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Kaoru had a single thing in mind. Conquer that curve, he had done so many times in the past, but after being but in a wheelchair -thanks Adam for that- he was having rather some trouble getting back to skate.
No, his balance wasn't off. No, he didn't suddenly forget how to skate... This was different, annoying, distracting, but he wouldn't let Adam take skating away from him, he wasn't letting the bitch keep messing with his life anymore.
He could feel the wind dancing in his hair, colliding against his clothes, all he could see was but a blur of his surroundings due to the speed he was going at.
"Carla!" He called.
"Balance is on point, speed just right. Probability of success: 85% and increasing. The odds are in your favour, sir"
"All right"
He could already taste his success, he bent his knees preparing to take the curve.
"Didn't that race teach you that you're not cut out for this? ... Or do you liked that wheelchair so much you wanna go back to spend your days sitting on it?"
There again. That voice. Adam's stupid mocking voice.
"Shut up! I'm not listening to your bullshit" he kept his focus. He was close.
Images started flashing through his mind. So clear he was sure he could almost touch them.
The race.
Adam.
Him getting hit.
Falling.
Shouting.
Loosing his consciousness.
He shut his eyes. So close, so close. He knew this trail like the palm of his hand. He could conquer it blindfolded.
He kept his eyes shut so tight he could only see black.
"Sir. That is a dangerous approach. Your stress levels are abnormally high. I would recommend against continuing the race."
He paid no mind.
The images kept flooding his mind.
So close, so close.
Another skateboard... Kojiro? The kids? ... No, it didn't sound like them... It sounded just like... Adam!
Kaoru opened his eyes, only to be met with the sight of Adam's skateboard heading straight to his face.
He dodged.
"Stability of the skateboard: critical... Risk of-"
...Crash...
"Fuck!" He muttered to himself.
"Cherry!".... that ought to be Reki's voice.
"Kaoru!" Ah. That was Kojiro.
He heard the sound of rapid footsteps heading towards him.
"Are you okay?"
"What happened?."
"Oh my god, you're bleeding."
The kid's voices kept overlaying. He could barely make out the words.
"Kaoru!" Kojiro's face was covered in worry. "What was that? Why would you close your eyes going at that speed?" Have you gone nuts?"
He didn't feel like answering... So perhaps it had been stupid. Perhaps it had been reckless. So what's with that? He didn't need others scolding him about it. He was no kid.
He stood up. Wow, ok that was a mistake. He instantly felt dizzy.
"Careful there" Kojiro supported him so he wouldn't fall. "That was a nasty fall… Seriously Kaoru, what happened? If you're pushing yourself after being injured-"
"I'm fine. Carla miscalculated. That's all."
"My calculations were precise." The robotic voice answered. He had never wished he could kick his skateboard to the other side of the planet so much.
"I said it's fine." He replied dryly.
"What about your bleeding?" Will it be alright?" Langa asked in a serious tone.
"It doesn't hurt, it's barely a scratch... Although it could interfiere with my work, people would wonder how I got such a scratch in the middle of my face. But I'm officially still in recovery so I guess I won't have to appear in public any time soon."
"Kaoru." Kojiro again. It was no good, he had that look on his face. Kaoru knew he wouldn't stop asking till he got an answer and not any answer, an honest one.
...
"I'll go back to fix Carla's circuits to see what went wrong. Good bye everyone."
He turned around and started walking. Kojiro followed silently behind him.
"Kaoru."
"Not now, not here."
They got to the car, not a word was said on the way home.
They arrived to their garage. Exited the car. Got into the living room. Everything was done out of habit, not a single thought behind any action.
"Okay. We're home now. Explain."
"I saw Adam." He declared.
"What-?" He stopped for a moment. Thinking. "Alright, I guess Imma need more than that."
"While I was skating. That's why I crashed. I saw Adam hitting me with his skateboard. I closed my eyes to stop seeing him but when I opened them again, I lost my balance, tried to avoid getting hit and fell."
"Oh... Is that why you've been having trouble skating? How long has this been going on?"
It hurt to admit but the truth is, it wasn't new. "It is. It wasn't as bad, but today it spiralled out of my control."
"Why didn't you tell me earlier?"
"Because I hate it, ok? I hate that that fucker can mess with my life so much. He thinks he can suddenly come back and fuck everything I worked for. He left that was it, and I had made peace with that fact. But he literally comes and punches me on the face -quite literally- and won't let me live my life in peace and I- I..." Kaoru's voice was trembling and he was mad and he wanted to punch Adam. He wanted to go back and keep skating and he wanted those damned flashbacks out of his mind. S was his thing, he worked for it, he couldn't let Adam take it, take skateboarding from him. He wanted him out of his mind, out of his life, out of the country if possible.
Kaoru's thoughts were abruptly stopped by the feeling of Kojiro's arms wrapping around him and pulling him into an embrace.
"I know." Kojiro whispered in his ear. And that was all he needed. And he knew Kojiro understood, he was probably the only person in the whole world who did. And he was grateful because it didn't matter how much Adam wanted to mess with him, he could take his whole life with him if he wanted but he wouldn't be able to take Kojiro from him.
He didn't know when he started crying but he could feel his face burning and wet from the tears. Kojiro reached out and wiped a tear from his cheek.
"I'll make us some dinner." Kojiro pressed a light kiss against his temple and ran towards the kitchen.
Having unpacked all the stress from earlier, Kaoru made a bee line to the couch and closed his eyes. His head was throbbing and he felt as though a whole set of drums were banging inside his brain. Finally resting he could feel his body hurting all over from the fall.
He realized he must look like a mess and so he gathered all that was left of his strength and dragged himself to their bathroom.
To say he looked horrible was an understatement. His cheek was indeed hurt, with the blood already having dried.
Changing his clothes he found out he looked even worse. There was a bruise forming at his side, right next to his ribs and his knees were also scrapped, and the blood had caused his clothes to cling to them, making it painful to take them off.
He took a quick back to wash away the dirt and dried blood he had on him and changed into a clean set of clothes, then headed to the kitchen.
"It's smells nice. What are you making?"
"Cacio e pepe." Kojiro replied then went back to his cooking. He always acted so serious when he cooked so Kaoru left him alone.
Kaoru was really looking forward for the meal, his stomach growled and the smell was only making him hungrier.
Finally the food was ready, it seemed delicious like everything Kojiro made. To be completely honest, he wasn't a huge fan of Italian food, his tastes always leaned more to the tradicional side...he was a huge fan of Kojiro Nanjo tho and every time he had his food he fell a little harder for him.
He took a small bite of his plate and what met him wasn't the sweet taste of Kojiro's cooking but a piercing pain that went through his skull.
He swallowed his bite of the cacio e pepe in one piece and almost choked, being unable to even taste the flavour.
He tried again and the pain was even worse this time. He kept taking small bites and every time the pain would come and he would swallow them whole to avoid suffering any longer. His expression conveying the pain he felt.
"Did you not like it?"
"What?" He forced himself to say through the pain.
"The food. Was it not good? Did you not like it?" Kojiro looked like a kicked puppy saying those words.
"No! No, it was good, great as always. I just- I'm not hungry."
Kojiro arched a brow. "You always finish your food, even if you're not hungry. That's just how you always do."
And oh didn't his husband know him all too well. "Seriously, it's fine. It has nothing to do with the food. I'm just not feeling great."
Kojiro kept staring at him until he finally grew tired of waiting for a better answer and continued to eat his own plate of food. Kaoru kept him company until he finished, not eating more of his food. He reached out for his water, but apparently that also triggered the pain, so he ditched his glass of water too.
When Kojiro finished his food they moved on to wash the dishes together, like they always did.
Kaoru headed to the bathroom to brush his teeth. It was absolute torture. The bristles of his toothbrush felt like saw blades grinding against his teeth.
He digged through the cabinet and found some ibuprofen, he chugged two in one go. The pain didn't stop but it did get better. It now felt like a whisper of pain, leaning more towards a discomfort than the actual pain he had been feeling.
It still hurt when he pressed his face though. Kaoru had the habit of sleeping on his side, but even against the soft surface of his pillow he could feel his face aching.
The pain kept getting worse as the days passed. Even taking some medication it would persist. And now it wasn't only when he ate or when he touched his face.
What felt like a tingling sensation evolved into a piercing pain. It hurt even if he wasn't touching his face. When he slept, when he switched between sitting down and standing up, when he crouched down. Everything hurt. But the worse part was eating, every bite, any food he ate was like chewing rocks.
The longer he tried to ignore his problem the more excruciating his pain would become.
That's until one morning he woke up hurting more than ever.
"Morning." Kojiro kissed him.
"Mn." He tried to say something else but the minute he went to open his mouth he instantly regretted it.
"Kaoru?"
"Mn." He turned his face to look at Kojiro. Even such a small motion sent needles through his skull.
Instant fear and worry clouded Kojiro's expression.
"Kaoru... What happened to your face? Why is it swollen like that?"
Kaoru reached to touch his face, it was hot to the touch and of course it hurt to touch it. It did feel swollen too. He raced to the bathroom to look himself in the mirror. The sight that met him was atrocious, he looked terrible, like an overinflated red balloon.
Kojiro opened their bathroom door. "We're seeing a doctor. Now."
"You-" it hurt to talk, he could feel his tongue heavy in his mouth, touching each of his teeth and worsening the pain. "You have to work." His words sounded lazy, like a child learning how to speak, he couldn't articulate the words right.
"No. I have to take you to a dentist as soon as possible."
"Dentist?"
"Yes, dentist. Something definitely is wrong, don't think I haven't noticed all of the ibuprofen suddenly disappearing from the cabinet. Or how you've barely been eating, or avoiding sleeping on your side even if that's the only way you can fall asleep. I knew something was up with you but I expected you would accept it before it got this bad, and it's definitely related to your mouth. So yeah, we're going to the dentist."
Once again, Kojiro knew him all too well.
"I'm fine." He insisted.
"You're fin- oh my god don't even try. You're not fine. This, the fever, the swell, it isn't normal and you know it. We can talk later when you've regained some sense and are not swollen like a chipmunk."
The car ride was awkward. Kojiro was serious, he kept his eyes glued to the road while he wore a worried expression.
But it was fine. Kaoru was fine. There was nothing wrong with him.
No, nothing, all clear, perfectly fine. Nothing a few more ibuprofen couldn't fix.
Sure there was a bit of pain. But he had had worse. Hell, he just spent almost a month glued to a wheelchair and you don't see him complaining about it. He could take it. The swollen face was a problem though, but he had been pressing an ice bag to his cheek since they left the house and it already felt much better. It would probably go away on its own.
... He was fine.
They arrived early at the clinic and the doctor told them he was going to see them right away.
"Oh. I found the problem. There's a piece of your molar that's missing." The doctor said while inspecting kaoru's mouth."
Needless to say Kaoru was quite unable to speak at the moment, with all the dentist stuff inside his mouth, so he just shot a glance as his partner hoping he could decipher what emotions and thoughts he wanted to convey.
"What do you mean a piece is missing?" Kojiro translated perfectly.
"Well, teeth are fragile structures, they can suffer fractures or even break if put under some kind of extreme stress. Do you know if he suffered some kind of injury later, a hit, a fall, anything that could impact his mouth really?"
Both Kaoru and Kojiro's minds went to his fall a few days ago. And it made sense, that's when the pain started, that very night.
"Anyways. We will need to do an x-ray to see if it's only superficial or if it got to affect the nerve, in which case he'll need a root canal procedure. Judging by the looks of it I'd dare say that's what we're working with but we need the confirmation. How long did you say you've been feeling this pain?"
Kaoru still couldn't speak, so he held seven fingers signaling the doctor. Seven days, a whole week.
"Well, that would explain why it got this bad. It's better to come to the clinic as soon as possible when something like this occurs. The fever and swelling are caused by an infection, thankfully it's only the begging of it and it hasn't got too severe or the procedure might be a lot more complicated."
They waited the whole morning for the x-rays results. And it was after noon that the doctor called them again.
"So just as we suspected, a root canal procedure will be necessary, it's okay, it's not a risky procedure and won't even need to be totally sedated. We do need to prescribe some antibiotics for the infection. About the food, it's better just sticking to soft foods for the following days. Nothing too cold or too hot as sensitivity will be present but it is perfectly normal."
Kojiro waited for him the whole afternoon and stood up hurriedly the moment he saw Kaoru return from the doctor's room.
"How are you feeling?" He asked in a sweet tone.
Kaoru swallowed his pride. It wouldn't have gotten this bad if he had come to the clinic from the start of told Kojiro about it. "Better."
The words came out all sloppy and tangled. The anesthesia still hadn't work off and so he couldn't get his words right.
"Hahahaha." Kojiro's laugh was hysterical. "What was that again?"
Kojiro wanted to retaliate but not trusting his own body, he decided to poke his tongue at Kojiro, but since he couldn't even feel his tongue to begin with he just ended up looking like a drunk xoloitzcuintle.
That only made Kojiro laugh louder till he was almost out of breath.
It was already nighttime when they got home. Kaoru was exhausted and wanted to pass out on their bed as soon as possible. He was starting to feel like his tongue belonged to him again instead of it feeling possessed by some entity that wanted to mess with him.
He layed in bed for a while. His eyes closed. Waiting for Kojiro to return from doing heaven knows what. Now that he thought about it, he was probably eating. They had spent the whole day at the doctor's do they hadn't been able to eat. Kojiro had survived the day on granola bars but that big ass man would collapse if he ate nothing but granola bars in a day. Kaoru himself didn't feel much like eating, there was no much he could have either. So he remained laying in bed contemplating the ceiling.
That until he heard the door open. Kojiro standing at the other side of the threshold with two bowls of... honestly he couldn't see what was in the bowls from that angle and distance, least without his glasses.
Kaoru sat up and Kojiro settled into a corner of the bed, passing him one of the bowls.
Kaoru took the bowl and his hands and was met with a pastel green and pink ice cream... "Where did you get pink and green ice cream? I've never seen any. Where did you even get it? All stores are closed by this hour."
"Who said anything about buying, you're insulting me. I made it with my own hands just for you...and well a bit for me, but I get the benefit cause I'm the creator of this magnificent strawberry matcha flavored ice cream." He smiled proudly and oh just how much Kaoru loved that smile. "Oh, although I did get it melt a little, so it wouldn't be as cold and cause you any problems, so it should be alright for you to eat it."
Kaoru took a small bite of his own bowl of ice cream. Just as expected. It was great, like everything Kojiro made. Everything Kojiro made for Kaoru to enjoy. He simply pressed a kiss on Kojiro's forehead and muttered a soft thank you.
Kojiro smiled again. His smile was always so bright. Then for a moment his expression changed and he looked away.
"What's bothering you?" Kaoru asked.
Kojiro looked reluctant for a moment then spoke in a barely audible and serious tone, kind of uncharacteristic of Kojiro. "About Adam...and your flashbacks..."
"It'll be okay." Kaoru interrupted. Not because he was pushing away his discomfort once again, but because he knew it would be alright as long as Kojiro was by his side. "We'll figure it out."
At that, Kojiro seemed to relax and took another mouthful of ice cream, his smile returning to his face one again. "Yeah. We will."
They fell into a comfortable silence as they finished their ice cream. A very nice ice cream one might add.
Yes. They would be okay.