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It started with a single petal.
Nezha waved the concern of the pain in his chest away. The campaign had started, and there was no time to take the tingling in his chest seriously. If it was a cold, then he had to go through it. If it was worse than that, well, he was sure the Dragon would take care of it.
When the cough that started out of nowhere continued, he brushed it aside. He must have gotten uneasy. As good as their chances were, it was natural to be nervous embarking on the Northern Campaign.
When the second round of cough in the middle of the night produced a single, red petal on his palm, he paused.
At first, he thought it was blood. The dark crimson color was all he could see in the faint moonlight through his cabin window.
Was he coughing up blood?
He was more puzzled than concerned. He had no injury other than basic cuts and bruises that got normally healed within several days. He felt no internal injury other than the occasional discomfort in his chest.
But as he stared, fascinated, he realized it wasn’t blood.
He angled his hand to get better light. Tentatively, his left hand brushed over the substance. It was soft, thin, and delicate. It was round and flimsy. It was definitely not blood. If Nezha had to guess, it was a petal, except it couldn’t possibly be petal. The weather was creeping toward fall and winter, and they had left spring and summer far behind and far ahead of them.
He couldn’t possibly be coughing up a flower petal.
The situation was so bizarre that not even panic settled in. He tossed it aside and let it flutter to the ground in circles. No one would notice, anyway. It was a mishap. Strange incident, but he’d seen stranger things before.
Surely, a single petal couldn’t be the destruction of everything.
Nezha knocked, short and sharp, on the wall.
“Hey.”
Rin glanced up. She was alone in the cabin of the ship. It was hard to tell in the dark, but Nezha thought she was fiddling with her trident on the ground. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the decks?”
“My shift just ended. I brought something.”
Her face, which had been dark and gloomy a moment ago, perked up a bit. “Something good?”
Nezha produced several steamed buns from his baggage. "Midnight snack?"
One couldn’t miss the hungry gleam on her face. "No shit."
“Where’s the Cike?”
“Down.”
“Why aren’t you there with them?”
She gave the barest shrug. “Didn’t feel like it.”
Rin’s mood had been considerably dull. Of course, she was fairing much, much better than she had when he first found her―opium withdrawal was long gone. But since the loss of her fire, she seemed to shrink in herself, and was noticeably snappy around, well, everyone. Nezha hoped the Northern Campaign might be better for her spirits. They would be making progress instead of waiting around.
Rin eyed the food in his hands. “Isn’t this nepotism?”
“Are you declining?”
“Fuck you, hand that over.”
They sat leaning against the cabin’s wall. Tonight might as well be the last night they might sleep comfortably without worrying over enemy’s fire. Nezha intended to enjoy it.
“Is Kitay still up with Jinzha?” Rin asked.
“Yeah. Save him a bun, I brought his share as well.”
“Hmm. Didn’t know you had it in you.”
“What?”
Rin chewed and swallowed. “Being considerate.”
“I take that as a compliment.”
“Of course you do, you can’t handle criticism of any kind.”
Nezha arched an eyebrow. “I thought we were talking about me, not you.”
Rin aimed a languid kick at his legs. “Fuck you,” she said but it was half breathless with laughter. Something twinged in his chest at the sound. Before it settled down, however, he felt vile rise up his throat and a series of his coughs echoed against the walls.
“Don’t chew too fast,” he heard Rin say offhandedly.
When his cough didn’t end, he felt her hand on his arm. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” he gasped. “I just―catch my breath―”
“Nezha―”
Another coughing fit into his hand; his thoughts flew back to his room, several nights ago, when a similar kind of coughing had seized him. Fear slashed through his mind just as he choked up something in his hand.
“Nezha?”
Dazed, he realized Rin was gripping his shoulders tight, forcing him to face her. She sounded alarmed. He kept his head bowed down, hand closed tightly around the petal he knew he was holding, grateful for the lack of light inside.
“Is that blood?”
“No.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me.”
“I’m not,” he snapped. He shook her arms off him. Rin flinched away as though she was burned. Then he saw her face harden.
“I’m trying to fucking help you.”
“Well, I don’t need it, alright?” He was already on his feet, reaching for the door.
Nezha didn’t dare open his hand till he was alone and enclosed inside his cabin. When he did, he indeed saw blood smudged against his palm, with a petal bearing much brighter red than the dark blood.
After that, Nezha carefully began to keep up the cycle of his coughing fits.
It was now normally once within 11, 12 hours―though he did notice the gap was becoming shorter, and he vomited more petals as time went by. He made sure he was alone in his cabin when he retched. When he felt the now-familiar seizing in his lungs, the beginnings of another set of petals growing inside him, he excused himself and demanded to be left alone.
His concern was during the battles, but it proved to be less of a problem. Despite the cough, he would manage to keep his sword upright. The fit didn't last longer than several minutes. Everyone was too busy occupied with their own survival to see whether he was coughing up red flower petals or not. If anyone did notice, they would figure it was blood. Blood that did come up along with the petals helped the cover.
Coughing up blood was quite normal for everyone these days.
Despite the intensity of the disease, whatever it was―Nezha managed to keep it on track and under control as much as he could. Whether he was cursed, or sick, or suffering from the Dragon, it didn’t matter. His job was to help his brother lead the campaign and lead the troops. Not to dwell on his body conditions. He was alive, he was functioning, so the rest didn’t matter. He knew he couldn’t die anyway.
So Nezha successfully kept it buried beneath his mind and from everyone else.
Until he called the Dragon. Until he got knocked out unconscious for hours.
When he opened his eyes, he saw Rin.
The world was a bleary sight; thoughts trailed off before he could grasp them. His body felt sluggish and heavy. Exhausted.
He heard her voice. He blinked.
Memories and echoes of the mayhem thudded his eardrums, but in a muted, distant way. Rin's voice was louder than the rest. She was there. Here.
An ache rose in his chest at the sight of her, but not the one that induced the coughing. He later realized he felt that ache for quite some time now.
“Please. Stay.”
He didn’t want her to leave. Opium was clouding his head, but he vaguely registered that right now, he didn’t feel as though he was choking. The urge to cough was far behind him. If she stayed by his side and held his hand, maybe she would scare the petals away, burn them away.
Rin had once proved to be the only person who could perhaps save him from the Dragon. Who could kill him. Maybe she was also the answer to this strange, magical ailment.
“What’s happening to me?”
“Just close your eyes, Nezha. Go back to sleep.”
He knew he was imagining the feeling of petals dying inside, but he let himself sink into the image of it. He focused on her hand holding his and let himself believe that he was saved.
“Talk to me. Tell me what I saw on the river.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She seemed determined to get her answer. Nezha was determined to avoid her.
“You get practice at reining it in, you get to shape it to your own will―”
Nezha was about to retort back a sharp answer, anything to piss her off enough to go away, but instead he felt a sharp, sudden twist in his chest.
Oh no. Not now.
He had lost track of when the last coughing fit had occured due to his long unconsciousness―it was quite some time ago. In fact, he thought it had lessened, maybe from the Dragon―but definitely not gone, given the urge to cough that grasped his body right now.
“Nezha, I can help you―”
“Go away.”
“Not until you talk to me.”
“I said leave me alone,” he rasped.
He could feel it rising in his throat. Something seized his lungs. He didn’t feel anything like this before; but now he thought something was physically strangling him in the inside. As though a rope had encircled itself around his lungs and was squeezing him out. He shuddered and pressed his hand to his chest.
“Nezha?”
“For once in your life, leave me the fuck alone.”
He didn’t mean to snap at her; her voice was more alarmed than angry and accusing like it was before. But he could feel fluttering petals up his throat and he needed to be fucking alone right now and the pain was slashing its way up and Nezha didn’t fucking think. He didn’t give a fuck.
He didn’t know how he managed to shake Rin off. He didn’t know how he managed to make it to his cabin. As soon as the door shut, he doubled over in a coughing fit.
Blood first made its appearance. Then the petals. Endless torrents, swaying in the air and landing several seconds later than the blood.
Before, Nezha counted up to six at his worst. This seemed at least a dozen.
He stared at the pool of blood and petals on the floor as he heaved.
He knew he should probably get help; he should open the door, cry for help, ask for any knowledge, let people help him―
Help him with what?
Help him stop throwing up flower petals?
When his retching slowed and no more petals fluttered from his mouth, he curled around himself and choked out a laugh.
What’s happening to me?
The battle at Boyang ripped apart the Republic’s army and forced the remaining fleet to scramble back to their base.
Nezha’s priority when he washed up on Arlong was, selfishly, to search for whatever hell was happening to him. He had suspicions, but he needed confirmation.
But as a general, he had to endure several more hours in the dark while issuing reports to his father. All the while, he wasn’t sure if he was imagining petals fluttering inside his chest and his throat. Roots taking place in his lungs, vines creeping around his veins. Flower buds forming against his heart.
As soon as his day ended and he was expected to take a rest, he searched for the massive library inside the palace.
Hanahaki disease… surely, he remembered correctly. But it was a story, a fairytale, whispers of it told down in generations as rumors and tales, no real witnesses or happenings. How could a person get sick from emotions? How could a person physically cough up flowers? So cruel. So disdainful. So brutal. So devastatingly beautiful.
Nezha didn’t bother searching up the medical section; he had them read and memorized during his studies for the Keju. If there had been a disease that made the patient cough up flower petals, he definitely would’ve remembered.
No, instead Nezha looked up ancient stories.
Stories dating as far as back to the Red Emperor’s era―and even before then. From bedtime stories for children to horror stories whispered among adults.
To his surprise, the search took less than an hour. His heart pounded as he found the words Hanahaki in the old archives of ancient Nikara stories. An illustration featured a person lying on the floor as vines and leaves and flowers twisted and wrapped around the body. It was eerily beautiful.
Hanahaki disease is a disease in which the victim coughs up flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love. The disease ceases to exist when the beloved returns their feelings (romantic love only) or when the disease kills the victim. It can be cured through surgical removal, but when the infection is removed, the victim’s romantic feelings and their memories for the beloved also disappear.
Pain, a different pain from the Dragon, pain that had gradually become familiar over the past few months, lacerated his chest. He gasped, doubling over.
He had learned that the faster he coughed up the petals, the better. The pain, however strong, would come and leave faster. But even as he clutched at his chest and removed his hand from his mouth to find dozens―more than dozens of petals slipping through his fingers, he still couldn’t breathe.
A louder cough, a heave. Vaguely, he registered the book thudding to the ground. Pain laced up his knees; dazedly, he realized that he had fallen to the ground.
Tears watered his vision, distorting the view as he heaved. Both of his hands now clutched at his chest. Something seemed to pierce, squeeze from the inside, threatening to come out. The library floor dug onto his knees as he doubled over and coughed.
The retching was always painful, but it had never been as bad as any pain caused by the Dragon. Now, Nezha wasn’t so sure.
At last, after what felt like an eternity, his mouth vomited something that felt much bigger than a petal. For a moment, all he could do was breathe and gasp and tremble, spitting out whatever bitter taste that lingered on his tongue, hands on the floor for support, finally registering that not only blood was trailing down his face, but tears.
He gave a shudder, closed his eyes. The pain was receding. His lungs no longer felt like it was being scratched and burned from the insides. His breath slowed. He tasted blood on his mouth. From the cough or from biting his lips, he couldn’t tell.
When he could finally breathe like a normal person, he opened his eyes.
The flower was exquisitely pretty. Red, with large, round, layered petals. The same petals he had been coughing up for months now. It resembled a poppy flower.
Nezha wiped the blood on his mouth with the back of his hand, gently lifted the flower that settled over the book and set it aside. He collapsed and struggled to a more comfortable position; sweat had stuck his uniform to his body. Words in the book, still open to the Hanahaki disease chapter, jumped out at him.
The degree of Hanahaki disease varies from person to person, developing over months or sometimes even years depending on the victim. It begins with coughing up a few petals and growing in intensity and pain until the victim is vomiting entire flowers, by which point the disease has entered its final stages.
The next few days, Nezha discovered several new things about the disease.
Whatever it was, Nezha now knew it was decorating his lungs, roots slowly taking place inside his body, beautiful, bright red flowers sprouting as though spring had come. They bloomed relentlessly, feasting on his emotions.
Dragon was the demolition of everything that dared destroy him. But this, this disease that settled inside his chest, wasn’t a destruction. Because something that beautiful couldn’t possibly be the source of destruction. Love couldn’t possibly kill him.
But as he curled up in the corner of his room, pain returned in his lungs. Something scratched the insides of his chest, and his breath rattled. Spasm shook his body. His hands fisted in his uniform.
He thought it could kill him. He thought it would kill him.
A knock on his door. "General?"
He exhaled slowly. "Speak."
"Wartime council is starting—"
"I know." He didn't know how he managed to get the words out through the flowers climbing up his throat. "Leave me."
It was getting harder and harder to breathe every day. Whatever it was, the Dragon was failing to kill it. But when the pain got the worst of it, when he was sure he was on the brink of losing his breath entirely, miraculously, his breath returned. He managed to cough up enough flowers to make an airway to his body.
The Dragon intervened, but only so far as to keep him alive.
Nezha was certain Rin was dead.
Weeks have passed yet no sign of further survivors from Boyang washed up on the shore of Arlong. Several soldiers did turn up before, battered and bruised but alive. Every single time, Nezha would look up hopefully to see a familiar figure, his friends, to materialize in front of him because they couldn’t possibly die. Not so soon. Not now. Not now.
But the waves were silent. The last washed up soldier was a dead body a week ago. It seemed natural to presume that his brother, Kitay, and Rin were all dead.
Also, the flowers within him had dwindled and ebbed away.
Almost all the stories of the Hanahaki disease featured the victim dead by choking on the flowers they created. There was no account on what would happen if the beloved died; there simply was no precedent or anecdote for it. Nezha knew there wasn’t, as far as Arlong’s library revealed.
But he figured he got his answer.
Nezha didn’t feel anything. He dully listened to the strategy meetings with no visible input. He kept his place but he might as well be curled up on his bed. He began to eat less, sleep less, and felt more like a spirit in a dead body every day.
Sometimes, he would think of her, and brace himself for another round of coughing fit. Instead, an unfamiliar dull ache spread in his chest. Grief that refused to break down.
He never missed the flowers more. The flimsy, delicate petals that once refused to melt away. It seemed like they did get burned away by her.
“It’s beautiful,” Rin whispered.
Her eyes were fixed on the rivers. Nezha wondered if she ever registered his gaze. Her demeanor was so relaxed and comfortable, and despite her previously tensed posture, she never looked freer. There was no guard up.
He couldn’t look away even if he tried; the light from the waters and from her own fire gently flickered across her face and her smile.
Nezha took a slow, even breath. Air filled his lungs with no restraint.
By all means, the math was ridiculously simple. Hanahaki disease only had three means of cure: the victim loses the feelings, or the surgical removal, or the beloved returns the feelings.
He loved her. Of this, he was certain.
He had waited for the flowers to come back at any moment. After when she did wash up to the shore of Arlong, alive, confusing and puzzling his thoughts. After their fight on her return, after their arguments, he would wake up dreading the flowers to rise up inside him to choke and cut him off his breath for daring to harbor feelings for her.
He hadn’t exactly been the nicest to her. Nor had she been to him. Surely, the disease would be back, as though it never left. Nezha didn’t think he had been actively trying to drive it away. By all means, by all logistics, he should’ve been choking on flowers by now. He should’ve been one of those illustrations, lying on his death bed by vines and leaves and flowers enclosing him in every angle.
But every day, his lungs would find the air as sweet as any other day. Nezha hadn’t seen a single petal in the past weeks.
Sitting here in the sampan, watching her smile, Nezha wondered if Rin knew how much he loved her back.
“And if they force you?”
“Then good fucking luck.”
All his years, he thought he was drowning. He felt like he was drowning. Yet at the moment, all he thought he could feel was vines and leaves and petals twirling around his lungs and neatly settling in. Growing feverishly. He was choking.
He wished he was choking.
No flowers blossomed up his throat. No cough escaped his lungs. The disease was gone, having found a cure.
His hand curled around the handle of the knife.
If he did this, the pain would be back. The flowers would be back. The petals spilling from his mouth like blood, scattering and dripping from his hands, coughing up flowers on his trail until he couldn’t cough up more than they blossomed. Until the flowers climbed up his throat and formed a garden inside him, until the airway cut and the breath got cut off. Until the god of the Pantheon intervened to snatch off a flower for him to breathe, forcing the disease to stop causing his death.
And the process would continue all over again. Again. And again.
He knew it.
But he also knew he didn’t have a choice. History had put them, time and again, on opposite sides. This was beyond their choices; this was their fate inscribed before they were even born.
"You...but you..."
"Don't try to speak," he murmured.
He’d always known Rin would be his destruction; that lovely, beautiful yet terrible pain only she could bring him.
Perhaps it was fitting that the exquisite poppy flowers would choke and swallow him whole for eternity.
On the day of the Cike execution, Nezha vomited three petals in his hands.
Nezha’s foot slammed into the chair. It crashed against the desk and sent papers shaking and fluttering down to the floor.
“What do you mean he’s gone?”
The soldier seemed to shrink back in shock. Nezha didn’t blame him. He rarely, if not ever lost his temper like this in front of a squadron or anyone.
“The―the chains were free, and, um, a body was found dead at the cell instead―”
“A Hesperian?”
“A missionary, sir.”
“Fuck,” His hand crumpled up a paper. “Cause of death?”
“I didn’t check―”
“Who else knows this?”
“I first came straight to you, Marshal.”
“Sound the alarms. Search for him.”
Nezha pushed past him without looking and went straight for Kitay’s cell. When he arrived, he instantly spotted the blood splashed against the wall. He lightly traced it. It was already dry.
That meant he was probably long gone. That meant the person who freed him had managed to kill the witness silently, succinctly. He clenched his fists and yanked the blanket off the dead’s body.
Clear burnt marks etched across the missionary's throat. Rin had ripped the artery out in seconds, rendering him mute and unable to scream.
Fucking hell.
Rin had been here. And she took Kitay out.
His hand fisted around the blanket as alarm bells rang against his ears. It was useless. Fucking useless. They were probably long gone from Arabak.
He took a breath. Nothing rattled against his throat. impossible.
Fucking impossible.
Because he stabbed her on the back and let the Hesperians take her. Because he let her Cike die. Because he punched almost the light of her eyes, because he kicked her till she couldn’t possibly breathe, because he had dropped fucking bombs on her fucking home and kidnapped her best friend and her most valuable ally and put him in a fucking cell.
Yet he was still fine. He was so fucking fine.
Since the lovely petals he had seen on the day she got held up in Arlong’s prison, he never saw another poppy flower again. Not even a single petal. Drought settled over his chest and the flowers shriveled up and died and decayed.
He screamed and punched a wall. Fresh blood joined the dried one on the stone yet when he drew his hand back, his skin had already stitched itself back together.
He wished he would bleed. He wished he would hurt. He wished he would choke and suffocate from the petals. He should be choking up blood and flowers. It would be so much easier.
Why wasn’t he?
Sometimes, Nezha wondered if he had somehow found the cure. If one of Sister Petra’s experiments had somehow affected the disease. Maybe the lightning that arced through his body had destroyed the flowers permanently.
But no. That wouldn’t have been enough. Victim’s feelings and memories would continue to feed the seed of the flower. They also should’ve been burnt away.
His feelings never changed.
Fuck. He didn’t have time for this. He shouldn’t be agonizing over such a simple equation and wondering why no more roots had taken place in his lungs and focus on stamping out the south. On placating his fellow war council members and dealing with the Hesperian negotiations. Not this. Not this wretched, childish disease that he should be fucking glad didn’t bother him anymore.
But why didn’t it bother him?
The math was simple but terrible and cruel. He didn’t want this knowledge. He wished he never had.
Nezha held back a sob, pressed his palms against his eyes, and stayed still until he composed himself back. Till the urge to punch another wall and stupidly collapse and cry subsided and all that left was a dull, muted ache.
The night was quiet. The bodies of the dead were muted in their sleep. Incense and the remaining whiff of cannon fire that wafted in the air did not disturb the living. The dark shrouded the three of them, snatching them away from reality. It helped them pretend.
It was hard to believe that a thousand of soldiers lost their lives on the ground today. That a war had razed the grounds mere hours ago. That war had been razing the grounds for years now. War where nothing mattered, where emotions and love and affection were all fairy tales and stories, childhood wims and selfish longings. Where they had no place in the brutal battles and choices.
Nezha learned that some fairy tales were true, yet not in the way it mattered.
Kitay’s hand that held his was tight. Nezha could feel the bones in it, where the skin was tight and the hunger had stolen away his flesh.
He looked at Rin, who seemed to avoid his gaze.
Ironic, that all of them were out here, vulnerable and exposed when earlier that day they were waging a battle to kill and conquer.
But they didn't fight because they hated each other. They fought a war. They fought for their sides. Love was a different matter altogether.
As he sat there, all he could feel was the love and affection they had for each other. That never changed. And it never would.
It simply didn't matter in the roles that they were thrusted into. It only mattered in the disease manifesting up in Nezha's chest.
Nezha knew then, that the flowers he thought would curl up his lungs forever might cease to exist permanently. .
The morning after he kills Rin, Nezha coughs up a single red petal.
"Give me a cure for Hanahaki disease," Nezha demands.
The Hesperian physician looks unfazed, but he arches an eyebrow. "For who?"
"My general. He asks to be discreet and I intend to grant his wishes."
"I see."
Nezha seeked out the physician approximately 30 minutes after he retched two poppy flowers on the floor of his bedroom. Enough for him to right himself and enough time left till the next cluster of flowers threatened to escape him.
He knows if they have a cure, they would provide him with it—the Hesperians love showing off their advanced medical skills. He also suspects that they found the cure for it a long time ago.
Because Hanahaki disease is a myth, a story, a magic-like fairytale of beauty and horror on the different sides of the same coin. Nezha thinks of the illustrations again, the flowers creeping out from the body and curling against the bones.
And Nezha is well aware the Hesperians like to crush every myth that disturbs their grand order.
"Do you require surgery?"
"No," the Physician replies. “Nikan hasn’t found a cure for it?”
“Not yet. So what’s the cure?”
"You only need to kill the root of the disease. We discovered that this Chaos is induced by the chemical the brain generates from, what you might call, unrequited love. It is merely a form of stress."
Nezha has no patience or intent for their interpretation of the disease. "What do you require?"
“Several days and I can concoct the cure.”
“Do it.”
The Physician takes out a paper, scribbles something. "Warning, however―you should tell your general that it not only kills the feelings, but the memories. Even the smallest inkling of the emotions must be eradicated."
"I am aware." Nezha hesitates. "So that is the only cure for the disease?"
"Unless the beloved returns the feelings, relieving the stress the brain is under."
"How about killing the beloved?"
"I'm sorry, what?"
"If the beloved dies," said Nezha. “Would that cure the victim's disease? Or inflict no effect? What is the outcome?”
The physician looks, for the first time, startled. “I…. don’t know. The victim almost always dies first. That has never happened before.”
It has, Nezha thinks. “Thank you,” he says out loud.
"Should I have it delivered when it's ready?"
"Yes."
Now he has the cure in his hands. He turns the vial around and around in his fingers. The cure is a clear, almost transparent, liquid. Remaining sunrays of the sunset coming through his bedroom window glint off the glass, reflecting the new angle at his every turn. On the outside, Arlong glows gently. He turns and turns and turns the vial until the light gradually, slowly, fades away. Until the moonlight replaces the sun. Until he feels another spasm spread across his body.
The flowers that were dead and gone and vanished for over a year are back, as though they never left.
The math is so, so simple. Only Rin’s feelings for him kept the flowers withered and dead, but with her gone, nothing keeps the flowers from blooming.
Nothing, except this miraculous cure.
He feels the vines in his lungs tighten and squeeze.
He would be free from her; not just the disease that seized up his lungs, but from his thoughts. From the nightmare of her dying over and over again by his hands. From her constant whispers in his ears, taunts and jeers as he stumbles and fails and breaks down. From the indescribable fear of failing her. From the unfathomable ache in his chest that has nothing to do with the goddamn flowers inside his body.
Fang Runin would no longer haunt his every footstep. He would breathe freer, live freer, and get a decent sleep for at least once in his fucking life.
Fang Runin would be a ghost, a legend died too soon, and nothing more.
Nezha stares at the vial in his hand.
Then he smashes it against the floor. The crack of glass isn’t satisfying enough. His foot crushes the remains till the glass is mere powder on the floor, watches the liquid seep into the wood. Watches as he coughs and several more petals float down and land lightly on top of the mess. Colors that vary from scarlet to crimson red.
The petals aren’t done; he chokes. He feels something rippling inside. A shudder seizes his body, but it’s okay. It’s now too familiar. His hand slams into his chest―to relieve some of the pain or to choke out the flowers fast, he doesn’t know.
His knees can no longer support him; he collapses on the floor. Remaining pieces of glass find every exposed skin. They dig into his palm and the blood joins the one splattered from his mouth.
He slams his hands against the floor as the coughing fit slips in. The glass might as well be nothing but dust. He can feel nothing, nothing except the wretched vines clawing their way up his throat.
At last, after long minutes, with a final shudder, he retches a poppy flower on his hand which slips through his fingers and lands on the floor; immediately followed by another one. And another.
His view is distorting; with both nausea and tears. He can hardly focus on the blood that drops from the petals, of the flowers nestled neatly on top of broken pieces of glass and the wooden floor seeped with the cure.
He takes a breath. It’s short and ragged, his throat and mouth too dry despite the blood on his tongue.
Amid the harsh echoes of his heaving ringing in his ears, he thinks he can hear Rin's laughter.
Come, he thinks. I’ve suffered worse.
Vines slide up and around his lungs, blooming delicate red flowers he cannot see but feel. Roots seize his chest, seeking warmth. Nezha closes his eyes. Imagines poppy flowers slowly suffocating him to death.
Nothing has felt more right.