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Hidan didn't get sick. Not often, anyway. The occasional cold or seasickness, sure, but nothing insidious. Nothing that could really kill him even if he were able to die. He didn't get sick. Except, at the moment, it seemed as if he was. It wasn't really possible for him to get any paler, but there was a gauntness to his eyes, an exhaustion that emphasized the pallor and made it appear more concerning. He was sluggish, slow to react to both words and actions, and it seemed as if the usually effortless task of carrying his scythe was weighing heavily on him.
Most concerning of all, though- Not that Kakuzu was concerned, but still - was something else entirely.
Hidan was being quiet.
It was... disconcerting. Disquieting. Disturbing. Dis...gusting? Dis-something, certainly. Hidan said not a word, just followed behind Kakuzu listlessly like some sort of wobbly, barely-there apparition ready to disappear if the wind blew too hard. A far cry from the usual vibrancy the younger man tended to exude. It was absolutely pathetic and absolutely not Kakuzu's problem. Hidan could suffer for all he cared and if he died of whatever mysterious illness this was then all the better.
... The fact that he opted to spend money on a decent inn that night was absolutely unrelated to any of this. Really, it was.
Still, as they checked in and headed to their room, Kakuzu was silently assured that it was the right call. Hidan could barely make it up the stairs, almost toppling backwards as his legs gave out a few times, and only managing the climb with his hand clutched to the railing and a solid, discrete hand on his back holding him steady. The absolute... disconcern that Kakuzu was experiencing (the utter lack of concern, because he wasn't at all concerned. At all.) was challenged once more as Hidan made probably the most pitiful sound Kakuzu had ever heard from him, which was certainly saying something, and all but dived for the bed. He flopped onto it unceremoniously, and seemed to almost immediately pass out. Kakuzu regarded him stoically for a long moment. This whole thing was... strange. Was it possible Hidan's immortality was wearing off? That his years of self-abuse were catching up with him?
He shut down that train of thought immediately, uncomfortable with the spike of genuine fear that left an unpleasant metallic tang in his mouth. If this was something that would kill Hidan, Kakuzu would be ecstatic. He absolutely wouldn't miss the little blighter, and he most certainly would not mourn him.
Still, it couldn't hurt to keep an eye on him.
He didn't join Hidan until much later that night, having things to do, plans to make, money to count. Their next target wasn't far off, and he needed to come up with some way to work around Hidan's sudden inability to function. When he did get into bed, however, almost immediately there were arms around him and a pale face pressed against his shoulder. It wasn't unusual for Hidan to be clingy, but it was very unusual for Kakuzu to not push him away. Even for him, though, shoving Hidan away in his current condition seemed cruel. That didn't mean anything at all. It didn't mean he was worried, it didn't mean he cared, and the fact that he wrapped an arm around his companion and gently brushed silver hair out of his face didn't change that.
-
There was a decision to be made in the morning. Stay at the inn and let Hidan rest, potentially letting their bounty get away... Or go after the bounty and risk Hidan's well-being for the promise of payment. Letting that kind of cash get away from them was something Kakuzu simply could not abide, and Hidan seemed much better after a good nights rest in a proper bed (though still nowhere near a hundred percent,) and so Kakuzu made the executive decision to risk it and head out. If Hidan took issue with that then he'd surely bitch and moan about it endlessly, but he seemed eager to get out and kill something.
"Maybe a decent sacrifice will banish whatever this bullshit is, eh?" Hidan offered weakly as they walked, before breaking into a fit of coughing. Kakuzu grunted noncommittally, subtly glancing at his companion and narrowing his eyes at the splash of colour on Hidan's palm as he pulled his hand away from his mouth. The younger man cleared his throat, shook his head as if to clear it, and continued on as if he hadn't clearly just coughed up blood.
Somehow, Kakuzu doubted a sacrifice was going to fix this.
-
When they caught up to the bounty, Hidan came back to life. His eyes were more awake and alert than they'd been in months, his body regaining some of the grace and fluidity he used to fall into so easily in battle. He surged forward as soon as their target was in sight, ignoring and even resenting Kakuzu's warnings of caution. It was almost like he hadn't seemed to be wilting away for the past while. It was almost as if nothing had changed.
Throughout the fight, Hidan did not get worn down. He kept up the sudden energy he had found, launched brutal attack after attack at their foes and barely even gave them a chance to react to the onslaught. It was impressive, but Kakuzu got the distinct impression that it was a bit... forced. Like Hidan was pushing himself too far. He had the distinct sense that he should step in, but knew full well Hidan would not accept the help even if offered.
Finally, Hidan traced his foot around in a circle, licked crimson blood from his lips with gusto and completed the 'preparations' for his 'ritual.'
The other shinobi didn't seem to realize the sort of position he was in, and why should he? Why would he expect the sort of jutsu he was caught in? He studied Hidan for a moment, looked down at the circle and successfully deduced that whatever the jutsu was required Hidan to stay in the circle to maintain it. Therefore, rushing at Hidan would be the best option. Either he would be forced out of the circle or he would be forced to take the blow.
If Hidan were a normal shinobi, if he were performing a typical jutsu, it would've been solid thinking. But Hidan was not normal. Hidan was, in fact, extraordinarily abnormal, and that showed clear as day in the ecstatic grin he wore as his opponent rushed him, sword drawn. Hidan could have blocked if he wanted to, but of course that was the last thing he'd want. Instead, he simply stood there and allowed the sword to come down and bury deep into the soft space between his neck and shoulder. The only thing louder than Hidan's cackling in that moment was the bounty's screaming.
The sword dropped to the ground alongside its master, who knelt at Hidan's feet clutching his newly formed wound in agonized confusion and confused agony. Hidan did not stop laughing, and he did not stop the curse. He pulled out his pike, twirled it in his hand with a flourish and promptly drove it deep into the meat of his thigh, dragging it through the flesh and muscle down towards his knee. The bounty doubled over further, screeching to the high heavens for mercy that would not be visited upon him.
Once the pike met with the joint of the knee, Hidan pulled it out proper and stabbed once more, driving the sharpened metal just below the kneecap. He stayed standing despite the joint clearly wanting to give way, simply due to the curse channeling that pain into something apparently euphoric.
Watching Hidan work was grotesque, but this time Kakuzu found it almost comforting. It was the most himself Hidan had seemed in a very long time.
He seemed to drag this one out especially long, and the edge of desperation to his actions began to become abundantly clear as his victim came nearer and nearer to death and still Hidan's health did not seem to return to him. Finally, in a final act of desperation, he drove the pike deep into his own chest. The bounty finally died, the curse finally ended, but the pike remained in place as Hidan doubled over, one hand shooting to his mouth and the other pressed to his chest beside the pike.
The coughing sounded more painful than the damn stab wound, and Hidan almost immediately fell to his knees. Kakuzu would never admit how quickly he found himself at his partners side, how he pulled the pike out even faster still. It didn't seem to help. Hidan coughed and choked until suddenly he was silent despite how his body still jerked with attempts at continuing. It wasn't a simple cough, Kakuzu realized with a jolt of clarity. Something was actively choking him.
Hurriedly, he yanked Hidan's head back by the hair with one hand and, rather than shove his other large hand down his throat, used the threads from his wrist to carefully grasp the object in Hidan's airway and pull it out. It was... softer than he expected. It had much more give, and seemed much more delicate. He certainly wasn't expecting to see a flower. There was a long moment where he simply stared at the damp, dark petals of an anemone flower, a vibrant purple stained with red from whatever damage it had caused within Hidan.
He looked to the pike beside them on the ground, barely registering when Hidan collapsed against him. He was too busy processing the flower petals, stuck to the metal by the blood coating it, a dreadful sort of certainty settling within him.
Of course. Of course it would be Hidan. Of course he would be the one person to somehow contract a long-dead disease. Of course Hidan would keep quiet about what exactly was going on, and of course Kakuzu wouldn’t find out about it until Hidan was at death’s door. Presumably. If this could kill him.
The afflicted dumbass in question, who apparently hadn’t thought it relevant to tell his partner that he was choking up flower petals for the better part of three months, was still jerking occasionally, coughing up blood mixed with stray petals despite how his exhausted body seemed to want to resist the movement. He barely even seemed conscious, trembling violently and not seeming to notice anything going on in the present moment. Kakuzu couldn’t help but note with grim certainty that, if not for his apparently ‘immortality,’ he’d probably be dead already.
There was no reaction from Hidan when Kakuzu lifted him off the ground. No grumbling about being manhandled, no complaints. Nothing at all.
In that particular moment, it was irritatingly difficult to deny that he cared.
-
He wasn’t exactly inconspicuous, walking through the door of the inn with a corpse over one shoulder and an unconscious madman over the other, but he wasn’t particularly concerned with it. There were bigger issues to deal with at the moment.
He dropped the corpse unceremoniously, a contrast to carefully setting Hidan on the bed. He seemed to be… better? He wasn’t shaking or choking anymore, but the fit of illness seemed to have left him drained and exhausted. Understandably.
Kakuzu looked down at him, frowning under his mask and processing the reality of the situation. Hidan was sick. Hidan was deathly ill with a disease that Kakuzu had seen fell hundreds of powerful, otherwise healthy and strong shinobi in its height. He’d seen it choke them, poison them. He’d seen toxic flora wreak havoc on the flesh of a person's throat just on its way up, to say nothing of the damage done during its lifespan within their lungs. He’d seen the thorns of roses tear people apart from the inside out. This particular affliction was painful, insidious, impossible to handle alone by its very nature…
Yet, Hidan had been doing just that.
How long exactly had he been hiding this? Kakuzu had only noticed the differences for a few months, but it was possible he’d been sick for long before that while hiding the physical symptoms. What had he been doing with the petals? If something as strange as flower petals in little splashes of blood had appeared in their vicinity, Kakuzu would surely have noticed. Blood was certainly no rarity when existing in the same immediate area as Hidan, but flower petals? Those were certainly unusual.
Regardless, none of this sat easy with Kakuzu. The fact that Hidan had contracted the disease at all was ridiculous. He couldn’t even tolerate anyone but Kakuzu, and even that was iffy most days, but the fact that he thought it was unrequited? That was just about the most ridiculous thing Kakuzu had ever heard.
...Well, considering how stubbornly he insisted to himself and to Hidan that he’d be happier if Hidan were dead and how much he apparently ‘hated’ him, maybe it wasn’t all that much of a stretch.
It was four hours, thirty-six minutes and fifty-two seconds later when Hidan began to regain consciousness. Not that Kakuzu was counting, and not that he was waiting as he sat on the chair across the room, facing the bed.
“Fuck-” He croaked weakly, trying to sit up and only managing to lean up on an elbow, his other hand coming up to his neck. “Why does it feel like I’ve been deep-throating barbed wire?” He looked to Kakuzu, face scrunched with discomfort and squinting all the more when the only response he received was Kakuzu holding up the flower.
“Did you not think it strange that you were coughing up flowers.” Less of a question, more of an irritated statement. Hidan seemed to consider it all the same, rubbing his neck idly before shrugging and looking away.
“Thought it was just little bits of my insides, at first.” He explained, as if that were any better.
“And that didn’t concern you? What am I saying, of course it didn’t.” Kakuzu sighed harshly, letting the hand holding the flower drop back to his side as the other came up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Moron.”
“Oh fuck off! Why would that concern me? I tear myself apart all the damn time!” The younger man suddenly seemed to find a burst of energy exclusively for the purpose of yelling at his partner. His partner, however, was not feeling particularly energetic at all, sounding about as frustrated and tired of his companion as he ever was.
“But eventually you had to realize what you were actually coughing up, Hidan.” It would be redundant to say Kakuzu felt a headache coming on. Hidan was, in fact, the headache.
“Well yeah, but I figured that was all the more reason to ignore it! It wasn’t vital parts from inside me, just stupid flowers!”
“And you didn’t stop to ask yourself why in the world you would be hacking up hydrangeas?” He dropped his hand to level a proper glare at his partner, but Hidan just considered the ceiling thoughtfully.
“I don’t think hydrangeas were involved… But I’m no florist, so-”
“That’s not the point, Hidan!”
“Then what is?!” The younger man finally snapped, and it was somewhat satisfying to see the annoyance replace the pain on his face. “It’s not like it can kill me!”
“It’s getting in the way.” And that was really all the was concerned with. Really. The fear-like anxiety gripping him was only related to the prospect that this could result in less profit.
“It’ll go away eventually! I just need to perform a ritual that pleases Lord Jashin enough to-”
“That won’t help, Hidan. Even if your ridiculous religion were based in any sort of reality, it wouldn’t be able to help with this.”
“And how the hell would you know that?!” The fact that Hidan didn’t even stop to scold him about calling his religion ridiculous was… telling.
“Because,” Kakuzu began, tone clipped and impatient. “I have seen this before, you dimwit, and there are very limited options afforded to you at this point.”
There was a long moment of blessed silence as Hidan considered this, face going suspiciously blank.
“...What do you mean?”
“I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of it. It’s more or less eradicated these days, extremely rare… But over fifty or sixty years ago, it was a well-known blight that no one was safe from.”
“A blight?”
“An illness. It’s called Hanahaki disease, Hidan, and if we’d caught it back when it was just petals then maybe we could’ve solved this easily. But as it stands,” he held up the full flower again, roots dangling from the stem, the petals fanned and fully bloomed. “You’re in the final stages.”
“So we just find a medic-nin-”
“That’s what I’m saying, you-” He took a deep breath, cutting himself off before he could inadvertently crush the bloom he was holding. “Even if we could find a medic-nin who was familiar with this condition, you’re in the final stages of the illness. There’s nothing they could do for you now. If you don’t give the disease what it wants, it will kill you.” He tried to explain as calmly as possible, but trying to make Hidan listen and understand was like pulling teeth.
“I. Can’t. Die. You asshole. Stop trying to freak me the fuck out!” He yelled, clearly freaked the fuck out. “How can a disease even want something?!”
Kakuzu had to count backwards from ten before he could reply with even a modicum of calm.
“Hanahaki disease is a specific manifestation of an imbalance within you, brought about by conflict within you. Negative emotions stemming from unrequited love strong enough to essentially poison you. Your chakra is tainted, your physiology is warped, and it manifests in these flowers that are literally strangling you and poisoning-”
“Okay no, back up for a hot fucking second.” Hidan held up a hand, finally managing to sit up and glare properly at the man sitting across the room. Even that action seemed to take a lot out of him.
“You’re telling me that I’ve been feeling like shit for months now because of something as absolutely fucking stupid as unrequited love.”
“That’s the gist of it, yes.”
“Well then goddamn!” He threw his arms up dramatically. “I hope it fucking kills me! Fuck this. Literally, fuck. This!”
“Hidan-” The older shinobi sighed harshly.
“This is literally the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard of in my entire goddamn life! I’m sick, because apparently my chakra is mad about someone not liking me back?!” His shrieking would likely wake up anyone else in the inn, but neither of them seemed to care much.
“It’s more than that, you dullard, this isn’t about some idiotic infatuation. The love felt for another must be sincere and complete, and you must whole-heartedly believe that it will never be returned. That sort of conflict can take a toll-”
“I am a grown-ass fucking shinobi, Kakuzu! I can handle my fucking emotions! I can cope with stupid fucking feelings!”
“Is that so.” He all but growled, just about done with being cut off and yelled over.
“Yes it fucking is! I am completely fucking collected and composed all the goddamn time!” He screamed, absolutely not collected or composed at all.
There was a long silence, wherein Kakuzu raised an eyebrow and Hidan scowled deeply as he replied to his partners silent judgement.
“Shut the fuck up, you decrepit sack of shit.”
“I’m trying to help you, idiot.” Though, at that point he couldn’t really remember why he’d decided to bother trying.
“Well maybe I don’t want your help!”
“Did I ask?”
“You- you- yeah well? Well!” He sputtered, face bright red with rage. “Fuck you!”
“Yes, an incredibly creative and scathing response. Do you want to know how to fix it or not.”
“...Fix it?” It seemed Hidan had forgotten that was an option, but it wasn’t entirely clear to Kakuzu if that was due to panic, exhaustion, or his usual selective hearing.
“I told you, if you give the illness what it wants-”
“And what exactly does it… want?”
“It wants the object of your affection to return your feelings. If they do-”
“Well, I guess I always wanted to know what death is like.” Hidan flopped back onto the bed, sighing dramatically and throwing his forearm over his face for added effect. Kakuzu didn’t even attempt to suppress the eye roll.
“Oh, cut the melodrama.”
“I’m literally dying from lovesickness.” Hidan pointed out testily, dropping his arm and lifting his head to glare at the other man. “I think the melodrama ship has fucking sailed!”
Well… He had a point there. Still, Kakuzu had run out of patience about eleven interruptions ago. He had to wrap this up quickly, or flowers would not be the thing to kill Hidan.
“What I’m trying to say, if you would listen to me-”
“What does it look like I’m doing?!”
“Throwing a tantrum. Now shut up.” He sighed harshly, instantly regretting what he was about to do before even doing it. “What I’m trying to say, if you’d let me finish, is that you’re quite possibly the densest, stupidest, most oblivious idiot I have ever had the displeasure of knowing.”
“Hey-!”
“The fact that you’ve been thinking your feelings are unrequited is, quite frankly, pitiful, pathetic, and completely lacking a basis in any sense of reality.” Despite the implications of the words, despite the fact that he was basically confessing his love for the other man, the tone was scathing and hateful, abound with resentment and rage. He wasn’t sure what angered him more, the fact that he actually cared about Hidan, or the fact that Hidan’s idiocy was making him say it out loud.
There was a long moment as Hidan’s brain apparently short-circuited. He apparently could not process what he had just heard, or the implications within it. Which was unfortunate because, whether it killed him or not, Kakuzu would not be repeating the sentiment.
“Wait. You knew-”
“I’d have to be blind, deaf, and a long-dead corpse in the ground to miss it.”
“And you-”
“I already gave you your answer.” He truly did sound absolutely exhausted with the mere concept of reciprocating Hidan’s feelings.
“No you didn’t- Oh. Ooooh…” Hidan finally, finally- and honestly Kakuzu could’ve cried from just the sheer relief of not having to keep explaining this nonsense to him- seemed to catch on. This was not a blessing, however, as the realization was immediately followed with a grin that was caught somewhere between smug, mischievous, and punchable. Mostly just punchable. “Awwww, Kakuzu, are you saying you care about me?”
“I will kill you where you’re lying, Hidan, do not test me right now.”
“No you won’t, because you love me and you were worried about me.” He snickered, throwing his head back as the sound grew to a full laugh. “You were fucking worried about me, you pussy! That’s so fucking gay!”
“Hidan, you were literally sick with how much you loved me. Shinobi in glass houses-”
“Aw, shut up, ‘kuzu. You fuckin’ sap.” The snickering did not stop. Kakuzu gritted his teeth hard for a moment, seething as he stood from his seat.
“...Well. As stated, you were in a very advanced stage of the disease…” Kakuzu noted, subtly approaching Hidan, who didn’t seem to notice until he was being pulled up roughly by a large hand around his throat. “You likely still have some flowers stuck in your lungs. We should remove them.”
“Wait, what-”
“I’m doing you a favour.” He told him, just a moment before ripping open his chest to reach his diseased lungs.
Was there a less genuinely painful and violent way to remove the flowers? Absolutely. Many different ways, some of which weren’t really all that awful at all.
But none of them were quite as satisfying, and none of them made Hidan stop laughing so effectively.