Finals Flu (Yuri!! On Ice)

[Chickadee365]

Hey guys!

So this little thing has been sitting on my computer for a while so I figured, what the heck, might as well post my first story   this lump of fluff takes place during Yuri  K. and Phichit's university years, while they were training together in Detroit. 

Hope you enjoy ! 

     All Yuri Katsuki wants to do is sleep. No, even better—he wants to take a long, hot soak in his family’s bath before curling up in his bed with a fluffy blanket and Vicchan at his feet before falling into a deep, blissful sleep. Instead, he’s sitting at his cluttered desk in his dimly lit dorm room at 2 A.M. in freezing Detroit, typing feverishly at his computer in order to finish a huge paper he has due for his 10 A.M. class the next morning. His professor had been extremely strict about the deadline—no extensions, no excuses. No paper, no pass. As if the anxiety that’s pooled hot in his stomach from the fast-approaching due date isn’t enough, the poor guy is all bunged up with one of those stress-induced, end-of-semester colds. The old heater in the room is doing a crap job at keeping him warm, and despite the oversized college sweatshirt he’s huddled up in and the fuzzy socks on his feet, his thin frame is trembling. The space between his eyes is throbbing and his throat is raw from the frequency of the soft, congested coughs that keep creeping up on him, no matter how many cough drops he pops into his mouth. Having to resort to breathing exclusively through his mouth because his nose is completely stuffed up does nothing but exacerbate the tickle in his throat. What’s worse is that, even though it feels like he has wads of cotton lodged up his nasal passages, his nose just won’t stop running. Every couple of minutes he tries to stuffily sniffle back the clear fluid that threatens to drip down his lip, but the effort is essentially futile; again and again, he has to stop typing in order to hastily snatch up one of the many crumpled tissues scattered across his desk and run it underneath the flushed, chapped skin of his nose to stem the flow. He’d been trying to avoid blowing his nose; the stuffy, congested sound he’d emit from blowing all the crud out of his head would likely wake up his roommate, Phichit, who’s sleeping soundly on the top bunk of their shared beds. The worst thing he can possibly imagine doing is disturb poor Phichit, who’d been studying all day for an exam he had at 8 A.M. the next morning. As if he doesn’t feel like a big enough bother to the Thai boy. He really doesn’t want to seem needy or pitiful to the boy who always has his back—or worse, a nuisance. He’s glad that the tapping sounds from his quick typing aren’t enough to rouse Phichit from his slumber. Only a few more pages more, now…

     Of course, things can’t just be easy or simple for Yuri Katsuki. Because another thick sniffle ignites a furious tickle deep within his swollen nasal passages so strong that it makes his tired eyes water.

     “hhehh!” he gasps breathily, immediately pulling his palm, curled up in the sleeve of his sweatshirt, to his flaring nostrils. The tickle only grows stronger, no matter how desperately he begs the universe to make it go away, and he finds his tired eyes squeezing shut on their own accord, his chapped lips parting. He only has a second to pinch his pink, glistening nostrils shut before the tickle wins over and his head flies forward with a powerful, “hehh-NGGkxt!”

 

     Trying to stifle was a huge mistake. Not only does trying to hold the sneeze back make the ache behind his eyes grow in size, but it only serves to feed the intense itch in his sinuses. Before he can even fully recover from the first draining sneeze, he’s bobbing again with another forceful, “hhahNGKTchh-uhh”

 

     Of course, all of the gunk that he’d been desperately trying to snuffle back the whole night was no match for the power of his sickly sneezes, and the exhausted boy’s nose practically exploded, his sweatshirt sleeve no match for the viscous fluid that now coated his poor sweatshirt sleeve and bottom lip. Still, the dam inside his nose had not completely broken, and thus, the appendage decided it was not quite done tormenting Yuri just yet.

     All it took was a final gurgling, involuntary sniffle for another burning tickle to shoot down from his septum to the soft, round tip of his reddened nose.

     “ughh...” he whimpers softly as his congested chest expands with a shuddering breath. His leaky nostrils, usually small and round, flare to twice their size, revealing the slick, irritated tissue inside. “hh-ahh!”

 

     Crap.

 

“Hhahh-ISSCHHhiew!”              

 

     The sneeze is messy and powerful—the sheer sickly force of it has him hunched over, trying to stifle chesty coughs into his dampened sleeve as he fumbles to grab a fresh tissue or five from his quickly-depleting tissue box through watery eyes. 

     “Bless you,” a soft, sleepy voice calls out to him through the darkness.

     Crap!

     He’d managed to wake Phichit up. Good job, Yuri. Guilt pools hot and heavy in his stomach, and he doesn’t turn around to meet the Thai boy’s eyes as he quickly tries to mop up the mess that’s accumulated on his face. 

     “S-Sorry, Phichit. I didn’t mean to—“ Yuri tries to stammer in apology until his voice catches and triggers another round of hacking coughs that leave him hunched over with his soiled tissues pressed tightly against his nose and mouth.

     Yuri’s so occupied with trying to keep his lungs from bursting out of his chest that he doesn’t notice Phichit toss his covers aside and clamber down the rickety ladder from his top bunk. The ailing boy freezes when a warm hand presses into his back, rubbing soothing circles.

     “Poor Yuri. You sound awful,” Phichit sighs.

     Yuri’s cheeks and ears immediately flush red hot with embarrassment as he whips around to look at the boy standing behind him. Great! How pitiful does he look now?

     “You should be in bed, Yuri,” Phichit scolds with a disapproving click of the tongue. The reprimand makes the Japanese boy flush even deeper, lowering the clump of tissues from his face to reveal a sheepish smile.

     “I know, I know. But I have a paper to finish that’s due in the morning. I can’t afford to sleep right now,”

     “Why don’t you email your professor and ask for an extension? I mean, you’re really sick, Yuri, I’m sure she’ll—“

     Yuri shakes his head, “No, no extensions. Professor Adams was really firm about that.”

     Phichit opens his mouth to say something, but Yuri hoarsely continues before he can get a word in, “I’m sorry again that I woke you up. You should get back to bed so you’re well-rested for your exam tomorrow. I’m almost finished here, and I promise that I’ll go to sleep as soon as I finish.”

     Yuri smiles hopefully at Phichit, who returns a discontented look. But of course, the smaller boy understands his situation, so though he’s unsatisfied with his answer, he gives Yuri a little nod in response and turns to climb back into bed.

     As he continues to type away at his computer, returning to the same sniffle-cough-wipe pattern as before, Yuri can tell it took Phichit quite some time to fall back to sleep; he could see the dim light of Phichit’s smart phone illuminating the pile of blankets he was laying under at one point and, even after he’d shut it off, he couldn’t hear the slow, steady breaths characteristic of sleep coming from his little blanket nest. He won’t do well on his exam tomorrow because he’ll be too tired, and it’ll all be because of me.

 

     His old friend anxiety creeps up on him yet again, stemming from his guilt, making his belly flip-flop and his small frame tremble even harder than the freezing temperature was. His mind races with thoughts of self-loathing and blame, making it incredibly difficult to focus on the topic of his paper until, finally, he can hear soft little snores among the humming of the old heater.

     Thank goodness.

 

 

 

     By the time Yuri finishes his paper and prints it out an hour and a half later, he’s completely drained. His head had begun to throb at the tempo of his heartbeat, and his chest is just as irritated as his runny nose. Still, even though he feels absolutely miserable, he falls into an uneasy sleep the moment his aching head hits his pillow.

     His fitful sleep is only fully broken when the blaring of his phone’s alarm clock begins to make his head thrum with pain. After turning off his alarm, he savors the moment of silence, shutting his burning eyes once again. He feels like utter hell; he’s sleep deprived and sicker than he’d felt a few hours before, but it’s 9:30 am—time to get up and head to class to hand in the paper he’d slaved over just last night. He thrusts his hand over to his bedside table, blindly feeling for his glasses. But his eyes snap open when his hand hits warm ceramic instead.

     When he looks over, his heart swells. There, on his bedside table, is a mug of tea and a little handwritten note with his name scrawled across the top. He picks up the note first.

“Yuri,

 

Don’t you dare get out of bed today!

 

Seriously! Don’t worry about your paper—I saw it on your desk and brought it to your professor’s office for you. She says she hopes you feel better!

 

Anyway, drink your tea and get some sleep. You definitely need it!

 

I’ll see you later tonight at practice (if you’re feeling well enough, of course!),

 

—Phichit”

 

     And by his signature, of course, is a little drawing of a grinning hamster.

    Yuri couldn’t help the mistiness that fills his eyes and blurs his vision. He’s not sure what he did to deserve such a wonderful friend, but god, was he grateful to have him. It was the little moments like these that made Yuri feel, despite all of the anxious internal monologues telling him otherwise, that people did love him, awkwardness and anxiety and all.

     When Phichit returns to his room later in the day, he finds Yuri still asleep, a small smile still on his lips.

Edited January 6, 2017 by Kaze wo Hiku

[Chickadee365]

Whoops, forgot to include the fact that this was a Yuri on Ice fic in the title... could a mod please kindly fix this for me? Thanks<3

[Kaze Wo Hiku]

Titled edited

[LiveToBeMe]

Oh my goodness, this was BEAUTIFUL. I'm such a sucker for sick Yuuri, I adore this so much. This is such a good story for it being your first one! I absolutely loved it 

[lilysneeze]

Yes very very good!  So much so that I love to read more of this scenario

[Spoo]

I already flailed about this piece on tumblr, buuuuut ajsdklfaklsdfs;  The world needs more Yuuri/Phichit friendship fics (and more fics with sick!Yuuri). I loved every single thing, from Yuuri not wanting to wake up Phichit to Yuuri feeling extremely grateful to have someone like Phichit in his life.  Also, those cold descriptions and messy sneezes (the build up to the last sneeze he couldn't stifle...mmmnffff ) were just amazing. Thank you so much for writing this and sharing!  

[Chickadee365]

On 1/6/2017 at 2:26 AM, lilysneeze said:

Yes very very good!  So much so that I love to read more of this scenario

Thank you so much<3!!! So glad you liked it!

On 1/6/2017 at 0:14 AM, LiveToBeMe said:

Oh my goodness, this was BEAUTIFUL. I'm such a sucker for sick Yuuri, I adore this so much. This is such a good story for it being your first one! I absolutely loved it 

Ahhh, you're making me blush !!! Thanks so much for the love! I'm super glad you enjoyed it :D<3!!!

On 1/6/2017 at 8:52 AM, Spoo said:

I already flailed about this piece on tumblr, buuuuut ajsdklfaklsdfs;  The world needs more Yuuri/Phichit friendship fics (and more fics with sick!Yuuri). I loved every single thing, from Yuuri not wanting to wake up Phichit to Yuuri feeling extremely grateful to have someone like Phichit in his life.  Also, those cold descriptions and messy sneezes (the build up to the last sneeze he couldn't stifle...mmmnffff ) were just amazing. Thank you so much for writing this and sharing!  

sdjajfafkfjflkdsop!!! oh my gosh, all of those lovely glow-y words from the queen of yoi fics?? (seriously, your fics absolutely KILL me.) you're making ME flail here!! I'm so happy to hear you liked it ! I definitely have a few more college-years Yuri and Phichit ideas I'd love to explore soon