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Gero Hikaru was choking.
He had no idea what it was or why. It happened randomly one day. First, it began as a bad cough, and then it got worse. He picked up some cough longizens at the store and needed one in his mouth twenty-four-seven to prevent himself from hacking coughs. For the first day, it worked. Until it got worse.
The following day, Gero was still choking, but the cough drops weren’t enough. He figured something was truly wrong. There wasn’t much he figured he could do about it. Gero had his own personal toxins within himself that he used to fight through it as he met with his friend for the day.
Gero and Kinosaki were teamed together in search of a wife for Gero. It sounded silly, but he had to do it. His coughing was beginning to get worse, but he refused to cancel on Kinosaki. Because Kinosaki was too good to him, and he didn’t want to disappoint him. He was doing too much for him to cancel too.
So, they headed out. Gero had the extra cough medicine carried in his pocket to prevent him from coughing so much in front of him. Kinosaki was showing him around to places that were good for dates.
“If you bring a lady here, she’ll swoon, Gero-kun,” Kinosaki said, a beautiful smile on his face. He always radiated, Gero realized, no matter what Kinosaki did. For Gero, sometimes he felt like if there was a dark tunnel, Kinosaki would be the light at the end of it. Which was why he had chosen him to help him find a wife.
He began to choke again, on seemingly nothing. Gero took a cough drop from his pocket, plopped it in his mouth, and continued to follow Kinosaki.
Day by day, the coughing worsened. He was unsure what to do. His body was made of toxins. Natural toxins that were meant to cure him of everything, but for some reason, this cough had been his persistent enemy. He tried everything he could think of to cure himself of this strange coughing fit.
In the end, Gero had to cancel on Kinosaki. He couldn’t bring himself to meet up with him while he was hacking his lungs out. As he sulked around his apartment, he felt the itch in his throat get worse as he thought of what he and Kinosaki were meant to do that day.
For some reason, whenever he thought of Kinosaki, the itch would get worse. He scratched his throat and headed to the bathroom.
Kinosaki, he thought, and he coughed again. His thoughts were interrupted, so he went to think of the marriage swindler once again. But it resulted in another painful cough. He scowled and thought again to Kinosaki’s face, and he was left with that persistent, throat-tearing cough.
So, he stopped thinking of Kinosaki. There was a slight tickle in his throat, but he had at least stopped hacking up a lung. How strange…
Gero decided to think deeply of Kinosaki. He pulled his phone out and even looked at the icon set for Kinosaki’s saved contact.
The coughing got intense. Horrible. It tore through Gero’s gut like vines were twisting around his muscles and organs. Prickles were against his insides like thorns stabbing at him. Eventually, the coughing got so bad that Gero dropped his phone. It fell and cracked as it landed on the tile, but Gero couldn’t worry about that. Not when he had to grip the sides of the porcelain vanity and lean over it, coughing into the sink. A warm feeling crawled up his throat as he spat into the basin.
Blood. So much blood splattered against the sharp white. But not only blood. There was something in the blood that had begun to roll down the drain.
A flower petal. A singular flower petal mixed in with the blood. Gero plucked it out and stared at the petal. It was covered in his spit and blood and had a droopiness to it. Had this been stuck in his gut the entire time? Really? How strange. It wasn’t as if Gero was walking around consuming flowers. Had he swallowed flower seeds when he was younger and they started to sprout within his stomach? He had no idea.
Gero couldn’t think of a good solution. He found it strange that his own toxins hadn’t been lethal enough to have already dealt with the flower growing inside of him. So, all he could think to do was get some proper weed killer and consume it.
The only thing the weed killer managed to do was make Gero feel thirsty.
This ailment brought great confusion to Gero. Gero Hikaru, the master poison user, who deeply understood the roots within one’s body, could not understand the new ones festering within himself. These roots were foreign to him. If he had never experienced something like such before, he at least had knowledge about it, but this confused him greatly. Where were these weaving vines coming from, these buds that sprouted in his gut and scratched his throat with thorns, drawing blood, mucus, and pain?
He had no idea who to talk to about it. So, he confided in an old friend, finding that his age and wisdom would give him some courage to discuss the strange topic.
Hanamaki Toshiki listened to him, nodding silently. Gero explained the coughing; he explained the blood and the petals that came up his throat despite not ingesting a flower—ever. Hanamaki sat across from him on the outside bench under the gazebo underneath the night’s stars. He drank a glass of tame liquor quietly, listening to the youth.
When Gero was finished, he released a breath of relief. While his throat tickled, he did feel a bit of pressure off his back being able to talk about the issue that had been holding him down.
“It sounds like hanahaki.”
“Hana…maki?”
Hanamaki’s brows furrowed for a moment and then he laughed. “No, Gero, hanahaki.”
“What is that?”
“It’s a flower disease,” Hanamaki informed. “More specifically, it’s a love flower disease.”
“Love?” He had been trying to find a wife, but everything was only leading to friendship. Gero wanted to ease his way into a lover, not push and force himself to love someone. It would be unfair to both parties. So, he hadn’t fallen in love yet. Why would he be sick with a love disease?
“When it’s the worst, who are you thinking about?” Hanamaki questioned. Gero had no prior knowledge of this hanahaki disease and had no idea his words were being set up. He answered. After thinking for a moment, he swiftly concluded where his thoughts laid when he was in the most pain.
“Kinosaki.”
“Kinosaki? Kinosaki Mei? The blonde woman you introduced me to?”
Ah, well, no. But Gero said yes.
“Gero, I don’t know any easy way to say this, so I’ll just tell you: you are in love with Kinosaki so much it’s caused a disease within you. This disease is called the hanahaki disease, where flowers will bloom within you enough to kill.”
“W—what?” Gero had never heard of such a thing. He knew of lethal poisons and knew of love, but to combine the two? “I have to do research to cure this,” he muttered. “There has to be some toxin.”
Hanamaki laughed. “Gero, the only cure is reciprocated love.”
“You mean,” Gero began, picking his words carefully, “she has to love me back for me to not die?”
“Yes.”
“This is serious. How can you smile?” Though Hanamaki had a mask over his mouth, Gero could still see the corners of his eyes crinkle in a grin.
“Oh, who wouldn’t fawn over the master poison user Gero Hikaru? This woman will surely reciprocate. Besides, you were looking for a wife. Why not her?” He raised his drink to Gero and took a swig.
Gero, who knew the truth behind Kinosaki, could not feel at ease.
To keep living, Kinosaki had to love Gero back. Gero couldn’t help but feel that was extremely unfair. What if Kinosaki didn’t want to be with him? He had to sacrifice himself for Gero to survive?
Gero easily decided he wouldn’t burden Kinosaki with the weight of loving him. Perhaps he could steer his heart in a different direction. He would need time and space from Kinosaki, and he would need to center his feelings elsewhere. Gero dove into work and tried to focus on finding a woman that suited his taste.
He continued to deny Kinosaki’s phone calls, knowing the sound of his voice would cause stomach pains. No matter how much he wanted to hear from him. How’s Okuto? he wanted to ask. How are you? he wanted to ask even more. Instead, he texted Kinosaki back that the family clan had him overworked and unable to find time.
The more he worked, the more he realized that the flower in his gut was only being starved. It needed fertilizer to grow, and that fertilizer was Kinosaki. He fought against it with toxins, but every day it got worse. Even when Kinosaki wasn’t in his mind, his throat tickled and he began to cough, which made him think of why it was happening, which made him think of Kinosaki, which made the coughing worse. It was a vicious, endless cycle.
He sat in his room. The lights were off. He took a spot on the floor at the end of his bed, wondering if the flower was going to bloom so large and block his breathing. He no longer coughed up petals. Only blood as the vines in his chest slowly blocked his airway. Day by day, it got harder to breathe. Gero was nearing his end. Surely, he would be suffocated to death soon. He waited for that.
The front door burst open. Gero didn’t have much strength to even stand and see who came into his apartment unannounced. He merely raised his head and waited for the intruder to find him. Perhaps it was an assassin with a grudge coming for revenge. He would gladly let them have it if they put him out of his misery.
But it wasn’t. The door opened and a familiar face he missed so dearly stepped in. Immediately, he felt the buds in his chest begin to grow. Before he could speak, a petal was quicker. He choked, leaned over, and clasped a hand over his mouth.
“Gero-kun!” Kinosaki rushed to his side, dropping to his knees. He wrapped his arms around Gero, patting his back. “What kind of sickness is this?! I noticed you were feeling unwell the last time we were together. Is this why you were distancing yourself?” Kinosaki grabbed Gero’s face when his coughing calmed a little. He wiped Gero’s bottom lip with his thumb.
Kinosaki looked stressed too. His pretty face had dark circles under his eyes; his expression was worried. “Gero-kun?” he asked softly.
“You—” Gero coughed again. That time, the flower came up. He spat blood and bloom into his palm. Kinosaki was startled. He rushed to grab a cloth to clean Gero up from the blood. As he hurriedly wiped his hands, Kinosaki spotted the petals. His movements ceased.
“Oh, Gero-kun,” Kinosaki said in a hushed voice. “You’ve been killing yourself over me, huh?”
Gero raised his head. “Y—you know of this?” he asked.
Kinosaki nodded. Somehow, something in Gero lifted and loosened. Kinosaki knew yet he was still standing right in front of Gero, helping him clean the blood and worry.
“Of course, I do. I’m a marriage advisor, Hikaru.”
The flower in Gero’s heart shook.
Kinosaki placed a hand on Gero’s cheek and looked at him with a soft expression. He spoke to him gently and quietly even though the apartment only had him, Gero, and the flower present.
“Hikaru,” Kinosaki said, “don’t kill yourself over something I can solve. You should’ve come to me.”
“I didn’t want to make you fall in love with me to save me,” Gero muttered. He couldn’t peel his eyes from Kinosaki’s eyes, stuck in a whirlpool of his gaze, like being caught in the eye of a tornado. But Tornado Kinosaki was grabbing the roots of the flower deep in his gut and ripping them out.
“You wouldn’t be making me do anything,” Kinosaki replied softly. He pulled Gero into his chest and sighed. “Listen to my heartbeat, Hikaru. While your pain and misery upsets me, I’m kind of… glad? I’m happy that you chose me.”
“W—what?” Gero was confused. He raised his head with his ear still pressed against Kinosaki’s chest.
And Kinosaki grabbed ahold of his face and pressed a delicate kiss to his lips. “I will love you back, Hikaru. Let me save you. Let me love you too.”
The fluttering in his gut; the suffocation in his lungs, died at Kinosaki’s words. He collapsed into Kinosaki’s arms, letting him hold and coddle him. His face felt warm and wet as he buried himself into Kinosaki’s side, feeling relieved. He wasn’t going to die. He was going to live. He was going to be with Kinosaki.
Gero Hikaru was no longer choking.