He doesn’t notice a change at first. How could he, when he has always felt so strongly for the younger Uchiha? And when Itachi lets Shisui carry him home on his back after a brutal sparring session, he doesn’t pay any mind to the warm feeling spreading in his chest. Itachi has always inspired such warmth in him. A small cough escapes from him and Shisui walks home faster. It was getting chilly and he doesn’t want Sasuke to blame him if Itachi catches a cold
It’s Shisui who ends up with a cough. A small nuisance, really. It doesn’t get worse and it doesn’t get better. After a couple of days of this, he shrugs it off. Things have been trying to kill him since he was five. What was a cough really in the scale of things?
A couple of weeks later, and Itachi and him were teaching Sasuke how to skip rocks at the Nakano. The littlest Uchiha was determined to beat one of his classmates and he tries to remember if he and Itachi were ever so young. Pulling girls’ pigtails and trying to impress classmates with little tricks. A coughing fit pulls him out of his reverie. Shisui turns away from the two but not before he catches the corners of Itachi’s lips pull down. Predictably, he feels a hand reach out to rub his back and soothe him. Itachi is always such a mother-hen after all.
“Shisui,” Itachi speaks out when Shisui stops coughing and flashes him a sheepish smile. “You’ve had this cough for too long. It’s time to see a medical-nin.”
He waves Itachi’s concern away. “This is nothing. But I’ll tell you what, since you’re such a worrywart, if I still have this cough by the end of the week I’ll make an appointment,” Shisui acquiesced if only so Itachi would stop giving him those cow eyes. Suddenly he is too aware of Itachi’s hand still rubbing circles on his back, the warmth of his hand seeping through Shisui’s shirt.
Shisui doesn’t make it till the end of the week. That night, he doubles over from a particularly bad coughing fit. His throat feels raw and broken. When he pulls his hand away from his mouth, Shisui finds himself staring at a white petal tinged with blood. So that was it. He doesn’t have to see a medic-nin to know what this is. Not anymore. But he wants it confirmed and Itachi will want to see the doctor’s certificate for proof that he actually went. Itachi.. His chest tightens and before Shisui could let out another cough he flickers.
When he shows the medic-nin the flower petal and give his symptoms, they confirm his thoughts. Hanahaki Disease. A disease in which the victim coughs up flower petals when they suffer from unrequited love. It ends when the beloved returns their feelings or when the victim dies. Shisui is told it can be cured through surgical removal.
“You’ll need to get the surgery as soon as possible. It’s good we caught it at an early stage. That means you have a higher chance of..” Shisui cuts him off with a raised hand.
“I’ll think about it.” The doctor looks like they want to protest but he has heard of what happens with the surgery. If performed correctly, the disease is cured but the side effect is that it takes away the victim’s feelings of love. And the thought of that is almost enough to send Shisui into another coughing fit.
He doesn’t tell Itachi about the diagnosis. What could he say? ‘I think I’m in love with you and it’s killing me. On the plus side, I cough up flower petals. That’s cool, right?’ Shisui could only imagine how well that would go over with his cousin. After a week of coughing up the same petal, Shisui is able to identify it as a white tulip and the meaning of it isn’t lost on him. One-sided love. He laughs until it turns into coughs and he’s on his knees, surrounded by white petals speckled with blood.
Shisui evades his best friend during this time and when he thinks Itachi is close to cornering him, Shisui takes on a mission. He’s gone for two weeks and when he returns, it’s not his choice but his team’s. They’re worried for him, they said. He’s too ill. Shisui wants to argue that he has dealt with worse but knows they mean well so he reluctantly goes home
Itachi is waiting for him at the gates when he return. Shisui considers fleeing but the younger Uchiha has already seen him. “Hey, stranger,” Shisui offers his most guileless, friendly smile. In return, Itachi watches him like a crow, with those restless black eyes.
“Hanahaki’s disease.” His friend’s voice was cool but for all his show of calm and control, Shisui could see his jaw tighten just a little. He swallows, his throat dry all of a sudden like he has drunk seawater. “I see there’s no such thing as patient confidentiality anymore,” Shisui says dryly. Itachi shakes his head and he unfurls a fisted hand, revealing familiar petals. “I visited your home and your bed and bathroom floor was littered with this,” he said accusingly, anger peeking through now despite the calmness in his tone. Shisui should be mad at the invasion of his privacy but a small part of him is gleeful over inspiring such passion in his usually stoic cousin, even if it was only anger.
“Who is it?” Itachi finally asks.
“It doesn’t matter. They don’t feel the same way.” It’s the first time Shisui’s let himself think it, let alone speak the words aloud. There is more pain in those words than he thought there would be. The truth usually does. But it seems he isn’t the only one affected. Itachi’s limbs which had been as taut as a bow string, suddenly loosens. Like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Shisui lets out a sigh. That was his cue and he steps forward to tug Itachi into his arms. “Only if you ask it of me,” he murmurs. Selfishly. Cruelly Fully knowing Itachi doesn’t have it in him to ask such a thing of him. He closes his eyes as he brushes his lips against the top of Itachi’s head. A silent apology.
In the end, he doesn’t die from the disease. Instead, his plan to stop the coup d’etat is ruined by Danzou and it’s a slippery slope from there. Shisui entrusts his remaining eye to Itachi before taking his life. The ground is littered with white tulip petals when he falls.
It’s only a year later when Itachi coughs up his first petal.
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