Chapter Text
The air in the ultimate anthropologist’s workshop always tasted of dust, dried sage, and the heavy weight of centuries long passed.
But tonight, there was a new, suffocating texture to the atmosphere—a faint, sickeningly sweet undertone of iron and fresh sap.
Jina stood just outside the heavy oak door, her fingers white-knuckled around a small, folded piece of paper.
Her chest burned. It wasn't the clean, sharp ache of exhaustion, but a deep, crawling agony that felt as if thorned vines were slowly weaving themselves through the delicate chambers of her heart.
Every breath was a battle against her own ribs. She pressed a trembling hand to her mouth, forcing down a violent, wet cough that threatened to tear its way out of her throat.
She couldn't hide it anymore. The hanahaki disease was no longer a quiet, abstract terror; it was a physical mass taking root inside her lungs, fueled by every unrequited smile, every polite, distant nod she had received from the man inside this room.
She needed to tell him.
Not out of a selfish demand for his love, but out of a desperate, primal instinct to survive.
If he could find it in his heart to offer even a fraction of genuine warmth, the roots would wither. She just needed a chance.
Taking a shallow, agonizing breath, she pushed the door open.
Korekiyo Shinguji sat beneath the dim, amber glow of a desk lamp, the light casting long, skeletal shadows across his high cheekbones and the dark fabric of his zipper mask.
His golden eyes were fixed on an ancient, leather-bound text, his gloved fingers turning the fragile pages with a reverent, agonizing slowness.
He did not look up when the door clicked shut.
He rarely did.
"Korekiyo..." Jina’s voice was barely a whisper, cracked and fragile like dry autumn leaves.
"If your query is not of historical or cultural significance, Jina, I must ask you to leave," he murmured, his voice maintaining its usual hypnotic, rhythmic cadence. "The human soul is a vast tapestry, yet my time to study it tonight is severely limited."
"Please," she choked out, taking a halting step forward. The burning in her throat intensified, a sharp spike of pain piercing her left lung. "It is about humanity. It’s about... us. I need you to listen to me. Just this once."
Korekiyo’s hand paused on the edge of a page. Slowly, deliberately, he closed the text. The heavy thud of the cover echoed in the quiet room like a gavel striking a death sentence.
He turned his head, those piercing, metallic eyes locking onto her trembling frame. There was no warmth in his gaze. There wasn't even the clinical curiosity he usually granted to strangers. There was only a cold, profound indifference.
"There is no 'us,' Jina," he said smoothly, his tone devoid of any malice, which only made it hurt infinitely more. "You exist within the periphery of my surroundings, nothing more. Speak your mind quickly, so that we may return to our proper alignment."
Tears, hot and blinding, blurred Jina's vision. She stepped closer to the desk, her hands shaking so violently that the folded paper slipped from her fingers, fluttering uselessly to the floor between them.
"I love you," she confessed, the words tearing out of her like an open wound. "I have loved you for so long, Korekiyo. It’s... it’s killing me. Literally. I am dying because of how deeply I care for you. Please, I don’t expect a grand gesture, but if there is even a small part of you that looks at me and feels something... anything..."
She couldn't finish. A horrific, convulsing spasm racked her entire body. Jina fell to her knees, clutching her stomach as a wet, tearing sound erupted from her chest. She hacked violently into her palms, her vision spinning as the suffocating pressure finally burst.
When she pulled her hands away, they were slick with dark, crimson blood. Resting in the center of her palms were three pristine, milk-white camellia petals, their edges heavily stained with her own life force. They shimmered under the dim lamplight, a beautiful, horrifying testament to her unrequited devotion.
Korekiyo stared down at the petals. For a fraction of a second, his pupils dilated—a flicker of recognition, perhaps even a brief understanding of the myth-turned-reality resting on the floor. But as quickly as the emotion appeared, it vanished, replaced by a terrifyingly rigid detachment. He did not move from his chair. He did not reach out to help her up from the cold floor.
"How incredibly disappointing," Korekiyo whispered, his voice dropping into a register of profound disgust.
Jina looked up, her lips smeared with blood, her eyes wide with a desperate, pleading hope that was entirely misplaced. "Korekiyo...?"
"To think that you would succumb to such a pathetic, biologically absurd phenomenon," he said, his words sharp and jagged, slicing through the quiet room like a scalpel. He stood up, towering over her, looking down as if she were a ruined, uninteresting specimen. "Your configuration of affection is not love, Jina. It is a common human delusion. A desperate, needy obsession disguised as a tragedy."
The word betrayal didn't even begin to cover the sensation blooming in her chest. It felt as if he had reached into her open ribs and twisted the roots himself. She had trusted him with her vulnerability, trusted the man who claimed to love the beauty of humanity, only to find that her own fragile humanity was repulsive to him.
"I... I am dying," she sobbed, blood dripping from her chin onto the hardwood floor, soaking into the white petals. "Korekiyo, please..."
"Then die," he responded. The delivery was entirely flat. Without a single trace of anger, he delivered a verdict of absolute annihilation. "To imagine that I would possess any interest in a bond with someone as utterly unremarkable as you is an insult to the complexity of the human spirit. Your feelings are not beautiful. They are a tedious inconvenience. They disrupt my work, and they disgust my sensibilities."
He stepped around her kneeling form, deliberately stepping over the letter she had dropped. He didn't look back as he walked toward the shelves, selecting another book with a completely steady hand.
"Do not waste my time with this pathetic display again," he murmured, his back turned to her. "If you are to perish from your own inability to control your delusions, do so elsewhere. You are spoiling the air in my workshop."
The rejection wasn't just a refusal; it was a total execution of her worth. Jina couldn’t breathe. The air in her lungs felt like liquid fire as the roots, feeding instantly on the absolute certainty of his hatred, violently expanded. A massive wave of blood surged up her throat.
Clamping both hands over her mouth, she staggered to her feet. She couldn't let him see her break any further. She turned and fled the room, stumbling into the dark, empty corridor as a violent torrent of blood-soaked white camellias spilled past her lips, marking her agonizing path all the way back to the isolation of her own room.
Behind the closed door of the workshop, the silence returned.
Korekiyo stood by the shelf, his hand resting on the spine of a book. He did not move. He did not resume reading. For the first time in his life, the absolute stillness of the room felt strange. The faint scent of iron and camellias lingered in the air, refusing to dissipate.
He looked down at his own gloved hands. There was no physical mark, no immediate consequence to his cruelty.
Yet, as the distant echo of Jina’s frantic, sobbing footsteps faded completely into the night, a microscopic, icy pinprick of regret pierced the outermost layer of his heavily fortified mind. It was a feeling he didn't recognize—a heavy, unwelcome shadow that settled silently into the corner of his chest, waiting for the dark days to come.