Chapter Text
It burned. It burned so much.
The petals blossoming in his throat, clogging his airway, blooming in his lungs, stealing his breath away.
Despite the growing agony, he recklessly cast it all aside for the man in front of him. A man whose smile was brighter than any jewel he had ever seen, his eyes colored a pretty teal that rivaled the beauty of the sea. In every way he could think of, there would be something about this man that he was chasing after, something that he was aching to cherish all to himself. His dazzling smile, his adorable laugh, his warm disposition…
But it wasn't right. This feeling, this emotion, he wasn't supposed to feel this way. He didn't own him. He wasn't his.
And judging by all the answers the samurai had gathered from the general in the past week, those precious days trickling down the drain as he approached his inevitable end, Kazuha knew it was impossible for Gorou to be his.
“I'm sorry that I haven't been able to spend a lot of time with you.” The young canine spoke, scratching his ears with the cutest sheepish smile. “I didn't think that my schedule would get so busy so quickly.”
“It isn't your fault.” Kazuha managed to say, surprised that his voice hasn't faded away yet. “Monster attacks are oft beyond our control. There is thusly no reason to blame you for such excused absences.”
“Besides, our homeland is indeed changing.” He added, leaning back slightly, hoping to push down any annoying blood that threatened to spill. “With how Watatsumi Island is growing close with the rest of Inazuma, I'm sure your meetings with Thoma and Ayaka had grown more frequent.”
Gorou puffed his cheeks, and Kazuha had to hold back the urge to pinch them playfully, to break through the space between them and give in to his desire to be closer with him. “Ugh, don't get me started! Taroumaru kept barking every time I was there, and every time I translated what he said, the two of them kept bombarding me with so many questions!”
“I’m sure neither of them had ever seen someone like you.” He noted, gesturing to his fluffy ears and tail. “It must have been a surprise to see someone flock to your talents that way.”
“A little.” He paused to take a sip of his tea, and again, Kazuha looked away from the hands he wanted to hold so tightly. “I don't mind speaking with them to strengthen our connections with Inazuma City, and I'm more than happy to assist her Excellency with these matters. But still, it's really hard to get used to such formal meetings. I much rather spend time with you instead.”
The samurai could feel his heart clench slightly, and in the recesses of his throat, a petal forming. He steeled himself to remain stone-faced. After all, the warmth in his heart could only be a delusion playing tricks on him, telling him that Gorou liked him when he knew it wasn’t true.
“Why me?” He coughed, disguising the rising discomfort in his chest.
The other man paused again, thinking to himself. It felt as if a full hour had passed before he spoke again, in a tone so ambiguously laden with longing that Kazuha couldn’t tell if it was platonic or romantic.
“I just really like being with you.” He said so simply in reply.
This was too much. Too, too much for him to handle. It seemed as if the build-up from the past few days, when Kazuha had been dancing around Gorou’s unclear answers, unsure of whether to believe that he could have a future with him or not, was finally catching up to him. His thoughts piling up in his head into heaps of memory, the two sides inside of him screaming for dominance, thinking left and right, left and right, if the general truly desired him in the way Kazuha did.
One side was the hopeless optimist, a hopeless romantic. Thinking that Gorou was in love with him, and that he just needed to start believing in himself. To start believing that he would triumph over his past and build a new future with him.
The other was a pessimist, ruthless yet dejected. Feeling betrayed by Gorou dropping hints that neither confirmed nor answered his questions, feeling hurt by the general’s blatant ignorance, picturing him as a vicious demon gnawing at his breaking heart.
Two forces vying for his attention. Two forces that emerged from the sweetest, most rewarding emotion that anyone could ever experience.
Love is a tumultuous emotion, the samurai had discovered. A deadly one too.
And sometime during his sentimental haze, Kazuha had not realized that he had started choking on his breath again, nearly throwing up his throat as he lurched forward, heaving one heavy breath after another, only to cough up a single item.
A fully petaled blue flower.
A telltale sign of death.
He barely registered Gorou’s panicked shouts, his strong arms gripping tightly to his shoulders before the world went black. Had he been conscious for a while longer, Kazuha would have seen a strange streak of red down Gorou’s face.