#akayuu

It never starts out like the movies say they do: meeting a kind and handsome man by bumping into him while going through a day-to-day routine, and then waking up the next morning with saliva-coated flower petals the color of his hair falling from your lips. From there, the movies say, love is assured.

Yuuya wakes up one morning with the suffocating scent of floral air-freshener, despite never, ever, wanting to touch anything remotely perfume-related in his life, and reaches for the bleary alarm clock next to his bed when he feels water on his fingers and something soft clinging to his skin.

In the next moment, he jumps out of bed with his heart thumping in his ears, covers scattered to the floor, and watches in mute horror as a trail of barely noticeable white petals follow the tracks of his drool and litters one side of his pillow.

He doesn’t know what flowers they are, whose petals they belong to, or even anyone with silver-white hair in his life, but Yuuya knows this:

The mark of flowers in his mouth is a death sentence, a slow-motion guillotine that will eventually sever the life from his body.

He is graveyard soil, rotting away to provide nutrients for the parasitic blooms that will consume every inch of his flesh, and it won't be long before is buried beneath them.

-----

Preparing for death is a surreal experience, as one would think, but Yuuya rejects his demise with panicked certainty and delusion. No one ever wants to admit they'll die, and no one ever wants to die. A permanent solution to a temporary problem is not a want of death, just a want of escape. But Yuuya is only eighteen with his whole life ahead of him. He doesn't want to die.

He takes an extra ten minutes in the bathroom every morning to deposit his daily dose of flowers into the toilet, and then wipes his mouth and pretends as if it never happened, flushing away the evidence of his downfall. He doesn't want to be reminded, and he is content to spend his time in denial.

Yuuri only gives him a few questioning looks—Yuuya has to thank his lucky stars that his roommate already keeps plants in the house, and the scent of lush meadows that follows Yuuya’s every step is written away as early spring blooms beginning to flourish after winter’s leave.

“If the flowers are blooming this early, I’m going to open the patio doors more,” says Yuuri, clipped and succinct, holding a watering can in one hand and his phone in the other. “Natural, unfiltered sunlight will be good for their growth.”

Yuuya doesn’t protest. “Sure,” he says, biting into a soft boiled egg and swallowing his food with the extra petals that have sprung in his mouth as if they aren’t there.

“Hmm,” Yuuri hums, swiping left and right on his phone as he peers distractedly at the screen through the black rectangle frames of his glasses. In two-second intervals, he moves the watering can and tilts it over a different potted plant.

“Is something the matter?”

“Rin texted me," Yuuri bites the inside of his cheek. "Yuugo stopped growing blue petunias out of his skin. Right in front of her eyes, she says. They all shrunk and withered away to nothing, she says.”

Something clenches in Yuuya’s gut. “How?”

“Presumably, he kissed Kurosaki Shun on the mouth after punching him in the face, telling him what a bastard he is, and that even if Kurosaki is in denial of his death, he wants to live, and then proceeded to yank Kurosaki’s tie hard enough that they both fell over,” Yuuri snorts, placing the watering can down with a soft clack. “I suppose that’s more believable than Yuugo stuttering out a love confession.”

Yuuya smiles bitterly down at his food, feeling more taunting petals on his tongue, reminding him of the rotting demise that will await him soon if he doesn’t find his soulmate like Yuugo did. He swallows them all down again with a grimace.

A year is a long time. Yuuya just hopes it’s long enough.

“I’m going to meet up with Rin,” Yuuri says, and Yuuya blinks as he realizes that his roommate has moved from watering the plants to pulling on his shoes at the door when he wasn’t paying attention. “I have late hours at the botanical gardens tonight. Don’t wait for me.”

“Okay.”

“I’ve already opened the patio doors, but you can close them in an hour. I know you don’t like the air conditioning going to naught.”

“That’s fine,” Yuuya says, eyes darting to the plants that line the window and the floor, as if they would hold the key to his salvation. He feels another batch of petals beginning to make its way up his throat. “I can leave them open today.”

“Really?” Yuuri levels him with a curious gaze and a raised eyebrow. “It’s going to get stuffy from the heat.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s cool. I can blast the air conditioning in my room instead.”

“Hm,” Yuuri gives him a side glance, but picks up his keys from the holder next to the door, and Yuuya hears the jingling of the metal together as the front door is opened.

There is a question that hangs in the air—Yuuya knows Yuuri is not daft. Yuuya also knows he usually makes a big fuss of opening the patio door when the air conditioning is going, to not waste money, he says, and Yuuri usually agrees. After all, new plants are much more affordable than their energy bill (not that any of Yuuri’s plants have ever died).

Yuuya inhales. “I don’t like the smell of flowers,” he lies.

“Of course,” Yuuri replies, untrusting.

Yuuya gets up and leaves his dishes in the sink, scraping the half-eaten breakfast into the garbage disposal with shaking hands. The door closes afterwards, and Yuuya almost drops the plate in his hands at the noise.

He is hungry, but he is in no mood to eat. After all—there is no manner of food that can cure a dying man.

-----

Scientifically, his mother used to tell him, hanahaki-byou, the flower-spitting disease, is a genetic ailment passed down through generations, and spread via the same way. Most of the populace has it, but there are those lucky few who are immune to it.

Airborne pollen does not activate it, nor does ingestion, or contact, or even love. Fate is not kind. Soulmates are selected, not picked.

When one begins to suffer from hanahaki-byou, it means their soulmate is nearby, and until they meet and bond together, the disease will feast and eat away at every cell in his body until the flowers finally take root in his heart and brain and leave him lifeless.

In the first five months, it is only a building crescendo of retching petals, an inconvenience that can be endured and wiped away. Yuuya can burn the evidence of his disease as easily as he coughs it up. No one will be the wiser to his illness, and he would not have to suffer their looks of pity.

On the sixth month, if the soulmate still has not been found and bonded with yet, the flowers will evolve and grow out of the open orifices of his face: his eyes, ears, nose, mouth. Each person’s first flower is in a different place. For every month afterward, another flower will grow out of any orifice that hasn’t been taken yet, until the ninth month.

At that point, Yuuya will be a walking and rotting corpse as the flowers eat his skin, and replace his flesh with their silky petals. It will start with half of his face, and then one of his arms, and then one of his legs, steadily growing and overtaking until they close in on his heart, until hanahaki-byou eats him alive.

At the end of the twelfth month, Yuuya will die.

-----

Yuuya spends two months in denial, spitting out flower petals that the internet tells him are called white amaryllis. The images he pulls up of the whole flower are beautiful, but he commits it to memory so he can hate it. When the flower grows out of his face later, Yuuya will never see anything but the blooms that try to suffocate him whole.

The search also pulls up a website telling a chilling Greek myth about a nymph named Amaryllis, who sacrificed herself to become the beautiful flower of her unrequited lover’s dreams by stabbing herself with a golden arrow everyday until a red amaryllis grew from her blood. Yuuya then promptly vomits into the trash can next to his desk afterward, the petals falling shakily down from his mouth.

That day, Yuuya wipes his chin and chugs an entire bottle of water, chasing the taste of flowers from his mouth and ignoring the lurch in his stomach.

He washes his hands in the bathroom sink and then collects the trash can next to his desk, taking it down to the shared apartment incinerator and throwing it all—the bin and the trash inside—into the roaring flames. He doesn't go back up until he's sure all of it has been reduced to ashes.

Yuuri throws him another tight-lipped and questioning gaze as Yuuya trudges back into the apartment, hands bare of even the plastic bin.

“Yuuya—”

“I-I was trying to throw my trash into the incinerator, but I accidentally threw my bin, too,” Yuuya nervously laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s fine, though, I can buy another one from the 100 yen store.”

Silence.

Yuuya tries to use it to go back into the comfort of his room, but Yuuri speaks up.

“Yuuya, do you have—”

“I have a show soon!” he blurts out, hands flying to his mouth to push and swallow more petals back down. “I’ll be rehearsing tonight. Don't bother me, okay?”

With a panicked smile, he quickly flees.

-----

It is cliche, Yuuya thinks, but Yuuri doesn't understand.

Yuuri spat out green chrysanthemums on the same day Rin almost choked on pastel lavenders. They found each other quickly enough, though their first meeting ended in a giant misunderstanding that had Rin terrified of him for a week.

But that was for a week, and they worked it out within the next, and Yuuri saw no more green petals fall from his mouth ever again.

It had been a shock, at the time, Yuuya thinking that Yuuri was going to die at the young age of seventeen.

In the end, Yuuri kept his life.

Yuuya still doesn't know how to carry on with his.

-----

Five months in, and Yuuya’s coughing fits have steadily become more frequent. He is discovered pulling petals from his mouth by a lingering spectator after one of his shows, and his panicked rush to swear them to secrecy leads to something else.

“I’m Grace. Grace Tyler,” she says, silver-white hair with a sliver of a smile. “I’ve always wanted to meet you.”

Yuuya feels his heart thud in his chest, whether from adrenaline or infatuation, he doesn't know. He doesn't love this woman—in fact, he doesn't even know this woman—but if they were fated to be, and she will save him from the flowers that threaten to consume his body, he will try his hardest to love her.

“Sakaki Yuuya,” he says, with a smile, probably the first one in a while that he hasn't faked. “But you know that already, right?”

“Of course!” she flicks her hair behind her shoulders with a flourish. “I love watching your shows. Your performance is amazing! It always makes me want to come back for more!”

Yuuya feels the elation swell in his chest, a grin on his lips, and he steps forward towards salvation to offer her a hand. “Ah, my lady, you humble me,” he says dramatically, and she laughs. “I’m about to clean up and get dinner. Wanna come?”

She does her own stage bow, eyes shining with a smile. “Of course, messere.”

And if she knows about the flowers falling out of his mouth, then she must be coughing red petals, too. She must be elated to find her soulmate, too. She must be excited to be rid of her disease, too.

All Yuuya sees and hears is silver-white, silver-white, silver-white.

The flowers momentarily disappear from his mouth.

Grace Tyler, he learns, is from a rich family that vacations in Greece in the summer, who likes wearing long Valentino dresses with Chanel sunglasses and a necklace made of real diamonds. Her bag is Coach, her makeup is Mary Kay, and her surprise gift to Yuuya two weeks into their relationship is a perfectly tailored Prada suit.

She is shy one minute, bold the next, and stares at Yuuya with the most beautiful wonderment in her eyes whenever he talks, listening to every drop of conversation that she can glean from him with a sly smile and appreciated theatrics.

The flowers still come up his throat, but they are less frequent. Yuuya thinks that this is finally what he needs, and starts to feel a deep-seated love blossoming from the deepest reaches of his heart. He has always been a dreamer, and the fact that he can love so easily should be a deterrent, but he perseveres.

He holds Grace’s hand on the way home, one month after their first date, and kisses her on the doorstep of her white mansion, with her gated driveway and large garden.

It is not a long kiss, because it is chaste, and Yuuya pulls away long enough to see Grace giggle and laugh with a coating of red dusting her cheeks. He thinks she looks beautiful, and he tells her as much.

Grace smiles and kisses his cheek in turn, before disappearing behind the double doors of her mansion.

Yuuya feels his heart leap out of his mouth, and smiles stupidly on his way home.

-----

A week later, he wakes up to another wave of floral perfume, except this time Yuuya almost gags at the smell. It is strong, too strong, and he stumbles weakly into the bathroom to begin his morning ritual of hacking and coughing.

In the mirror, looking back at him, is a stalk of white amaryllis growing out of his left eye, drooping low to cover almost half of his face and creating a stark contrast against his red eyes.

When Yuuya opens his mouth to scream, a cascade of white chrysanthemum petals fall out instead.

Grace Tyler is not his soulmate.

-----

“I’m sorry,” he says over the phone, gripping an ornate hand mirror as he stares, obsessed, at his reflection, and the flower that obscures half his face. His hands are shaking, and he's on the verge of crying. “I’m sorry.”

“Yuuya—” Grace’s voice is static against his ears, and Yuuya can't hear anything that she says to him, whether to berate or pity him. He doesn't know which one he wants more.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, for the tenth time, and his eyes don't leave the mirror. The first tear that falls down his cheek is accompanied by another white petal. Now, in his despair, he can even cry flowers. It won't be long until he is consumed completely, consumed all the way down to his bones. “I’m sorry.”

Before she can say anything else, Yuuya hangs up, and cries amaryllises out of his eyes, hiccuping chrysanthemums out of his mouth. The scattered and wet petals in his hands are all taunting him, trying to tell him of love and acceptance, but Yuuya shuns all of it.

There is no love from the hanahaki-byou, only a slow, painful, and lonely death.

-----

“Yuuya—”

“No.”

“Yuuya—”

“No.”

“Yuuya, you haven't been out of your room for two days. If you aren't going to open this door, I will personally invite Yuugo over and he will kick it down himself, and you can suffer his wailing firsthand instead of through the phone.”

There is a prolonged silence, Yuuri digging his nails into his arms as he waits, frowning, before the sound of a click as the door cracks open just a bit.

“You are cruel,” Yuuya says, pouting half-heartedly at the smug face of his roommate. There are bags beneath his eyes. “I am fine.”

“You are not,” Yuuri doesn't wait for Yuuya to try and hide again as he thrusts his arm firmly at the door, effectively shoving Yuuya back as the door slams into his face. He walks in without a second thought, and closes the door gently behind him, blocking escape.

The sight of Yuuya trying, in vain, to hide the large white flower growing out of his left eye is enough to stop Yuuri in his tracks. The fragrant aroma of flowers in the room also hits him like a train, and it's strong enough to make even Yuuri gag, a hand coming up to his mouth to hide the distasteful expression on his face as he tries to adjust to the stench.

“Y-Yuuri, I’m just trying out a new accessory—”

“How long,” Yuuri snaps, turning a full one hundred and eighty degrees to stare long and hard into Yuuya’s eyes: one red and the other blocked by a flower. White amaryllis.

Yuuya withers. “S-Since Yuugo got rid of his.”

“I knew it,” Yuuri groans, pushing his face into his hand. “It's been six months, Yuuya. Why didn't you tell me?”

“I didn't want you to pity me!” Yuuya shouts in return, the tears beginning to form in his eyes again, the petals beginning to collect at the corners. “I didn't want anyone to know I was… dying…”

“And why didn't you?” Yuuri shoots a sharp glare at him, which Yuuya shrinks further away at. “Did you think I wouldn't care, darling?”

Terms of endearment. Yuuri is incensed. Yuuya ducks his head in shame.

“Did you think I would stand quietly around while you rotted away in your self-pity and offered you false words of encouragement?”

Yuuya doesn't say anything.

“Darling.”

“Y-Yes…”

Yuuri sighs, crossing his arms. “Since it's white, I'm assuming that your soulmate is someone with white or silver hair. You're in luck that I know someone with that description. Though I'd rather not see his face anytime soon.”

“You don't have to—”

“Do you want to live?” Yuuri asks bluntly, giving Yuuya the blankest stares he has ever received, and Yuuya freezes.

“...”

“Do you want to wallow away into nothingness? If you say yes, I’ll leave you alone to die of the disease without question.”

“I…” Yuuya swallows, feeling the petals stick to the roof of his throat. He wants to push his tongue against them until they fall off, but Yuuya doesn't have time to think of only enduring another day when it is his sixth month. He is already halfway to death. “I…”

“I’ll rephrase myself: do you want to die alone?”

“No!” Yuuya suddenly jerks, hands reaching out to grab tightly into Yuuri’s shirt, body shaking. “N-No, not alone, you're… you're here… right?”

“I am,” Yuuri spares Yuuya a glance and sighs, phone already in his hand as he pulls up his contacts and looks through it for a specific name. “This is the one and only time I will be dialing this number, let’s hope.”

Something connects on the other side, Yuuri listening intently and responding appropriately, and Yuuya zones out as he tries to calm down from being discovered. Rather than being disappointed at him, Yuuri only got… angry? Angry at Yuuya for not telling him? Why—

“—Akaba Yuuri.”

Yuuya startles. He has never heard Yuuri’s full name before, despite them having lived together for two years. As far as Yuuri has told him, he's adopted, and hates being in the same building as his… older brother, was it?

Yuuri offers a few more quick words to whoever is on the other line, and then finally turns to face Yuuya.

“Do me a favor, Yuuya.”

“Y-Yeah?”

“Punch Akaba Reiji in the face when you see him.”

-----

In the restroom of the Leo Corporation lobby, Yuuya pulls his hood further down over his head, and tries to push the flower on his face to a more agreeable and hidden position, but fears that if he pulls too hard, he will pull his entire eye out with it. Its roots are already lodged around his eyeball, encircling and entrapping.

For all the petals he has coughed up, and the ones he has cried, the flower growing on his face has never lost a single petal. Though it droops from its stem, it is because the bloom is too heavy, not because of its poor health.

In contrast, Yuuya hides his face of death further beneath his hood, heart pounding loudly in his ears as he advances from the restroom and towards the large front desk in the lobby.

“Welcome to Leo Corporation,” the receptionist gives him a friendly, but suspicious, smile as he walks towards her. “How can I help you today?”

Yuuya tries to smile, and opens his mouth—

The receptionist screams.

A pile of petals fall out of his mouth, this time joined by bits of green stems, and the flower on his face that had been pushed back to his hair suddenly drops forward as if in greeting. Yuuya stills, eyes wide, and quickly covers his mouth.

“Who let him in there? Guards! Security!” the receptionist is frantic, clutching a phone tightly in her hands, screaming helplessly at him as if Yuuya is a monster.

Hanahaki-byou is not contagious, but he is the walking personification of death.

It is normal for life to be scared of death. It is normal for death to hate life.

Yuuya reaches his hand out, trying to smile and look harmless. “N-No, I have an appointment with… with Akaba Reiji,” he says, pleading, but the receptionist just backs away further in fear, as if his touch would spread his disease to her. “My name is Sakaki—hey!”

A group of large men in suits come and grab him, and Yuuya fights. Yuuya fights with all the force of a human being trying to escape from the clutches of death.

“I’m Sakaki Yuuya!” he shouts, crying. “Please! I have an appointment with Akaba Reiji!”

He doesn’t want to die. He only has six months left to live.

The guards drag him all the way to the door, and no matter how much Yuuya fights, how much he tries to bend and twist out of their grasp, he cannot.

“Stop,” a voice says from further inside, and the commotion stops almost immediately. “He has an appointment with me. Why are you treating a Leo Corporation guest this way?”

“H-He has h-hana—”

“Hanahaki-byou is not a contagious disease. This is common knowledge. If you are discriminating against a guest because of your own fears and insecurities, you are not fit to work for Leo Corporation,” a man walks forward to the center of the room, and Yuuya cannot help but stare.

When Yuuya first saw Grace’s silver-white hair, he had thought she was almost glowing, shining under the stage lights. The lights in the lobby of the Leo Corporation building are just as bright as those on stage, but the man who stands underneath them is in a different league altogether. He is both the actor and the writer.

“I-I’m sorry, sir…”

“Do not apologize to me,” Akaba Reiji narrows his eyes at the receptionist behind the desk, and then gestures with a jerk of his chin in Yuuya’s direction. “Apologize to him.”

The receptionist looks hesitant, but quickly bows her head at Reiji’s glare. “I-I’m extremely sorry for the trouble I have caused, S-Sakaki Yuuya-san.”

Yuuya wants to say it’s fine. It is not.

He is dying.

He is being eaten alive with each second that ticks by, and she had metaphorically spit on him because he only had half a year left to live, and the flowers had shown on his face.

The hands which were holding him back finally let him go. “Sakaki-san, please pardon my employee’s prejudice,” Akaba Reiji bows politely. “If you will follow me to the elevators, we can go to my office together.”

Yuuya mutely follows the back of Akaba Reiji, and boards the spacious elevator as it rides all the way to the top of the skyscraper.

When the doors open, Reiji immediately starts walking large paces to his desk on the other side of the room, and Yuuya struggles to keep up with his long strides. The man is so much more taller than him—perhaps by a head or two. Yuuya’s exhaustion holds him back from matching Reiji stride-for-stride even more, so he opts to follow at his own pace.

“I imagine you’re impatient given your condition, so I will not divulge into small talk,” Akaba Reiji sits down at his desk, leaning back against the leather and leisurely crossing his legs. Yuuya’s would-be savior (he hopes) is dressed in a neatly pressed pinstripe suit, and Yuuya suddenly feels as though he is in the wrong attire, even if he had tried his best to scourge up clothes that could pass as ‘business-casual’.

The Prada suit gift in his closet is covered in tears, petals, and pollen. He doesn’t want to look at it.

“Please feel free to call me Yuuya. Akaba-san, I know this is really sudden,” Yuuya is quick to bow his head. “I am six-and-a-half months into hanahaki-byou. Please, if you are my soulmate—”

“Yuuya,” Reiji’s voice pierces through his thoughts. “Yuuri has given me most of the details, and I am sympathetic to your predicament, but I should tell you one thing.”

Yuuya’s heart pounds loudly in his ears.