He was getting all sorts of hassle from the tenants, but it had finally gotten fairly tolerable even if he did have a tendency towards putting the wrong foot forward and falling onto girls and... he had bad luck with women. Still, they'd gotten mostly to accepting him, he'd even hit it off with the Junior High girl Shinobu and then Mutsumi's apartment and burned down when she'd gotten the first sniffles and things had kind of gotten kind of bad.
Still, he'd turned caregiver to get them through this bad flu bug. They'd gone in and out of fever a few times.
There were a few times where he'd experienced something a bit strange too.
"thirsty"
"Here you go, Shinobu," said Keitaro, holding the cup with the safety straw to where the girl could sip on it.
Shinobu suckled greedily on the straw for a few moments before settling back down. She was quiet until he got up. "Sempai?"
"Yes?" Keitaro got down onto the floor, kneeling so he could hear her better.
"can you hold my hand until I go to sleep?"
"Certainly," said Keitaro, reaching for the girl's tiny hand and clasping it. "After that I've got to take care of the others though."
Shinobu continued to smile after she'd fallen asleep.
Keitaro's own smile faded as Shinobu's breathing evened out, and he brought her hand up to examine it more closely.
He had gone to a cupboard next, gathered up the washcloths and basin, and entered Mitsune's room.
The triangular ears poked from a point above the temples, though they didn't seem to have moved from the last time he'd seen her. Her hair was definitely a reddish brown, with only the white tufts at the tips of her ears being a different shade.
As he wiped her face gently with a washcloth, he glanced over the other obvious addition to her anatomy, made more obvious in that she'd kicked her sheets off again. The tail was now coming in with a thick, even luxurious, long fur of the same shade as her hair. The tip, like the tips of her ears, was white or whitish gray.
"I get you all alone in here and I can't even show my thanks."
"Save your strength," advised Keitaro.
"Right. I'll ravish you later," promised Mitsune, closing her eyes again.
Keitaro waited until he was sure she was asleep, then investigated those ears. Yup, he could feel her pulse in them even through the fur.
"I am shamed by letting you see me in this condition, urashima-" said the girl sleeping atop her futon.
"Actually this kind of reminds me of taking care of my little sister," confessed Keitaro.
"How dare you-," began the samurai girl before she started coughing.
"Back to bed," said Keitaro, gently lifting the girl from where she'd been sprawled and moving her to the futon. "Just rest here. From the reports on the radio, this flu bug runs its course in three days, so you've only got half a day to go."
The girl's eyes shifted in and out of focus briefly before regarding the boy again. "You'd better not try to take advantage of this situation, Urashima."
Keitaro had been taking care of things by himself for over a day and a half now, Shinobu being one of the last to succumb. He was feeling a bit stressed. "Oh yeah. Like I'm going to try anything? Especially with a bunch of girls who look like extras from a zombie movie."
Noticing the horrified stare she was giving him, Keitaro added something. "Look. I wouldn't try anything anyway. I'll just leave this juice here for you, at least try sipping at it. I'm sorry. I'm tired and there's things about this... I'm just tired out from all this."
She watched him go, and if he didn't know better he'd have thought she wanted to say something. Maybe that she was feeling defensive because the illness had sapped her strength. Whatever.
She didn't say anything though, and he closed the door behind him.
Now it was the fourth day. He'd gone around checking and everyone seemed to be sleeping normally. No sign of fevers, just exhaustion from whatever they'd been fighting.
What kind of disease was it that could produce results like that? Magic seemed the only explanation, which wasn't much of one - just sort of a catchall category for things he couldn't explain rationally.
The stockpot simmered - a chicken and barley soup and some hard bread he'd gotten from the pantry. Once everyone was up and about he'd be able to go grocery shopping.
"AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!"
Keitaro nodded. Sounded like someone was back to full health.
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(Posted Mon, 04 Apr 2005 07:45)
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