Ah, I want to sleep a little longer...

The sunlight, softened by shining through the shoji screen, shone down on Reo's face. It was such a pleasant warmth that he wanted to surrender to it and stay like that, but he didn't want to risk getting a sunburn on his fair skin. He turned over and pressed his face tightly against the pillow. Just a little bit more, just a little longer...

"... Reo."

A low voice called his name. He knew it was time to get up, but even so...

"Reo, wake up."

"Alriiiight," Reo said, pretending he had just woken up even though he had already stirred. Hokusai was probably well-familiar with this charade, and Reo himself was under no illusion that he was fooling anyone. He stretched, and only then belatedly noticed that something was amiss.

The five of them, Reo included, lived together in this old Japanese-style house. It was always lively and full of chatter, but it was strangely quiet and still today.

"... Aniki is out at the moment. Satsuki, too," Hokusai said.

Unless something was really out of the ordinary, it was customary for all five of them to eat a meal together, prepared by Zen. It was odd for both Iori and Satsuki to be gone. It wasn't odd at all for Iori to not tell anyone where he was, but Reo couldn't help but wonder where Satsuki was. He said he had some personal business to attend to.

Satsuki, are you on a daaate~? Well, who cares? I'll just relish the fact that it's quiet!

Reo hummed to himself as he got dressed at a leisurely pace, but he felt somewhat ill at ease with the house this quiet. Then, he sniffed at the air like a little hamster.

"Hey, is Zen-nii here? Shouldn't he be making food right about now?" Reo asked aloud. Not only was the sound of people talking missing; so was the smell of appetizing food, which usually hung in the air right about now. Reo checked the time on his phone; it was 12:30. It was about the regular time to eat.

"... he's sleeping," said Hokusai.

"What do you mean?" Reo said. Ordinarily, a staunch and principled person like Zen would never sleep this late. Today was shaping up to be completely out of whack. Reo took in the odd atmosphere and furrowed his brow.

"... Reo, come here," said Hokusai.

Feeling uneasy, Reo followed Hokusai to Zen's room. There, they found him lying on his futon, moaning in pain.

"Urghhh..."

"Zen-nii, what's wrong? Are you sick?" Reo said, and he began to approach, but Hokusai pulled him back before he could get too close. Zen's face was pale; his breathing was labored, and his forehead was drenched in sweat.

As Hokusai told it, he had gone to the kitchen to help prepare lunch, and when Zen hadn't been there, he had felt uneasy. When he had come to Zen's room in search of him, this was what he had found.

"Zen-nii," Reo said, "are you okay? Do you hurt? Is there anything we can get for you?"

At being addressed, Zen opened his blurry eyes a little bit. "No... ugh... I'm fine... so..." he said, then shook his head a little, and his eyes slid closed again. His breathing was still belabored, but he seemed to have fallen back asleep.

"He doesn't seem to have a fever, though..." Hokusai said, looking at Reo. He expected to see Reo looking worried, but the way that he was met with the sight of Reo with his eyes wide and sparkly was actually a little amusing.

"Oh, this is bad!" Reo said. "What do we do!? Should we get him an ice pack? How do you make porridge!?" He couldn't just sit around and do nothing. He sprang to his feet and ran towards the kitchen. Hokusai followed him slowly.

As he slept, Zen was having a nightmare. In the dream, he was about to be swalloed up by a large, amorphous something. Just when dream-Zen had the thought that he was a goner--

Bang! Boom! Crash!

He was snapped back to reality by a cacophony of sound as, apparently, Reo started throwing open and slamming cupboards and the refridgerator door, knocking things over as he went. Distantly, Zen could hear Reo running his mouth, almost as if he were a little bit excited: "We don't have an ice pack. I'll just wet him a towel instead~!"

Reo came back in a short time. "Zen-nii! Here, to cool you off!" he announced, putting a wet cloth on Zen's forehead, and he wasn't entirely sure he wasn't back in the nightmare all over again. "I'm gonna make some porridge, so just hold on a second!"

And again he was off with springy footsteps. He didn't hear at all as Zen tried to call out to him: "Reo-ku... ugh, this rag..."

Hm, porridge takes a while to make, doesn't it? Reo thought. And how are you supposed to wash rice for, anyway? Aren't there any recipes you can do in, like, five minutes? I'll just search for "porridge in five minutes", and... oh, man, those sneakers are so cool~! I'll have to talk someone into buying them for me~...

As Reo flicked through his phone while on this train of thought, he heard the thudding of approaching footsteps from the front door.

"I'm ba~-- the fuck!? What the hell is going on here!?" Satsuki's announcement of his arrival got derailed by a yell of surprise as he was met with the sight of Reo playing on his phone, standing in the midst of a tremendous mess, and Hokusai standing there gormlessly with a dish that he broke in the middle of trying to wash it.

"Oi, monkey! No yelling!! Zen-nii's sick and trying to sleep it off!" Reo said.

"What? He's sick!?" Satsuki cried in dismay. "Hah?! And you're being totally useless! You don't know how to make porridge or clean up after yourself, you're just slacking off to play games on your phone!" Satsuki complained, setting himself quickly to cleaning up the mess, and delegating tasks to Hokusai as needed.

"I'm not playing games! I was just looking up a recipe for porridge," Reo said.

"Then show me your phone," Satsuki said.

"No way," Reo said with a pout, glancing away as Satsuki reached for his phone.

"You shouldn't have to Google it to know how to make porridge!" Satsuki said.

"Why not? Why should I devote precious memory space to a recipe for a porridge recipe I'm only gonna make like once? It's just more efficient to Google it every time. And besides, where the hell were you, Satsuki? Was it a date? ... of course it wasn't, you turbo-virgin."

"Shut the fuck up!" Satsuki yelled. "Zen-nii is sick, that's what matters! What are you supposed to do for a cold...? Are you supposed to cool them down, or warm them up...? Fuck! I've never had a cold! I don't know what you're supposed to do!" Satsuki put his head in his hands.

"Of course you haven't," Reo said mockingly to the agonizing Satsuki, "you're an idiot, after all, so you're immune."^[1]

Hokusai, who was so large that he was having to bend over to wash dishes, spoke in a surprisingly quiet voice: "I think it's good that your immune system is robust."

But it was completely drowned out by Satsuki howling, "shut the fuck up!! What about you!? All you've been doing is running your mouth without doing anything?!"

Reo was taken aback by Satsuki's accusation; he was right on the money. Satsuki, not used to actually having an advantage over Reo in a battle of wits, immediately noticed and leapt on the moment of weakness. "Good grief. You've gotten used to being spoiled, so the only thing you know how to do is flirt?" he said with a snicker. "That's what you get for growing up a rich boy."

"Satsuki," Hokusai said, his voice low but firm enough to turn the tide of the fight in a moment. Satsuki was taken aback in his turn by how little Hokusai had to say. Hurredly, he looked at Reo, but Reo was hanging his head and Satsuki couldn't see his face. Hokusai embraced the now-silent Reo and patted his head. "Satsuki, apologize?" Hokusai urged, and Satsuki had no good comeback for that.

Satsuki glanced around nervously. "... sorry," he muttered.

After a few more seconds of silence, Reo looked up from Hokusai's chest. "Anyway," he said with the lilt back in his voice, "I bet even I could make porridge better than you, Satsuki! In fact, I challenge you to that-- let's see who can make the better porridge. But, as a handicap, you're not allowed to look up a recipe," Reo said with a smile.

"... you're on, dumbass!" Satsuki said. "I'll whoop your ass one-handed!" He had a renewed vigor and swagger to his coarse declarations, but he was very obviously relieved. The environments they had been brought up in shouldn't matter, and Satsuki knew that as well as anyone. Until they had been picked up by Iori, they had all lived with loneliness and feelings of inadequacy that they couldn't have dealt with on their own. What he'd said had been out of line, and he was very glad that Hokusai was there to stop him before he said something harder to take back.

"Porridge is nothing," Reo said. "I bet I could even make udon from scratch and still win."

"Oh, so you're afraid to fight me on equal ground huh?" Satsuki taunted.

Reo ignored him. He wandered around the kitchen with phone in hand, murmuring where do we keep that? and where would this be?, and eventually, he pulled some ginger out of their stock of vegetables in the pantry. "So... first you just wash the vegetables and peel ginger... this stuff is easy!"

"Reo," Hokusai said, "don't use detergent."

"Three tablespoons of mentsuyu^[2]... How much is that? Well, whatever, I'll just put it in until it looks right," Reo said.

"Reo, that mentsuyu is triple-concentrated... ah..."

Hokusai was... well, his face was the same flat expression as usual, but Satsuki could plainly see that he was more than a little astonished at Ryo's lackadaisical approach to cooking. For Satuski's part, the egg porridge that he was making was nearing completion. It was a simple task for him; he helped Zen out with the housework on the regular.

Hokusai, so struck with despair over Reo's creative cooking, quietly admired Satsuki's quick work. However, Satsuki wasn't altogether sure yet. He tasted a bite of the egg porridge; it was really good, with well-seasoned soup stock and an understated taste so it wouldn't become overpowering no matter how much you ate.

But even so, Satsuki wasn't sure that this was really the ideal porridge. Would this really be what Zen-nii needed? He was primarily worried about the fact that Zen wasn't feeling well. Since he was a very healthy boy who had never caught a serious cold, the entire idea of being sick was out of the realm of his experience. There must be some ideal meal to serve to a sick person...

And then Satsuki had an idea. Wait, we've got it right here in the house, he thought to himself. Zen-nii's favorite thing to eat.

Hokusai watched on in stunned silence. He didn't understand much about cooking, but even he could tell that the two of them were going in wildly different directions, both of them wrong. He thought about Zen, sick in the other room, and quietly prayed for his safety. While he was doing this, he noticed his own growing hunger and checked the time.

It was time to feed the cat.

Hokusai quietly excused himself from the kitchen.