Chapter Text
The common room of the Cecil Hall boy’s dormitory was a hive of scholarly dedication as mid-term exams loomed on the horizon. Seated in one of several table-and-lounge set pieces, Damian Desmond held court with a select handful of his peers, the boys all quizzing each other on 6th Century Miteran history.
Damian plucked a hand-written flash card from the pile, cleared his throat and recited with pomp: “list three factors that contributed to the sixth century crisis.”
“Loss of the Atrium province, leading to an ongoing grain shortage,” Paul, a boy best described as narrow, offered.
Damian nodded, accepting the answer.
Paul continued, ticking off his answers on his fingers “rebellions along both the northern and southern borders had the legions split across too vast an area to be effectively commanded or provide back up. And a series of weak emperors who were unable to garner the loyalty of both the senate and the army.”
“Correct,” drawled Damian, handing Paul the flashcard to add to his pile. The game they played went thusly: the first person who could correctly answer the question on the card would keep that card as a trophy and take a new one from the pile to ask the next question. Once the pile was exhausted, the boys would count their cards and the one with the most cards would be crowned the winner. So far Damian was in the lead with sixteen cards, but George was infuriatingly close with his thirteen.
“What years mark the beginning and end of the reign of Emperor Cassius?” Paul read off the new card.
An easy one, for sure. Damian opened his mouth, about to put yet another card between himself and George, “five-thirty nine BCE to—” There was a hitch in his breath, Damian cleared his throat, slightly embarrassed by his body’s minor betrayal. His classmates watched, allowing him the grace to make another attempt after apparently choking on his own saliva. Damian pulled in a breath, ready to offer his answer with full confidence, only to find the air catching in his lungs, culminating in a series of barking coughs.
“Jeeze man, you alright?” Paul offered sympathetically.
Swallowing back the cough, Damian wheezed a pathetic “water,” gestured towards the kitchens and made a hasty retreat, lungs spasming the whole way in a valiant effort to continue the coughing fit.
In the hallway, safely out of sight of his peers, Damian pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and allowed himself to cough out whatever was irritating his lungs. The display was beyond inelegant, the boy leaned against the wall, hacking and spluttering until finally he felt the thing come loose and fling itself into the handkerchief. Something about the relief seemed incomplete, and Damain braced himself for further coughing.
He hoped this was not a sign of oncoming illness, fearful as he was that a cold might negatively impact his exam performance. Damian had been studiously ignoring his intermittent coughing for days on the admittedly misguided premise that if he did not acknowledge the symptoms, then he could will away any disease. He cleared his throat a few times, hoping to relieve himself of the feeling of an oncoming coughing fit. Meanwhile, in an act of universal curiosity, he unfolded the handkerchief to lay eyes on what glob of phlegm had been the cause of so much pulmonary distress.
Nestled in the handkerchief was something unexpected, the colour alarmed Damian first, pale pink, which had his mind turning to blood, then within a fraction of a second, the form registered. Organic, flat, round, and solid, no more than a centimetre in diameter. On one side the edge seemed vaguely ruffled, the other came to a soft point where the thing had clearly once connected to another structure. A panic seized Damian as he considered the likelihood that he’d just coughed up a literal piece of lung.
The rest of the irritation caught in his chest again, and Damian found himself doubled over in his fits, fearful for what damage was being wrought. The irritation dislodged and was flung from his lungs. This time it felt complete, and when trembling fingers pulled open the folds of the handkerchief, what Damian saw was more distressing than any quantity of alveoli.
It was a flower.
Staring at the contents of the handkerchief, Damian willed that his eyes were deceiving him. The lonesome cherry blossom, with its one detached petal, stared right back. There was a vague taste of plant in Damian’s mouth now, as if he’d chewed on grass. Shakily, he folded the handkerchief again, returning it to his pocket before continuing to the kitchen for a glass of water. He needed to wash the grass flavor from his mouth. He needed to sit down. He needed to double check the contents of the handkerchief and have them be anything other than a flower. A chunk of lung would be preferable at this point.
Damian collected his water and scurried up to his room, grateful to find it empty, his dormmates all still downstairs. Sitting at his desk, Damian carefully placed down his glass of water, then laid the handkerchief in the centre of the desk, took a deep breath and unfolded it. Inside was the same flower, slightly bruised from its time spent crammed in Damian’s pocket, still missing one petal, but otherwise whole. Damian slumped in his seat.
“Fuck.”
What else was there to say, really? If a more honest reaction to discovering that one was afflicted with a life-threatening illness existed, it had certainly not made itself known to Damian, only seventeen and already condemned to death.
Dropping his head in his hands, Damian grappled with his mortality, the inherent injustices of life, the caprices of genetics, and the torturous experience of young love. Damian had just now diagnosed himself with hanahaki disease. No second opinion was required, there was only one possible explanation for coughing up flora. The disease was relatively rare, requiring the combination of a specific genetic susceptibility, and for the sufferer to harbour unexpressed feelings of love for a prolonged period of time.
What a stupid disease, Damian lamented, moving past denial of his circumstances and straight into resentment. It was needlessly cruel in the way it caused physical suffering to those already enduring emotional hardship. The cure was equally stupid. There were a few options to rid oneself of hanahaki, the first and simplest being that the sufferer could overcome their romantic feelings. Otherwise, they could make an unambiguous declaration of love, and if the recipient accepted, the sufferer would be healed. The latter choice was high-risk, it specifically required the sufferer to confess their feelings at the cost of the disease worsening should their love not be reciprocated. The third option was only a cure insofar as amputation is a cure for a broken finger, not an option anyone with any sense would dwell upon.
Damian picked up the flower and inspected it, it was slightly damp with his spit, bruised, and pathetic. He could no longer continue like this, secretly harbouring his feelings, holding himself back out of shame. It had gone on too long, and now he was being punished for his inaction.
The door creaked open, and Damian’s closest, most trusted friends entered the dorm room, arms laden with study materials.
“You alright?” Emile, a solid young man and the shorter of the pair, asked. “George said you choked on spit and never came back.”
Ewen approached, sliding Damian’s abandoned history book onto the desk with an eloquent “wassat?” Ewen’s eyes were on the flower between Damian’s fingers, no doubt wondering where he’d acquired a cherry blossom in the middle of autumn.
The instinct to lie, to conceal the horrifying truth was the first thing that crossed Damian’s mind, closely followed by the realisation that doing so would be pointless. He spent almost every hour of his day around Emile and Ewen, there was no way he’d be able to hide the fact that he was choking up flowers now.
“I’m in love with Anya.” Damian kept his eyes trained on the miserable flower pinched between his fingers. The first step to recovery was admitting he had a problem, right?
“Thank god!” Emile exclaimed with unnecessary theatrics, “can we finally stop pretending you aren’t?”
Ewen appeared slightly confused, he spoke with that careful quality one uses when trying very hard not to upset the other person while effectively calling them an idiot. “Is that for her? No offence, but it’s kinda pathetic, you can do much better.”
The flower was crumpled in Damian’s fist and pegged into the wastepaper basket by the desk. “No, it’s—” the air got stuck again in Damian’s lungs, catching on something that was not supposed to be there. The coughing fit was much more efficient this time, Ewen aiding with a few solid thumps between the shoulderblades. Once Damian had sufficiently recovered his breath, he pulled his hands from his face, cringing at the return of the grassy flavour as he revealed another little pink cherry blossom.
Emile and Ewen expressed their shock, first with gasps, then with mumbled expletives. Damian felt his shoulders sag, despair washing over him. With the shock wearing off, Ewen and Emile shared a look and nodded to each other. Ewen spoke first, “we’ve got your back. This will be a thing of the past before you know it.”
Nodding along, Emile joined in with his reassurances, “yeah, we’ve just been waiting on your word to start the Wingman Plan, and since it’s serious we’ll bring Becky in too—”
“You are not telling Blackbell about this.” Damian levelled Emile with a glare. “No Becky, no wingmanning, that’ll take too long and could still fail.” Damian stood, crumpling the new flower in his fist, then dropping it to meet its predecessor in the wastepaper basket. “What is going to happen is that I’m going to get over Anya and recover with dignity.”
☙❀❧
The plan was simple. Avoid Anya Forger at all costs. No sitting with her at lunch, no studying together, and definitely no partnering up on projects. Damian’s mission to purge himself of his affections had started horrendously when Anya greeted him the morning after his dorm room diagnosis by skipping over to Damian and announcing that he had featured in her dream last night. She couldn’t remember enough to relay anything about the events of the dream, but he was definitely in it and Anya was interested to know if she’d been in Damian’s dream too?
The tickle in Damian’s chest was ample reminder of his need to avoid Anya. He snappily informed her that “no, that’s stupid,” and marched himself to the classroom, leaving a baffled Anya behind.
The day continued with a series of such interactions, in which Anya would approach Damian with increasing trepidation only to be curtly rebuffed, and for Damian to relocate himself each time. By the morning of the next day, Anya had understood the message, refraining from greeting Damian with anything more than a confused and frustrated frown from across the courtyard. She stalked away, arm in arm with Becky and, as was relayed to Damian via a third party, would not be speaking to Damian until he apologised and explained his foul behaviour.
All in all, this new state of affairs should have been a massive relief to Damian, and it was, truly. He now had ample distance from Anya with which to lessen his fondness and was in no danger of her attempting to approach him until such time as he felt himself sufficiently recovered and could set their friendship to rights again.
Damian reflected on the overwhelming success of his plan. Anya had been kept at a distance, and most of Damian’s waking hours were consumed by preparation for mid-term exams, and thus, rarely did his thoughts drift to his crush— no, Anya. His thoughts were not consumed by Anya as they so often were in the past. He was not thinking about what she might be doing at any given moment. He was not thinking about her exam preparations and wondering if she’d found someone else to help her with maths. He was not thinking about how he really wanted to tell her about the frog that had invaded the dorm bathroom and become something of a communal pet, and how she would insist on giving the frog a stupid name like ‘Admiral Croaks of the SS Toilet Cistern’, or something to that effect.
He was not thinking about any of these things at all, and had only coughed up one measly flower since the initial fit last week. This, Damian considered to be a very good sign. Emile and Ewen agreed. Anya’s sway over Damian’s heart and mind was waning, and so too would this horrible, mortifying, nightmarish disease.
☙❀❧
Mid-terms week passed as it ordinarily would, with extreme anxiety and very little sleep. Damian entered the mid-term break with all the relief earnt after seeing that his results were satisfactory and reflected the effort he’d poured into his studies. Secondary to this first feeling of relief was the relief of knowing that he would not have to see Anya, not even in passing, for a whole two weeks. He’d been doing so well so far that Damian was sure that the school break was all he needed to cure himself once and for all. To date, he had experienced two more coughing fits resulting in an equivalent number of pathetic little flowers. The trigger was unclear, but the frequency had thankfully not increased.
Five days into a blissful sixteen Damian found himself jostled in the crowds of a food festival that Emile had insisted he attend. Damian stood flanked by his closest friends, holding a paper container of a surprisingly palatable exotic dish he could not pronounce when disaster struck. It was the worst possible thing, a catastrophe in a navy blue pea coat, it was Anya Forger. She hadn’t seen the trio, not yet. Or if she had, she was pretending that she hadn’t, just as she’d pretended that Damian didn’t exist for the past four weeks. There was an irrational twinge of hurt at the thought that she would not be excitedly surprised to see him here. The hurt was shoved deep, deep down. Damian was not going to let this unexpected affront affect him, he would wrap up the outing promptly and make his retreat.
Damian was just about to announce this plan when Emile’s chatter about ‘umami’ was abruptly interrupted with an “ah crap.” Emile paused his stride, bringing the trio to a halt and continued, “Forger at two o’clock.”
Ewen swivelled his head, searching for Anya in the crowd, spotting her with a visible cringe. “Okay, we’ll just take a left. Haven’t been down that street yet.” The false positivity felt patronising, as if Damian hadn’t made phenomenal progress in getting over his feelings. As if he needed to be managed like an especially temperamental child.
“It’s fine.” Damian was master of his own emotions, and he was not going to let this get the best of him. “We’re allowed to be here, she’s allowed to be here. In fact, this is really good, great, it’s proof of recovery.” To prove this point, Damian unashamedly returned his gaze to Anya, finding her easily in the crowd. She was still standing at the same stall, standing next to Arnold Crowley of all people. Anya and Arnold were standing beside each other, waiting for their food and laughing together. Anya was clutching her ribs, bent over from the force of her giggling, face lit up in mirth, her warm gaze focused on Arnold Crowley, who soaked up Anya’s attention like a common kitchen sponge.
The tickle returned to Damian’s chest, which was fine, and totally expected because he was due for another fit by now given the established pattern of once a week. Swallowing against the feeling, Damian turned his eyes to the path ahead, charting a course through the crowd and out onto the street where his attendant would be waiting with the car. “See, I’m fine.”
Neither Emile, nor Ewen appeared to be totally convinced, but knew better than to argue.
“Let’s go,” Damian led the way, dropping his half-forgotten food into a bin as he passed. The tickle was becoming an itch that his diaphragm was fighting desperately to scratch. Quickening his pace, Damian enforced his will on his lungs as best as he could until he finally slid into the backseat of his waiting car. Emile and Ewen hovered at the open door while Damian hacked up the latest bloom. Another singular cherry blossom landed in his handkerchief and Damian breathed a sigh of relief as his friends exchanged concerned looks. “Nine days,” Damian announced. “That’s the longest gap between episodes so far. The plan is working.”
The concern melted off of his friends’ faces as they convinced themselves of Damian’s logic. The disease did not seem to be progressing. At worst it was stagnating, and if Damian’s assessment were to be believed, then it even seemed to be abating.
“That’s great,” Ewen offered. “We should celebrate.”
Damian agreed, “yeah, let’s.” He addressed Emile, “Your pick, I’ll make it up to you for bailing on the festival early.”
“Eh, don’t worry about it, I’m just glad you’re doing better.” Emile waved off Damian’s implied apology and the boys said their goodbyes, promising to get together again before their break ended.
In the backseat, Damian breathed purposefully, waiting for the residual feeling of wrongness in his lungs to pass, making justifications to himself for why he could still feel the aftereffects the whole ride home.
Hours later the coughing fit could still be felt in Damian’s chest, the persistent tickle catching on each breath just enough to be noticeable, but not enough to trigger a resurgence. He tried forcing it to pass, taking extra deep breaths, clearing his throat, but still it remained. The feeling sat in Damian’s chest all through the afternoon and into the evening, nibbling away at his certainty regarding his recovery.
It was firmly nighttime when the hitch in his breath shifted, catching more firmly. Standing swiftly, Damian abandoned the book he’d been reading and vacated the sitting room so abruptly that even Demetrius, sitting in the armchair opposite and ordinarily impossible to disturb, was startled. Damian darted into the nearest bathroom, not even bothering with the light before bracing himself on the vanity while his lungs attempted to turn themselves inside-out.
Moonlight streamed in through the windows, falling across the tiles in cold, pale beams as Damian fought for breath against the flora in his lungs. Morbid instinct informed him that this time there would be more than one blossom.
One blossom, then two, then more, a half-dozen little pink flowers sat in the basin, more than Damian had choked up in the past four weeks combined. And yet, somehow the scratching in his lungs persisted, tonight’s episode was not yet over. His lungs burnt, his brow was damp, and Damian was beginning to feel lightheaded from so little air.
The sharp “a-hem” of a throat being cleared snapped Damian back into the present. He looked to the source of the noise to find his brother standing silhouetted in the doorway. Belatedly, Damian realised his error in not locking the door, though given his haste, he could not even be certain that he’d closed it to begin with.
With Demetrius still standing in the doorway, Damian tried to claw back whatever control of the situation that he could with a decidedly desperate sounding “please don’t tell Mother.”
Without regarding Damian’s plea, Demetrius stepped into the room and right up to Damian. He cast his gaze to the basin full of flowers, then examined his brother’s face, brows migrating downwards as he did so. “This is bad, Damian.”
Cowed, Damian looked down at the floor. “I know.”
“How long?”
“Four weeks.”
“Have you seen a doctor?”
“No.” Before Demetrius could begin on what could only be an admonishment of Damian’s reckless disregard for his own health, Damian lifted his gaze to make his case. “I’ve been handling it. I’m keeping away from her and it’s been working— this is just a setback, but I’ve been improving.” His expression and words took on a firmness that he never used with Demetrius, “you can’t make me get the surgery.”
“Okay.” It was impossible to read any emotion from Demetrius’ face. “As long as you’re handling it I won’t worry Mother needlessly.” Demetrius’ gaze fell again to the flowers, cataloguing them. “But if this worsens, promise you will tell me, I,” a very awkward hand was placed on Damian’s shoulder in an approximation of a comforting gesture, “I will help however I can.” Brotherly affection sufficiently accomplished, Demetrius withdrew his hand and stalked out of the bathroom. He paused in the doorway, silhouetted again, and said, “make sure you get rid of those flowers,” before closing the door behind himself.
Damian slumped against the vanity, cursing that he’s been so careless. He’d been able to suppress the hitch in his breath for the minute or so that Demetius had been in the room, but it was becoming harder to ignore by the second. Disposing of the flowers down the toilet, Damian prepared for the next bout of blossoms steadily growing in his chest, making his breath shallow. He could feel it, and anticipated it with dread, knowing that the volume of flowers would be especially large this time.
Unable to repress it any longer, the coughing resumed, and Damian found himself once again struggling against the vanity. Each attempt at drawing breath only triggered his lungs to eject the air before he could feel relief. Finally, the cause of this fit broke free and was flung up his throat. Animal panic gripped him as he realised it was big, much larger than the cherry blossoms and totally blocking his airways. Desperate fingers reached in to grab at the base of the flower, which came free with the sickening feeling of something being pulled the wrong way from one’s gullet, followed by a gag.
The new flower was dropped into the basin unceremoniously as Damian focused on catching his breath, forehead braced on the cool stone of the vanity. Once recovered, the smell was what Damian noticed first, it was sweet and so very floral. Part of him argued that until he looked upon it, the ‘big flower’ both was and was not confirmed to be a second kind of flower. But he knew, Damian was already totally aware of the fact that whatever it was that he’d just coughed up, it was definitely not a freakishly large cherry blossom.
A cautious look over the edge of the basin confirmed this in the same way that touching a flame confirms that it burns. The new flower was totally different, a bright white that practically glowed in the moonlight, it looked alien. Petals formed a cup around a spidery stalk, all surrounded by a halo of long, thin petals that made the flower appear distinctly exotic. It wasn’t any flower that Damian recognised, it was certainly striking, and strongly scented, and above all, it was large, roughly the size of his hand once fully unfurled. Damian considered with increasing horror that this would likely not be the last time he had to suffer through ejecting one of those.
Dropping the flower into the toilet bowl, Damian reflected on what had gone so wrong. He’d been so sure of his progress towards ridding his heart of Anya, but did it really only take spotting her in passing to not only undo all of his hard work, but to make his affections worse. The white flower looked up at Damian tauntingly before being banished to the sewers. He and it both knew exactly what had happened when he’d seen Anya laughing with Crowley. That old, ugly emotion had reached into Damian’s chest and aggravated his affliction, firmly forcing him into the disease’s second stage.
☙❀❧
Second stage hanahaki was decidedly worse than first. For one thing, Damian now found himself wheezing and gasping for air like some sort of invalid. It was pathetic, really, for an otherwise healthy and relatively fit young man to have to catch his breath after climbing a single flight of stairs. A medical exemption was sought to avoid participating in P.E, claiming a fractured rib. How exactly had Damian allegedly managed to fracture a rib? Oh, well the story was a bit embarrassing, and he’d really rather not say… And of course, there was the increase in fits.
So far, the white flower had only erupted during nighttime episodes, while the blossoms continued with stubborn regularity, twice a week now, and at any time of day. But the blossoms could be handled, they were only an inconvenience at this point, unlike the white flower which nearly suffocated Damian every time it forced its way up his throat.
After returning to the dorms for the second half of the term, Damian had morosely informed his friends that the plan had been slightly less successful than they’d hoped. They looked crestfallen, sharing a concerned look and gently suggesting in near synchronicity “maybe you should talk to a professional…”
“That’s unnecessary,” Damian dismissed the idea immediately. “I just need to try harder. Ignoring her isn’t enough, I need to move on.”
Ewen chewed his cheek, looking to Emile to make sure they’d both heard correctly. “Move on as in?”
“Direct my attention towards someone new, obviously.” Damian sat at his desk twirling a pencil as he considered his female peers and who among them would be a tolerable replacement crush. “Honestly, it’s pathetic for me to have been hung up on Anya Forger of all people for so long. Especially when we are surrounded by so many other attractive and intelligent girls.” While it was true that Eden Academy had no shortage of young ladies matching Damian’s description, he was struggling somewhat to think of a single one who even vaguely interested him like that. They were all perfectly nice, and perfectly pretty, many among them were highly accomplished in one or many fields, but every classmate that Damian thought of seemed to be missing some indescribable, but crucial factor to his attraction.
Not to worry, Damian was sure that now he had set his mind on this new course of action that the answer would come to him in no time, and one among his peers would stand out as his perfect new crush.
Two weeks of classes passed and Damian’s new crush had failed to materialise. He’d tried, really, he had. At every possible opportunity Damian would look at one of the girls who, on paper, was an ideal crush candidate. He would study them, consider their positive attributes, and attempt to imagine what they might be like as a girlfriend. This behaviour had Damian feeling like a lecher, but desperate times called for a loosening of one’s morals, and it’s not like anyone knew how he was methodically objectifying his peers in the privacy of his own head.
Phase one of the plan to get over Anya had never truly ended either. Damian didn’t even need to try to avoid her, not with Anya seeming to be going out of her way to avoid him first. And in situations where she could not avoid him, Anya would shoot Damian a disgusted look before ignoring him until such time as she could make her escape. This treatment stung Damian now, but he hoped that maybe, once this was all over and he’d fully recovered, they could go back to being friends. It would be a real shame to totally lose Anya from his life.
☙❀❧
“Anya knows.” The words that turned Damian’s blood cold were uttered by Emile at 4:12PM on Thursday, November 19th, in the dorm’s common lounge after he, followed by Ewen, had skidded into the room entirely out of breath.
Damian looked up from his assigned reading and felt a disturbance in the now constant scratchy feeling in his chest, finding it to be accompanied by an immediate acceleration in his heartbeat. Thankfully there wasn’t anyone else around at this time of day, most dorm students were at the library or participating in after-school extracurriculars, but Damian still scanned the room for any witnesses before wheezing out a pitchy “what do you mean she knows?”
“She just does!” Emile had caught his breath now and dropped himself into an empty seat on the couch beside Damian. Ewen followed suit, still panting slightly. “She cornered us and told us she knows about your condition.”
Before Damian could ask, Ewen answered, “We didn’t say anything, I swear! We don’t know how she knows and she wouldn’t tell us either.”
Emile bobbed his head, affirming Ewen’s account. “Just made that stupid face and said she ‘has her sources’, whatever that means.”
The meagre explanation hung in the air and Damian considered the possibility that he hadn’t been as successful as he’d thought at hiding his disease from his peers. It was more than likely that Anya’s source was one of the other boarders who’d noticed his coughing and put two and two together.
“She wants to help.” Once again, a statement from Emile sent Damian for a loop.
“Come again?”
“She doesn’t know who you’re sick about, but she wants to help. She said she’d help you get with whoever it was, and when we told her that the plan was to get over ‘the girl’, she said she’d help with that too.”
“Seemed pretty excited about that actually,” Ewen added sheepishly. “Becky has finally rubbed off on her.”
Damian felt his chest spasm at the idea that Anya would happily set him up with another girl, but at the same time, wasn’t that exactly what he wanted? He wanted to move on from Anya, and he wanted Anya to remain his friend. With her seemingly still caring enough for him to be invested in his recovery, it seemed that Damian could indeed kill two birds with one stone. “And she definitely doesn’t know it’s her?”
“She is one-hundred percent ignorant of who it is,” Ewen affirmed.
“Kept asking though, she was really persistent and super disappointed when we wouldn’t tell her.”
“Disappointed, but she understood, kinda. So don’t worry about her pestering you about it.”
That evening saw the torturous expulsion of two entire ‘white flowers’ and a smattering of cherry blossoms.
☙❀❧
The study hall on the second floor of the main library was Damian’s preferred location for getting homework done in the afternoons. The chair cushions were comfortable, the lighting was a perfect balance of utility and warmth, and given that it was an entire flight of stairs away from the main stacks, it was avoided by most other students. That being said, Damian was moments away from deeply regretting ever having a preferred homework spot, because having a preferred homework spot meant that people could reasonably use that fact to find him.
Anya Forger pulled up a chair beside him as if the last eight weeks of avoiding each other had never happened. She did not take out any of her study materials.
“You’re forgiven for acting like a jackass,” the long-dreaded conversation was off to a phenomenal start. “And I’m sorry that I ignored you back instead of checking if something was wrong.” Anya twiddled her fingers together, pouting in that way that she did when she’d done something wrong.
So this was it. Damian so did not want to have this conversation right now, he would much rather reschedule it for never. Yet, against his will, it was happening and there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about it now. “I, uh,” god, what does one even say in this situation? “I’m also sorry for ignoring you.” Which was true. Despite what an excellent plan it had seemed at the time, ignoring Anya hadn’t actually done Damian any good.
Anya watched him for a few moments, blinking once, twice, and continuing the conversation. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, you know— I mean obviously it’s not a good thing, but you’re allowed to have feelings about people, and—” Damian, knowing it to be impossible for the ground to open up and swallow him, felt the urge to emulate this experience by slipping under the table and covering his ears. “ — that’s totally normal and I support you, and I also support you getting over those feelings if that’s what you want?”
If getting over his feelings would end this torture, then yes, Damian wanted very badly to get over them. “Thanks…” He really had no idea what else to say.
“So,” Anya’s spine straightened, she clapped her hands together and faced Damian with the general posture of someone who’s about to get down to serious business. “The guys wouldn’t tell me who it is, but based on what they said about your strategy, that kinda doesn’t even matter. What does matter is that I have a list of girls who would be open to dating you, I just need to know what kind of girl would interest you.” She watched him expectantly, as if that was a question that anyone could answer off the top of their head just like that. Well, technically Damian could answer that question off the top of his head, unfortunately, the girl he would describe is the exact girl he’s attempting to get over and no other girl he’d met was her equal.
“Uh, she’d have to be nice.”
Anya gave him an incredulous look. “‘Nice’? Damian, that’s the bare minimum.” She dragged a hand down her face in what Damian considered a highly exaggerated pantomime of frustration. “Look, what about Jannet Thompson? She’s nice.”
“Jannet Thompson likes me?” Jannet definitely was nice, they had civics together and her observations in class were always thoughtful and witty.
“I didn’t say she liked you, just that she’d be open to dating you. Which, I mean, plenty of girls are open to the idea of dating you and would probably say yes if you asked, but I don’t think many of them know you well enough to like you like you.” Anya seemed a little frazzled explaining this technicality, and Damian wondered whether or not he should be feeling insulted.
“Right, well I don’t really— I mean, no offence to Jannet, but—”
“You’re right.” Anya tapped a finger against her lips, her lovely, pink lips. They weren’t normally that glossy, right? She pouted and gazed around the library as if looking for an idea. “It might be more successful if it’s someone you’re already close with… Someone who you already know that you get along with, share interests with, can have fun with…” Anya continued her lip-tapping, staring off into the distance, deep in thought.
Damian allowed himself to join Anya in her contemplation. So far he’d been casting a wide net, basically assessing his interest in each girl as he encountered them, regardless of their familiarity. Anya’s strategy was far more focused. Girls he was close with… Well, there was Becky—even thinking about thinking about her like that made Damian feel gross. Connie? Eh, they didn’t really have much in common, he never knew what to talk about with her when they were alone. Meg… she was on the debate team with him, but they weren’t actually all that close… He had run through the list of female friends distressingly quickly. Damian focused back in on the present, seeing that Anya had ceased her own contemplation and was watching him, her face entirely blank, glossy lips now parted in a slack-jawed gape.
Snapping to attention, Anya’s expression returned to that easy, optimistic smile. She squinted her eyes a little and tilted her head, “we can work on that.”
All this talk of girls potentially liking him, and none of them being the girl that he really wanted to like him was causing the buds in Damian’s lungs to stir. The scratchy feeling was increasing, making every breath feel treacherous, a warning of flowers to come. He shut his abandoned textbook, and began packing away his study materials. “I appreciate you trying to help, but—”
“It’s okay,” Anya nodded sagely, “that was probably too much for today, but hey! It was a solid first strategy meeting.” She mirrored Damian as he stood to leave, following him down the stairs, remaining by his side when he stopped to catch his breath, and out of the library. “I’ll reconvene with Ewen and Emile and see if I can get any useful information out of them.” Outside now, the sky was beginning to burn orange, Anya performed a little hop, skip and turned to face Damian, walking backwards in front of him. “Don’t you worry, Anya is on the case and I won’t fail you!” She beamed at him, shooting Damian cheesy double finger-guns and a wink.
Despite this, he mournfully registered that she looked like a goddess, lit up by golden afternoon light and smiling so sincerely. The scratching turbulence of air meeting obstacles in his lungs increased, and as he committed the vision of Anya in the sunset light to his memory Damian’s only thought was that he was completely and utterly screwed.
☙❀❧
Damian lay in bed, air being forced through his lungs in raspy breaths. He’d endured weeks of the most bittersweet torture imaginable. At every opportunity, Anya would drop herself into the seat beside Damian and begin helping him to get over her. She would sit there, expressions alternating thoughtful, hopeful, then disappointed as she would offer her suggestions. ‘Maybe someone you’ve known for a long time?’ ‘How about someone who makes you laugh?’ ‘Have you considered anyone outside your family’s tax-bracket?’ Each time Damian would genuinely consider what girls he knew fit the description, and each time he would come up short, responding with ambivalence which was clearly beginning to wear at Anya’s optimism.
His heart ached, Anya was trying so hard to help him, but she had no way of knowing how much harder she made the whole ordeal. Every description of the optimal girl for Damian to pursue only ever led back to Anya, reminding him of all the reasons that he was already smitten with her.
This evening he’d had two separate fits, a total of three white flowers and innumerable blossoms, his throat still felt raw from expelling them. It was troubling, the increased frequency. Damian knew that he ought to be deeply concerned by the disease’s progression, and he was, it’s just that he was also, so very tired. This weekend was supposed to be a reprieve, a break from Anya’s presence with which to literally catch his breath before returning to another week of Anya’s sweet torture. Unfortunately, all that coming home to the estate had achieved was two whole days in which Damian had near perfect privacy in which to hack up his flowers whenever the need arose.
Air caught in that familiar way, breath pulling at a bud and triggering the first cough, which, failing to dislodge the flower, triggered the second. And so on until Damian’s world narrowed to the comforter that he hunched over in his struggle to pull in his next breath. Spots danced in his vision as Damian spat flowers, not caring where they landed.
When the fit had subsided, Damian felt woozy, his chest ached, and the volume of florals in front of him seemed inconsistent with the volume of human lungs. A carpet of pink petals, a smattering of frilly white ones, and—
There was a knock at the door. Damian froze in place.
“It’s me.” Demetrius always announced himself like that, be it at a closed door, or on the phone. He never gave his name, just assumed that the other person must recognise which ‘me’ he was. After a few moments in which Damian remained frozen, unsure of how to answer his brother, or if he even could, the door opened and the opportunity for choice was taken from him.
Demetrius closed the door gently behind himself, “I heard your hacking from down the hall, it’s a wonder Mother didn’t,” he flicked on the lightswitch. “Are you—” Eyes wide, Demetrius took in the display scattered across Damian’s comforter and moved closer with careful steps.
Damian dropped his head in shame? Guilt? He wasn’t entirely sure, but whatever he felt, it didn’t feel good.
“That’s—”
“I know.”
“I told you—”
“I know!” Damian snapped, refusing to lift his eyes in case the burning he felt turned out to be tears. “I know,” he croaked, “I tried and I tried and it seemed okay until it suddenly got worse.”
Standing by the side of the bed, Demetrius was not looking at his brother, instead, he peered at the flowers, inspecting them. “It’s third stage, you can’t keep messing around.”
Silence hung between them, broken by Damian’s still rasping breath. Demetrius was right, the addition of tulips, sitting sunshine yellow amongst pinks and whites of the other flowers was proof of the disease reaching its final phase “... I know.”
“Unfortunately, I cannot force you, but I strongly recommend you get the surgery.”
The plants in his lungs seemed to shudder in fright at the mention of surgery. Or maybe it was Damian himself who had shuddered. The surgery would cure him, sure, but it was extremely risky. Not to mention the side effects. Whatever was the mechanism that tied a person’s feeling of love to the flowers of hanahaki, it tied them together irrevocably. Removal of the flowers meant removal of the emotion. No exceptions.
Demetrius took Damian’s silence as permission to continue. “You’ll see it’s the sensible decision.” He perched on the edge of the mattress, keeping clear of the floral spray. Leaning forwards, forearms rested on knees, he looked almost vulnerable. “You know,” Demetrius watched his own hands, “Father had it done, and he got by fine.”
Stunned did not begin to describe Damian’s state. To learn that his father, Donovan Desmond, staunch utilitarian, the coldest, least affectionate person Damian had ever met had once suffered the lover’s disease? The news was as baffling as it was an intriguing insight into a notoriously private man. And maybe it was a little reassuring to have an example of someone who got the surgery and was still able to lead a fulfilling life complete with a wife and family; estrangement from the wife and disinterest in the children notwithstanding. “He did? What happened?”
“Oh, it was when Mother was pregnant with you. She took me to her villa while he recovered. She did try to keep me from knowing, but the staff like to talk…”
Damian felt like the air had been punched out of him, which was not unusual these days, but he felt it all the same. “But they— you can’t get hanahaki about your wife, that’s the definition of reciprocation.” Beside that, his Mother had been pregnant, and while Damian wasn’t about to think too hard about it, he figured that there must have still been some affection between them at that point.
The look Demetrius gave Damian was pitying, he sighed. “It wasn’t Mother. I don’t know who it was, but he obviously couldn’t act on it, so…”
It made a sickening amount of sense.
“You shouldn’t be too surprised, theirs was a prudent match, not a passionate one.”
“That’s not all that reassuring.”
“Look, Damian, you really don’t have a choice anymore. It’s surgery or death.” Demetrius was never one to mince words, he stood and patted non-existent dust from his pajama pants. “If you’ll cooperate I’ll have you taken to the hospital tomorrow.”
“But I’ve got school—”
“You’re in no condition to attend classes.” The look Demetrius gave left no room for argument. “You either go to the hospital or you stay home. There’s no need for you to go around doing that,” he gestured to the flowers, “in public.”
Sensing that he’d already lost a battle he hadn’t realised he was fighting, Damian agreed.
“I’ll inform Mother of the situation in the morning. Sleep on it, but don’t delay your decision.” Demetrius gave one final stern look, possibly intending to impart some common sense upon his brother, then left the room, flipping off the light switch as he went.