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With the dead-eyed stare Kinosaki is leveling him with, Gero is starting to wish he hadn't opened his mouth and had focused on his meal instead.
Small talk still eludes him, a skill he's improved at but is by no means an expert in. Kinosaki is a far better mentor than anyone he could have thought to seek out, and normally he meets Gero's faux-paus with a smile and a deft deflection.
This time, the question does not slide from his ever-changing exterior. Kinosaki seems struck, stuck in place by the inquiry; a wild animal chased down, stuck in the cross-hairs of what Gero had thought had been an innocent question.
The first sign of life Kinosaki gives after several tense moments is a light shake of his shoulders. Then a tug at the high collar of his sweatshirt, as though the material is suffocating. He finally blinks, the rapid movement of his lids hiding dead eyes and opening again to reveal twin summer sunsets, bright and alive and almost feverish.
A smile carves up Kinosaki's face. He may not be able to read people well, but Gero can read the man sitting across from like a pop-up book: Kinosaki's smile is brittle, frayed at the edges, the brilliance shining through reflected nowhere in his eyes. His fingers have not moved from the collar of his shirt, lingering, indecisive.
"Pardon?" In this moment, Kinosaki is a shadow of who he normally appears. The bright edges, the coy smiles, the brilliant personality: it all seems a little dimmer, a little less polished. Carefully memorized lines harder to recall in the limelight of the stage.
Gero knows that he doesn't have to ask again. That he can—and probably should—drop the subject, turn his attention back to their shared meal, let the mood shift from this fetid, curdled atmosphere back to the easy-going mood they had sat down to.
Yet his curiosity wins out.
"The scar. On your chest." How did you get it sticks in his throat, hanging. Implied. The ghost of an idea, the same the way the scar is to Gero. He has known of it's existence for weeks now, seen the jagged edge of it near Kinosaki's sternum on accident. The image has haunted him since, a flash behind his eyelids in the earliest hours of the morning when he tries to go back to sleep. He doesn't know the extent of it, but it had looked deep.
Painful.
He's about to take it all back, try and shove the words back in his mouth as the awkward silence becomes too much when Kinosaki's thin fingers slide beneath the collar of his sweatshirt and gently pull it down, stretching the cotton blend and baring the pale skin beneath.
"This scar?" The edges of it are deep-set and jagged, starting just beneath the man's exposed sternum. The wound is old and years healed, though the color of it is vivid and bright as if it's just happened.
Gero's chest twinges at the sight in sympathy, It's brutal, resembling none of the elegance he's come to associate with Kinosaki. He cannot see all of it, just a fraction, a starburst, a radiation of violence and pain.
The room feels over-hot, mouth dry. His marriage counselor is not shy about showing off his body, but the space where the scar sits has always been artfully protected: blouses with high collars, layered outfits, colorful scarves. Fashion as armor.
Kinosaki decides that the old wound has been exposed long enough, that that particular scar is the only one Gero could be referring to, pulling his collar back up and gently patting it back into place. He looks distant when he speaks again, voice thin. "Hanahaki surgery."
Gero feels as though he's finally beginning to get the clearest picture of Kinosaki yet, as if the lenses of his glasses have been smudged and the grime is just starting to finally budge.
Hanahaki surgery is never something to be taken lightly. Time-sensitive, yes, but there are hoops to jump through, appointment after appointment to sit through to determine if ripping out the root ball that can and will kill you for not confessing love to the object of your affection is medically the best decision. Psychiatric evaluations and group therapy and motivational meet and greets with Hanahaki success stories: the people who didn't choose the surgery.
All of the red tape and emotional baggage to sift through, and Hanahaki removal surgeries are rare. There are probably exact statistics somewhere, but a completed Hanahaki surgery is rarer than a death from Hanahaki.
Gero sees the appeal, of course: cutting through the administrative red tape is time consuming and exhausting. It would be easier to die a painful death or face the mortifying ordeal of being known and, possibly, rejected by the one you love than trying to wade through what could be weeks or even months of doctors poking and prodding and asking you to talk about your feelings.
Option number three is more expensive and less time consuming. There's always a back alley doctor more than willing to do the surgery, no weeks of waiting, no psychologists. Just money and risk.
It's clear to see what route Kinosaki chose.
"That's a big decision." What else can one even say to the revelation? An apology doesn't feel right, though it sits on Gero's tongue heavy and leaden. Congratulating Kinosaki on what was a successful, if not clearly shoddily executed, surgery doesn't feel quite right, either; he keeps the scar hidden, covered up like he's ashamed of it.
But there is mirth in Kinosaki's eyes when he looks across the table at Gero, some of the life coming back into his smile. "It was the right decision at the time." There's no regret there: the truth, unvarnished. Another layer of Kinosaki carefully peeled away.
Gero smiles back, tepid. Looks down at his half-eaten dinner to find that the food no longer looks appetizing, his hunger gone. Instead, he finds himself preoccupied with the stinging that has been present in his throat for weeks; with the crushed flower petals that he had hastily shoved in his pocket just before Kinosaki's arrival, How his saliva had made them damp, the edges of each tiny petal ragged, their color dark; how they seemed to want to cling to his fingers and demand his attention, begging for acknowledgement.
Acknowledgement would never come. Gero isn't in denial about his condition; fatal though not yet final.
"I don't know if I'd do able to do that." he says without fully meaning to, gaze dropping down to the tabletop. If he keeps looking at Kinosaki, he knows something will come out of his mouth that he will not be able to take back, though he's unsure if it will be words or petals.
Kinosaki is none-the-wiser when he says, "I hope you never have to make that decision."