Chapter Text
It ached.
He was on the floor, and he couldn’t breathe, Keith couldn’t breathe. He was gasping violently, crying like never before, shaking, trying to find a way to get air into his lungs. A few small, wet petals were on the carpet, near his body, and he could feel more inside. It was like coughing blood, but instead of dark red liquid, he got dark red roses.
He grasped tightly onto the t-shirt fabric near his chest; it was all full. Something was wrapped around his heart and he couldn’t feel a thing, he couldn’t breathe, for fuck’s sake, he couldn’t feel blood rushing through his veins anymore, there was no warmth filling his body and keeping him alive--
A small rosebud left his lips, and it wasn’t as bad anymore.
-
“Hang on, what? ”
Keith tangled his fingers into his hair, and sighed. He was fine when he said goodbye to his friends the night before; what in hell happened between that and a few hours later, shaking and crying desperately on the floor, he didn’t really know. But now, he was fucking coughing rose petals once every ten minutes. Lance was supposed to help, he was all Keith could get, as Hunk and Pidge were busy fixing whatever they were fixing on one of the labs, but he was not helping. If anything, he was making Keith feel worse.
“I’m coughing fucking flowers, Lance! I don’t know what it is, but there are roses inside of me, for fuck’s sake!” He shouted, trying not to be too loud for the news not to spread around the whole dorms. He was mad, he was hurt - holy crap, his torso was in an immense amount of pain -, he wasn’t up for Lance at the moment.
“Are you sure you didn’t eat some plants or something?” The Cuban asked, not intending to sound stupid, but he was quite lost. How was it possible, to cough flowers? How did the flowers get there? They wouldn’t just appear out of nowhere…
“Yes, Lance, I’m sure,” Keith muttered, rolling his eyes. He wasn’t as pissed now, but still annoyed. “They are just there, and I don’t know what to do…”
“Have you gone to the hospital yet?” Lance was becoming the rational one, for once. He was genuinely worried, because if he didn’t hold back from making fun of Keith and didn’t help him out, they would both get into a fight way too quickly, and their other friends weren’t there to stop them.
“No, do you think I should?”
“Obviously, mullet. If there is something wrong with your body, what you do is go to the hospital. Duh.”
“Hmph. Fine. Can you drive me?”
“I’ve got nothing better to do,” he shrugged, and smirked while Keith got his jacket and mumbled incoherent sentences and complained about his pain.
-
“What is it?”
Keith had to go home by bus, because Hunk was done before the hospital actually finished with him, and Lance left so fast he didn’t even say ‘bye’. Now, the three of his friends were sitting on his bed, and a little bag full of rose petals was laying by his side. He was too scared to even look at it, but being flower-lungs-boy was now a reality he had to accept.
“It’s some Hanahaki Disease or whatever. It’s stupid, really, and I think I might get surgery to remove it…”
“How’d you get it?,” Hunk asked, cheery. That was the question Keith feared the most, because he had contracted the illness from a weakness of his. Stupid, stupid Keith with his stupid, stupid feelings…
“One-sided love,” Pidge said before Keith could get to it. “Hanahaki Disease is an illness where flowers start growing on the lungs of someone who suffers from one-sided love. It is deadly, because the plants may end up clogging your respiratory system, and can only be healed by surgery or by the love not being just one-sided.”
Keith frowned, upset, almost childlike, and he could feel Hunk and Lance staring at him in shock.
“Wait, wait, wait: Keith has feelings ? He loves someone?” Lance teased.
“Who is it, Keith?,” Hunk questioned, innocent. Why was he asking so many off-putting things?
“No one.”
Yeah, no one. If only no one was the name of the best student in the whole college, the most handsome guy, the sweetest person, that one guy everyone kinda had a crush on. Why Keith was cursed with the disease that made it clear, he had no idea. He just wished it would go away; it could go away if you got over your feelings, couldn’t it?
“Come on, mullet. Tell us. We’re your friends, aren’t we?”
“It’s no one. No one important. I’m gonna get surgery and everything will be normal, so just leave it--”
Pidge stood up and went towards Keith, who was sitting in the desk, fiddling with his flower bag. They took the bag and spread the petals on the carpet, got some wire out of their pocket and started making a crown out of the small red bits. They looked up at Keith, eye-measured the diameter for the accessory and sighed.
“Look, Keith. I want you to be safe and okay; we all do. You shouldn’t get surgery, because you’re going to lose the feelings and all the experience of love. You shouldn’t let it grow, because you’ll either die due to lack of air of because of the thorns. Tell us who it is, and maybe we can help you, maybe we can be matchmakers or something.”
“Oh, hell no,” Keith stood up and shook his head aggressively. If his friends tried to be matchmakers for him, that’s how the crush would stay forever unrequited. They were nice and really supportive, but when it came to love, full-on failures. Lance and Hunk should be thankful they had each other, because no one else would be able to put up with them. Pidge was extremely smart and quite mature for their age, but too much of a weeaboo and a mess. They were unable to focus on one thing if it wasn’t immediately advantageous to them and, even though they were extremely talented with machines and technology, they were a complete and utter goner when trying to understand other humans.
Keith was fine, he really was; he was going to get the surgery and get that over with. The doctor had said it took a few months for the disease to evolve completely and lead to death. Basically, what he currently had were seeds; the herb grew around his heart and ribcage, until fully developed, and then it pressed his bones until they broke and boom, he’d be dead. In around two or three weeks, he would start coughing up bigger flowers, so it’d be useful to walk around with bags to put them in. The illness wasn’t insanely common, so the surgery queue wasn’t too big, and he could manage to get an appointment probably in the next month or two. He would stay alive, safe and be okay. Good.
Hunk and Lance chattered while Pidge made a flower crown, and Keith was having an intense dialogue with himself. He needed to walk around, he needed to make himself busy; just sitting around would be completely useless, and it would make the anxiety and pain stuffed in his chest puff out, and no one wanted that.
He stood up and started making his way out of his own bedroom, ignoring his friends’ ‘where are you going’ and ‘what are you doing’ and just leaving the place. The halls were almost empty, but a few students were hanging around, and almost all doors were propped open, music and the smell of various snacks getting to him. Ignoring all of that excessively social environment, he rushed to the stairs and almost ran down them, petals fluttering all around as he tried not to completely lose his breath.
-
The sun made him feel warm, after hours of desperation and not knowing what the hell is going on. His patch of grass wasn’t too bad and the sunlight was just right; the sounds around him were just enough, and the amount of people studying or just hanging out was as much as he could take. He looked past the campus limits, and saw the desert. He had to sneak out and go see the stars as soon as it was night, he thought to himself. Stargazing would make it all feel better, because the sky never really changed, the constellations were always there in the same place, only Earth moved.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, appreciating the air that slowly got in and out. He was doing okay now, much better. He knew what was going on, he knew how to fix it, everything would be just fine. Why wouldn’t it, anyway.
Keith raised his head again and felt his throat closing, in an almost sadistic movement. There he was, the person who caused this immense pain to Keith. The person who should get all the flowers, all the petals, all the ivy spread around his chest.
Takashi fucking Shirogane.
Jesus, he looked as godly as always. He was smiling brightly and his skin was tan; his hair seemed soft, the white streak flowing with the wind, and his metal arm shined under the direct sunlight. Seeing him there, so gorgeous, so natural, so Shiro , made a full rose form up Keith’s throat. After almost puking for nearly a minute, he managed to get the flower out, and stuck it into his pocket.
He was in too deep. Way too deep, definitely. He knew, by heart, that there was absolutely no hope for him to be cured naturally, with mutual love. Obviously, Keith wouldn’t stop hoping, but he would try to fix it medically, so that he’d never have such useless, dumb hope again. It was getting him off his tracks, off his way to success. He wouldn’t let that happen, not in a million years.
He couldn’t let it happen.