Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It had been almost a month since Shuichi started trying to actually understand Ouma. The boy was a complete mystery, a little box of lies and pranks that most people just didn’t want to deal with. Sure, everyone in their class was somewhat fond of Ouma, but it was a fondness surrounded by exasperation and confusion, and no one quite understood their purple-haired classmate. But Shuichi was a detective, and detectives cannot pass up on a good mystery - and the best one Shuichi had ever seen was named Ouma Kokichi.

It was hard at first, getting closer to the Ultimate Supreme Leader - he was flighty, jumping from table to table, pestering all their classmates in turn (his favorites were Kiibo, Iruma and Kaito, since they were the easiest to rile up) and playing pranks. Eventually Shuichi managed to get a little closer, although it took some persuasion, a lot of patience and quite a few bottles of grape Panta as a bribe - and even then, the rhythm of their friendship was completely controlled by Ouma and his games.

It was after one of those games (one where Ouma had managed to hurt himself with a knife, which definitely didn’t send Shuichi into a panicky, flustered state, thank you very much) that the Ultimate Detective realized he might be in deeper than he wanted to be. He had grown too close to the other teen. He now thought funny the pranks he once saw as childish, the lies were easier to spot (Kokichi always got a cute dimple on his left cheek when he told a lie), and worst of all - Shuichi’s eyes kept looking for him everywhere, and he felt a pang of disappointment when he didn’t see that mop of purple hair. All in all, Shuichi knew he was in trouble.

That night, when he got to his dorm room, he coughed up the first flower petal.

Chapter Text

“Shuichi, wait up!”

He stopped to let Kaito catch up to him, laughing at the state of his friend. “Momota-kun, did you even brush your hair?”

The other boy quickly fixed his hair with his hands as best as he could, purple jacket slipping from his shoulder as he moved his arms. “No, I, uh. Didn’t have a lot of time this morning.”

“So I noticed,” Shuichi chuckled. He glanced at the clock on the hallway wall. “Aren’t you gonna be late for your meeting with the career counselors?”

“Ah shit,” Kaito groaned. “Need to talk to you later though. Text me, bro!” He shouted as he ran down the hall.

Shuichi sighed and cleared his throat. The flowers were tickling his throat much more frequently nowadays, and he knew he needed help. He couldn’t escape Kaito’s questioning (or Maki’s silent and worried stare or Kaede’s gentle probing) much longer, and he knew they needed answers. They had noticed his coughing fits and how he ran off to the toilets as soon as they started. And of course, Kaito and him shared a dorm room, so it was impossible for him not to notice there was something wrong going on with Shuichi.

But it wasn’t happening right at this moment, so he could relax just a little bit. He smiled slightly at the prospective peace of the library.

—-

There was no peace in the library.

Someone (one guess as to who) had done an artful job of setting up stink bombs and party poppers all over the room, and got all the computers to play “Baby Got Back” deafeningly loud (but not all at the same time, they had been activated in tandem so it was an incomprehensible mess. The only way Shuuichi could even figure out what it was was by the image on the screens of all computers that said the title of the song in bright, seizure-inducing flashes).

From the door, where he had frozen in place, Shuichi could see several Ultimates from his class - Amami was scrunching his nose and covering one ear while trying to turn off the computers, but none of the buttons seemed to be working; Toujou was looking around in complete dismay, probably thinking about how she was going to have to clean it all up later; Gonta was in a corner, covering his ears, tears running down his face as he tried not to throw up from the smell - as well as other Ultimates from other classes.

And on top of a bookshelf, a shit-eating grin on his face and huge headphones covering his ears, was the obvious culprit, Ouma Kokichi, just watching the chaos unfold.

Shuichi couldn’t help admiring the genius of it all and wondered if it was because of the dedication involved in putting the prank together or because of who had done it.

He shook his head in a slight reprimand as their eyes met and ignored how his heart skipped a beat as Kokichi’s smile softened.

The detective watched in between the chaos as the Ultimate Supreme Leader very gracefully jumped from his perch down to the floor, using Gonta’s back as a stepping stone, and sauntered over to him.

“Good morning, my beloved Saihara-chan~,” he tittered, removing the headphones and shaking his head to loosen his purple-tipped hair, smiling up at Shuichi (whose heart was doing just fine ). “It appears that the library is inaccessible at the moment, shall we go grab some breakfast together?” Ouma asked, linking his arm with Shuichi’s and leading him away from the open library door.

Shuichi swallowed the petals in his throat and nodded. “S-sure,” he rasped out before clearing his throat. “If I may ask — why did you do that, Ouma-kun? You know people need to use the library,” he reprimanded, trying to remain serious.

“Oh, I just needed a plan to steal you away from your books, Mister Ultimate-Detective-Who-Studies-Too-Much. You know, all for your well-being,” Ouma said with a straight face, before beaming up at him, dimple clearly visible to Shuichi. “But that’s a lie! I’m just evil like that.”

Shuichi chuckled and as he opened his mouth to talk, he realized they were now holding hands. “O-Ouma-kun what-“ he started, but then couldn’t continue his sentence as a flower blocked his throat. He coughed softly into his fist, trying to dislodge it, but it wasn’t budging.

“Saihara-chan...?”

His eyes were burning and he could barely breathe — he needed to leave as soon as possible.

“Are you okay, Saihara-chan?“ he heard Ouma say, and he wanted to stay, wanted to eat breakfast and listen to the other boy’s stories and decipher his lies and look into his eyes and allow himself to fall even deeper but there was a flower in his throat and he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t talk, he couldn’t — “I need to go, sorry,” Shuichi mumbled, and as he ran away he could feel his mouth fill with flowers and blood and all he wanted to do was cry.

He didn’t see the disappointment and worry in Kokichi’s eyes as he was left behind in the middle of the hallway.

Chapter Text

“I dunno what ya want from me, ya li’l gremlin,” Iruma grumbled into her phone. “I already told ya I didn’t see your emo boy today, ya weird twink!”

“Yeah yeah, useless as always. Now go fiddle with Kiiboy’s robo-dick and leave me alone, slut-bag.” He heard her almost-lewd sputtering on the other side of the line and smirked. “Love ya~,” Kokichi half-sang before ending the call, cutting off her flustered protests, as he headed out of the school.

It was all half-assed, no real aggression behind the rough words. That was how the relationship went between the two of them, and it worked. She was one of the select few who managed to keep up with him in intellect and who tolerated his incessant lying - in return, he kept up with her dirty jokes and invention hyperfixations. They helped each other through stupid gay panics (or bi, in Iruma’s case) and bullying situations and self-sabotage, and although they had seen each other at their worst, they would never, ever bring that up in front of other people.

In short, Iruma Miu was his best friend and he fucking loved her more than (almost) anyone else in this god-forsaken academy. And she knew him better than anyone else.

His phone pinged.

[10:36:02] a bag of dicks: prolly unrelatd but

[10:36:23] a bag of dicks: momota wz calld 2 prncpls offc

[10:37:07] cock-itchy: what a dumbass, i hope he’s in trouble

[10:37:39] a bag of dicks: amami pulld a sikky apprntly

[10:37:57] cock-itchy: probably high

[10:38:40] a bag of dicks: also y arnt u in clas

[10:40:04] cock-itchy: supreme leader work

[10:40:15] cock-itchy: authorized absence if you must know

[10:40:33] a bag of dicks: boo u suk majr dik

[10:40:55] cock-itchy: yes, i have a 5 star rating thx

[10:41:16] a bag of dicks: twink + vyrgin + liar = kokichi ouma

[10:41:42] cock-itchy: shut it and spy for me, cum dumpster

[10:42:02] a bag of dicks: *moans*

[10:42:51] cock-itchy: and you wonder why i kink shame you

[10:45:44] a bag of dicks: okay

[10:45:52] a bag of dicks: dont pannick

[10:46:33] a bag of dicks: kaede and harukawa got txt + juz rushd out

[10:47:22] a bag of dicks: juzo yelld at thm fr leaving n harukawa flipped him off

[10:47:42] a bag of dicks: it was so hot

[10:48:00] cock-itchy: wtf focus

[10:48:11] cock-itchy: i’m starting to get really nervous

[10:48:20] a bag of dicks: sorry

[10:48:26] a bag of dicks: pls breathe

[10:48:42] a bag of dicks: ill text bakamatsu

[10:49:03] a bag of dicks: sum1 has 2 no where he is

[10:49:21] a bag of dicks: i will fynd owt

[10:49:49] cock-itchy: thank u

[10:50:05] cock-itchy: ps learn to spell

[10:50:48] a bag of dicks: 8===D

He really did love her.

————

The situation with Ouma by the library had been the worst yet. He had made it to a deserted toilet - thank GOD or Atua or whoever - before this massive flower bouquet quite literally exploded out of his throat, bringing with it a copious amount of blood and saliva and tears and a horrible, horrible sound coming out of him and echoing around the bathroom tiles.

Saihara retched for a few more minutes, spitting out half-ripped petals mixed with blood and bile and he felt so, so sick. His breath was rattling in his chest, and his heart was beating so loud he couldn’t even hear his own thoughts, and he was shaking so hard that keeping his eyes open was making him feel even more nauseous.

He dropped to the floor, knees too weak to hold himself up, and leaned against the stall wall. He was pathetic.

His body apparently really fucking hated him because of course he couldn’t have his crush smiling at him too brightly or casually grabbing his hand without it going into full purge mode. But to be fair, he understood it. Why give himself any sort of hope? There was absolutely no way that Ouma would ever like -like him - Shuichi had seen how he acted around all the other boys in his class - Gonta, Amami, even Kiibo and Kaito had been at the center of his attention, one way or another. A prank, a piggyback ride, a card game, a manicure session - all Kokichi’s ways of showing affection; he had even seen him spreading his charm with upperclassmen like Togami and Komaeda, who were quite frankly much more interesting people than Shuichi would ever be.

And he was fine with it, really - he had come to terms with it. Happiness just wasn’t a thing in the horizon for Saihara Shuichi.

It just sucked that he was suffering from the pathological (and deadly) form of unrequited love.

He was pulled out of his self-pity by the click of the bathroom door opening and he scrambled to get up and close the door to the stall he had made his mess in - but as he stood up, the world warped around him dangerously and suddenly he was falling. The last thing he saw was Amami Rantaro’s usually relaxed face contorted into a panicked expression as he rushed to grab him.

——

“Why didn’t he tell us-“

“That’s a stupid question.”

“Just - Shuichi why??”

“Who even is-“

“Another stupid question, just shut up Momota-“

“Everyone shush! He’s waking up.”

Shuichi made a small noise, like a wounded puppy, as he slowly came to. There was a sickly sweet taste in his mouth and he felt almost drunk - what had happened? The last thing he remembered was - OH.

He sat up with a gasp and immediately choked on the vines and flowers in his throat. There was some panicked shuffling and mumbling around him (he was too distracted by his lungs betraying him to really pay attention) and then there was a medical tray under his face.

“Shhh, it’s okay Shu, just let it all out,” said a voice he vaguely recognized as Kaede.

He coughed and gagged and spit his flowers into the metal tray.

There was a hand on his back, soft and comforting, rubbing under his shoulder blades (someone had taken off his binder, and he couldn’t even feel embarrassed). He numbly wondered if they could feel the stems wrapped around his lungs, the thorns puncturing his internal organs, the flowers blooming with every frantic beat of his heart. (He wondered if dying made you a poet or if he had missed his true inclination by chasing criminals instead.)

Eventually the compulsion to purge faded and he managed to raise his head, eyes running, lips swollen and cracked. “Hi,” he croaked out, before sucking in his lips and licking away the blood.

Shuichi didn’t know exactly how bad he looked (though he could fathom a guess), but his friends looked awful. Kaito was disheveled, pale face and watery eyes and hair standing every which way, as if he had pulled on it — oh.

Shuichi shifted his eyes to Maki, who looked resolute as always, but whose eyes were shiny and sad and angry (but not at him, even in his half-present state he could tell that). Her hand was wrapped around Kaito’s, both holding on so tight to each other Shuichi was sure they’d be leaving marks.

Behind them was Amami - and while Shuichi had massive respect for the older teen (raising twelve sisters cannot be an easy task) and greatly enjoyed his company, they weren’t the closest. The Adventurer raised his hand and gave him a sad smile, and suddenly Shuichi recalled the situation in the bathroom. He mouthed “hi” at Amami, then looked down to avoid his eyes, and noticed his bloody shirt. Great, he winced.

Finally, sitting on the bed facing him, still rubbing his back and sniffling, was Kaede, harshly biting her bottom lip and looking straight at him.

The moment their eyes met, Shuichi had to look away. The guilt was too strong, and now there was a knot in his throat that was unrelated to the flowers.

She threw her arms around him, her hands grabbing fistfuls of his shirt. He swallowed the bloody saliva in his mouth as he felt, more than heard, her uncontrollable sobs. He could see Kaito and Maki shaking in his peripheral vision, and noticed Amami lowering himself to the floor, hands pressing into his eyes.

“Why didn’t you say anything, Shuichi?? Why let it get to this point-,” her voice broke, and Shuichi couldn’t do more than shrug weakly, hands idly playing with the purple flowers on the metal tray.

He felt vaguely outside of his body, almost like he was watching the scene from afar. Dissociation, his brain supplied and he nodded absently.

He noticed the IV sticking out of his hand and looked at it curiously. He followed the plastic tube and got slightly startled at the girl standing on his left hand side.

“Hi,” he croaked again. He was starting to feel a bit like a broken record.

“H-h-hello, Saihara-kun. I-I’m Tsumiki Mikan, Ult-Ultimate Nurse,” she stuttered. He noticed she was quite pretty, even though she had very choppy bangs, like someone had tried to make her look bad on purpose. She was also covered in bandages, which could be saying something about her talent, but he really didn’t feel like analyzing anything at that moment. “Y-your f-friend Harukawa-san got me w-when she heard what ha-had happened to you,” she leaned forward and took the tray from him, quickly but carefully wiping his hands down with a moist, warm towel, before giving him a clean tray. Huh, nervous but effective. That’s good, Shuichi thought, as impressed as he could be with his foggy mind.

She took a quick steadying breath and then looked him straight in the eyes. “Y-your Hanahaki shouldn’t be too advanced, b-but this was a serious attack, which could cause lasting damage. Do you k-know what could have triggered it?”

He shrugged again. Kaede removed herself from him carefully, still shaking but no longer sobbing. “Shu, please…”

He sighed and tried speaking but nothing came out.

“Oh! F-f-forgive me!” Tsumiki gasped and quickly passed him a glass of water with a straw. “P-please take small s-sips only.”

As he drank (why was he so parched?? How long had he been out?), the Ultimate Nurse busied herself with fluffing up his pillows, so he could lean back comfortably. She then passed him another moist towel so he could wipe his face, and put the glass on his bedside table.

“Ou-h-they, uhhh,” he nervously glanced at Kaito and Maki, not knowing how they would react to him being in love with Ouma of all people. It made sense to him, but he knew it wouldn’t to them. “They smiled at me and grabbed my hand,” he muttered, leaning back on the pillows and squeezing Kaede’s hand instinctively.

“Hmm,” Tsumiki frowned, taking the slightly bloody towel from him. “Level two Hanahaki shouldn’t be triggered by s-such a small thing. How l-long would you say th-this has been going on?”

“The feelings? About two months. The… petal-coughing, just under three weeks.” Exactly two weeks and six days, actually.

He could tell Kaito had questions. He could also see Maki digging her nails into his arm so he’d stay quiet. The normalcy of the situation made him smile despite himself and he felt marginally more grounded.

Tsumiki hissed under her breath, muttering to herself as she twisted her apron around her fingers. “W-we need to do some testing. M-may I take s-some blood?”

“He’s coughed up enough blood, why do you need to take more from him?? Just use what’s on the tray!” Kaito almost shouted, making the nurse whimper and cower.

“Apologize now,” Maki hissed, punching her boyfriend in the arm.

“Ow, ow, Harumaki, what the - oh, I’m so sorry, Tsumiki-san, I did not mean to scare you,” he bowed, covertly rubbing his arm.

“Th-that’s okay, Mo-momota-kun,” the nurse was almost in tears, shaking like a leaf. “Th-the blood h-he coughed up-p is t-t-tainted. We n-need fresh b-blood for t-t-testing.” She turned to Shuichi again, “i-if that’s okay w-with you, Sai-saihara-kun.”

“You’re the Ultimate Nurse here, you know best,” he shot her a small sincere smile, knowing first-hand how bad anxiety was and how just a tiny bit of positive reinforcement could stave off an attack. She smiled at him, blinking away tears, and he felt accomplished. “Take whatever you need but uh- can we-“ he interrupted himself, nervously looking around the room at everyone. “Can we make sure this doesn’t leave this room? I don’t want this to change how people see me or,” he licked his lips nervously. “I don’t want Ou- my crush to know. So that means…no one can know.”

Everyone gasped.

“Shuichi that means-“

“Saihara, you cannot expect-“

“B-b-but I h-h-have to-“

“Don’t be stupid, Saihara-“

“Sidekick, what the f-“

“Stop,” he groaned, louder than he wanted to. Silence fell. “I’m- please respect my desires. Tsumiki-sama,” the Nurse perked up, surprised at being singled out, and with such an honorific. “You have my permission to tell the school, but make them promise they won’t tell my uncle. He’ll remove me from school, and then I’ll die sad and alone,” he chuckled under his breath, but no one else laughed. Tough crowd, said a tiny voice in his brain that sounded suspiciously like Ouma.

After a few seconds, Tsumiki nodded, “o-okay, y-you have my w-word. I will c-come back tomorrow t-to draw blood. D-do you have any ques-questions, Saihara-kun?”

He nodded, gripping Kaede’s hand even tighter. “How uh - how long was I…?”

“A-about 8 hours. Th-that is why I had to p-put you on an IV d-drip. Y-you lost a lot of li-liquids.” Tsumiki fiddled with his IV bag, “I also just g-gave you a t-tiny dose of an-anti-emetic, to c-calm your n-nausea.”

Shuichi nodded, and then gasped, “Th-the bathroom-! It was covered in my blood-“

“I took care of it, Saihara. Don’t worry, no else saw it,” said Amami, a tired smile on his face. Shuichi returned the smile, a guilty pang in his stomach.

Tsumiki clapped her hands almost gleefully, “o-okay, if you have no more q-questions, w-we should all l-let him r—“

“How long does he have left?”

Everyone’s eyes turned to Maki, who had asked the question everyone was thinking. It made sense, Shuichi thought with a small smile, that it would be Maki asking it. The person who was most closely connected to death.

He knew the answer, so he tuned out Tsumiki.

Due on the quick progression of the disease, he could have at most six months left to live.

If his feelings were to be returned, he needed to be confessed to in a maximum of three months, or there would be no going back, the roots too deeply ingrained in and around his vital organs to be removed without creating horrible internal bleeding.

If he decided to go for the surgery, he needed to decide in the next two weeks or so. However, the surgery would completely remove his feelings towards Ouma. Every feeling. He would be absolutely neutral and numb to Ouma Kokichi. The thought of having no level of friendship at all with him hurt more than what they had now. Hurt more than coughing up flowers in full bloom. And it would hurt Ouma, which was the worst part. This wasn’t even an option to Shuichi.

So, he would suffer. Ouma had once calling him the Ultimate Emo as a joke, and it was more fitting than he’d ever know. Shuichi chuckled to himself at the irony.

———

Tsumiki left, and after a few minutes so did Amami, but not before Shuichi thanked him profusely and offered to buy him a new shirt. Amami laughed and ruffled his hair, calling him “silly little Saihara” (which had made Shuichi blush because, well, he might be head over heels for Ouma but Amami was insanely good-looking and he wasn’t blind).

Alone with his three best friends, Shuichi sighed. “I know you have questions but-“

“It’s Ouma, isn’t it?”

Shuichi’s mouth went very dry. He raised his eyes to the person who had spoken and gaped. “Momota-kun, I-“

Kaito blinked back at him, and he suddenly realized just how bone-tired the Ultimate Astronaut looked. “Sidekick, come on. I know we don’t like him but,” he shrugged awkwardly, glancing to the side. “It’s your choice, not ours. We don’t really have a say in who you fall in love with,” he chuckled.

“Honestly, neither do I,” Shuichi rasped out with a tiny laugh. “I didn’t choose it, it just… happened.” He didn’t say that if he could have chosen, it would have been Ouma anyway.

Kaede carefully touched his cheek with her fingertips. “We support you no matter what. You should know that by now, Shu.”

“I- I know,” his voice broke, and he suddenly felt the enormity of the situation. His breath came a bit quicker as he suppressed tears. “Thank you.”

“You brought us together, Sai— Shuichi. We’ll always be here for you,” declared the Assassin, gingerly placing a strong hand on his ankle.

He looked up at the three of them, not quite understanding how or why he had such a strong support system. Yeah, his parents were selfish deadbeats who had left him behind to follow their dreams, and his uncle was too overworked to care for him, but it didn’t matter.

He had them.

He allowed himself to break. He could be strong tomorrow.