Special Property (BxB)

Chapter 47. Hot and Cold

I remember one year that the flu spread throughout the dorms and St. Catherine's like the plague. It was rumored that almost half of the students had it, although the numbers were likely far less.

Our dorm was quarantined. The staff brought us plenty of blankets, food, water, juices, medicines, basically anything we needed to get better.

My roommate and I were good friends. I had a bit of a cold about two weeks before the quarantine but was currently healthy, and my roommate didn't have the flu either. We simply played games and talked. He had an acoustic guitar that he liked to play.

Classes were cancelled during that time, but the instructors still came to the dorms to hand out homework. I'm not sure if they were truly interested in education or simply to give us boys something to do. "Idle hands are the devil's workshop," so says the proverb. (Proverbs 16:27, The Living Bible).

—Personal experience of the influenza outbreak of 1995 at St. Catherine's

Day 8

Kato woke up to Tachibana's alarm clock blaring away. He got up and turned it off. Watanabe was gone already. He must have slept through the swap back. Tachibana was not here either. He got himself ready and went to breakfast.

Takahashi was there, and he gave a small smile and a nod. Kato smiled back, wondering what had gotten into Takahashi this morning.

He looked a Murata, who looked like he was half-dead. "You okay, Murata-san?"

"Yeah." He yawned. "Didn't get much sleep."

"Oh? Why not?"

"I swapped with Nakamura-san. You'd think that someone as quiet as him wouldn't have a lot to say, but you'd be wrong. He talked my ear off until the wee hours of this morning."

"What did you talk about?" Kato was curious.

"Oh, nothing heavy. Just about books we liked, music we liked, places we traveled to as kids, and the dumb things we did as kids to get in trouble with the parents."

"Ah, cool."

"We fell asleep together."

Kato choked on his food. "You what?"

Murata chuckled tiredly, "Yeah. We were both sitting on the same bunk and as he was telling a story, I dozed off. Apparently, he laid me down and then slept beside me."

Kato had a burning question that he just could not ask. But he also had a simple mind that almost anyone could read. "No, we did not have sex." Murata laughed.

Kato blushed at the implication Murata made that he was thinking dirty thoughts.

"Anyway, it was pleasant. He's got a big heart. He did not do anything to me without my permission. He respected my boundaries."

"Are you going to have sex with him, though?"

Murata laughed. "Why, you wanna be there to watch?"

Kato blushed again and looked down at his food. "No," he squeaked out.

Murata was still laughing when he said, "No, I've only known him less than a week."

Kato realized that so much had gone on this past week that it, in fact, had only been a week since he arrived here, last Wednesday to be precise. It seemed like a month ago.

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Kato entered the classroom. The first thing he noticed was Handa and the bandage he had wrapped around his head. Serves the bastard right, he thought to himself. He walked to his seat and smiled at Takahashi who smiled back. Then he sat down.