jun’s lips, and from there the rest was history.

Jun returns his attention to Ohno who rubs circles at his temples with his fingers, watching as he lets out a heavy sigh where he stands and blinks hard as though trying to clear his vision. He’d seen Ohno put in the most effort for this project than anything they’d worked on, and those images of him – coming into the office in the morning only to see that Ohno had fallen asleep on his desk; taking turns spending late nights at each other’s houses with endless mugs of hot coffee – rush through his mind as he watches Ohno again now, seeming to finally be crumbling after almost a month of overwork and stress.

He gives Ohno another thumbs up as the glass door to the CEO’s office opens, and Ohno returns it with a hopeful smile as he heads on in.

The meeting drags on for longer than they expect – their company’s CEO, Sakurai Sho, was a kind man and generous leader, but he could be exacting in his demands of his employees, not just for the sake of ensuring quality in the company’s work, but in wanting to push his employees to the best of their own ability. This meant that meetings were often long and involved discussions about what way was best to go forward, rather than Sakurai providing his own answers to the problems.

Which was a good thing usually, though not the best when someone like Ohno was already so exhausted.

When the door to the office finally opens again, Ohno looks straight at him with a satisfied smile before losing his strength, his knees buckling right outside the door and collapsing to the floor.

“Oh-chan!” Jun gasps, and rushes over in worry, crouching down.

Ohno simply shakes his head. “Washroom,” he says, his voice barely audible, and Jun hoists him up to help him there, holding him at the waist and draping one arm over his own shoulder, as his legs barely have the strength to support his weight.

As Ohno stands over the pristine wash basin and takes a look into the mirror, Jun notices how drained he looks as he closes his eyes for a brief moment in pain before turning to the cubicle behind him and throwing up his lunch into the toilet bowl, kneeling in front of it as he coughs.

Jun stands hopelessly behind, unable to do anything but gently pat his back, rubbing it to the sounds of the result of Ohno’s overwork. “We gotta get you home,” he says frustratedly. “I told you you were pushing yourself too hard.”

“I’m… fine…” Ohno says between hacking coughs.

“You’re not!” Jun says, unconsciously raising his voice, leaning against the wall of the cubicle and sighing as Ohno retches again.

“We’re taking the rest of today off,” he says sternly. “I’m booking us a cab.”

“You still have work,” Ohno manages, turning around to look at him. “I can head back myself.”

“Well, I’m not letting you.” Jun says, crossing his arms. “We’re going home.”

He pulls out his phone and dials, his other hand on his hip. “Aiba-kun? Ohno-san and I are taking urgent leave now, okay? He’s just thrown up in the toilet.”

The man on the other end of the line gasps. “Oh, that doesn’t sound good. Post-project exhaustion?”

Jun peers at Ohno still stooped down, clutching both sides of the pristine, white toilet seat with pale fingertips, and an even paler face.

“Probably,” he replies, pursing his lips. “It’s been a rough month.”

“Mmhm,” Aiba says sympathetically. “I’ll put it into the system for you; having a long weekend will do you both some good.”

“Thanks, Aiba-kun,” Jun says gratefully. “There are chocolates in Ohno-san’s drawer if you want any; do us a favour and take care of yourself too, alright?”

Aiba’s cheery voice rings loudly as Ohno scowls at Jun for outing his snack stash, “Aw, tell him I said thanks! See you on Monday, you two!”

“See you,” Jun ends the call and crosses his arms, raising his eyebrows.

Ohno weakly stands to flush the toilet and give his mouth and face a rinse at the sink, before turning to Jun, who looks at him with a firm expression. “I guess I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”

----

“Let’s get you to bed,” Jun says, the side of his body that’s been supporting Ohno since earlier starting to ache as he opens the door to Ohno’s apartment. “Get some sleep first, you can shower later.”

“That’s rare of you,” Ohno mumbles and Jun rolls his eyes.

“I don’t want you passing out in the shower, that’s all. You barely have the strength to stand.”

Ohno chuckles. “You’re the best, Jun-kun.”

Jun drops off their bags at the table before sitting Ohno down on the bed and letting him lie down before tucking him in under the blankets.

“Mmm,” Ohno groans. “Warm…”

“Are you feeling cold?” Jun sticks his head out from the bathroom door. “Do you want your sweater?”

“Mm-mm,” Ohno hums, shaking his head as he turns to face Jun, eyelids droopy and already resisting his willpower to keep them open a while longer. “I’m just… gonna lie down here for a bit…”

Jun watches as he snuggles deeper in the warmth of his bed, tugging the blankets closer to him as his breath slows and he succumbs to sleep.

The sight of Ohno sleeping so peacefully is one that he’s come back to and woken up to countless times, and yet there’s still that charm about it; his gentle features that look the most perfect like this, the way his mouth still manages to frown in a tiny pout, his brow furrowing at something in his dreams. Jun climbs into bed beside him and Ohno reacts almost instinctively, turning to Jun’s side of the bed and curling up around his pillow.

It makes Jun smile, and he reaches out to tousle Ohno’s soft hair, looping strands of it around his fingers as he looks around the room absent-mindedly, realising how familiar this space has become to him, the feeling of home as strong here as in his own house.

His gaze falls on a small box kept in a glass cabinet next to the bathroom, and he holds the back of his hand to his mouth to stifle his laughter. A note paper with the neatly written words “Jun-kun’s Light Thing” had been taped to the box, and Jun shakes his head with a smile.

“It’s a night-sky projector, you idiot.”

One of the things that Jun had quickly come to know after becoming closer with Ohno was his passion for the outdoors – a few of their first dates together had involved Ohno bringing him fishing on a boat; camping in the mountains; fishing along a river; camping on an island, and every time, they’d look to the skies at night and gaze up at the stars.

“They’re pretty tonight, aren’t they, Jun-kun?” Ohno had asked him one day, as they lay down side by side. “The stars.”

“Always,” Jun hummed. “It makes me feel like we’re away from the rest of the world, just for a while.”

They lay in silence for a while, before Ohno stirred and sat up, retrieving his phone from his pocket and angling it upwards.

“A photo?”

Ohno nodded. “I want to remember what the sky looks like every time we’re together like this,” he’d said, clicking repeatedly, adjusting the settings before each snapshot; but frowning when he reviewed the photos again.

“They’re all ugly,” he grumbled. “I can’t see anything.”

“Let me see,” Jun held out his hand, and Ohno passed him the phone with a pout. “Oh, you’re right… I guess we’d probably need a better camera to get a good photo.”

“That’s your expertise,” Ohno had replied with a shrug. “I’ll leave it to you, then; I’m sure you’ll find something in your arsenal of tech things.”

“Old man,” Jun teased. “Even your phone’s several generations behind.”

“I don’t need to be up to date,” Ohno protested, sliding his phone back into his pocket. “It works for everything I need it to do.” He then raised his hands directly above his face, forming a rectangle with his thumbs and forefingers. “Mm-mm,” he’d hummed. “Maybe we don’t need a camera after all.”

Jun had done the same, the frame created by his fingers highlighting just a small portion of the vast night sky.

Maybe they didn’t.

He looked at it for a long time, wanting to commit as much of it as he could to memory, wanting to keep it even as they went home, a reminder of their times together, when he’d felt safe and happy.

And so the night-sky projector seemed like the perfect gift for their first anniversary of being together.

He’d set it up in Ohno’s house on a day that he’d ended work earlier, and upon Ohno’s arrival home, the bedroom door had opened to darkness save the little dots of light on the ceiling and walls, sprinkled around them.

“Jun-kun,” Ohno had gasped. “What-”

“Happy anniversary, Oh-chan,” Jun had tugged him into a hug and a light kiss on his lips.

“I… wow….”

Jun giggled at the sight of Ohno looking around him in awe, looking at the stars around them. “It’s the night sky on the day of our first date,” he’d said to a wide-eyed Ohno, who’d started smiling so widely that Jun couldn’t help but smile too. “I figured not even my best quality camera could do something like this.”

“You know,” Ohno had said, pulling him onto the bed so they could look up at their little night sky just for them. “You can be so romantic, sometimes.”

“And you love me for it,” Jun had muttered in return, a knowing smile playing on his lips.

“I do,” Ohno agreed, and they’d spent the rest of that night in each other’s company, under the night sky of a year ago.

It’s 3 hours later and Jun’s decided to start on dinner first, keeping aside a portion of the salmon porridge for when – if – Ohno wakes that evening, when Jun hears a groan from the bedroom, and quickly gets up from the sofa to check in on him.

Ohno’s body is wrapped around a pillow, his head pressed against it, and he groans in pain.

“Oh-chan,” Jun shakes him gently, immediately shocked at how his body is almost radiating heat. Touching Ohno’s skin feels to his palm the same as touching a mug of hot coffee, and it elicits groans under his cold touch.

“Jun-kun,” Ohno murmurs softly. “My head hurts…”

“You can’t take aspirin on an empty stomach,” Jun coaxes. “D’you wanna have something to eat?”

“Mmm,” Ohno hums softly. “You’ve eaten already?”

“Was just about to start, but I guess we can eat together now,” Jun leans down and gives him a kiss on his forehead. “Here, let’s get you up.”

Between the two of them, Jun almost certainly had a weaker constitution, even if outwardly he seemed to work out more, eat more healthily, and generally seem to be pretty fit; which meant that the days where Ohno had to pamper him while he languished in the occasional flu season that he was always weak to, far outnumbered days where he took care of Ohno.

He wasn’t easy to deal with when he was sick, he’d admit – his already-grumpy mornings turned even more irritable, and his tendency towards impatience was amplified when he was feeling awful.

And yet Ohno was always patient, never lashing out or scolding him with anything but amused affection.

He’d asked him about it once; how Ohno managed to never lose his temper at him, always so tirelessly loving him.

“Why,” he’d asked. “Even though I’m so picky and difficult?”

Ohno had shrugged then. “Because it’s you,” he said simply.

“I don’t understand.”

“I love you, Jun-kun. All of you,” Ohno smiled, patting Jun gently, stroking his cheek lightly with his thumb. “That includes accepting and loving all your annoying bits, too.”

He hadn’t known how to reply to Ohno then; all he’d been able to say was “thank you”. But from that day on, he’d made a promise to himself that he would love this man with everything he had.

The short rest has already done Ohno good; some colour has returned to his face, and his body’s regained its ability to support itself.

“It smells amazing, Jun-kun,” Ohno perks up at Jun’s cooking, standing behind Jun as he ladles out his bowl of porridge, and hooking his arms around Jun’s waist. “We should have porridge on days when we’re not sick, too.”

“You cook it then,” Jun laughs, setting the dish down on the table. “All of this is from the ingredients you had around; I didn’t buy anything extra.”

“But yours always tastes better for some reason,” Ohno says, a hint of his lingering fever in his grimace as he clasps his hands together. “Thank you for the meal~”

“How is it?” Jun asks with a grin, already knowing what the answer would be, when Ohno leans back in his chair with his eyes shut and lets out a long hum of happiness.

“Reeeally good. You should cook this all the time.”

“So, like I said, cook it yourself!”

Ohno giggles at that. “I think you single-handedly cured my headache,” he smiles, shoulders shaking with mirth.

“Seriously?” Jun raises his eyebrows in disbelief.

“Nah, it’s still here,” Ohno shakes his head, smiling at how innocent Jun could be sometimes, before taking Jun’s hand to lace his fingers with his own, and squeezing his hand briefly. “But you do make everything much better.”

“That’s what you said the last time you were sick,” Jun frowns at the familiar phrase. “And then you puked on me.”

Ohno giggles, the sides of his eyes crinkling cutely. “I couldn’t help it then!”

“Excuses,” Jun chides him playfully. “You stay far away from me if you’re ever down with food poisoning again; no kisses.”

“It’s not like I puked into your mouth or—”

Jun covers his ears. “God, no, Oh-chan, don’t remind me,” he groans, and the sound of their laughter fills the apartment.

“Here,” Jun hands Ohno two small white pills and a glass of water as he continues resting. “Take this and go lie down, I’ll go get a cold towel.”

“Thanks,” Ohno says gratefully, swallowing them down in a single gulp. “Eugh, never liked the taste of those.”

“Then stop working yourself so hard you fall sick,” Jun replies from the bathroom, drenching a small hand towel with cold tap water before squeezing all the water out. “I told you not to accept extra work on top of your other responsibilities, and yet?”

“He told me it was either me or you,” Ohno says, rolling over and resting his arms on his pillow. “And you’ve been having a rough time with your new clients, so...”

“You volunteered to take it,” Jun stops in his tracks when he realises. “You didn’t even ask me,” he scrunches his eyebrows in a frown. “We could have discussed it first.”

“But you’d end up managing to make sure that you get it so my workload isn’t so heavy,” Ohno frowns and shudders when Jun presses the soft fabric to his skin, and he clutches his blanket tighter around him. “It’s cold…”

Jun can feel him shivering as he uses the cloth to wipe his face and neck. “Just a little, Oh-chan,” he coaxes.

“You’re always doing things for me, Jun-kun. I just wanted...” Ohno starts.

“To help me in return, for once?” Jun finishes for him with a chuckle.“Well, look where we ended up, huh?” he continues, brushing stray strands of hair away from Ohno’s face, gazing at him affectionately. “You don’t have to do things like this; you help me in ways you don’t even know.”

“So tell me,” Ohno says with a whisper, pouting.

“Mmm,” Jun hums, folding the towel so that it forms a cooling strip on Ohno’s forehead, and lying down beside him, on his side to face him. “For one, how you listen to me talk and be angry and worry about everything, and always know exactly what to say.”

Ohno tilts his head over slightly, and Jun can see the sides of his mouth lift a little at what he’s said, even though they can’t face each other in case the towel falls off.

“I feel like I can be silly and… myself,” Jun admits, “You know not many other people see that part of me.”

“Like the you that gets sulky when I steal all the blankets in the night so you pull it all out and dump it on my head?” Ohno laughs just remembering it.

“You really did take them all that time!” Jun protests, knocking into his shoulder playfully. “So I just gave them to you, that's all.”

Ohno giggles and rolls over to face Jun, and the towel magically stays on his forehead as he asks with those eyes that know nothing but love for the man in front of him, “So, that’s your List of Reasons Why I Love Satoshi?”

“Wait, I know you’re trying to be romantic, but I can’t take you seriously with the towel there,” he covers his face with his hands, holding back his laughter.

“I have a fever, Jun-kun,” Ohno says with a grin. “You’re going to have to give it to me anyway, towel and all.”

“I hate you,” Jun says, biting his lip so he doesn’t smile, and hums in thought.

“You make me feel so loved, when I’m with you,” Jun finally says as he reaches for Ohno’s hand that’s splayed out under the blankets, his voice soft.

I don’t know what I’d do without you.

Ohno reaches up to press his lips to Jun’s, knowing that that kiss conveys everything that he wants to say, knowing that when Jun kisses him back, he’s affirming it all; until the towel falls from Ohno’s forehead and onto Jun’s nose, giving him a shock that makes him pull violently away before bursting into loud laughter.

“Stupid towel,” Ohno retrieves it and throws it onto his bedside table. “Now, of all times.”

Jun giggles. “Not the first time you’ve tried to kiss me when you were sick and it failed,” he says, and in their gazes towards each other, they know.

“And it won’t be the last.”