Chapter Text
When you were first sent to me at fifteen, what were the first words I said to you? What did I say to you?
I said to you—let the dead bury the dead; since we’re alive, we should strive to live till the last moment! But what are you doing now?
Answer me!!!
At first, Chuuya did not notice anything out of the ordinary.
It was Wednesday. The mafia didn’t have a fixed calendar for working days and rest days typical of ordinary companies, but there wasn’t really any reason to be taking a break on a Wednesday, an ordinary day sandwiched right in the middle of the week. Chuuya’s biological clock had made it a habit such that his one hour and a half after waking up was used to shower, eat, get dressed, and tame his hair, just in time to drive to headquarters or to go out for any missions.
At half past eight the doorbell to his penthouse rang, and with a toothbrush in his mouth, Chuuya glanced at the small screen on the security system by the door and found that it was Hirotsu. The half-century old man elegantly reported to Chuuya about the temporary changes in the Black Lizard's schedule for the day, having brought with him a revised document for Chuuya to sign.
Since he had a mouthful of mint-flavoured foam, Chuuya simply nodded wordlessly, gave Hirotsu access to the glass door downstairs, opened his penthouse door, and turned back to the bathroom to continue brushing his teeth.
At this point he still failed to notice that anything was wrong.
Five minutes later, after he’d brushed his teeth and washed his face, he came out to see Hirotsu already standing in the living room, waiting for him with a document in his hand. Chuuya casually picked up a pen from the cabinet by the wall and walked over to take the document from Hirotsu. At a general glance, he found that the only revision on the document was the time of the activity: a shipment, which had not been expected to arrive until tomorrow, had been moved up by a day due to the weather and would arrive this afternoon, and the Black Lizards were responsible for escorting the unloading of the cargo this time.
It was common enough a reason for the change in schedule, and Chuuya casually scanned through it before signing his name in bold letters in the signature box at the bottom. Hirotsu continued reporting about the matter, “This time the amount of goods is several times higher than usual, and there has been some tension between us and the cops recently. Yesterday I heard from the boss that you might need to be present when this shipment is unloaded.”
Chuuya screwed the pen back into its cap with an unconcerned nod and opened his mouth.
“———”
Hirotsu froze.
Chuuya himself paused and blinked, a little confused— what’s going on, I don't think I heard my own voice.
He cleared his throat a little dubiously and felt no discomfort in it. Looking at Hirotsu, he tried to speak once more, “———”
Still no sound. Chuuya's brow twitched involuntarily. After only a moment's hesitation, he followed up by testing out all sorts of monosyllables and inflections and found no exceptions—he wasn’t uncomfortable in any way, but he was unable to make even the slightest sound. It was as if he were the little mermaid from that fairytale who’d given up her voice to the sea witch to have a pair of legs to live on shore.
But I’ve always had legs?? Chuuya was bewildered. Even if it's the other way around, my legs didn’t even turn into a tail when I touched water in the shower earlier.
He subconsciously looked down at his lap, only to see a sight that stunned him once again.
Next to him, Hirotsu's expression slowly became grave.
It had been 8:30am when Hirotsu had knocked on Chuuya's door. When he’d opened the door, Chuuya had already been dressed in his usual three-piece suit, tight leather trousers with a shirt, choker and vest.
Right now—of course, his legs were still his legs, the taut leather trousers shaping out a line sleek and sensual enough that, in a bar, could attract the gaze of anyone, male or female; but that wasn’t what had rendered both Chuuya and Hirotsu speechless at the moment.
Under their gazes, several red flower petals were lying at Chuuya's feet. A crimson bright as freshly soaked blood, they laid eerily on the marble floor of the living room.
There were no flowers in his house, and Hirotsu wouldn't have come to him with a bouquet of flowers to sign. Chuuya looked up at Hirotsu to find the old man looking sombre. Hirotsu stared at the blood red petals for a long while before frowning slightly, “I saw these petals fall out of Chuuya-kun's mouth as he spoke.”
Chuuya: “......”
Chuuya cocked his head with a baffled expression, unable to understand what he’d meant.
Hirotsu sighed uncharacteristically and suggested, “I think Chuuya-kun should get a mirror and see for himself to get a quicker picture of the current situation.”
Chuuya picked up his phone and set the camera to selfie mode and pointed it at himself. He stared at his face in the camera, which was no different from his usual face, still as good looking and attractive as ever, could easily charm a crowd of girls, nothing that indicated why he was unable to make a sound, no flower petals spilling out of his mouth like Hirotsu had described.
He didn’t observe anything wrong—granted, if there was anything unusual, he would’ve noticed it when he’d been washing his face and brushing his teeth—and so Chuuya slowly opened his lips and watched his lips move slightly on the phone screen, biting down on the pronunciation of each syllable.
[Na-ka-ha-ra Chuu-ya.]
Still no sound, but he clearly saw as blood-red petals appeared out of thin air the moment he tried to speak, falling to the floor to lie with the other identical petals. The petals seemed to be incorporeal as they slipped out from his lips, only solidifying one or two seconds later amidst their descent into a tangible form.
No wonder he’d been completely oblivious to the fact that he was spitting out flowers, Chuuya thought.
What was going on here?
Chuuya stared blankly at himself in the camera. Almost subconsciously, he frowned at the trouble this situation was inexplicably going to cause him—not being able to speak was going to be a headache for a few days. Even if his subordinates at the mafia weren’t well-versed in lip reading, if he just had to slow down his speech, fine, but the problem was—talking while spitting out red flower petals, the fuck?
Chuuya put his phone away and looked wordlessly at Hirotsu. The old man was considered the most senior among them, even Ane-san and the boss maintained a respectful attitude towards him. He must’ve experienced or heard of most of the strange and bizarre occurrences.
Sure enough, after a few seconds of hesitation, Hirotsu slowly spoke, “It’s still uncertain whether there’s some kind of ability at work, but at the moment, from the symptoms, it does seem that Chuuya-kun's condition is similar to something I know of.”
Chuuya blinked and urged him on with his eyes.
Hirotsu asked, “I wonder if you've heard of a condition called hanahaki syndrome?”
Chuuya: “......”
Never heard of it, what the hell?
Fortunately, Hirotsu had guessed at his lack of knowledge, and he continued without pause, “Hanahaki is an extremely rare disease, and I’ve only heard of it from an elderly doctor, now long dead. I’ve never seen a real-life example.”
“It’s said that those who have hanahaki disease don't feel any pain in the beginning, nothing too troubling other than the inability to make sounds and the never-ending vomiting of flower petals; but as the condition worsens, the patient will start coughing and dry heaving—although it sounds like it, it has nothing to do with pregnancy—the number of petals spat out gradually increases. I was told that at the very end, what those patients spit out will not be petals, but full flowers.”
Chuuya couldn't speak, but that didn't stop his expression from changing as Hirotsu spoke. At the start, he was listening very seriously—after all, it was about him, and the sooner he got back to normal the sooner he could start working; halfway through, his expression went from serious to weirded out, mentally judging how bizarre it sounded, what kind of strange illness was that.
And then he keenly caught a keyword— “at the very end”.
“……”
Chuuya slowly lifted his gaze to meet Hirotsu's. Hirotsu looked into those sapphire eyes and repeated, extremely slowly, “Yes. At the very end—if, Chuuya-kun is not cured in time, the mortality rate of this disease is, one hundred percent.”
“……”
After another moment of silence, Chuuya, who clearly hadn’t expected this seemingly romantic illness to be so vicious, swiftly regained a calm composure. It took him a mere ten seconds to digest the news, then his lips moved slightly. From the shape of his mouth, Hirotsu judged that the tiny mafia executive had probably swore, but there was no sound, only the fall of another flower petal, a symbol that the patient had just spoken.
[And then what? What do you do when you get this disease?] Chuuya spoke, petals falling one after another, [You can just say it, Hirotsu.]
Hirotsu finished reading his lips and smiled bitterly, “This is why I said that the mortality rate of this disease is one hundred percent—that doctor is the most knowledgeable person I know when it comes to this disease, he knew of only seventeen people who have ever had it, he personally diagnosed seven of them himself, but…”
A sense of foreboding surfaced in Chuuya's mind.
“Those seventeen patients who suffered from hanahaki disease,” Hirotsu's low voice had an imperceptible hardness to it, “had a final survival rate of, zero.”
Chuuya spat out a few more blood-like petals from whatever he was cursing.
[Isn’t that the same effect as the Black Death during the Middle Ages? I've hit the jackpot,] Chuuya muttered. He closed his eyes momentarily, and when he opened them again, the wavering emotions that had lingered for a moment in the depths of his pupils had been swept away with the greatest of training. Chuuya looked at Hirotsu with a gaze that could almost be described as sharp, and asked, [What was the main cause of death? Did the medical technology fail to keep up? Or was there something else? How do you even get this disease in the first place?]
A terminal illness with such peculiar symptoms didn’t seem like other terminal illnesses caused by problems with work habits, living conditions, or diet.
Hirotsu explained, “Firstly, because there were so few people with this disease, doctors had almost no cases to refer to, and everything needed to be figured out on its own. Secondly, the incidence of this disease is too fast. If my memory is correct after so many years, Chuuya-kun can look at his left chest, and a bud should’ve already appeared on the skin located at the heart.”
In stunned silence, Chuuya unbuttoned his shirt and looked down to find what looked like a tattooed black bud on the skin of his heart, lifelike and trembling regularly with the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.
“......”
Chuuya rebuttoned his shirt and spoke, [What’s this? A countdown of my life?]
Hirotsu nodded slowly, “The moment the buds fully bloom, you will die. Although the time it takes for the buds to bloom is said to vary from person to person, but I heard from that doctor that those people in the records—from the moment they started to spit out petals to the moment they died after spitting out full flowers, the fastest one only lasted one day, and the slowest one didn't last past midnight of the third day.”
[That means I only have at most three days or so left, huh.] Chuuya laughed to himself, [I've been thinking about my end since a long time ago, I've thought of many possibilities, but I never imagined I'd die of an inexplicable illness like this—is this what they mean when they say life is unpredictable?]
Hirotsu had no words.
He couldn't help but murmur after a moment of silence, “Those were all examples from the past, at least twenty years ago, and so much has changed in these twenty years. And to put it bluntly, Chuuya-kun still has a lot of value. The boss will not let you die, that would be too much of a loss for us.”
[Don't get me wrong Hirotsu, I was just sighing, I have no intentions of giving myself up to death just yet.] Like the little mermaid who’d gone onto the shore, Chuuya was unable to speak, but his expression was cold and calm, akin to the quiet, dangerous surface of the sea at night.
A man who’d walked on the edge of a sword for many years, who’d always greeted death with equanimity, would not be easily wavered by the mere threat of death. Chuuya’s lips curled slightly, [Besides, this method of death is way too embarrassing. If word got out, I'd be unable to die in peace, I'd probably have to get up from my coffin to fight all the people who’d be laughing at me.]
“That's really like something Chuuya-kun would say,” Hirotsu smiled and sighed. “About your other question—the cause of this disease and what that doctor told me about the treatment...”
Chuuya raised an eyebrow.
“...” Hirotsu chose his words for a while and finally said carefully, “The reason people get hanahaki disease is because they have… someone in their hearts whom they think they can't have.”
The explanation was kind of convoluted. Momentarily unable to respond, Chuuya gave a silent [Huh?] and a dumb petal fell.
Hirotsu felt so helpless to be forced to confront the emotional problems of young people at his advanced age, but seeing Chuuya blink innocuously, he had to explain more precisely, “Hanahaki disease is not so much an illness as it is a figment of your own inner self. It is the vessel of unattainability; it is your own punishment to yourself for not being able to obtain the other person.”
[Don’t get it,] Chuuya said honestly.
“...It means that since you have this disease, there should be someone present in Chuuya-kun's heart that he has a deep crush on,” Hirotsu summed it up in one sentence. “As long as Chuuya-kun gets that person before the bud on his heart fully blooms, the hanahaki disease can be cured—if that doctor's treatment theory is correct.” After all, there had never been any successful example before within the harsh time limit. Hirotsu hesitantly left these words unsaid.
Chuuya fell into a stillness and did not move at all after hearing this. After about two or three minutes, he slowly opened and closed his lips, and a subtle expression of helplessness mixed with something odd slowly appeared on his face, as if he was dying with only a last shred of hope left, “By get that person, you mean…?”
Hirotsu didn't understand what he was struggling with, so he thought about it and said, “Although it wasn’t specified, I don't think this complex illness can be cured by simply getting in the literal sense. Considering the cause of the illness, I think that probably means to get the other person's heart, or at least be able to feel that the other person belongs to you too or something like that.”
“......”
Chuuya's face changed several times before finally settling on one of vacant indifference. He took a deep breath, picked up his coat from the back of the sofa and draped them over his shoulders as he prepared to leave for work. Then the mafia executive, who’d just declared I have no intentions of giving myself up to death, patted Hirotsu on the shoulder and said, [I’ve thought about it.]
Hirotsu stared at him quizzically.
[I’ve thought about it and decided that people are always going to die anyway, so it doesn't make much difference if I die a few years early or a few years late.] Chuuya made an expression that was somewhat pleasant, [The most important thing is that going by the current situation, at most I'll just wait alone for death in the next few days; but if I try to struggle a bit as you just said, then it might not be some damn hanahaki disease that kills me in the end.]
[I would stab myself and die before the bud blooms,] Chuuya said seriously before walking calmly towards the door with his pile of petals, deciding that it was more worthwhile to go to work instead of worrying about hanahaki or whatnot.
[I mean it, absolutely.]
Hirotsu stared at his retreating back and realized that, indeed, he no longer understood what young people were thinking about.
Apart from the fact that he was tied up on a boat bound for the river of death, everything was going as planned. Chuuya spent the morning handling the day's work, and to prevent unnecessary confusion, he wore a mask to cover his lips, making up a story that he had over-sung at karaoke the previous night, that his voice was too weak to speak, and that all communication was to be done with paper and pencil—even this explanation was done in that manner. He was the head of his department anyway, no one dared to question him, and his secretary worriedly prepared cold and anti-inflammatory pills for him on his desk.
At noon, he received a short notice about the arrival of the cargo ship that had arrived, and a document sent directly from the boss's office asking him to go to the port with the Black Lizard in the afternoon to take care of the cargo handover.
Chuuya signed the papers and gestured to the boss's subordinate who’d brought them to him, before typing out on his mobile phone, is the boss in his office now?
The subordinate shook his head, “No, he's not here. The boss left Yokohama on a private plane at seven this morning, it seems he had some business to attend to. I don't think it's landed yet.”
Chuuya froze for a moment and continued typing, but this document?
“It was assigned by the boss last night,” the subordinate explained. “Is there something urgent, Chuuya-san?”
After a moment of silence, Chuuya shook his head wordlessly, signalling that he could leave.
Although he’d declared in the morning that he would rather wait for death than solve the problem, Chuuya had calmed down after working all morning and had come to his senses. It may be true that there had only been that solution under the medical conditions at that time, but that may not be the case now, twenty years later. The best thing to do was to seek the advice of a reliable doctor, and the first doctor he knew who was reliable enough was no one other than Mori.
But Mori wasn’t here today.
Although there had been occasions when he’d left Yokohama on secret business without telling anyone about his schedule, they were too few, and Chuuya could count on one hand the number of such occasions in the seven or eight years since he’d joined the Mafia.
Was this a coincidence?
At 3pm, the fleet of cargo ships pulled into the port as scheduled, and Chuuya arrived at handover with a mask and a scarf as if he had a bad cold. He was lucky enough to have a secretary who was able to talk to the business partner when he needed to, which saved him a lot of trouble.
After dealing with the shipment, Chuuya had nothing else to do for the day. Acting on an alternative idea that had been on his mind since noon, he told his secretary to follow the others back to the headquarters, while he himself turned a corner in his car and drove in the other direction, towards the city.
At 8pm, Chuuya arrived at his destination, pulled over to the side of the road and rolled down his window. When he looked up, he noticed that the lights on the detective agency's floor were still on, so he unbuckled his seatbelt to get out. He silently prayed, Dazai has already left repeatedly as he walked up the stairs. At the door he knocked and pushed his way in, and to his surprise, most of the agency was still there.
The fuck? How are they working even more overtime than us? Chuuya, who had expected to meet only a few people who were still working overtime, was stunned into silence. Is the work at a detective agency so hard?
“Port Mafia executive Nakahara Chuuya.” Kunikida Doppo stood up from behind his desk, seemingly not too surprised by his appearance, “What did you come to the agency for? We don't have any of your acquaintances here—or are you looking for Dazai?”
It only took Chuuya a second to realize: his conspicuously expensive sports car. And it was definitely Dazai who’d told the agency crowd the model of the car he drove. Of course it could only be Dazai.
He rolled his eyes, typed away on his phone and stepped closer to show Kunikida what was on the screen, Nothing to do with him. But speaking of him, has he already left?
He should be gone, otherwise he’d probably have appeared to poke fun at Chuuya if he knew Chuuya had come to the agency.
Although Kunikida didn’t know why Chuuya wasn’t speaking, he reluctantly nodded for the sake of the recent truce between the two organizations. “He left early.”
That was good. Chuuya mentally breathed a sigh of relief. He glanced around and saw the kid with the illusory projection ability, the white-haired man-tiger who had history with Akutagawa, a cheerful kid who looked like a pleasant person, that frustrating genius detective, and Izumi Kyouka, who had left the mafia—unrelated but why the hell is this detective agency made up of either young teens or kids what kind of illegal organization is this with all that child labor—but he just couldn't find the person he was looking for.
He frowned, a sense of foreboding washing over him again. But before he could type his question, the great detective who’d been eating chips suddenly spoke up, “If you're looking for Yosano, she's not here.”
Chuuya: “......”
Kunikida frowned, “You're looking for Yosano-sensei? What’s the matter?”
Chuuya couldn’t be bothered to explain much, pointing absently at his throat.
Loss of voice? If it needs to be fixed by Yosano-sensei, that seems like a serious matter? Was it an ability? No, if it’s an ability he should be looking for Dazai. These thoughts crossed Kunikida's mind quickly, and having ascertained the reason for his visit, the defensive wariness he’d been carrying was slightly eased. He shook his head, “You're not here at the right time, Yosano-sensei left the country on a flight earlier at noon.”
Chuuya lowered his eyes and remained silent for a while, then typed, was it for an emergency?
“No, it's for annual leave,” said Kunikida. “If it’s urgent, I can make a call for you.”
Chuuya was silent again for a long time before he slowly shook his head.
No need. Sorry to interrupt, he typed out.
The surprise visit from the mafia executive made the others a little nervous, even if they knew he meant no harm. When Chuuya passed by the blond kid’s table on his way out, the boy he’d had a one-time fight with gave him a cheerful smile and a welcome back next time! Chuuya paused in his steps, but in the end said nothing and walked straight to the door.
Before leaving, he gave the room an offhand glance, and inadvertently met Edogawa Ranpo's eyes. The great detective had stopped moving and was looking at him quietly, with something indefinable in his expression. Chuuya was irked by that sort of gaze that saw through everything, so he frowned and stopped at the door frame with a provocative raise of his eyebrow, indicating that great detective, if you have a solution then say so, if you don't have a solution, stop making that face.
Ranpo shook his head, “Unfortunately, I'm not a doctor. I'm just a detective.”
Chuuya laughed silently as petals fell into the mask he was using to shield himself. But just as he was about to step away, Ranpo added, “Dazai's gone for a drink, since it’s you, I’m sure you'd know which bar he's in.”
Chuuya paused in his movements and pulled off his mask to reveal cold lips. He shot a lazy, mocking smile towards Ranpo and spoke without the slightest sound coming out.
[None of my fucking business.]
As two or three blood-red petals fell, Chuuya rolled his eyes and put his mask back on, then left as the detective agency looked on in shock. A short while later, the sound of a sports car engine started up from the window and disappeared into the night.
Chuuya didn't go anywhere else. He went straight back to his penthouse and got under the covers after his usual bath. It was too cold outside, but the heating indoors was warm, so he curled up in his blankets and replied to a bunch of get-well-soon text messages—apparently, word that he’d lost his voice from karaoke had spread like wildfire throughout the organization, at a rate so rapid that Chuuya suspected the whole of Yokohama would know about it by tomorrow.
Mori wasn’t here, and neither was that female doctor. There could still be a way out, but he was just so inexplicably tired. It was as if fate itself were ruthlessly blocking all his paths to ensure his demise, and Chuuya wasn't really scared, but he’d been running around all day that he just wanted to go home and sleep under his blanket—maybe because the weather was so cold, or maybe because he really was ill.
Before sleeping, he pulled back the covers and looked down at his heart. It wasn’t optimistic—the ominous flower that had been budding in the morning had become half-open by ten o'clock at night. The delicate petals were akin to a half-veiled beauty, the demonic type—partially concealed and beautiful enough to tempt, but when the veil was removed, it would be time to reveal its fangs for feasting.
With a scoff in his heart, Chuuya wrapped his blanket tightly around him and went straight to sleep.
The next day, he was awakened by the frantic ringing of his doorbell.
Dazed, he stumbled from the bed to the door to find that the visitor standing downstairs was Kouyou. Chuuya, who’d almost forgotten what had happened to him after his comfortable sleep, was awakened by the strong murderous aura emanating from Kouyou through the security screen. He gave access to the door to let his Ane-san in, while he rushed into the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth, then scurried into his walk-in closet to get dressed. He’d just finished the last button of his shirt when Kouyou kicked open the door.
“I know all about it,” Kouyou declared directly without waiting for him to say anything.
The second sentence out of her mouth, “I see that you seem to be itching to take a few chops from my blade to clear your head and wake up.”
Kouyou had watched him grow from a rampaging brat to what he was today, and Chuuya was aware that she knew his mind and heart well enough. He hadn’t made efforts to conceal his schedule yesterday, and to Kouyou who oversaw intel gathering and assassination in the Port Mafia, that was basically equal to spilling out everything to her.
“When you were first sent to me at the age of fifteen, what were the first words I said to you?!” Kouyou berated furiously, tone bursting with disappointment. This was an extremely rare occurrence, for Chuuya seldom did things that worried her, and Kouyou had always had a soft spot for him, such that he’d almost never been subjected to such an upset telling-off. Chuuya wanted to attempt to defend himself, but he swallowed his words when he saw the red ends of Kouyou's eyes that seemed even redder than usual, and obediently endured the lecture for half an hour.
When Kouyou finally ended her scolding, he had the good sense to offer a cup of tea, which Kouyou took with a reproachful glare. She took a sip and stated coldly, “Settle your own issues or go look for the boss, your choice.”
Was this a multiple-choice question? Chuuya, of course, chose the second one without hesitation—that was what he’d intended to do anyway. Now that he was fully awake and rested, the exhaustion that had come over him last night had passed, and he once again gritted his teeth resolutely. Who the hell would want to die for such a reason, if word got out he’d be a laughingstock, and the irritation he’d feel would probably be enough to bring him back to life even after death.
“Good,” Kouyou nodded. “Buy tickets now and we leave for the airport. The boss is in Saga.”
Saga? What was the boss doing in Saga? Was it a spontaneous trip or did he have something important to do?
Even though Chuuya had these doubts, it was clear that the moment wasn’t a good time to ask questions, and it had nothing to do with his purpose anyway. The two bought the earliest flight and rushed to the airport, only to be told that because of the weather, neither commercial nor private planes could take off at the moment, and that they would have to wait at least three or four hours.
Kouyou squeezed Chuuya's shoulder and asked in a low voice, “Chuuya—are you alright?”
Chuuya helplessly patted the back of her hand, indicating that she didn't have to worry... even though he did feel like something was off. In the airport bathroom, he found that the tattoo of the bud on his heart had opened even wider, and the petals he spat out when he attempted to speak went from two or three petals to a dozen petals every sentence. They laid in tiny piles on the floor, saturating the toilet cubicle with a floral scent.
He had a renewed sense of foreboding that he might not be lucky enough to make it to the third day—given the fact that every time he’d had a bad feeling lately it had come true, he’d already one-sidedly deemed having a bad feeling as the number one thing he detested.
Kouyou seemed to have received some kind of text message, giving him a look as he emerged from the bathroom. Too lazy to type, Chuuya just calmly raised an eyebrow at her in question.
Kouyou hesitated for a moment before revealing, “It seems that Dazai found a woman from a bar yesterday night to commit double suicide with him again, but this time both didn’t die, they were fished out by the agency.”
Chuuya: “......”
Oh. What a pity then.
A few hours later the plane finally took off, and Chuuya coughed silently all the way. The urge to vomit was also kind of strong, although all that came out was flower petals. As he threw up in the plane's washroom, he thought wryly about how pregnant women had to keep going like this for half a year, indeed the most admirable people in the world were mothers—and proceeded to vomit more flower petals.
5:40pm saw their arrival at the airport, and as they stood by the conveyor belt waiting for their luggage, Chuuya felt a little better, so he took out his phone to kill time. Kouyou too figured it would be a while before the luggage came out, so she instructed Chuuya to wait and stay put before leaving for the bathroom herself.
Chuuya was blissfully unconcerned— although understandable, he’d been feeling that Kouyou had been overly protective of him on this journey, as if he were still a little kid.
He’d already been capable of taking down a group of adults when he was still a little kid.
The darkening of the December skies appeared early, and the sun had completely set outside the airport as the streetlights flickered on in turn. If it weren’t for this inexplicable hanahaki disease, a trip to this place actually sounded appealing... he hadn't been to Saga before, it was a rare opportunity. But as the time on his phone jumped to 6:00pm, he suddenly bent over and started coughing uncontrollably, large blooming blood-coloured camellias blocked partly by his hands clasped over his mouth, and many more spilling past his fingers onto the ground regardless.
Chuuya had subconsciously slid to the ground and curled up, the excruciating pain in his heart causing his vision to blacken. His chest started burning—it all came so suddenly that he hadn’t even managed to process what he was experiencing, except that in the last moment of consciousness, he gazed out thoughtlessly through eyelashes drenched in cold sweat, and seemed to see a familiar tall, lanky figure in the crowd, violently pushing aside all those in his way and running towards him.
Strange... what are you doing here?
This sentence flashed through Chuuya’s mind before his eyes closed completely.
Chuuya's eyes snapped open—the alarm clock was ringing just in time.
In shock, he touched himself up and down, pinched himself again, and affirmed that he was not dead and very much alive.
Had it been a nightmare? He was panting, covered in the cold sweat of waking up from the nightmare. He had just had a dream, he wasn’t afflicted with any weird diseases, and he certainly hadn’t died out of nowhere.
Seconds later, the inability to make a sound in his throat and the tattoo on his heart told him it hadn't been a dream... at least not the part about the disease. And if that made him feel helpless, the date and time on his phone made him start to wonder if in addition to his hanahaki there was something wrong with his brain.
Chuuya stared at his phone screen expressionlessly.
It was the 12th of December.
Wednesday.
6:05am.