Work Text:
Noriaki tapped the buttons of his Switch slowly, already feeling lifeless. To his eyes, the screen had no color. It was all black and white, like his life would be in a matter of hours. And still, his mother was all smiles. Like Noriaki wouldn’t have rather died than go through with this.
“You’ll feel better once this is over,” she said, leaning over and squeezing his knee. Noriaki pulled his leg away and though he didn’t look at her, he already knew the face she was making. That confused, disgusted expression, the kind that said ‘haven’t you done enough to me already.’ Never thinking about what she’d done to him to push him to that point. “Don’t be so ungrateful, Tenmei. I’m doing this for you.”
He opened his mouth, intending to say something like it’s Noriaki or don’t pretend you aren’t basically killing me too, but his words disappeared in a fit of coughing. When he looked down at his palm, it was full of bloody petals. Red rose and pink anemone.
“Oh, no, is it getting worse?” His mother grabbed his wrist before he could hide it. She clicked her tongue and rubbed her thumb over his skin. It might have been a comforting gesture if her nails hadn’t been digging in as well. “Stay here, I’ll go talk to the doctor and see if we can’t move the surgery up. Okay? Once it’s over, you’ll feel much better.”
Noriaki frowned as she left the room, looking down at his Switch and frowning at a smear of blood on the screen. She kept saying that, that he’d feel better, like he wasn’t hours away from feeling nothing at all. The surgeons might as well take their scalpel to his heart as well. It wasn’t like he’d need it after this. Noriaki gave up cleaning the blood off and just shut his Switch down. He grit his teeth and then threw it at the door, his eyes stinging.
Before it could collide with the wall, the door slammed open and a hand darted in from the hallway, catching his Switch mid-air. Noriaki sat up straighter, ready to apologize, but all his words got stuck when the reason he was in the hospital in the first place stepped into the room.
“I’m getting you out of here.” Jotaro left no room for argument. Noriaki should have put up more of a fight, but the way his heart jumped at the sight of him, there was no contest. He knew instantly he’d rather cough himself to death in his best friend’s arms than lose this feeling than become mindless and lose all the spark his life had gained.
Jotaro was by his side in a flash. He probably said something about having to hurry up, but Noriaki filtered his voice out. He was solely focused on taking his IVs out and wrapping his arms around Jotaro’s shoulders, smiling for the first time in a while when Jotaro picked him up and burst out of the hospital room with him.
“Tenmei?!” He heard his mother screech in surprise down the hall and he glanced back at her, waving with a wide grin that didn’t disappear even when he coughed. Petals sticky with the inside of his lungs fluttered onto his chest, but he just brushed them off and locked his hands together behind Jotaro’s neck.
“Let’s go,” he said. Jotaro flashed him a confident smirk and took off, dodging and even barreling through anyone who tried to slow them down. Jotaro had never been the type to let anyone stand between him and what he wanted, and Noriaki had always admired his drive and determination. His eyes were sparkling by the time Jotaro made it outside with him, but they shone even brighter when he saw how Jotaro had gotten to the hospital in the first place.
“Hold on tight. We won’t ride for long like this, promise.” Jotaro swung his leg over his motorcycle, the purple monstrosity he’d named Star Platinum, and rearranged Noriaki carefully so he ended up sitting in front of Jotaro, facing him, his legs locked around his waist and his arms around his shoulder. Jotaro was warm against him, and Noriaki squeezed his eyes shut. If not for the sound of staff yelling as they followed them out, or the wind whipping his hair, he could have imagined they were just hugging.
Jotaro sped away from the hospital, away from the people who wanted to make Noriaki a shell of himself. He opened his eyes after a moment, peeking over Jotaro’s shoulder to watch the trees and buildings disappear behind them. Noriaki knew him so well he wasn’t surprised when they turned into the lot for the park by Jotaro’s house. Jotaro parked Star Platinum and slammed his foot down on the kickstand.
“We’re here.” Noriaki blushed hard when he felt the rumble in Jotaro’s chest and realized he was still holding onto him. Jotaro didn’t seem phased, his expression barely changing as he helped Noriaki off and kept an arm around him. Noriaki could have pretended it was a romantic gesture, if only his legs didn’t feel like jelly.
“Thank you,” Noriaki managed to remember to say. Jotaro walked with him over to the grass, toward the area they liked to sit and picnic at when it was warm. Now that he thought about it, he’d probably never have a bento from Holly ever again. He bit his lip to keep from crying over something so silly and just focused on one foot in front of the other. “What are we doing out here?”
“We’re gonna brainstorm, and then we’re gonna find him,” Jotaro declared. “I’m not going to let them carve anything out of you. If you love someone, there’s no way they wouldn’t love you back. We just have to figure it out.” His hand came up as if reaching for his hat, but turned into a determined fist instead. Noriaki wanted to hold it, to massage his thumbs into his palm and release the tension, but there was nothing he could do.
Except tell the truth, maybe, but that wouldn’t do any good. He’d told Jotaro he had a rarer strain of hanahaki disease. Almost everyone who had it knew who they were hopelessly in love with, even if it was in denial, but Noriaki had convinced Jotaro he had a strain that developed despite not knowing who his unrequited love belonged to. Which wasn’t unheard of, to be fair— it just wasn’t what was happening with him. And even if Jotaro knew now, it wouldn’t do him any good. He’d just feel guilty for not being able to love Noriaki back.
So he smiled and nodded. “Alright. Where do you want to start?” Noriaki looked up at him and ignored the tickle of more petals ready to be coughed up. This wouldn’t be fair to Jotaro, and was in fact incredibly selfish of him, but he didn’t want to go in a clean hospital or on a table, and he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life never feeling anything like this again. He wanted to be with Jotaro, with the birds and the sky over him. He wanted to choose his end for himself.
“Let’s start with what you’re coughing up.” Jotaro tipped his hat down slightly, his next words more of a mumble than anything else. “I heard they give you clues, so I… read up on flower language.”
Oh. That was surprisingly sweet. Noriaki opened his mouth, smile wide. “They’re—” As if on cue, Noriaki started to hack. He doubled over, his eyes wide with pain as he felt his throat slowly become blocked. Jotaro’s strong hand came down on his back, forcing the flowers out. When they hit the pavement, Noriaki could have sobbed. But he didn’t.
A fully-formed thornless red rose and a pink anemone curled on the ground, soaked in blood. Noriaki didn’t have much time left, if any at all. If Jotaro hadn’t been there, he would have choked on them.
“Love at first sight.” Jotaro’s voice was sudden but soft, his eyes narrowing in a way that almost looked like it was from pain.
“What?” Noriaki nearly choked again. Love at first? What was he talking about? Did he—? Before his mind could run off, Noriaki followed his gaze down to the flowers. Oh. He didn’t realize when Jotaro said it, he actually knew flower language that well. He was in trouble. “Is that the anemone?”
Jotaro shook his head and crouched down, picking the rose up. Noriaki head ready to smack his hand, to warn him about the thorns, but then he realized there weren’t any. Jotaro turned it over in his hand and then looked up at Noriaki. His eyes were almost misty.
“Red roses,” he started, “symbolize romance and beauty. Thornless red roses mean love at first sight.” Jotaro dropped it to the ground and picked up the anemone next.
“Did you know there are 120 species of anemones?” Noriaki laughed nervously, his face turning red. Jotaro was going to figure it out. He’d always been too smart. He didn’t know how to stop him, to stop this. “They’re also called windflowers.”
“Pink anemones represent the loss of a loved one to death,” Jotaro continued as if he hadn’t heard him. Noriaki felt cold and feverish at the same time. Jotaro stood up to his full height, towering over Noriaki. The blue of his eyes was deeper and darker than normal. Truly sad, this time. Noriaki opened his mouth, but Jotaro’s opened faster. “What am I going to do with you?”
“It’s not what you think.” Noriaki shakily took a step forward and buckled, his strength leaving. No, no, this couldn’t be it. Jotaro’s arms were already out, cradling him gently as they hit the ground together. He had to tell Jotaro he was wrong. He could die not having Jotaro know how much he loved him, but he couldn’t live with Jotaro thinking he still loved him. Not after what he’d done.
“He tried to kill you.” Jotaro sounded heartbroken. He grabbed Noriaki’s hand and held it tight. “If I hadn’t— if I hadn’t stopped him, he would have. How can you still love him? Why? You can’t, he’s not even… you can’t let him win.”
“That’s not it,” Noriaki tried to say and coughed half a lung out instead. His heart was racing, his ribs shrinking. The flowers that came out were thicker, half or full heads sticky with globs of scarlet. Jotaro threw them away, like that alone could make Noriaki’s feelings disappear. But it wouldn’t.
Noriaki opened his mouth, but the words died in his throat when he saw Jotaro’s lower lip tremble. How could he have pushed Jotaro so far? He opened his mouth and then closed it again, gritting his teeth.
He’d been in love with Jotaro since the day they’d met, but at that time he’d belonged to someone else. Someone who made him feel different, like an equal, who spoiled him so much that he could ignore, for a time, the casual cruelty and implicit ban on socializing with anyone besides Dio. A rule he couldn’t listen to when it came to Jotaro, when he needed to be close to him more than he needed to breathe. And then he hadn’t been able to breathe at all.
Dio had seen the signs coming from a mile away. He’d been content for a while in his sadism, so happy thinking he was the cause of Noriaki’s cough and growing despair, but then he’d picked Noriaki up from school one day and realized when he watched them together. His response, naturally, had been to try and beat Noriaki to death for his ‘betrayal,’ and he would have succeeded if Jotaro hadn’t followed them. If he hadn’t known something was wrong.
It wasn’t Jotaro’s fault Dio had died of his injuries. It had been Noriaki’s, waiting until the last minute to call someone. He knew it was horrible to think, especially since he had loved Dio once, or felt something for him at least, but he was glad for it. He never would have been free otherwise. It was a miracle the trial had gone well and Jotaro faced no punishment, but also no surprise Noriaki’s parents had forbidden him from seeing him afterwards. He had his hanahaki to worry about, after all.
As if being apart from Jotaro didn’t make it worse. Noriaki could have become one of those petal lungs, the kind of person who always had their love in the back of their mind but could function otherwise, but the constant thoughts of Jotaro, of missing him and needing to see him, had fed the flowers inside him until his mother arranged the surgery without asking. Noriaki knew she was just doing her job, but her job was tearing him apart.
And now Jotaro was being torn apart too, thinking Noriaki was still in love with the man he’d killed for him. He blinked hard, forcing his eyes open, but everything stopped when he realized Jotaro’s shoulders were shaking. And not from tears.
Jotaro was coughing.
“No,” he gasped, but Jotaro’s body ignored his protests. He hacked until a fist ful of pink petals rested in his palm. Noriaki didn’t need to be an expert to recognize them as cherry blossom petals. Beautiful symbols of spring and renewal— but sometimes, the name itself was more important than the meaning. Like anemones, which reminded Noriaki of Jotaro’s beloved sea creatures. Or cherry blossoms, which made people think of cherries. And Noriaki loved cherries.
Jotaro looked at Noriaki’s face and deflated at his recognition. Noriaki was sure he had a thousand conflicting feelings, but all Noriaki could hear was a chance. He didn’t need to be cut open, but he also didn’t need to die.
“I’m sorry.” Jotaro tilted his hat down, covering most of his face. “Don’t… don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine. We need to worry about you, Nori.”
“No, we don’t,” he replied. He felt stronger already, pushing himself up to Jotaro’s face. Close enough to see his blush, to see the panicked look in his eyes. He’d never imagined having to be the forward one, but his life was on the line. He could be embarrassed later. “Kujo Jotaro, I need to tell you that I am in love with you and you better kiss me right now.”
Jotaro, stunned, opened his mouth ever so slightly. It was enough for Noriaki to tug him down and kiss him himself. Even with the feeling of petals against his lips, the tang of copper in his mouth, and the death sentences growing in his lungs, Noriaki had never been able to breathe more easily. Jotaro’s hands held him steady, held him close, and Noriaki could feel that they’d never let him go.
Neither of them would recover overnight, since flowers took their time with withering, but the uncertainty between them was done growing. They both would live, and now all they had room for was love.