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Jin hates spring.
It is far too pretty for what it is. It is the herald of the end of his winter and the start of the worsening of his condition. It is days spent bedridden, staring up at a ceiling that spins in lazy circles, with a trail of petals paving the path to the bathroom. It is blood in his mouth, on his lips.
It is the time when they finally start to notice the little annotation on his official file.
Jin Kisaragi
Age: 24
Known conditions: Various mental health issues [detailed below]. Chronic Hanahaki disease, cause unknown.
He hates that, too. The careful looks, the gentle touches. The way they won’t let him do anything more straining than paperwork - but he belongs out on the field, not confined to a desk! It gives him too much time to think.
He wipes his mouth on the back of his gloves - black, for this season, to better hide the blood - and brushes a flurry of white petals off his desk. He doesn’t know what kind of flower they are; he refuses to learn. He doesn’t care. The flowers can say whatever they damn well please about him and his love.
Chronic. Not deadly, but until death. An important distinction.
He is chronically ill. Saya was terminally ill.
… And that made her so much more important.
He knows he is being unfair. Neither of them had any choice in it, but Saya is dead now, and she can no longer inspire the last shreds of his conscience to guilt. Saya is dead, and he is Jin Kisaragi - cold and solitary and perfect. Cold and hateful and heartless.
The news is always met with surprise. Hanahaki? they whisper, Are you sure? How could anything grow in the frozen soil of his heart?
It wasn’t always frozen, he thinks to himself. He had once been a child, a bright, naive, stupid little boy, and it was then that the seed was planted. How could it not? His older brother was always so big and strong, so reliable and beautiful, and he inspired love in everyone he met.
In everyone he meets, for Ragna is still alive, and Jin’s chest seizes in painful jealousy at the thought.
A flower spills bloodstained from his lips. He crushes it in his hand and tosses it aside. It hurts. His throat, his chest, his lungs, his mouth. It hurts, but it will not kill him.
It is just pain. Pain doesn’t matter, pain is as easy as breathing. His sister taught him that first, then his brother, then the iron fist of the Kisaragis. And so he continues to breathe.
Pain is nothing.
The coughing fit that bends him over his desk, mouth buried against his sleeve so as to not bleed on his papers, is nothing. It is nothing. It is nothing. It is nothing.
It is… a reassurance. He is still alive, and he alone loves Ragna so much that it blooms in his ribcage, winds around his bones, and threatens to sprout from his skin.
No one else can ever love Ragna this much, because no one knows him better and no one needs him more than Jin does.
Even if they hate each other.
And that’s the funny thing, isn’t it? This is a disease for those whose love is so strong, so beautiful it has no choice but to bloom, but his love (if it can be called that) is so, so ugly. He is ugly.
Blooming doesn’t suit him. He should rot instead.
From the way he picks blood-soaked petals out from the scabs that never heal on his skin, he thinks the flowers agree.
(He wonders if they resent him, too)
———————
… It is spring again.
There is no one to confine him to officework now, because he has left the NOL entirely. He chases the ghost of his brother - tastes it in his mouth as he laughs another cloud of mist and flowers.
Ragna is always just out of reach. He sparks across the horizon like lightning before plunging his world into darkness once more. Jin doesn’t think he’ll ever catch him, but it doesn’t matter when he at least feels alive.
When the stars align and they meet, his grin sits crooked on his face as he cries, “Nii-san!”
“Jin!?” is the response, hissed and spat like sparks from a fire. His brother looks at him, and his gaze is so fucking full of hate and rage and guilt, but at least he’s looking.
At least Ragna can still bear to lay his eyes upon him.
Jin giggles. He hears more than feels the flutter of petals that come with each exhale, the soft noise they make as the wind picks them up. Pity flashes across Ragna’s expression. Jin pretends it’s anything but.
Ragna doesn’t dare touch him; Jin tries but his fingers close around nothing. It doesn’t matter, never did, because Ragna is so bright and warm and strong like the flames that ate up their lives and Jin knows he can’t hold fire in his icy hands.
It doesn’t matter.
The flowers scatter across the space where their fingers almost brush. Ragna’s eyes widen, as if he didn’t know, hasn’t known, as if at nine years old Jin hadn’t climbed into bed with him with his hands cupped around the first bloom like something delicate and precious and asked, isn’t it beautiful?
As if he hadn’t been so, so scared then, grabbed Jin by the shoulders and said, no, no, don’t you know what this means? Beneath it all, there was something else that Jin didn’t understand at the time.
He understands now, what was left unspoken: you will wither and die, you will leave me like Saya did and I can’t do anything but watch.
But, sixteen years later, he is still here! Because it is not deadly, it is until death.
How rare! How quaint! His love - his bloody, ugly, hateful love will not kill him. No, no, Ragna will have to do the work with his own two hands instead.
Yet he doesn’t. He wraps his hands around Jin’s throat, who tilts his head back like this is an offering to the heavens, squeezes tighter and tighter and then… stops.
He releases, and Jin breathes. Ragna has always been weak like that. It’s another thing Jin loves about him, and he coughs and coughs and coughs until petals stick to his spit-stained lips.
“Jin,” Ragna says. He is weak again, cuts himself off and shakes his head instead of finishing the sentence.
What a wonder, that all it takes is his own name spilling from those lips and Jin feels like he’s been touched by God. If he never hears another word, it will be enough.
Ragna’s heart clenches at the sight of Jin’s guileless smile. “What the Hell is wrong with you?” he whispers.
I love you, Jin thinks as he gasps air through his bruised throat. He turns his head to the side and spits a sad, crumpled blossom onto the floor.
“You did this,” he says instead. His tongue tastes like grass and honeysuckle.
Ragna’s brow furrows. Guilt comes easy to him—it always has, with how he blamed himself for Saya, for the fire, for everything else. He shakes his head as if to try and shake off the blame; stands and turns away from where his little brother lies on the ground.
I love you, Jin thinks again, staring at his back as he walks away. Please save me.
He sends up a silent prayer to every god and devil that has abandoned him, but Ragna doesn’t look back.
Another flower curls in the back of his throat. He chokes it down like the words he cannot say, and rises wobbling to his feet to chase that fading mirage of red once more.
———
“Hemlock?” Kokonoe raises her brow. “The hell did you get something like that?”
Ragna shrugs and crushes the tiny white flower in his hand.
You will be the death of me.