4 ❀ 花吐き病

[konnosuke]

H A N A H A K I ✿

Hanahaki is a fictional disease in which the victim coughs up flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love. It ends when the beloved returns their feelings (romantic love only; strong friendship is not enough), or when the victim dies. It can be cured through surgical removal, but when the infection is removed, the victim's romantic feelings for their love also disappear.

Comments

[harai]

[...Of course it's him. All their time spent together becomes a clearer memory now, focusing on Nikkari's presence in particular and everything he's ever done, everything he's ever said, every look he's given Ishikirimaru - or withheld - and it all makes a great deal of agonizing sense.

Ishikirimaru may not have known what to do before, but now he's completely at a loss, and his body goes rigid as he processes those two simple words. It's him. It's his utter obliviousness that has sent Nikkari into this state. How could he have spent so much time with him and never realized? How could he have been so blind to everything?

It does help to explain his earlier feeling, though, that pang in his chest. Jealousy. What a fool he is. To be jealous of himself, of all things. Of all people!

But when Nikkari coughs again, more insistently this time, Ishikirimaru snaps out of his daze and pulls away enough to hold Nikkari more comfortably, as well as to get a better look at his face now. A face that is, even now in such desperate illness, so lovely, so elegant. But also a face that is pained and resigned. Ishikirimaru frowns and rubs his hand up and down Nikkari's back, trying to soothe though he knows it will do nothing for this kind of hurt.

Ishikirimaru is the cause of this, but now that he knows the truth, he is also the only one who can do something about it.]

...Forgive me.

[Oh...but that can sound like a rejection, can't it? He hurries onward.]

I've always known you were there and yet...somehow I never truly saw you until now.

[His hand trails upward to lightly brush over Nikkari's cheek. But there is a petal resting on his lips, leading to more scattered over his clothes and then countless that had fluttered aimlessly to the ground. So much yellow. Accusing. Blaming.

Killing.

Ishikirimaru takes a shaky breath, his voice quieter.]

Please...I pray I'm not too late.

[despirit]

[could it be true? could it be real and not his desperate mind clinging for anything that might keep him closer to life? he doesn't know - only that he wants to believe but he considers Ishikirimaru kind enough to go and feel obligated. hope extended to a man that could grasp at anything.]

...Do you...mean that?

[a question, a reprimand. don't lie to him, not in this state. he can accept the truth - to be able to say it is its own relief, though the flowers crowd his heart. Nikkari hopes, hopes it's real, that if he reaches out, Ishikirimaru will be there, but....there is the fear that has held him back the whole time, resurging. telling him to doubt. that it's hopeless now.]