Atsushi ignored Yosano's pointed look as she entered the woman's infirmary, waiting anxiously on what to do next.
"How was your outing with Fitzgerald-san yesterday?" she asked her and Atsushi tensed.
"It was fine," she said simply, going behind a curtain and taking off her clothes to wear the hospital gown after Yosano instructed her to. "Is this going to hurt?" she asked, changing the subject abruptly.
"No, it'll just take images from inside of you, which will let me see what's going on in your body," Yosano then informed her of how the procedure would go, which sounded painless and not invasive at all, thankfully.
"Okay, so just lay on this thing?" Atsushi asked when Yosano led her to a separate room and told her to lie down on the medical bed.
"Lay there and I'll turn on the x-ray generator so it'll work with the detector that will scan your body," Yosano explained. "The diagnostic radiography should be able to show me what's going on. I want to focus on the lungs."
"Why?" she asked confused, while Yosano worked.
"It should start there," Yosano muttered vaguely, further confusing Atsushi. "There or your heart. If it's at the heart, I'll have to have you go through an echocardiograph. But considering you're coughing up those petals and your chest pains, I want to at least say it started in your lungs, acting similarly to pneumonia."
"What do you mean?" Atsushi asked nervously.
"It's not something people would know about and it's just supposed to be a myth anyway. Myth, fable, urban legend —whatever you want to call it. Something people must've come up with to sow some angst about one-sided feelings and whatnot."
"I don't have one-sided feelings!" she immediately said as they finished up and she redressed herself.
Yosano raised an eyebrow at her, making her face flush red. "Didn't explicitly say you did. But we'll talk about that later. What I was going to say was the symptoms you told me about mimic what I know of Hanahaki —a 'fictional' disease where someone who has unrequited feelings for another, start to grow flowers in their heart and lungs and begin coughing them up. Usually, it's accompanied by strong pain. On a level of 1 to 10, how's the pain level? I don't want to say a normal level for others, but for someone like you, with a high pain tolerance."
Atsushi winced. "It...started out a 4 in the beginning. It escalated. Quickly."
Yosano pursed her lips, though her eyes began to look very concerned, making Atsushi squirm and feel even more worried.
"Current number?"
"8. Approaching 9. Quickly," she reluctantly added again.
The two shared an uneasy look and Atsushi was terrified of what was happening.
"What do I do?" she asked the other. "If it's like that, why is it happening? Can we find the ability user? Is there a way to stop whatever's happening?"
"I still have to process the x-rays to make sure," Yosano told her, though it seemed to them it was a foregone conclusion. "And...I took some of the petals you spit out yesterday —Dazai touched them and they didn't dissolve. He also seemed certain it wasn't caused by an ability and didn't feel like it at all."
"Then how did it start happening to me?" Atsushi's voice was growing shrill. "How do we make it stop?"
Yosano gave her a grim look. "If we take into account the fictional disease and what was supposedly said of it...your one-sided love needs to be returned. That or surgery, which I'm doubtful of. Plus, doing that will either get rid of your feelings and memory of your love...or get rid of your ability to love altogether. And no guarantees it'll work since there's no recorded records of this disease actually happening, outside of fiction."
"What other alternative do I have?" Her despair was growing and she wasn't sure what to do about this.
"Death," Yosano said solemnly.
"But I don't have feelings for anyone," she denied before that stupid twisting feeling inside of her happened abruptly and there was a sharp squeeze of something inside her that had her gasping for air, heaving immediately after until petal after petal fell out of her mouth like a waterfall and covered the floor.
And as if the universe was again set to prove her wrong, Francis took that moment to open the door, lock still broken from his doing yesterday.
"No worries, Miss Yosano, I said I'd...fix...that lock..." Francis said, cheer turning to shock and then uncertainty as he saw the females in the room and flower petals all over the floor around her.
Atsushi hoped she didn't look as horrible as she felt.
"I was just coming to see if Atsushi would like to have lunch with me," Francis said quietly, looking between the two. "It's lunchtime."
Yosano gently pushed a numb Atsushi towards him. "Go," she said quietly. "I'll process the x-rays."
Atsushi gave her a frightened look, feeling completely lost.
Outside of the infirmary, door closed behind them, she and Francis stood in silence. Francis shifted awkwardly before turning to her, obviously worried.
"Is something the matter? Are you okay?"
She smiled, though it was probably strained. "Nothing big. Just a check up, especially with these weird petals popping up. No worries."
"If something is wrong, I can have the Guild doctors check you out as well," he said, voice becoming urgent. "Not that I don't trust in Yosano, but it doesn't hurt to have second opinions. I can call them up —"
"I'm fine," she said, making her voice firmer so she'd be more believable. She strengthened her smile towards him. "Let's get lunch. Did you have something in mind?"
His gaze lingered on her, but he took her hand and led the way. "No, just that we should eat together somewhere. How about you?"
"To be honest, I've never had American fast food," she told him, hoping it'd also distract him.
Working like a charm, his face lit up and he was grinning freely. "Not my thing either, but American food is welcome right now. I bet there's a McDonald's around here! McD is everywhere."
She laughed at him, ignoring the ache that kept growing inside of her.
༻❁༺
It's horrific.
She thinks it looks like something out of a horror movie, if it wasn't also oddly beautiful. Her heart and lungs seemed to be wrapped with flower vines and there are flowers blooming around those organs, pulsing with life and petals falling and scattering around her insides.
They haven't over taken her heart and lungs yet, but it's not some small thing to push aside anymore. It's something more worrying to think on and she's growing more terrified.
"What am I going to do?"
Yosano carefully took down the x-rays and put them aside.
"Dazai and I, on the off chance it is from a Gift-user, will try to look for them. I still advise against surgery in any way, especially since it looks like they've dug deep into your heart and lungs and I don't think even your regeneration will be able to handle it if something went wrong. In the meantime...I think you need to really look inside of yourself and think about your feelings...and maybe spend as much time with 'that' person as much as possible...As much as you'd want to, in case..."
Atsushi winced.
"I'll...go see Francis," she said in a small voice, admitting it finally and letting go of the denial.
There was an itch in the back of her throat and she was coughing again. This time, though, red petals fell from her lips and she caught them blankly.
"I tested them the other day, to see what kind they were," Yosano said tiredly. "Carnations. White, striped and now red, huh?"
Atsushi shrugged, even more tired than the other. "What difference does it make?"
She left the other behind, heading into the main office and gathering some of her things and some work to take with her. She left the others behind too, ignoring their worried looks, and headed straight to Manhasset Security resignedly.
༻❁༺
Atsushi had navigated the familiar streets until she reached the building, and then she'd entered it and felt lost. What was she doing really? Spending time with a married man, even if said marriage was estranged and falling apart? Francis still obviously loved and cared for his wife, and even if he'd come to care for Atsushi, she was just a friend. Nothing more.
Why was she torturing herself?
But, as she thought that, she also realized that she'd been torturing herself with these feelings and the Hanahaki had only just highlighted that and made her realize the truth. All this time, she'd felt this way towards him and now she was most probably dying because of those feelings.
Wouldn't it be nice to just be a little selfish and spend her last days happy and by his side, enjoying what time she had left with him?
If she was going to die, she could at least be as happy as she could be, and stay by his side for a little bit longer.
"Miss Nakajima?" she heard Louisa's voice and she looked around until she found the young woman. "Did you need Lord Francis?"
"Is he busy?" she asked distractedly.
"No, though he's said you're welcome anytime. He also added you can interrupt him if he's in the middle of something, especially work," Louisa May laughed lightly.
"He's a diligent worker, despite the joking," Atsushi said fondly, after sharing the laughter.
"Yes, he does work very hard," Louisa beamed happily, proud of her leader.
Atsushi felt herself torn between fondness and sadness, and Louisa noticed right away. Not that Atsushi expected any less. The other had always been an observant woman.
"Are you okay, Miss Nakajima?" she asked in worry, which somehow suddenly seemed funny to Atsushi. Everyone was just worrying over her and she was getting the strange urge to both laugh and cry about it.
"I'm fine," she tried to reassure the other, even as she felt the tickle in the back of her throat that was growing stronger. She was hoping the pain would stay away at least. "I'll see you later, Louisa-san. I'm just here to see him."
They traded waves and she continued on until she made her way to Francis' office. She debated knocking, but she thought maybe he was due his own medicine, just barging into the Agency whenever he wanted and without knocking like a normal person.
Not quite barging in like him, but more quietly opening the door and entering without announcing herself, she saw Francis sitting at his desk, gazing at the lone photograph frame on it. She flinched and almost backtracked out of the room, only for her entrance to have been immediately noticed by him. He just as immediately brightened up, smiling widely as he stood up.
"Oh? A visit from my lovely tigress? I got quite lucky today! We just had lunch —anything I can do for you, darling?"
"Let's have a sleepover," she blurted out, startling him.
"A sleepover?" he blinked. Despite her red face, she didn't say anything else. "Sure. Why not? Should be fun," he said teasingly and she relaxed just a smidge.
He walked over to her and gazed at her with his pretty eyes in worry. "Is everything really alright?"
"Yes," she said, keeping up her smile. This was fine and she just wanted to be able to get what she could from him. "I was thinking maybe we could have hotpot and sushi?"
Probably the wrong thing to suggest to him, because his smile turned into a smirk and she already knew what was coming.
"Aw, my Atsushi wants sushi~"
"I hate you."
༻❁༺
"This looks delicious!" Francis exclaimed, inhaling deeply. "Smells it too. I love this thing though —what do you call it?"
"It's a portable stove," she said in amusement.
"Ingenious. Poor people sure can make do," he nodded sagely and she rolled her eyes.
"Just put whatever you want in here," she huffed. "It'll cook altogether."
"Excellent! I prefer more meat, but I don't mind some vegetables in there. What's this?"
"Taro, I think? I like the daikon, but maybe I'll settle for some tofu."
He made a face at that, which made her giggle. "I'll try the daikon, so if you go with that, I don't care. Tofu is strange to me."
"Maybe just a little," she poked his side, snickering. "You picky man. It's just tofu."
"Weird texture, weird taste," he was adamant.
"I concede," she said in the end, shaking her head. "I —"
Her throat felt like it was burning and she felt her throat get clogged up with petals. Unable to help herself, she turned her head away and held up her hands, only to be able to catch only a few of the ones that ended up spitting out of her mouth and falling to the floor. Francis was by her side in a second, hand gently and hesitantly touching her back as she hunched over.
"Red petals now, huh?" he asked, voice deceptively light. "You had white at first, then those white and red mix recently. Full red's the next lineup?"
"Sure, sure," she played it off. "Started today —I think the red's the prettiest. Yosano-san checked it out, said they were from carnations."
"Is that so?" Francis continued to sound light, but he was watching her way too closely.
"Yes," Atsushi made herself remember she was there to enjoy being with him. "Come on! Food's getting forgotten."
"Okay, okay," he held up his hands, but still his gaze lingered on her and she just made herself act as normal as possible to reassure him.
She poured them a bowl each from the pot and then they settled down by his windows to watch the sun slowly setting. After they ate, he broke out the dominoes and taught her how to play, getting way too entertained when she got extremely competitive with it.
"I'd hate to see you gaming," he told her, outright amused at her reactions. "This is just dominoes. If you were playing video games, I'd be afraid of your reactions."
"I'd be fine!" she said indignantly. "You're just teasing me too much!"
"Oh yeah?" his eyebrows were slightly raised in mock doubt.
She gave him a stubborn look that he broke into a full out, very eager grin at.
"It's on," he crowed gleefully.
He shuffled her over to another room, which amazed the hell out of her —an entertainment room that was beyond anything she could've come up with —and had her settled onto a gaming chair that he rolled towards the impressive television setup to sit in front of. He grabbed another gaming chair and rolled it over, sitting on it after he turned on his TV and gaming console.
"What're we doing?" she asked, going along with it but utterly bewildered.
"We're going to play Halo."
"What's a Halo?"
And then he broke out into actual cackling, which kind of terrified her a little.
"F-Francis?!"
༻❁༺
It was late when they stopped playing the multitude of games he had, ending with his favorite (something about a 'call of duty'?). But she'd enjoyed herself so much and was so happy being with him, that it seemed as if time had stopped and she hadn't noticed anything but him and the good time they were having.
And then Francis brought out his stupid futon and she stopped short.
"Should I take the couch?" she asked, trying to play nonchalant and not as if her heart was beating so hard that it felt like it wanted to escape her chest.
He scoffed playfully. "It's a sleepover, right? Besides, as you noted last time, this thing is too large for just me. We also just slept fine together last time. Shouldn't be an issue now, right?"
"Right," she said, trying not to sound as uncertain as she felt. "Sounds good," she lied.
He set it up and then laid down, while she hesitated. Francis gave her a bemused look.
"Well?"
Taking a deep breath, she headed over to him and tentatively lay herself next to himself, probably feeling stiff as a board.
"Are you uncomfortable?" he asked hesitantly and she looked over to him to see his brow furrowed. "I would hope you trust me by now and know I won't...do something untoward."
Sighing at herself, she shook her head and gave him a small smile, reminding herself of her resolve to be a little selfish and be able to spend as much time with him as she could.
"No, it's a Japanese thing," she excused it. "I was really comfortable and tired last time, so I hadn't really noticed, but since I'm wide awake now...I'm just a little more self-conscious."
He laughed a little. "Then good thing I'm American and entirely too used to being inappropriate and bossy."
Filled with warmth, she finally relaxed on the futon and turned towards him as she lay on her side. Hesitating herself now, she made herself determined and scooted closer until she was timidly and loosely lying against the side of his body.
"Atsushi?" he asked, voice clearly surprised.
She bit her lip. "Just a bit...cold. You're warm."
Atsushi felt him pause for a second and then he was shifting to his side too, and moving his arm around her and bringing her closer.
"Go to sleep, darling," he murmured. "I'll see you in the morning."
She snuggled closer and burrowed her face against him, inhaling his familiar mixed scent of sandalwood and lavender.