Chapter Text
It's mid-practice when Ness coughs up his first flower. He wants to talk to Kaiser - want, no longer needed; but even that feels like too much for them now. Ness hasn't even worked up the willpower to look at him since PXG, let alone talk to him.
It's hard not to think about it, though. Since meeting Kaiser, it feels like his magic has changed in a way made to orbit him - a way to do the impossible, he wants to correct himself—a way to avoid being left behind.
Nonetheless; he thinks of Kaiser, and he feels the usual shortness of breath. He pats his chest, waiting for it to pass. It doesn't - instead, it progresses into a cough.
It's quite disgusting - Ness can feel the wetness in the back of his throat. Blood pounds in his ears; the shouts of his team begin to muffle. He coughs again, expecting to find mucus in his hand.
But he doesn't. Instead, he finds a bright, almost mockingly blue, rose.
His team (everyone except Kaiser, of course he doesn't care, what did he expect) seems to rush to him at once, patting him over and asking if he's okay. Ness feels ill. His chest screams Kaiser, Kaiser, Kaiser, like a mantra pounding, aching in a way that it hasn’t since-
“What the fuck is that?” a harsh, low-toned voice (Mensah, Ness would later come to realize) exclaims. It takes Ness a while to realize what he’s talking about. The blue rose, the bloody, mucus-covered, disgusting blue rose, sits in his palm like a tattoo. Ness hurriedly shakes it off his hand - watching the slimy thing drop to the floor, but the damage is already done.
Everybody else manages to back away from the object in seconds, all making gagging and groaning sounds in unison. Even Kaiser (who previously appeared nonchalant) seems to have moved.
Ness still feels the dull ache in his chest. Someone gently touches his shoulder, probably an attempt at comfort, so he leans into it for a second before shrugging it off.
“You should probably get that checked out,” he murmurs into his ear, likely trying to maintain a sense of privacy. It’s worthless - everyone saw anyway, but he still appreciates the effort. He nods and leaves.
Ness visits the nurse.
They’ve become closer recently, with Ness having to see her due to his shortness of breath. It wasn’t really a problem at first, she’d just diagnosed Ness with stress-induced asthma. A common condition, easy to treat with an inhaler. Sometimes he comes just to chat.
She’s pretty easy to talk to - always listening, interacting, seeming concerned - so, Ness finds himself spending more time with her than he should. He hopes they’re friends.
The door opens with a slight clack as he steps into the room. The nurse, who seems to have been waiting for him, greets him with nothing but a raised eyebrow. He can’t help but avert his gaze from her. Under her gaze, it’s hard not to feel small. Kind of like a little kid again.
“You’re here way too often lately,” she says, guiding him to a chair.
He can tell that she’s expecting the usual - he looked at me and I couldn’t breathe again, I miss him so much, I don’t know what to do; despite acting annoyed, Ness can tell that she likes it quite a bit anyway. She could add part-time therapist to her resume.
“I know, I know, sorry,” he sits, missing a beat, “I didn’t plan on coming today. It’s just,”
She sighs, “Just what?”
Ness shows her his palm, petal-less but still covered in blood and mucus. The blood has started to dry already, but he can still feel the slime of the mucus in between his fingertips. He probably got some on the door handle, thinking about it (although that’s something for him to deal with later).
His eyes shift from his palm to the nurse. Her silence says enough.
“Has this happened before?”
He sucks in a breath, “No. My asthma’s been getting worse, though.” Ness shifts a bit, nervous, “A petal may have come out too?”
It’s times like this where he remembers why the nurse is so easy to speak to. Her face remains calm, and she seems unconcerned if you can’t read her. Ness, unfortunately, can read her. Her brows furrow, lost in thought, and he can see her lightly nibbling on her lip.
“I can’t diagnose you,” she begins, slowly, as if she knows that he’s going to ignore it, “But I can tell you to go to the doctor. This is serious, Alexis. I’m surprised they let you walk over here instead of calling the ambulance.”
He stands up, looking at her, the ceiling, his feet, then her again. From this angle, he can see how small she actually is compared to him. In a way, their usual roles seem to have reversed.
(Ness leaves. He coughs up another petal as he shuts the door.)
“Alexis Ness?”
Ness stands up hurriedly, waking up his body after he’d almost fallen asleep.
He’s been waiting at the hospital for a little over an hour now, the stuffiness of the air making it harder to breathe. He’d normally wait a bit to go, but the nurse’s expression scared him a bit more than he’d like to admit.
The nurse leading him in - Dana - her tag reads, walks in a similarly hurried manner. Her footsteps are notably louder than his, and she smells like cigarette smoke. She leads him to a room at the back of a hallway. It looks cold and sterile. It reminds him of his parents’ house.
It’s moments like this where he remembers why he doesn’t like hospitals, labs, or generally anything medical. He doesn’t avoid them when he needs to go; he’s not irrational, but it’s not somewhere he looks forward to either.
“Here you are,” Dana shrugs, her eyes flickering around his face. “Someone will come see you soon. I recognize you from that TV show. You deserve to relax.”
He gives her a nervous smile to that attempt at comfort. His chest tightens a bit. In Ness’s opinion, to relax, mentions of Blue Lock, Isagi, or even worse, Kaiser, needs to be kept to a minimum.
Dana returns shortly after with an older doctor. He’s balding in the middle of his scalp, but there’s still hair brushed over like it’ll do anything. The doctor’s brows furrow when Ness enters his sight.
“Nobody’s with you?” The doctor questions. Way to rub the salt in the wound, Ness thinks to himself as his previous calming attempts come undone. He’s becoming more and more used to mentions of Kaiser causing tightness in his chest.
“No,” Ness replies, albeit shakily, “The team nurse told me to come. I coughed up blood and a rose during practice.”
The doctor’s face stiffens. “Any previous issues like this?”
“Kind of,” Ness averts his gaze. “I’ve been having trouble breathing for the past couple of months. She thought it was asthma.”
“Right, okay. We’ll need to get a blood sample from you for blood tests, order a CT and lung scan…”
Ness is nineteen years and (create timeline) months old when he gets diagnosed with Hanahaki disease.
“You’re decently far in progression, with nearly fully formed flowers in your lungs,” The doctor attempts to explain.
Ness studies his face while he says so. It feels like everyone’s trying to soften the blow when it comes to his feelings lately, while their body language tells a completely different story.
“How much longer?”
“What, until fully formed? Around three weeks untreated. However, with treatment, you can get it surgically removed with a short recovery time, or take medication that can extend the formation to around 2 months…”
Alexis bites his lip. “You’re hiding something from me.”
“Yes,” the doctor nods. “The cause of Hanahaki is unrequited feelings. A part of the surgery is removal of the memories and emotions towards the one you have feelings for.”
Really? is all Ness is able to think for himself. Kaiser takes over the past two years of his life, and now when he abandons him, he’s taking over Ness’s body too? His life since meeting Kaiser doesn’t feel like his own anymore — he’s constantly at the whims of Noa, him, or even worse, Isagi. Is he even allowed to have his own agency?
It’s at this point where he remembers the doctor is still there, in front of him, waiting for a response of some kind.
Alexis doesn’t particularly care anymore. He realizes that he’s doing the thing he’s always done before, when he gets too wrapped up in his emotions — fists clenched tight drawing blood, lips gnawed and borderline cracking. He lets out a breath.
“Okay,” the doctor starts again. “I’ll prescribe you the medication in a minute. Take it every six hours, and refill when done…”
Instead of returning back to the BM quarters, Alexis chooses to book a train ride home.
It’s admittedly something out-of-character for him. His parents haven’t really bothered to keep contact with him since he tried out for Bastard, and his siblings only text to make fun of his appearances in NEL.
“You have the appearance of a Canis lupus familiaris kicked at 90 kilometer velocity,” the latest text reads. He had to search up what a canis lupus familiaris was, and after doing so, he cried a bit (although he’d never admit that to his siblings).
Alexis wonders in times like those what would happen if he did turn out to be like the rest of his family. No belief in magic, Santa, or any special things above. His grandparents used to joke that he was adopted for that reason — because, come on? What part of the Ness family picks literature and art over science?
He coughs into his sleeve. A nightmare, that’s what that sounds like. Alexis forgives himself for not being like them, although he doesn’t know if they’ll ever forgive him in turn.
As he watches the scenery change, the train passing by many different areas, he realizes that it’s one of the first and only times he’s traveled alone — the only other time being for Bastard tryouts.
Back then, he remembers leaving a long note for his parents to read, apologizing not only for leaving his siblings behind, but for failing them. For never becoming the sibling to look up to.
It’s not like he was able to connect with them anyway, but sometimes at the dorm he’s able to see everyone else with their families - Mensah, and his strong connection to his mother, and Gesner, with his siblings showing up to nearly every game. Alexis envies them a little bit.
At the thought of them, Ness’s phone rings— the caller being Mensah. He’s not really surprised Mensah’s the first to call. He’s always been the first to notice when something’s off.
“Ness!” Mensah exclaims.
Ness cringes and turns the volume down his phone. The person next to him gives him a dirty look. He shrugs in apology.
“Mensah,” Ness breathes, “What’s up?”
As Ness pays more attention to the background of Mensah’s audio, he notices a significant amount of people also present in the room, also listening in to the call.
Based on the louder yells in the back—saying something about a model if he focuses hard enough, there’s definitely Grim, lighter footsteps getting closer likely being Birkenstock, and the person Grim’s arguing with obviously being Gesner. Ness doesn’t expect Kaiser to be there, but he listens for him anyway. He isn’t.
“Nothing, really. Where are you?”
“On the train.”
“Train where?”
Ness can hear the room go silent.
“Am I on speaker?”
There’s a pause before Gesner answers. “Yes. The rest of the team is here, except for Kaiser, obviously.”
Ness already knew about the last part, so he isn’t surprised. But he isn’t sure yet if he wants to say everything about his diagnosis yet. It’s embarrassing. Everything about this is embarrassing. The way he was with Kaiser during NEL, their “on-field breakup”, as it was dubbed in clips that he was forced to watch later on, and now the aftermath where flowers are forming in his chest.
The worst part is, even if he told Kaiser now, he doesn’t even think he would care — earning more pity from his teammates that he doesn’t want to see anymore. Alexis, the poor thing. Alexis, the used. Alexis, now dying.
He feels sick. He coughs a bit. “Hi everyone,” Ness clears his throat, “I’m going home for a bit.”
“Oh, alright. You could’ve said that from the start, you know.” Mensah chuckles. “See you soon. Tell us if you need anything, ok?”
“Okay,” Ness says, and Mensah hangs up. Huh.
Alexis’s childhood home is more clinical-looking than he remembers.
The few things that used to be there— souvenirs, the few toys he was allowed to have, and the even fewer family photos stripped away. The walls, which were previously gray, are now closer to an off-white shade. Ness wonders what inspired the change.
Nobody greets him upon entrance (as expected), but all of the doors are unlocked too (very unexpected). He steps down the hallway for the familiar smell of chemicals and cleaning products to hit his nose— indicating that at least one other person is home.
Ness really, really hopes it’s one of his siblings. Despite coming home, he isn’t sure if he actually wants to see one of his parents yet.
He approaches the lab quietly, knocking on the side before saying anything. Asking before entering was one of the first things Ness was taught as a kid, after he broke a test tube at 5. Somehow, he didn’t get hurt, and that was his first calling to magic— although his siblings called it basic probability.
“Come in,” a young, female voice says. Ness lets out a breath of relief as he takes a step.
She does a 180-turn. It’s his older sister, Luisa. They could pass as identical twins if not for her fully-brown hair.
“Alexis,” Luisa smiles at the sight of him, turning something off before giving Ness her full attention. “It’s been a while!”
Ness shifts on his feet. “It really has been, hasn’t it?”
“Yeah. We, um—Dad turns on the TV sometimes to watch you. In Blue Lock, I mean. He says it’s physics practice.”
Ness lets out a slight, raspy chuckle at that.
“We missed you,” Luisa’s eyes go from Ness’s eyes to his shoulders, and then his feet. He stiffens. “We all really, really missed you. I missed you. And I just want you to know that—”
Ness chokes up, coughing violently into his elbow. He feels mucus rise up his throat while wetness emerges from his eyes.
From the corner of his eye, he can see Luisa watching with both concern and curiosity.
This coughing session continues for a solid five minutes. When it’s over, Ness pulls his elbow away to see more blood and another blue petal. The blood mixed with mucus gives it a slimier texture.
He’s disgusted. His sister is not.
“I’m sorry, um,” Ness pants, “Do you have any tissues in here? Everything’s kind of rearranged, and you know I wasn’t really here anyway, so—”
Luisa hands him a wet wipe. They both stop talking.
Ness, as expected, does not have to tell his sister that he has Hanahaki. Luisa is able to figure that out after observing the mucus (which is bloodier than it was an hour ago), and the accompanying petal (which now seems to glow brighter under the lab lights).
“Is that why you came back?” Luisa starts, and it’s kind of hard to tell if she’s talking to Ness or herself. Luisa is significantly more selective with her words than he remembers, and it makes him shiver.
Her eyes lower to the mucus-covered petal, which was thankfully transferred to the corner of his elbow to a tissue. Ness chooses to stay silent.
“You don’t have to answer that,” she sighs, “It’s okay. I just—” Luisa twiddles her thumbs, “I don’t know.”
Ness’s throat stings.
“No. You’re good, and,” he coughs into his elbow, “You’re right. I wouldn’t come back if I didn’t have this. They already told me about treatment and whatnot…” Ness turns his eyes away from Luisa, “But I don’t know. I’m unsure—”
“Why are you unsure?”
“Because it’s not just about him, Luisa. It’s so irritating, Luisa! For so long, my dream hasn’t just been to play soccer, it was to help him play!” Ness’s eyes begin to tear up. He wipes them away.
“Do you know what he said when we first met? He said we’d achieve the impossible together.”
Luisa nods, unblinking. Her eyes trace over his tear-stained face. “And did you?”
“We could have, Luisa! We really could have. But then he left me—” He coughs into his elbow, mucus bloody, “For nothing. He didn’t even score anything after. You know, with him, I dreamed of winning the world cup, and then he would,” Ness does a lifting gesture, “He’d like, lift me in his arms, and that would be magical, you know?”
Luisa takes another look at Ness, still unblinking.
“I don’t know, Alexis. But I want to. I really, really want to. I, um, was interrupted earlier, but—” She takes a breath, “I want to have a relationship with you. Like, a normal sibling relationship. I know we didn’t really get along as kids,” she pauses, “Or I didn’t get along with you, but can we try to start anew?”
Ness doesn’t know how to feel about this either. When he was younger, he might have jumped at the idea of this relationship with Luisa. But now, it feels pointless. He wants to say, why couldn’t you have said this earlier? When I didn’t know where I belonged?
Instead, he says, “Did you read the note?”
“What note?”
“I—um, nevermind. I want to be siblings with you too, Luisa, although now it feels a little bit late…”
“But it doesn’t have to be.”
“You’re right. It really, really doesn’t have to be.”
Ness reaches out to hug her, and she accepts it, hugging tighter. Ness finds it hard to breathe, but at the moment, he doesn’t really mind. Like this, everything feels alright.
Ness leaves home the morning after talking to Luisa. His old room is left generally untouched, having a completely different look than the rest of the house— his walls covered with posters, star cut-outs on the ceiling, and fantasy novels strung all over the floors.
His room has always been the most comforting part of the house. When everyone else grew tired of him as a kid, he’d run into his room, wipe his tears, and immerse himself into another world for hours.
Back then, he wasn’t only an artist, but a wizard, a bard, and a knight. Being alone wasn’t that bad in those moments, when he could sink into his imagination for hours uninterrupted.
Nobody else is home in the morning, presumably held up by other projects or work. Ness hugs Luisa at the door, looking down at her face. She seems happier now than she was when he first saw her.
“Say hi to everyone else for me,” Ness starts, “and also let them know why I came? I don’t know how to say it.”
Luisa shakes her head. “That’s your job, Alexis. Mom will definitely be worried though, so maybe tell them sooner than later?”
Ness nods, slightly in disbelief at the thought that any of his parents worry about him. He leaves.
Noa’s facial expression is completely neutral throughout the entire conversation Ness has with him.
Sure, Ness did expect that out of him— Noa’s never been known for his ability to crack a smile— but Noa’s face is arguably more “neutral” than usual. Despite the terrible news from one of his players, Noa does not voice any form of disapproval.
“Can you still play?” Noa asks, although he can’t fully tell if it’s a question he’s supposed to answer. Noa continuously looks Ness up and down, likely assessing his physical state. He wonders if he looks as weak as he feels.
“I could try, probably! The medication’s making me feel a bit better, so the field incident won’t happen again for a bit, but—”
“You can still play.” Noa nods, eyes finally settling back on Ness’s face. Ness clenches his jaw. Was Noa even listening to what he was saying? “Practice is at eight tomorrow. You know the drill.”
“Can we talk?” Mensah asks in an uncharacteristically hushed tone. Mensah and quiet are usually antonyms in both a visual and audible sense, but right now it’s the only way to describe him. His demeanor seems to have shrunken so much to the point where Ness could believe that he’s the one dying in two months.
Mensah eyes a nearby bench and moves without saying anything further. Ness follows, of course, holding his hand still on his chest.
“My mom died last night.”
What?
“And I know you could understand, because you don’t really talk to your family either,” Mensah’s eyes tear up. “But I feel like I’m dying. It’s like there’s something—” He sticks his hand out, clenching his fists, “Squeezing my insides. Or something. I don’t know.”
Ness stays silent. Being honest, he doesn’t know how he would feel if his mom died.
He’d grieve her, sure, but, in a sense, he’s already been grieving her for years, since he was eight and already considered the dunce of the family. Ness has been grieving her since he was ten, and he asked to play Wizards with his siblings in the summer heat, and they rejected him so they could do an experiment on humidity.
His throat feels tight. He holds Mensah’s hand.
“I just… I really loved her, you know? I have you guys, but there was no one who supported me like my mom.”
Mensah did introduce his mother to the team a couple months back. Ness remembered her without proper introduction anyway. There used to be a running joke within the team, that no matter what happened, she’d be there.
In a sense, it was true. She’d always try to make it to games, cheering them on, and when she wasn’t, Mensah would talk about her like she was.
Is it bad that in those moments, Ness felt kind of jealous? He wouldn’t verbalize it, but when Kaiser talked shit, he wouldn’t defend them either. At most, maybe a don’t say that!
Mensah wipes his tears, trying to pull himself together. “How was home?”
“Oh. It was alright. I saw my older sister.” The quick change in topics honestly has Ness a little winded, but he lets it slide.
“Good. Everyone was worried—” Even Kaiser? The devilish voice in Ness’s head interferes. “About you. Especially since you spat up that blue shit. You got checked out, right? I was googling it with Gesner and some serious stuff came up.”
Ness tilts his head, curious. “Serious? Like what?”
“I don’t know? I saw something like copper, acid, lung cancer… someone on Reddit said Hanahaki?”
It’s pointless to hide that he has it, but saying it out loud still feels weird. Yes, I have Hanahaki. Yes, I have at most two months to live without surgery, which I’m still unsure if I want to get. Yes, I will die because Kaiser doesn’t love me back, and will never love me back, and all attempts to move on are pointless.
Stupid, Ness thinks to himself, so stupid. Maybe, like Mensah, Kaiser’s disappearance is killing him too. Squeezing his insides, even before he started growing flowers in his lungs.
Whatever. “It’s Hanahaki.”
Mensah’s eyes widen for a split second, trying to tamper it down before Ness notices. Ness notices it anyway. “Isn’t that terminal?”
“Not if I get surgery,” Ness shrugs, faking nonchalance.
“Are you getting surgery?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“How do you not know yet?”
Ness shrugs, face heating up. When laid out like this, it just sounds ridiculous.
“Because the surgery will make me forget about Kaiser.”
Mensah grabs his hand and grips it tight. The thought of even getting the surgery now makes his chest hurt, his lungs growing vines despite the effects of the medication.
“I don’t want to lose you too, Ness.”
Ness closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to lose anyone either.