Arian had had better weekends. Okay so maybe a runny nose wasn’t the biggest of deals, but they certainly weren’t very fun, especially when it felt like it was constantly streaming like his was.

The dark-haired teen had thought nothing of it when he had started sniffling a few days ago – sniffles that had quickly developed into full blown sneezing complete with runny nose. It was after all still just about winter and there seemed to be some sort of bug going around – not really surprising given the time of year – although getting drenched during the after events of the evening meteor shower picnic probably hadn’t helped his chances of avoiding it.

Still it wasn’t like he hadn’t had bugs before so Arian had simply asked Saffy where she’d put the ibuprofen tablets, taken a couple for the headache he was feeling, dug out the box of man-size tissues from behind the television and suffered through his cousin’s leek and potato soup.

The problem was that the headaches seemed to come and go, his runny nose just didn’t seem to want to stop and his nose felt like it was almost constantly red since he was almost continuously having to blow it – seriously those pocket packet tissues had become his new best friend, although even the ones that were supposed to soothe and help decongest the nose didn’t seem to be doing much to halt the icky runniness despite the fact that Arian was going through what felt like packets and packets of the stuff.

Given that runny noses were gross, but not life threatening and the headaches were not the ‘oh god just let me die’ type Saffy had deemed him fit for school so Arian was still heading to and from class, those pocket tissues and the 6 tablet strip of ibuprofen tablets taken from the packet of twelve quickly becoming new must-haves for his bag.

Then there was the soup – his cousin had decided that the runny nose was the beginning signs of a cold and that the best way for the dark-haired teen to get rid of it was simple – hot soup. Arian had had soup the past few nights – leek and potato, tomato, minestrone… And they had all had one thing in common – they had tasted god awful! Soup was just not Saffy’s thing and apart from the leek and potato soup that had been more of a thick mush-type substance, the rest of the soups had been more of a coloured watery-type substance. As Arian didn’t have the heart to tell his cousin the truth – that her soup sucked – the dark-haired teen had ended up choking down more bowls of the stuff than he really wanted to think about.

After packing the last of his stuff for the day’s classes into his rucksack, Arian paused long enough to toss the latest batch of used tissues in the bin before heading to school. As he walked the by now familiar route to Meadowview, the dark-haired teen hoped that that his runny nose would go away and soon. While it was true that the runny nose wouldn't do him in – Arian wasn't sure he could say the same about his cousin’s well intentioned attempts at making soup.

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