Chapter Text
Naoya has never been around a sick person before.
He doesn’t get sick and he’s never near the ones in the clan that were weak enough to catch something from someone.
As a result, his wife’s sickness isn’t obvious at first. At the start, she cooks, cleans, and puts out like usual. She’s cheery without being overbearing or obnoxious.
However, at some point by the middle of the week, she starts to flag. She starts to sit down more, starts to clean less, and even starts hiding a mild cough in her handkerchief.
Naoya notices that much.
Just doesn’t care.
At least, he doesn’t care until he comes home from a meeting and finds his wife slumped over in the bathroom. She’s sitting on the tile floor in a light yukata, still as death as the tub behind her overflows. Naoya had been in a right state thanks to his wife not meeting him at the door and so he’d set off in a rage, stomping through the apartment as he called his wife’s name at the top of his lungs.
Finding her unconscious body sends a chill down his spine, quenching the flames of his rage immediately.
“Oi,” Naoya says, getting down on his knees in the water next to his wife’s body. He shakes her shoulder, gentle at first before he shakes her even harder. His wife doesn’t stir, and Naoya frowns as he watches her head loll back and forth on her neck. “Wake up, woman!”
For the first time since meeting him, Naoya’s wife does not obey him. She stays limp in his arms. Underneath her yukata, her chest barely rises and falls. Her breaths, when Naoya dips his head to hear them, come out in labored hisses of breath.
Fuck.
Naoya flings his left arm out without looking, feeling around until he can turn the tap off. He scoops his wife up into his arms a moment later, flinching as his forearm touches her searing hot skin. His first thought is to race to the elevator, bellowing for assistance from the penthouse down.
Then he remembers that he doesn’t want anyone to see his wife at all, much less vulnerable like this.
In the end, Naoya settles for laying his wife down atop their marital bed. Once he has her settled on the blankets beside him, Naoya snatches up the phone they keep on the nightstand and dials out.
At the sound of the concierge’s quiet voice, Naoya snarls at the man to,” Send a doctor up to the penthouse – wait – ”
Naoya pauses, glancing down at his wife’s well-shaped body in that sodden yukata. He’s suddenly torn between wanting a good doctor and a doctor that won’t lust after his wife’s body.
Eventually, however, he relents.
“Just send whoever you haven” Naoya bites out, trying to fight back the frantic wave of upset that wants to spill from his lips like acid. “My wife – my wife won’t wake up.” Naoya feels himself about to spiral. He has to force himself to focus. “Use the keycard when you bring him up. I won’t leave her –”
“Mmm.”
A quiet noise from beside Naoya startles him. Without thinking, he hangs up on the concierge and turns to face his wife. His wife who is now blinking up at him with bleary eyes.
“Naoya-sama,” his wife murmurs, her voice soft and scratchy. She reaches for him, hooking her small fingers in the cuff of his sleeve. “You’re home early. When did you –”
A sudden, violent cough tears through her before she can complete her sentence. She hacks and coughs, curling in on herself as her nails drive like daggers into Naoya’s wrist. As she spasms beside him, Naoya realizes that she’s likely drawn blood.
“Stupid woman,” Naoya says, scowling down at his wife.
Despite his sharp words, his voice is soft. More than that, Naoya can’t stop himself from touching her now that she’s awake and somewhat aware. He pats her back gently, trying to ease her pain as she settles into the mattress and sucks in deep breaths followed by audible wheezing. “Do you even know how to take care of yourself? Why did you let this get so bad?”
Once Naoya’s wife stops breathing heavily, she smiles up at him as if he can’t see the tears at the corners of her eyes or the sweat on her forehead.
“I’m fine,” she insists, already trying to push herself up to a seated position. “I’ll be fine. Just let me rest a bit, and I’ll make dinner, Naoya –”
Naoya cuts his wife off by laying her out and pinning her to the mattress.
“You’re gonna stay right here until a doctor sees you,” he says, voice barely controlled as his fingers dig into her shoulder. “Don’t get up.”
Naoya’s wife frowns up at him. She tries to wriggle away, but his grip doesn’t let up. “But dinner –”
“I’ll order fucking takeout if I need somethin’ to eat,” he snaps at her. “Don’t fucking move unless you want me to get really mad.”