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“Please explain to me once again why I’m coughing up roses.” Harvey glares at Elu, whose delicate features are fixed in a smug grin.
“You’d have a hard time believing I have nothing to do with it, won’t you.” Elu’s perched atop his work desk as if he owns the laboratory, swinging his feet and looking down at Harvey. Harvey nods before coughing up two rose petals. The second petal is slightly more blue than the previous one.
“Who else could?” Harvey asks. Elu takes a deep breath before hopping off of Harvey’s desk.
“I can’t work magic the way others can, as my form detaches me from both the world of human and fae. That being said, it does seem like you have been affected by my innate magic, something I’m unable to control. Perhaps you have been affected by the Japanese roses behind your desk-- I may have enabled them to place a curse on you.”
He heads towards the roses, kneeling in front of them before whispering in an foreign script that makes Harvey’s skin tingle.
“It’s fortunately a very light curse, I suppose.” Elu smiles at the roses, and for a brief moment, Harvey swears he sees a face within the rose petals. “Just simple hanahaki. ”
“Simple what?” Harvey swears his uncle Nick never had to deal with this. Fuck Oswald Fucking Vickers for randomly importing flowers.
“Flower vomiting. You uncle also suffered from it for quite a while, until the lady of his affections passed...”
So Elu can probably read minds too. Harvey feels tired, too tired to deal with this. He coughs up another rose petal, miserably.
“Please just tell me what’s going on,” Harvey implores. Elu looks back at him and then replies--
“You’re in love, aren’t you?”
Harvey’s brain automatically puts him into autopilot, replying in a monotone-- “No.”
“You are. Hanahaki only affects those suffering from one-sided love. ”
“No.”
Elu breathes in, clearly frustrated.
“I’m going to enter your brain for a moment-- it’s for your own good.”
Harvey grimaces-- before he can complain, however, Elu is gone-- and back, in the span of what feels like a few seconds. Elu’s appearance is different, however. He is in the form of Matthew. Cute Coworker Matthew. He smirks in an oddly Elu-like manner.
“Are you sure, Harvey-san?”
Cold lips meet his, and for a moment, he doesn’t feel the need to cough.
-x-
Tomorrow comes awfully slowly, with Harvey weighing the options he has. The coughs increase in frequency, and the petals slowly grow in size. Just as he stands up to stretch, the door opens, and Matthew comes tumbling in, holding a bouquet of daisies.
“Harvey-san! There’s something strange happening!” Matthew cries out, the moment he arrives. “I woke up with blue daisies in my mouth!”
“That’s surreal.” Is all Harvey can muster out, before Matthew’s standing in front of him, teary-eyed from coughing, showing him the flowers. His quivering lips are bright red and he looks out of breath. Cute. He can feel another flower rising up, suffocating him. He briefly looks at Matthew before closing his eyes, bracing himself.
“This seems off-topic, and it isn’t the time nor place, but will you-- will you care to join me on a date, sometime soon?”