Sanitizer (Kuroko no Basket, Midorima/Kise)

[shingetsu]

A/N: Yes, I wrote another KnB sneeze fanfic~ This one is based loosely on the GOM Character Bible future jobs. Loosely, because while Midorima is a doctor, I haven’t specifically stated whether Kise is a model or a pilot or something else entirely, so feel free to use whatever head canon you like.

Hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!

--

Oha Asa didn’t predict the rain.

Nor did today’s weather report for that matter, but Midorima Shintarou liked to place a bit more faith in his trusted horoscope reading central than the local news feed.

Oha Asa did however mention that Cancers would be get a pleasant surprise from where it’s least expected. Rain, while definitely a surprise and an unexpected one at that, could hardly be called pleasant. Not that it was unpleasant either, it simply, for the lack of a better word, was.

The influx of patients riddled with colds sky rocketed of course, but that didn’t concern him directly, since he was on another wing entirely.

Or at least it shouldn’t have. And certainly not this quickly.

“Yo Miii~dorimachi!”

And certainly not him.

“Kise” This isn’t the first time the blonde had barged in, and it won’t be the last. Each Miracle had a turn, many turns, much to Midorima’s annoyance and slowly declining sanity. At least Kise, while not having Akashi’s elegant poise, didn’t stoop down to Aomine and Murasakibara’s slovenly ways either.

“Ktshshshsh!”

“…Did you just sneeze?” The question left Midorima’s lips before his brain functions came back online. “I mean, of course you did. Why are you--are you sick?”

“Hiih-kttshh!!” This time Midorima was not distracted and could see everything from the way Kise’s complexion flushed at the point of the exertion to the way his hands half covered, half squeezed his possibly redder nose to stifle his sneezes, much to Midorima’s chagrin. “Ktshsh! Huktshsh!”

His disapproval must’ve showed on his face, because when Kise resurfaced, he cast him an apologetic look over his hands still pressed against the lower half of his face and nodded at the sink in the corner, asking silent permission to clean up.

Midorima nodded, slightly dazed, and Kise skipped his way to the sink and elbowed the curtain all the way closed. It wasn’t until the tap sloshed water noisily into the metal basin that Midorima realized he had been waiting, listening intently for more sneezes.

“Idiot” He berated himself softly, pushing his glasses up with trembling fingers. “There’s no reason to get so worked up”

Kise was out within a minute, a minute that Midorima spent resisting the urge to loosen his tie or at least take off his lab coat.

“Sorry about that. I know you’re a bit of a germaphobe. But!” Kise waved his hands in a way that would’ve made Midorima shudder if he didn’t add the rest of his words “I used hand sanitizer!”

“What an accomplishment” Midorima muttered dryly, hand fidgeting on his collar. He must’ve squeezed it on too tight in the morning, there was no other possible reason why it felt particularly stifling today. “So, what are you doing here?” The question he should’ve been asking from the very start.

Much to his disgust, Kise made a woefully pathetic face at him.

“I’m sick” He moaned miserably, sniffing for mock effect, but actually loosening his nose and making it run.

“That much is obvious. And” Midorima reached for the tissue box in his drawer, and repeated. “What are you doing here?”

“Midorimachi’s a doctor” Kise accepted the tissues and hesitated, crumpled half way to his moistly pink nose. “Sorry, I need to, right now, I…”

Midorima waved ‘go ahead’, unnerved by the rueful way Kise had looked at him. Apparently Kise had taken his uneasiness around sneezing, and anything related to it, as Midorima being extremely germ-conscious. It’s true he preferred cleanliness and good manners, but his uneasiness had a whole nother chain of reasoning to it.

He had averted his gaze, out of politeness’s sake, he told himself, while Kise blew his nose, turned away from Midorima himself. But he couldn’t help stealing short glances, sometimes too short for his eyes to even register anything. This was getting beyond ridiculous.

“Are you done?” He finally bit out, his embarrassment poorly hidden in irritation.

Kise emerged, nose chapped, but sounding much better. “Sorry, that must’ve been gross to listen to” And Midorima didn’t dare imply otherwise.

“And even grosser to look at. Ew.” Kise commented after taking a peek inside the tissue before scrunching it up and aiming the now balled up tissue into the wastepaper basket and made a perfect shot, or a perfect copy, he should say. Kise’s eyes, though teary and redlined, still shone as if to demand a one-on-one, right here in Midorima’s office, with used tissues as a substitute for a basketball and wastepaper basket as a hoop.

Midorima did not take the bait.

“I believe I asked what you were doing here” He didn’t make it a question anymore, though how exactly that made this situation better, he couldn’t say.

“Uhhhh…sick person” He pointed dramatically to himself “Doctor” he waved less so impressively at Midorima “See the connection?”

There was not yet a documented medical case of a person literally exploding with frustration, so Midorima would be the first in line.

“Do you know what the sign on the door says?”

“Umm…Midorima Shintarou?” Kise blankly stated the obvious.

“No, underneath that” Midorima gritted out.

“Doctor?” Kise hazarded a lazy guess.

“Oncologist! Head Oncologist, for that matter!” Midorima hissed “I didn’t spend all those extra years specializing in oncology so I could treat the common cold!”

Kise looked frankly offended that anything related to him could be called common, but before he could retort for the sake of his wounded pride, his breath hitched urgently, his eyes involuntarily fluttered shut, blindly reaching for the tissues.

“Hu--Sorry, Midorimach--haah…I--hii..I can’t--Hiihktshsh!” Kise’s eyes opened blearily then widened comically large “Midorimachi!?”

Midorima didn’t know exactly at what point he had moved to pluck a tissue out of the box and hold it over Kise’s quivering nose and gasping mouth, but the point remains, that he had. He didn’t know what he regretted more, the act itself or not being able to carve into his brain the way Kise’s head jerked helplessly in his hand.

Scratch that, present tense; still helplessly shuddering with warm explosions. And Midorima’s hand was still holding the tissue to Kise’s face.

“Hiiihkshshsh! HiiKKshsh! Hii-HiihKSH!!” And then Kise’s hand was over his, pressing the tissue, along with Midorima’s hand, deeper until Midorima could without a doubt, feel the desperate hitching breaths warm even through the tissue. “Heh..hii..HIIIHH..HIHH-KTshsh! Hiiktsh!”

Midorima knows he’s face is as flushed as Kise’s is, and he has no excuse of sneezing.

“Sorry, again, did I get any on you?” Kise seemed to have recovered from his surprise by now, but still looked vaguely bemused, or maybe that was just another sneeze hovering close by. He sniffed, watery and long, his sneezes always did leave his nose running like a broken faucet “Can I have that? Unless you plan on…”

Midorima immediately withdrew, letting the mostly soaked tissue flutter into Kise’s hands, and retreated to the sink, washing his hands and dousing sanitizer on like his one and only salvation. When he finally deemed his face was back to a normal enough colour, he turned the tap off, just in time to hear the final round of Kise’s nose blowing and, for a moment of weakness, regretted not turning it off sooner, and then regretted that line of thought almost as instantly as it had come.

He found Kise, flushed, rubbing a fresh tissue folded under his nose. When he saw Midorima he paused and simply held it there.

“All germ free?” Kise quipped, his voice somewhat muffled, by the tissue or congestion, Midorima couldn’t tell.

“For now” Midorima muttered, and immediately wanted to bang his face on the nearest available surface. That made it seem like he’s encouraging this outrageous interaction. “And no thanks to you” He added, without much heat.

Kise pouted, apparently some things didn’t outgrow junior high, or pre-school, for that matter.

“Midorimachi’s the one who got so close” Kise scrunched up his nose, tissue still tucked under it “I would’ve used my hands to cover you know. I’m not Aomine”

“It’s unsanitary” Midorima mumbled out a, even to his ears, pathetic excuse, but Kise didn’t seem to notice. In fact he seemed a bit unsteady on his feet. Midorima frowned. He did say he was sick.

“Just how sick are you?” He tried his best to sound less concerned, and more annoyed, but failed spectacularly.

“Honestly…I feel terrible” Kise sounded as awkward and unsure as he did whenever anything required him to be honest “Can I sit?”

Midorima gestured impatiently at him to sit in the so called ‘patient chair’ and pulled up the ‘patient’s family or friend’ chair, as so inelegantly dubbed by one of his subordinates, since the ‘doctor chair’ was one enormous oak table away from the ‘patient chair’.

“You should be in bed” Midorima muttered, palm flat across Kise’s heated forehead, sweat making blonde strands cling on to his flushed skin.

Kise sniffed dolefully, possibly overdramatically, but his burning up forehead was sending more serious signals. Midorima frowned, he certainly had a fever, should check with a thermometer to be sure, how high exactly. Would a prescription be needed? Or would over-the-counter cold pills do the job?

“Wait, wait, huhh…wait, just turn away for a second…!”

“What?” Midorima was so immersed in his professionalism that he lost track of other unworldly desires for a minute there.

“Just turn..Hiih..hiiihHH--“ He grabbed tissue after tissue from the box and pressed them all clumsily over his nose and mouth.

Midorima didn’t even have the time to think about backing away.

“Hiiiktshsh! Hishsh-Hishsh! HiiKKtshsh!!” He was sneezing straight into the tissue this time and Midorima couldn’t feel any hint of spray, not even from his imagination (everyone always said he had none to speak of), but Kise was right in front of him, his face contorting and flushing over and over again, and did he mention right in front of him, face inches from his own? There was no way he could possibly take it.

He stood up abruptly and distanced himself. A lot.

“Hiiihkshshsh!! HHHKshshsh!!”

To the opposite end of the room, to be more specific.

“You’re a terrible doctor” Kise moaned when he was done, his congestion so strikingly obvious in his voice “You left your patient hanging out to dry”

“You’re not my patient” Midorima reminded him, as he inched back to Kise “Are you done?” He surveyed cautiously, and was rewarded with a vague sound of agreement mixed with sniffles.

Midorima picked up the remains of the tissue box and thrust it in Kise’s general direction

“Here, use these”

Kise plucked one and wiped the moist space between his nose and upper lip obediently.

“No, I mean…”Try as he could Midorima couldn’t actually verbalize what he did mean “…use them!”

“Oh, no, I can’t, any more and my nose will start to hurt” He dabbed it so gently with the tissue that Midorima suspected it must already be aching quite a bit.

He sat back down on the ‘patient’s family or friend’s chair with a bit more resolve.

“If you need to sneeze again, warn me first” He mandated, ignoring Kise’s melodious whines of ‘But I triiiied!’. “And turn away before you do. And cover up. And get up and walk to the other side of the room, preferably”

“So mean, Midorimachi, so cold!”

--

“It’s just a cold, as I predicted” Midorima reported after a few minutes than strictly necessary of an examination, in a way he hoped spelt out ‘you’re wasting my time for nothing, you utter imbecile’ quite clearly. But Kise was in no shape to decode Midorima’s meaningful glares right now.

“Kise, go home” Midorima sighed, suddenly so very tired. “Just looking at you exhausts me. I’ll call you a cab”

“What, you’re kicking me out already?” Kise pouted half-heatedly, but staying at Midorima’s office was not going to make him any less sick, and he seemed to understand that as well. “Thank you for today anyway. It must’ve been horrible for you, I know I was disgusting” he sniffed wetly as if to prove his point.

“Anyways, what I wanted to say is that really appreciate it. Not kicking me out upon sight, and only kicking me out a little later, that is~” Kise sparkled at him the way only he could, sick or not, it still had the same effect, and Midorima couldn’t do anything against the surge of guilt that flared inside him. “Sorry again for ruining your day with my gross sneezes”

“I didn’t mind” Midorima admitted, if only to appease his unneeded guilt, and it was not over kicking him out. “I…It was just you, and…” I liked it

“I…” liked it “didn’t mind…because…” Midorima took a deep breath, he was starting to repeat himself “because it was you and…” I. Liked. It.

Kise waited, and Midorima…just couldn’t make his mouth form the words, couldn’t even get his mind to acknowledge those impossible thoughts.

“…There was sanitizer”

--

A/N: I actually had quite a bit of fun writing this. I also managed to break a new record on my speed (so please forgive any errors that may have been a side effect of the speed!) I have vague plans of adding more to this… so we'll see~

Please leave a word or two (or more!) telling me what you think, I’d appreciate it, really!

[Pyrus_Fangmon]

*giggles frantically* Tooooo cuuuuuute!

[snuffles]

ROFLOLOL that last part was perfect! It has me still smiling stupidly LOL!

I haven't even watch Kuroko no Basket even though everyone and their brother tells me to. This might just have pushed me over the ledge LOL!

[Kshu]

I loveddddd it!

[LeapYearKisses]

Poor, tongue-tied Midorimachi! Oh how I do love to watch characters with the fetish suffer... This is just lovely!

[melonbun]

I loved the anime, but wasn't familiar with the "GOM Character Bible future jobs" thing. . . though still *thoroughly* enjoyed reading this!

Really well-written and those spellings Digging the cute Midorima/Kise interactions~

[AnteatersOnParade]

Loved this! Very well-done!