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Rev coughed into his hand for the fourth time in as many minutes, resolutely ignoring the concerned expression on Mark's face as they walked beside each other.
"Are you sure you're good man? I know you said you weren't sick but…"
"I'm fine," Rev grit out, quickening his pace slightly to force Mark to catch up as the pair continued down the corridor on their way to Undead Studies.
And he was. Rev didn't get sick - likely something to do with being a revenant, he realised that now, but he'd never gotten so much as a sniffle. Plus, no one else in KADE was sick, so where would he even have got it from?
No, he wasn't sick. He didn't have a cold. It was just a tickle in his throat, or he'd swallowed wrong.
That's what he told himself as he muffled his coughs in the back of the class, thankful that Professor Frankenstein was oblivious - or uncaring - enough to ignore it. Eventually, Rev slipped out to go the bathroom.
As he walked quickly through the corridor, avoiding any other students, he had to stop and lean against the wall on two separate occasions to keep himself upright, his body wracked with coughing fits that left him shaking.
Finally making it to the bathroom, Rev braced himself against the sink and met his own grey eyes in the mirror, the tremor in his limbs strengthening until he could feel it throughout his whole body. He gave himself a quick once-over.
His skin was paler than usual, which was saying something, and his cheeks were flushed a pale blue. The pressure built up in the back of his throat again, and he bent over the sink, hacking until he was gasping for air despite not needing it. Finally, it ended, but he stayed huddled over the sink for another few seconds, letting out shuddering breaths slowly and trying not to set himself off again.
The quiet sound of dripping reached his ears, and he opened his eyes, gaze swimming briefly before it focused on dark blue droplets of… Blood.
He was coughing up blood.
Rev stared down at the sink, a mess of emotions inside him. Was he dying? Did he have fucking tuberculosis?
His breath hitched as something obstructed his throat. Tears sprung to his eyes reflexively as he choked, reaching into his mouth to get it out. Blinking to clear his vision, he found it was a small, white, curved semi-circle-like shape, speckled with more of his blue blood. It was soft as he rubbed it between his fingers, confusion and irritation growing.
He scoffed, and tossed the thing in the bin, stalking out of the bathroom. Whatever this was, it either wouldn't kill him, or would, which is what he wanted.
Regardless, he had nothing to worry about.
~
Rev definitely had something to worry about.
After a week the coughing had only gotten worse, and by that point everyone was looking at him in concern, even Sera, hell even people he didn't like, the werewolf and the ghost for instance. It was getting on his nerves.
And if that wasn't bad enough, he finally figured out what he had when he coughed up more of those white semi-circles - except they weren't just semi-circles.
They were fucking petals.
Rev fucking Vennett had fucking hanahaki disease.
If his throat hadn't been so damn scratchy, he would've screamed into a pillow.
As it was, he was now being dragged by a worried Mark and Sera to Frankenstein's office to be examined. Joy.
"I'm sorry, Mr Vennett, I can't perform the surgery." Rev scowled from where he was sitting on the side of a bed.
"Why the hell not? I'm an adult, I can consent to surgery!" He rasped, feeling put-out as his pathetic excuse for a voice lessened the effect of his yelling. Frankenstein folded his arms.
"Because I'm not equipped for a hanahaki surgery, this is a glorified nurse's office," the doctor sighed, pinching his nose, "look, just. Get over yourself, go confess to whoever it is, alright?"
"I can't." Frankenstein raised an eyebrow.
"Now is not the time for-"
"No, I'm serious, I literally can't!"
"Why the hell-"
"Because I don't fucking know who it is!" Rev had barely finished the sentence when he was wracked with another coughing fit, spattering the white sheets of the bed with flecks of blue blood.
"How can you not know who you have a crush on?" Frankenstein demanded, throwing his hands in the air in disbelief.
Rev rolled his eyes once he'd finally recovered, "roses are literally one of the most cliché flowers for romance ever, so no finding out that way. And I don't fucking know what a crush feels like, I've never been interested in that bullshit."
Frankenstein sighed again, dragging his hands over his face and muttering something in French. "Look, Vennett. These next few days, go through every single person in this school you feel even a modicum of positive emotions towards, or at least don't bother you with their presence, and think about kissing them. You'll find them eventually." Rev wrinkled his nose, "now get the hell out of my office."
Kicked out, Rev slammed his head against the wall. He was seriously considering just letting the disease take its course, see if it actually could kill him.
But he was also curious. He didn't know what a crush felt like. If he figured out who it was, he would. Maybe they'd even like him back.
Rev crushed that half-baked daydream before it got too far. Whoever it was would never reciprocate, and that was fine. He didn't need some random person to come into his life, touch him and grab him whenever they wanted with no regard for him.
He was happy alone, depending only on himself.
~
One week passed. Rev began to wake up with spots of blood and a few stray petals on his pillow. Then the number of petals increased, as did the amount of worried looks he was getting.
When he showed no signs of improvement after another week, Frankenstein gave him indefinite leave from class, the standard situation when a student contracted hanahaki, apparently. Now with nothing to do all day, he found himself spending more and more time in his dorm's bathroom, coughing up rose petals into the sink.
A third week, and he'd graduated from the individual petals to the full white rose heads, stems and all. They were covered in thorns, scratching up the inside of his throat until his saliva - and his hands - were stained blue from his blood. The pain only got worse, to the point he actually started considering trying to find his crush.
Rev didn't know why. Hanahaki only go away if your crush reciprocated, and no one could love him, not when he was… Himself.
That was fine. He could deal with worse.
He realised he hadn't spoken in days.
Still, he refused. The pain got worse - he couldn't eat, he couldn't sleep. Even if his throat hadn't been covered in open wounds, he started throwing up almost every day.
That wasn't in the symptoms list, so Rev could only assume he'd gotten an unrelated stomach bug on top of hanahaki.
Any mortal would have been dead by this point. From internal bleeding, or asphyxiation.
There was no such light at the end of the tunnel for him. Just more pain.
It was when he broke down in the bathroom, curling into the corner and sobbing, silently begging for something to take the pain away, that he gave up and started to take Frankenstein's advice, cycling through every person he knew.
From what Frankenstein had said, he knew thinking about the person tended to cause an uptick in the coughing, which would be useful - he just had to keep trying.
He tapped his pen, staring down at the list he'd made.
Victoria and Micah were up first, the neighbour's kids from home. Thinking about them brought forth no feeling except mild disdain.
Next, Mark and Sera. The mix of emotions that swelled within him took some time to sort out, but eventually he separated them, into what he was pretty sure was a combination of irritation, resignation, and something positive - but not love. He was sure of that.
Wendy was quickly discarded as he gripped his pen so tight in barely restrained anger that it almost broke, Harry and Flynn and Nerissa all brought the same feelings of vague disinterest.
His eyes traced the curves in the letters making up one particular name.
Bella.
He never liked to think about it. That day in the potions classroom, mind addled from the love potion. But he had to.
It didn't take long to come to his conclusion. Not her. The moment where she grabbed him, kissed him without so much as asking - that didn't bring forth love, it was… Hatred. Disgust.
Violation.
Even now it made him want to throw up, not from the disease, that felt different - this was the familiar nausea he got every time he tried to think about… It.
He breathed slowly, wrenching his thoughts away from the witch, and forced himself to continue down the line.
Harrah. Seabasstian. Mino. Sam. Akuma. Nothing but disdain. Mani. Ashley. Dra. More disinterest.
…And that was everybody. There were no other students he knew. He groaned - silently, of course - and leaned back in his chair.
Who the fuck else could it be? He mouthed to himself, then gripped his pen tight enough to break it fully as his throat protested at even that.
Those were all the students. Every. Last. One.
He slammed his head into the desk, another wave of pain washing over him and - embarrassingly - causing his eyes to prickle with tears.
Before this whole hanahaki business, Rev had prided himself on never crying. No matter how bad it got. Damn it, he'd even died, multiple times! Now, almost every coughing fit came with tears dripping down his face to mix with the blood in the sink. It was infuriating for him.
How long has it been since I cried? Rev mused to himself, the last time I came close to crying was, what? Lovecraft's office? When he was reading out those stupid exams? That's even more pathetic than-
Lovecraft. The realisation hit him so hard he struggled to breathe for a second. Then he realised it was because there was something blocking his throat. Getting to the sink before his cough reflex kicked in and caused him to cover the room with blood, he tugged the flower out of his mouth, wincing as the newly healed inside of his throat was ripped open again.
He'd only gone through students. He hadn't done the teachers. Quickly, he brought images of each one to his mind - Viviana's smug smile, Frankenstein's perpetually bored expression, Yaga and her gnarled staff - and none of them caused any reaction.
Then thoughts of Lovecraft took their place, and everything made sense. He felt warm, from the inside, his lips tugging up into a small smile without his permission.
He collapsed onto the floor, curling his arms around himself with a couple weak coughs.
God, why couldn't this disease just have killed him instead?
And now he had to tell Frankenstein, then be rejected by a middle-aged (?) man. Awesome.
Rev dragged his feet as he made his way to the doctor's office. It was just past curfew, so Frankenstein spun with a glare that quickly turned to surprise, then understanding, as Rev pushed open the door.
"Found your crush at last, Vennett?" Rev rolled his eyes, scowling, but nodded. Frankenstein narrowed his eyes.
"But you still haven't confessed yet?" Rev brushed a hand through his hair, gritting his teeth.
"It's Lovecraft," he admitted, voice nothing more than a weak rasp.
Frankenstein's face was carefully blank, then he dropped his face into his hands.
"God…" The doctor muttered something in French, too fast for Rev to catch even a single word, "…Fucking finally!"
"What." Frankenstein huffed out a laugh, hand going to his ponytail to toy with the syringe in his hair.
"Do you have any idea…" He scoffed and got to his feet, not finishing his sentence. "Vennett, get in there." The Undead Studies teacher gestured at a side door, a plaque fixed to it reading 'Quarantine Ward', "I'll go get Lovecraft and you two can make out or whatever."
Rev spluttered, trying to defend himself as Frankenstein shoved him through the door, then promptly shut it on him.
"HEY!"
The only answer was the doctor's receding footsteps, and the distant click of the office door being opened, then closed.
Rev groaned, throat more sore than ever from the conversation, and flopped onto the solitary bed in the windowless room with a couple coughs, closing his eyes to wait.
~
Rapidly approaching footsteps were the only things that warned Lovecraft, giving him enough notice that he didn't startle quite so badly when Adam practically kicked open the door.
"Hey, Cthulhu, come to my office."
"Is everything alright?" Lovecraft pushed the exam papers he was working his way through to one side, standing up.
Adam seized his arm and began dragging him out of his office, "no one is actively dying, but you have a student to kiss."
"Excuse me?" Adam rolled his eyes, scoffing.
"For a psychotherapist you're just as oblivious as an emotionally stunted teenager, god."
Lovecraft quirked an eyebrow at his friend, "and for someone who's autistic you sure get cranky when people don't immediately understand your underlying meaning."
Adam growled, pulling Lovecraft down the corridor and towards his office, "Rev Vennett has hanahaki, go kiss him already." They'd made it to the office, and Lovecraft let himself be led, intrigue growing. He'd known the revenant was sick, he didn't know it was hanahaki. Now there's a student he wouldn't have expected to get it - Lovecraft would have put his money on Bella Donna, to be honest.
The door to one of three Quarantine Wards was flung open with the same aplomb as Lovecraft's office door, and within a second the professor was shoved in, and the door slammed behind him. He blinked a couple of times, then took stock of his surroundings.
A windowless room, with completely white walls, a wooden flooring, and the only furniture being a bed and a nightstand with a lamp. Said lamp was lit, the only light source in the room.
It illuminated the pale face of one Rev Vennett quite dramatically. The student was curled defensively in the corner of the wall where the bed was pressed against, the sheets clasped tightly underneath him. His hands and lips were covered in drying blue blood, and the sheets speckled with the same blood, as well as a small flurry of white rose petals. His eyes were exhausted and red-rimmed, tear tracks he either hadn't bothered to wipe off or hadn't even noticed, which strangely was what felt most worrying.
The Rev he knew would rather die - literally - than admit he cried. He must feel truly awful.
Rev scowled up at him, and if it hadn't been for Adam telling him, Lovecraft never would have suspected the morose boy had a crush on him. He would have known he was hiding something, that the brave face he was displaying was a facade, but there was nothing in his demeanour to suggest a crush.
As it was, Adam would never lie for fun, not when it actually mattered. Rev's life might not be threatened, but he was still in pain.
Pain that Lovecraft now had the opportunity to heal.
Moving slowly, he perched on the edge of the bed, giving Rev a small smile.
"How are you feeling?" He asked softly. Rev scoffed, a croaking sound that made Lovecraft's heart hurt.
"Fine," he rasped, clearly lying, "Frankens-" he broke off into a coughing fit, blood dripping from his mouth. It wracked his thin body for almost a full minute before dying away at last, leaving him gasping for breath. All the while, Lovecraft ached to gather him into a hug, press a kiss to his lips that would finally end his illness.
But he waited. After all, he had no idea what Rev's preferences were with physical touch.
"Frankenstein told you?" The student continued diligently. Lovecraft nodded, adjusting his position so he was fully facing Rev.
"May I touch you?" He asked softly, savouring the sight of the blue blush that rose in his student's cheeks.
"Why are you bothering to ask?" Lovecraft tilted his head, studying him.
"Because I don't want to upset you if you're not ready to be touched,"
"…I'm… I can say no?"
"Of course you can."
"…Yeah, you can, um… Yeah." It was honestly adorable to see his typically aloof student be so nervous, his arms wrapped around himself. Lovecraft kept his touch gentle, brushing a thumb over his cheek and tilting his head up, resting his other hand on Rev's shoulder.
"Would you like me to kiss you?" Rev sucked in a breath, coughing a couple of times. Any doubt that he might have had was likely erased at the brutal reminder of the pain, and he nodded.
"'M gonna taste like blood, though," he rasped. Lovecraft ran a hand through Rev's hair and smiled as he watched him try not to lean into it.
"I don't mind."
Not wanting to prolong his suffering any further, Lovecraft leaned down and pressed their lips together. He knew it had worked and the flowers were gone when Rev's shoulders lost all their tension, and he practically melted against Lovecraft.
The professor kept the kiss chaste, pulling away after a moment. Part of him hoped Rev would try to chase it, but the revenant looked more in shock. It clicked in Lovecraft's head, then.
"First kiss?" He asked quietly, a hint of a tease in his voice. Rather than get indignant, or shy, Rev's face darkened and some of the tension returned to his shoulders.
"No, but I'm not counting the first," he muttered.
…Well, they would be coming back to that response later.
But for now…
"I'd say you need a couple more days off classes, while you recover fully," he could feel Rev shiver slightly in his grip, and moved to kiss him again. This one was longer, though still chaste. Long enough that Rev's inexperience was obvious - he got the hang of it after a few seconds, following Lovecraft's lead as his hands settled around his professor's shoulders, while Lovecraft took hold of his slim waist.
"I could have cured you a month ago," he murmured against Rev's lips, "you must've been in so much pain."
Rev shrugged, "I've had worse," he said with forced nonchalance. Lovecraft kissed his forehead, then his cheek, and smiled as the revenant gave in and pressed closer, so his body was flush against Lovecraft's, half draped across his lap. The professor brushed the hair from his face, watching with no small amount of amusement as Rev ducked his head to hide a yawn.
"You shouldn't have," he murmured. Rev made a sleepy noise of confusion, eyelids fluttering as he started to lose his battle against what was probably sleep deprivation. "Someone as wonderful as you should never have suffered," Lovecraft continued, talking mostly to himself as he gently tugged him closer, guiding him to lie down. Rev didn't fight him, thankfully, just shifted closer as they lay together. Within seconds, Rev was fast asleep, Lovecraft gazing at him with what was likely a rather lovestruck, sappy expression.
But how could he not? The student was ill-tempered, had little to no capacity for compassion, struggled to understand emotions other than rage and hate, and yet he was perfect.
"Lovecraft's latest little pet project," Yaga liked to call him snidely, during staff meetings. But that implied he was something Lovecraft would move on from, fix up, step back, say "job well done" and never think about him again. He'd had similar students - similar patients - in the past, and he loved to see them open up and flourish, content with the knowledge the people they met later in life would love and care for them.
Could anyone really blame him when he wanted to keep one of his students to himself? Nurture them, and enjoy their love? Maybe he'd never been interested before, but now with Rev - he wanted. He'd forgotten how it felt, to truly want something - someone. And Rev was so perfect, it was hard to encapsulate in words.
Lovecraft just adored him.
So even though the bed was still covered in rose petals and dried blood, with Rev in his arms, Lovecraft didn't really care.
Not when the marigolds in his lungs had withered as well, before a single drop of his blood could even be spilt.
Marigolds symbolise the connection between the living and the dead. Some believe them to attract the souls of people who have passed and briefly reunite them with the living, if only in spirit. They are often seen as a celebration of life rather than an acknowledgement of tragic death.
White roses symbolize purity, innocence, and new beginnings. They can also convey messages of respect and remembrance, often used to honour loved ones.