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Poisoning is such a cowardly method of assassination, but it’s a great way to kill things that shouldn’t be inside you.
Nobody knew where it came from.
There was a push a few years back to label it the fifth Big Pollution Disease, given the first outbreak was reported with a chemical spill in the area, and for a time, it followed in the tradition of the Pollution Diseases, being labeled with its Japanese name, translating to “flower vomiting disease”.
Then cases started popping up in Seoul. Then Davao. Then Omaha. Then Cardiff. Then Dubai. By the time the first cases were in Lagos, everyone knew; it was everywhere.
The name stuck, but no longer did anyone think it was caused by pollution.
Then it became a fact of life.
You fell in love with someone who didn’t love you back, and then it started happening. The weird, heavy feeling in your chest. The coughing. The mild fever.
And then the bloody petals appeared.
Your best chance was to hope they loved you back. If not, the best case scenario, you were on a ventilator until the feelings went away, if you were lucky and they weren’t strong enough.
Worst case scenario, you became compost for the flowers.
Most of humanity was vulnerable to this disease. Answers were being sought, and the philosophers and religious leaders turned to debating the ethics of a disease that predicated itself upon ensuring the requiting of romantic feelings or killed you if you were unfortunate.
Public service announcements treated it as any other disease, saying to wear masks and distance and wash your hands. It did help; after all, the disease did have somewhat of a biological component to it. But there was no vaccine, and no cure except to somehow convince someone to return your feelings once you got it.
Which is a pretty crap deal.
Of course, there’s always one group of people in these sorts of messes who are immune. And it just so happened that they were immune because they’d eaten enough poison to turn their blood into weedkiller.
Hikaru Gero had no idea how the hell he ended up in this situation.
“You are a miracle worker, doctor! I can never repay you enough! A million- no, ten million yen would never repay this debt! You’re a genius!”
“T-thanks…” Gero replied awkwardly, rubbing his head as the old man before him shook his hands gratefully, dried blood and petals caking his chin. “I, uh…”
“Anything, Doctor Tezuka! I will do anything to thank you!”
“Doctor Tezuka” was the disguise Gero had picked for this. The real Doctor Tezuka was sound asleep in his car, and wouldn’t remember the last 48 hours; Gero made it his policy to avoid killing people who didn’t need to die.
“Um…I…you could step down, and retire from your company,” Gero recommended, trying (and in his opinion, failing) to sound authoritative. “A healthy lifestyle and a healthy mind makes you less vulnerable to hanahaki disease, and running a company as stressful as yours isn’t good for your health.”
The fact that that company was pouring the chemicals that got blamed for the first ever hanahaki outbreak into Japan’s waters, and that this man was the one who ran it was one Gero omitted. He didn’t need to know that Gero was sent there to kill him for that very reason.
“Of course, doctor! Anything! You’ve been so good to me! The announcement will come tomorrow. I’ll even arrange for a team to clean up our spills! Gods above, I need to do this all. I can’t die like this, not while there are things to be done and ills to be fixed!”
As the old man shuffled away to another room to make whatever calls he’d wanted, Gero sighed in relief, realising that his mark hadn't worked out that he hadn't been sent as a guardian angel; an angel of death, perhaps.
A mission failed successfully, Gero supposed, but his eyes were on the escort who had spent her night with his mark.
She was dressed in white, with the most beautiful face Gero had ever seen on a living human being, pinkish-red eyes framed by blonde hair fading to pink at the tips. Frankly, if Gero had been looking, he could imagine dating this woman. He’d done his research on his mark, and knew that she was his favored escort.
He had decided not to poison her too; after all, his original game plan was to make it look like a heart attack caused by overexcitement. A few pills in his bottle, and he’d never see it coming. That plan went to hell when he threw out the pills, but Gero had had a backup plan; coming in as Doctor Tezuka, he handed him medicine. Poison that would be untraceable, induce a heart attack. That way, the good doctor wouldn’t suffer, and the escort could only be accused of showing him too much of a good time.
He hadn’t expected the man to suffer from hanahaki disease, descend into a lethal coughing fit from said disease, and for his poison to subsequently cure it and save his life. His gut told him that it was all because of the escort that he’d contracted it.
Seeing her in the flesh, he could understand why Mei Kinosaki had that effect on people.
“Doctor? Do you…mind if we have a word?”
Gero snapped out of his reverie. Kinosaki was speaking to him directly looking up at him.
“She’s so small,” Gero noted, eyeing her up and down. He practically towered over her. He could practically envelop her, if he wanted.
“Yes?” he replied.
Kinosaki paused, looking around, before continuing. “You’re…not really a doctor, are you?”
Hikaru’s eyes widened.
How did yo-
“You move so shiftily that I thought you were some kinda swindler,” Kinosaki explained, slightly tilting her head with a smile. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell if you won’t.”
“I really should kill you”, Gero thought. “But…”
This last half hour had not at all gone the way Gero had anticipated, and it was throwing him off his game.
“I was right, wasn’t I?” Kinosaki teasingly remarked. “I can’t say I blame you. He was kind of a tool to me tonight. But…even I wouldn’t want someone like that to die from something so horrible.”
“I was going to poison him,” Gero admitted sheepishly.
“Personally, I think getting taken by hanahaki is worse,” Kinosaki remarked confidently, but with a tinge of regret, as if she knew what that was like. “You were going to give that guy a mercy he probably didn’t deserve.”
“Yeah. I was.”
Kinosaki looked him up and down, before tapping her chin thoughtfully. “Say. You’re getting a real rush from having saved him, aren’t you, Assassin-san?”
“Shit. Twice?”
“I don’t know if it’s a rush, but…” Gero rubbed the back of his head awkwardly.
Honestly, he didn’t know how he really felt. He’d failed his mission, and that guy really was human trash that had deserved what Gero was going to do to him. On the other hand, the second Gero had given him a new lot in life, he’d changed his ways. Judging from the cries from the other room, Gero was pretty sure he was calling family he hadn’t contacted in years.
Gero knew that if he’d ever been like that, an extra year, an extra week, an extra second would be what he would want to make it all up to Akari.
“I’m really good at reading people, y’know,” Kinosaki stated with a big smile. “And you’re like an open book, Assassin-san.”
Something about this girl was making Gero feel things he wasn’t sure about, and it was enough to keep him listening.
“…I suppose you’re right,” the assassin conceded. “Yeah. It felt good not having to kill someone for once.”
“I’ve never seen someone cure hanahaki disease before so easily,” Kinosaki commented, a bit of wistfulness in her voice. “Usually it needs a pretty dangerous surgery that…kinda messes with your emotions.”
She tapped her chin.
“…could you do me a favour? I promise I can pay you.”
Hikaru shook his head. “I don’t take assassination jobs for cheap, Kinosaki-san.”
“No. Not an assassination. A curing job.”
The assassin stared at Kinosaki dumbfounded, as if he’d suggested that Gero dance naked in the streets.
“It’s my brother, you see. He has the disease,” Kinosaki admitted, her light voice growing sadder. “I’ve been doing all this to get him better, but he has feelings for this guy he’s close to at school, and the bills to keep him alive are really high, so…I was hoping you could…”
Kinosaki trailed off, but Gero got the gist.
“You want me to feed your brother poison so it’ll cure his disease,” Gero repeated for his understanding.
“I want you to feed my brother poison so it’ll cure his disease,” Kinosaki repeated, so that Gero understood.
“Can…is that even allowed?” Gero wondered, calculating it all in his head. “I’d need to fine-tune the poison so it wouldn’t kill him, and there’s every chance I could kill him anyway, but- ”
Something about the look on Kinosaki’s face, however, stopped him. Her face was a mixture of hopefulness and optimism and sadness and…recognition?
The flash of a blonde boy, beauty marks in the same places as Kinosaki, flashed through his head briefly, but Gero paid them no mind at the time.
He needed to help this woman.
“Yes. I’ll do it. Don’t worry about payment.”
Kinosaki’s eyes lit up, and Gero had to actively concentrate on not turning red at the sight. “Really? Not even a little bit of payment?”
“I…want to give this ‘saving people’ thing a try,” the assassin confessed, gazing at the other room where his would-be victim was cheering happily. “I want to see if it feels as good when…I’m not saving human scum.”
He paused briefly.
“And also, I know what it’s like wanting to keep an eye on your siblings. I’ve got a younger sister.”
Akari was safe now, but Gero had gone through hell to keep her protected. She was in America now with her fiancée. Any day now, he was expecting her to invite him to the wedding.
Kinosaki nodded, understanding. “We’re both the same, then, Assassin-san. We want the best for our family.”
She tapped her chin thoughtfully, as something occurred to her. “But…you know, that three million you got, that’s way more than what I get paid for even a week’s work with a rich client, you know.”
Hikaru lifted an eyebrow. “What are you implying?”
“If curing my brother works….we could turn this into a business.”
“A business?” Admittedly, Gero didn’t understand much about running a legitimate business. He got sent marks and killed them. Running something that didn’t involve killing people wasn’t a skill the Poison Clan had taught him. “Hey, aren’t we getting a bit ahead of ourselves?”
“What? You’ve got the cure to probably the worst disease of our time in your hands and you don’t want to make tons of money out of it? Come on, I’ll even help you!”
“I-I don’t think it’s a great idea for-“
“Doctor, honestly, the escort business is getting old,” Kinosaki continued. “If we can make something out of this, you and I, I can keep providing for my brother, you can keep saving people, and we can make a ton of money doing it and I don’t have to keep working like this. What do you say?”
She extended her hand to him.
Getting to know Kinosaki might not be so bad. She is fairly cute, a voice from Hikaru’s subconscious spoke, and was subsequently quashed by a wave of embarrassment and Hikaru trying not to pay it any heed.
Gero took a second.
Then he gingerly, slowly, took her hand, shaking it.
“If it works out with your brother, then we have a deal,” he stated. Kinosaki gave him another big smile.
“I can just see our names now! Tezuka and Kinosaki, Weedkillers for Hire! Though….Tezuka isn’t your real name, is it, Assassin-san?”
“Gero,” he stated as calmly as he could muster. “Hikaru Gero.”
“Oh, and um…one more thing, Gero-kun,” Kinosaki said. Gero didn’t remark on the immediate jump in honorifics. Any question about minding it was immediately quashed.
“Yes?”
“I’m a man,” he confessed. “I hope that’s okay with you, Gero-kun.”
“...why wouldn’t that be okay with me?,” the assassin replied without changing his tone. “...did that guy know?”
“Yes.”
“Alright.”
‘He’s still really cute, anyway.’ drifted across Gero’s mind, which was banished away with any other improper thoughts about Kinosaki.
Needless to say, Okuto Kinosaki was the first intentional recipient of the patented Gero clan hanahaki cure of drinking straight weedkiller.
After confirming that Gero hadn’t actually poisoned him more than he’d intended to – an insane sentiment, Gero had thought, as he tried to make a dose that wouldn’t kill him but kill his disease – not long after, Kinosaki set up the Undeed page.
Project Weedkiller, he called it. “Hire them for 10,000 yen to solve all your unrequited love and flower vomiting problems,” the description said.
Now, the problem was there were plenty of people who said they could cure hanahaki. Plenty of quacks, like every other sort of disease, who advertised all sorts of cures from drinking ivermectin to snake oil to rubbing black salve on your body, anything to have the ability to love freely without the fear of coughing up those nasty flower petals, and Kinosaki and Gero couldn’t prove they were any different, so nobody quite had the balls to take the job.
Until someone did.
The first real job went well. Famed art thief Kyoko Himekawa had hired them directly; one of her fans had fallen ill with disease and, in search of any solution to the problem, she’d gone for the Undeed advert.
An hour later, a Himekawa fan walked out of the hospital like a new man, and Himekawa was giving them five stars on Undeed; admittedly, that five stars was also probably because the water specialist decided to jump Himekawa for stealing her client’s art and instead got jumped by Gero, who elected to extend his healthcare offerings to skincare just for her.
(“You know how to make skin cream?” Kinosaki inquired as Gero left a pot of specially-made skin medication for the unconscious Ushio.
“Toxicology isn’t that far off from pharmacology. The dose makes the poison,” Gero explained, as he wrote out a prescription.
“You know, maybe when we’ve got a big enough business, you could start selling moisturizers and make-up products,” Kinosaki suggested. “ After all, belladonna was used for make-up, right?”
“It also makes you blind if you use it too much.”
“…point taken.”)
The second job went about as expected. A young lady named Makoto had hired them to cure her friend Shiori, who’d contracted the disease. Granted, having to cave Genya Naruko’s face in for trying to kick her while she was down was probably also why both of them gave them such high ratings.
(“Are you sure he’ll be fine?” Kinosaki asked as Naruko lay unconscious in a pool of toxic gas.
“Probably,” Gero stated with a shrug.
“Probably?!”
“…he’s still breathing, isn’t he?”
“Point taken.”)
What was probably more helpful was the Ureshino company giving their endorsement to Doctor Gero’s Hanahaki Fixer Elixir (“It’s short, snappy and catchy!” Kinosaki insisted,) as the first 100% verified cure for one of society’s most dastardly ills.
Needless to say, after that, business was booming.
The third job was when they went a bit more proactive.
(“We don’t really do protection jobs,” Gero explained awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head as Arashiyama pleaded her case. “But, just this once, forget the fee. You’re in trouble, so just this once, we’ll do it.”
“Eh?! You’ll do it?!” Arashiyama exclaimed. “But I can’t even afford the-“
“When do we start?”
Kinosaki barely managed to jump out of the way as Arashiyama latched herself around Gero, squealing something about “fanservice”.)
….
“Aren’t you the fanservice specialist, Gero-kun?” Kinosaki teased Gero as he added Arashiyama’s profile to the roster of employees in their small outfit on their Undeed profile. “Giving your fan the dream job of working for you. You know she’ll definitely fall for you after that.”
Gero and Kinosaki could still remember the squeals of glee the Hamster Specialist had let out as Gero offered that she could come work for them and run her business on the side as a detective loaning her services.
“It makes sense,” Gero replied with no small amount of awkwardness. “Look. I’m following your advice. Now that we’ve got a bit more fame, we should probably scout our clients out a bit better, and there’s nobody better in the intel business than Arashiyama-san.”
“You’ve been listening to my business advice! Good!” Kinosaki remarked with a grin, a grin Gero tried to not look at too closely because it was far, far too dazzling.
He picked up the sample bottle of Doctor Gero’s Hanahaki Fixer Elixir off the desk, turning it over in his hands.
“I think we should get rid of the ‘Doctor’ part. Isn’t that fraud?” he questioned.
Kinosaki tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Well, yeah, but it makes you look cooler, you know? It gives that vibe of legitimacy. Truthiness, I think they call it.”
“I kinda don’t want to seem like I’m a snake oil salesman. Maybe…Gerosaki’s Hanahaki Fixer Elixir has a better ring to it.”
It was Kinosaki’s turn to be caught off guard. “Gerosaki? That’s…bold of you.”
“It makes sense, doesn’t it?” Gero replied, facing away from Kinosaki as he was still examining the bottle, staring at the logo, a small, stylized version of himself giving a thumbs up. “I wasn’t the one with the idea. It doesn’t make sense that I get all the credit, too.”
“It’s your poison. I mean, to an extent. The dose makes the poison, you say that all the time.”
“I couldn’t have done this without you, Kinosaki-kun,” Gero continued, an earnest tone to his voice. “You’re just as important to the success of this business as I am. There isn’t a fixer elixir without you. You’re my…one and only partner.”
“You really are the fanservice specialist,” Kinosaki muttered, looking away from Gero suddenly, and the tone of his voice caused Gero to look back around.
He almost swore he saw Kinosaki’s cheeks be covered with a dusting of red before he covered his face with his hand.
A few moments passed in silence.
Gero glanced around their shared office, decorated with small knick-knacks. Three desks were arranged in each corner aside from the one with the door; a few wooden hamster statues marked Arashiyama’s desk, cutesy HiHi Kitten and Miikawa plushies marked Kinosaki’s, and a plain desk strewn with some nerunerune candy powder was Gero’s desk. Facing them, a board with images of their successful clients faced them telling them what, exactly, was at stake; images of a smiling Himekawa with her fan and Gero, an image of Ureshino showing off magic tricks, and a group photo of a tired and dirt-covered Gero and Kinosaki with an equally tired and dirt-covered Arashiyama and Nakagawa.
Around them all, pictures of Kinosaki and Gero hanging out together; at an amusement park, at a mall, at restaurants where Kinosaki bled Gero dry.
This, more than the money, was the monument of their success in fighting a scourge of society.
“Say, what do you think about hanahaki disease?” Kinosaki said, finally breaking the silence.
Gero looked over at him, puzzled. “What do you mean by that?”
“Well, you know, what’s your opinion on it?”
“I’m not sure I take your meaning,” the former assassin admitted. “I…think it’s a disease. There’s lots of scientific papers about where it came from, but nobody’s sure. We call it hanahaki because we thought it was like itai-itai or Minamata disease, that it came from pollution. Nobody really knows why it’s here, only that we’re the first ones to actually hit a cure for it.”
“I meant…” Kinosaki continued, and Gero picked up on a change in his tone. “…do you ever consider why it only affects people who have unrequited feelings for others?”
Gero shook his head. “I only try to save them. I don’t think I’ll ever have the know-how to figure out why it’s like that.”
“I personally think it’s terrible, and…not just because my brother had it,” Kinosaki answered. His voice was low and tinged with something Gero couldn’t quite identify. “…the love that a disease like that forces you into isn’t real love. Knowing that the only reason that person feels for you is because the alternative is death can’t ever be something real. I…”
He clenched his hands, and Gero noticed he was shaking a little bit. He moved to approach him.
“If someone only returned my feelings because my life was on the line, I could never accept that. And someone like you, Gero-kun, shouldn’t either.”
“Someone like me?” Gero said, confused.
“You didn’t need to help Arashiyama-san out, but you did. You’ve been embarking on this whole thing because you wanted to. You even saved my brother. I can’t-“
“Kinosaki-kun.”
The firm tone underlying those words caught Kinosaki off-guard, as he stared back at Gero.
“I know what you’re about to say. You don’t owe me anything for that. You never will. I don’t know what people have asked of you in the past, Kinosaki-kun, but…the only thing I’ll ever ask of you is that you stay my partner.”
Kinosaki stared at him with an expression Gero couldn’t read. Was it confusion? Wonder? Anger? Sadness? Feelings that Gero didn’t want to voice?
What felt like eternity passed, and then instead of flashing a toothy, big, vivacious grin, Kinosaki gave him a soft smile, and Gero felt his heart flutter.
“Thank you, Gero-kun,” he finally said, his voice as delicate as glass. “That…really means a lot to me.”
He fixed him with a determined expression.
“…yes, Gero-kun. I’ll be your partner. As long as you stay on this path, I’ll be your partner.”
Kinosaki didn’t dare voice the thing that he was feeling as that happened.
That taste of petals and blood in his mouth.
The Gerosaki Agency, as their office ended up being called, was doing brisk business, selling their renamed Gerosaki Hanahaki Fixer Elixir, now with Gero and Kinosaki gracing its logo.
(“Where am I?” Arashiyama complained, as she checked the new design of the bottle. “Don’t I work here too?”
“Should’ve joined us earlier,” Kinosaki teased her. “Early bird gets the worm. Besides, Arashiyama doesn’t really fit anywhere in that name, does it?”)
More jobs personally administering and curing hanahaki came their way, courtesy of Arashiyama’s intel network of hamsters, while Kinosaki mailed bottles of the cure out as a mail-order service, with Arashiyama’s hamsters acting as couriers.
(“Just because you have hanahaki doesn’t I have to accept your proposal, okay?” Himi chided Heiwajima. “Not after everything you’ve done.”
“Not for much longer, anyway,” Gero remarked drily, before jamming the syringe full of his cure directly into Heiwajima’s buttocks.
He didn’t need to do it so hard, or even inject the cure that way, but the loud yelp of pain was his reward to himself.)
Granted, Gero could have done without their fourth employee, who’d tagged along with them after that incident at the gala. They weren’t really there to be matchmaking, but Kinosaki had insisted they could find customers there, and they instead found the Gun Clan in a civil war. He was, at least, thankful that for all that Beppu was slobbering over Kinosaki, he was mercifully immune to hanahaki.
(“Even working for you, I’ll make sure that I can meet your standards, Kinosaki-san!” Beppu declared boisterously. “I’ll work to make us both happy!”
Kinosaki leaned into Gero, whispering. “Does he realize the salary at our office isn’t that high and we get paid per job and by commission, right?”
Gero whispered back, “We’re paying him?”)
Business at the Gerosaki Agency was booming.
….
“One thousand orders! Drinks are on me tonight, everyone!” Arashiyama cheered, hoisting a pair of six-packs into the air, before plopping them down on Gero’s desk, where the group was huddled around. “We really did it!”
Kinosaki leaned back into his chair with a great exhalation. “We really did it. We’re really doing big business now!”
“All that hard work, just for you, my beloved!” Beppu exclaimed, taking a can and taking a big swig.
“We’re not married,” Kinosaki added flatly, not that Beppu had listened the last hundred times.
Christmas lights hung around their now larger office, which had space for a few more employees, with all the tables now facing the window and the board of successes on the far wall. It was an Ureshino company building – Shiori had granted them the space as a show of gratitude, and also because it was good business sense to have the appearance that the Gerosaki Agency was working with her company – but the Ureshino employees were gone for the holidays.
It was a few days before Christmas and holiday plans had been settled for two of them. Arashiyama was going spend it following some clues as to where her brother was in Hokkaido, while Beppu was going abroad to Italy (“To pick up more tips on how to better woo you, my beloved,” he’d said to Kinosaki when the topic came up).
“Thanks for making the run, Arashiyama-san,” Gero said, taking a can, to which she merely responded with a big thumbs up. He’d worked past his fear of touching food he hadn’t made a while back; Arashiyama had made sure of that. “And thank you all for trying your hardest.”
“Honestly, Gero-kun, you really have to work on that charm of yours,” Kinosaki chided him light-heartedly. “I almost wish I was your marriage adviser instead of your business partner. Then I could really work on you.”
“Marriage adviser?” Gero sputtered, almost spitting out his drink. “Hey, where did that come from?”
Kinosaki giggled at his reaction.
“Come on. You’ve got no charismatic thing you can say?” he continued, poking at him with a waggling finger. “We just hit a big milestone and all you have to say is ‘Thank you all for trying your hardest?’ Come on, you’re our fearless leader! You’ve got to have something prepared!”
“Speech! Speech!” Arashiyama cheered him on. “Come on, Gero-kun!”
“There’s only four of us here!” Gero protested. “Maybe when we have ten thousand mail orders, then I’ll give a speech. I’ll even bring cake.”
“Oh, now you’re making jokes? Maybe you don’t need my charm training after all,” Kinosaki teased him. “Just this once, I’ll let you off the hook, then. But you better have a speech ready next milestone we hit, alright? Two thousand, at least!”
Gero smiled. “Of course, Kinosaki-kun. As you wish.”
The office doorbell went off, and Arashiyama stood up.
“I’ll get it!” she volunteered, rushing out of the room with anyone else could move to it.
Suddenly, a phone buzzer went off. Gero stood up.
“Sorry, that’s mine,” he said sheepishly. “That must be my sister. She’s been wanting me to visit her and her wife in San Francisco, I’ll just take this.”
With that, he excused himself out of the room. Beppu also stood up.
“That reminds me, I’ve got to make sure the hotel’s reservation is still on! I’ve forgotten what it was like not having to sneak into hotels and being able to pay for them,” he said, following Gero quickly out of the room.
Kinosaki sighed, the second he was sure the lot of them were out of earshot.
Then he descended into a violent coughing fit, ignoring the sounds of scrabbling and squeaking that were fading away.
Petals upon petals of bloodied belladonna filled his hands.
“Gero-kun…” he uttered. He produced a tissue and cleaned off the blood and petals, scrunching it up into a damp ball and quickly slinging it into his drawer.
He’d been trying to deny it, but he knew at this point that he had the disease. He knew what the prognosis was by this stage. If Gero didn’t return his feelings, it was likely terminal.
That or he took the cure, but-
Gero was the first one to return, interrupting Kinosaki’s thoughts before he could do anything further.
“Gero-kun!” he yelped. “Uh…how was Akari-san?”
“She’s fine,” Gero replied, nodding, a troubled expression on his face. Kinosaki tried to compose himself as much as possible.
“Are you okay? You look worried.”
“Well, Akari said she wanted me to come to San Francisco to come visit her.”
Kinosaki smiled. “Oh, well. I’m sure you’ll enjoy yourself there-“
“I want you to come with me.”
He froze.
“…don’t be silly, Gero-kun,” Kinosaki said, trying to play it off. “You should find a nice girl or something to go with.”
“Mei.”
Something deep, something primal about that drew Kinosaki’s attention, as Gero stared at him. To the chemist, Kinosaki felt as fragile as glass.
“You’ve stood by me for so long, Kinosaki-kun,” he continued, his voice wavering with desperation. “Please.”
Gero was suddenly keenly aware of how close Kinosaki was to him, how few inches were between their faces.
“You know I…don’t want to be in a relationship with someone I owe,” Kinosaki firmly stated, but there was an undertone of wanting, of yearning. “That’s just bad business.”
“This isn’t about owing or pitying,” Gero reassured him gently. “You being my partner…I’d never have any of this without you. Please.”
“There’s something you don’t kn-“
“I don’t care.”
That really surprised him. Kinosaki simply sighed, closing his eyes.
“When did you get so assertive?” he asked simply. “I didn’t teach you that.”
“When did you get so shy?” Gero answered. “You weren’t like that when at that night at my apartment.”
“That was a pretend date for fun. This is serious,” Kinosaki answered. “I guess I just don’t like getting caught off guard. You’re playing with fire if you choose me so rashly, Hikaru.”
“I’m happy if it means you’re okay with someone like me.”
The smile he gave in response was more than enough to say what needed to be said. As Gero slowly leaned in, however, he found a finger on his lips, and Kinosaki cheekily smiling.
“I’m…not quite ready for that,” he confessed, a hint of vulnerability beneath the mischief. “I accept your feelings, Gero-kun, but, if you don’t mind, I’ll be taking the lead here.”
“…of course. I don’t want to rush you, if you really don’t feel comfortable. Just this much is fine.”
As his heart fluttered, Kinosaki could feel the heaviness in his chest dissipating, the taste of petals and blood receding. The relief in his face was palpable.
The number one enemy of the Gerosaki Agency would not be claiming another victim today.
Arashiyama suddenly burst in, hamsters all over her, yelling. The brash lady pointed towards where Kinosaki was sitting when she’d left.
“GERO-KUN! GET THE ELIXIR! KINOSAKI-KUN’S GOT HANAHAKI AND-“
What she found was Gero leaning over Kinosaki, both of them staring right at her, in a rather intimate pose.
“…ah.”
A moment passed. Sirius squeaked.
“I guess we don’t need that elixir then,” Arashiyama concluded, perking back up. “Good job, you two!”
Kinosaki groaned. “You really killed the mood, you know that?”
After that day, it was all a blur.
Tonako of the Beast Clan was the first specialist to be cured of the disease; ironically, they’d find out, Gero was the source once again. As soon as Beppu met her, of course, he was all over her. And surprisingly, she was into it. Maybe it was the devotion, maybe it was the fact that he was still into her after getting his face kicked in and thrown around by her giant wolf, or maybe she was just amused.
Then, there was the matter of Nasu, but that is a story better told for another time. All that needs to be said is that he did not get away, and Gero was very happy to violate his newfound respect for the sanctity of life to remind everyone what happened when his Kinosaki was harmed.
After all, he was in the process of trying to exterminate a disease that had mildly inconvenienced Kinosaki.
The Gerosaki Agency was doing brisk business, and eventually Gero needed to hire a second chemist since he really couldn’t keep up with making so damn much of it; Teruaki was all but happy to do so, especially after Gero cured his instance of hanahaki. Nobody was able (or willing) to question why it flared up after Gero showed up holding Kinosaki’s hand, but they were happy to hire him nonetheless.
And then….
…
“Though the world may never be truly free of the ravages of hanahaki disease,” the newscaster continued. “The efforts of these two gentlemen will ensure that it will never again claim the lives of Japanese citizens.”
Two headshots, one of Gero and one of Kinosaki filled the screen. While Kinosaki looked like his radiant self, smiling for the camera, Gero looked half-asleep.
“We really should’ve asked them to move that photoshoot to the next day,” Gero complained. “I was busy helping Teruaki set up the office in Osaka.”
“They should see how hard you’re working, Hikaru-kun,” Kinosaki pointed out, sitting between Gero’s legs and resting his head against Gero’s neck . “Besides, now you know what you look like on camera, so we can get you camera ready for the interview.”
Gero simply groaned in response, ignoring his phone blowing up with messages from Arashiyama gushing about him getting on the news, or Akari congratulating him.
The two of them were sitting in Gero’s apartment, the sun shimmering through illuminating the living room with mid-morning light. Kinosaki was in a hoodie and shorts, Gero in a pair of pajamas and a shirt. Boxes were in the corner where Kinosaki’s belongings awaited being unpacked, having been there for a week.
It had been a year since this had all kicked off, and it was the first day in a long time they’d both taken a day off. Which is good, because last night had ensured they weren’t making it in early.
Kinosaki exhaled, adjusting himself to take up more of Gero’s warmth. “It’s pretty cold today, but you make a good pillow, Hikaru-kun.”
He snorted. “What kind of compliment is that, Mei-kun?”
“Maybe not all of them can be winners,” Kinosaki conceded. “I don’t know. I can’t always be on top form, you know. I need some warm-up time in the morning.”
He frowned suddenly. Gero looked down at him. “What’s wrong?”
“I….still don’t know if I deserve all this. Or if you’re with me because you think you owe me something. Or-“
“Mei,” Gero intoned, wrapping his arms protectively around his lover. “I’m with you because I love you. I didn’t even know you had it until Arashiyama showed up. Even if I had, I still would have loved you.”
The blonde man sighed. “I know, I know. It’s just…”
He fidgeted in Gero’s embrace.
“With someone with my past, you’re never truly sure if you’re loved for you or because they pity you, and that disease made it worse. I meant what I said before; it’s a cruel thing, and I’m glad we fought it together,” Kinosaki firmly stated.
“People like…people like me are especially vulnerable to it, and I’m glad there was someone like you who was willing to fight it and let us keep our freedom to love. We deserve happiness; at least that’s what you keep telling me, and I’m starting to believe that.”
He glanced away from Gero.
“But there’s so much that happened that wasn’t about that disease,” he said, a touch of concern to his voice. “I don’t even know if we’d be together if not for that. What would that even be like, a world without it, where I didn’t ask you to save my brother?”
“I feel like we’d be partners in any world, Mei,” Gero confessed. “I…honestly never felt like I couldn’t do anything, as long as you were with me. I’d always choose you, no matter what.”
“…you can be a real charmer, and I hope I taught you all that,” the blonde man teased him.
“I learned a little from Beppu-kun,” the black-haired man replied. “He does know what he’s doing.”
Gero exhaled.
“I don’t think I’m as much of a hero as you think I am,” he said. “I just did it because it felt better than taking lives, and because you needed help. But…I’d hate it if someone forced me into a relationship just because my life depended on it. Whether it’s hanahaki or someone like Nasu…I can’t forgive that. So I’d do it all over, if I had to.”
“Thank you, Hikaru-kun,” Kinosaki answered, his voice soft. “I really appreciate that.”
Then a mischievous smile crossed his features. “Just because you learned all my best tricks, however, doesn’t mean I taught you all my tricks, Hikaru.”
Before Gero could respond, Kinosaki turned around and pulled him into a gentle, loving kiss.
He hadn’t felt that weight in his chest for months, and hadn’t tasted petals and blood since that winter evening. And because of their efforts, nobody else would have to.
Life was good.