Francis awoke in the middle of the night. Despite having tinted the windows so that the light of the moonlight wouldn't keep the both of them up, he could still tell it was nighttime through the shaded view of his windows and the darkness of his office.
What had woken him up?
The girl next to him, who had actually snuggled into him (willingly at that), had suddenly begun to squirm restlessly, until she moved away from him and shot up on the futon. Hearing her gasping, he blearily opened his eyes, only to become fully awake as he heard choking sounds come from her. She stumbled onto her feet and dashed towards the direction of his office's bathroom, and now wide awake, he moved up quickly and chased after her.
The door was closed. Alarmed and upset, he worriedly knocked on the door. The sounds of vomiting made him too anxious and ready to break down his door.
"Atsushi?"
"I'm —I'm fine!" she gasped out, only to sound like she was vomiting again.
Like hell he'd believed that, after her repeatedly saying that before and looking less and less decidedly not fine. Clenching his jaw, he reached for the doorknob and twisted, finding it locked. He broke it without blinking at the action and pushed the door open.
"I'm coming in —!"
He stood shocked frozen, utterly horrified at the scene. All speech had left him and he couldn't have finished what he'd said, even if he'd wanted to.
It was like he'd stepped into a horror film.
Flower petals was all over the place, all over the floor around her, all over the toilet, all over Atsushi...as red as the blood that had accompanied it and painted the area around Atsushi gruesomely. It could've been a murder scene, complete with the serial killer's aesthetic touch of beauty with the flowers laying about.
"ATSUSHI!"
Deathly still and laying plastered against the toilet seat, she could've been mistaken dead with her eyes closed and her not responding to him.
"Hey, hey, come on!" he said urgently, gathering her into his arms and shaking her slightly. "Wake up!"
What the fuck was this? What was wrong with her?
Panicking, he picked her up and held her close as he ran out of the bathroom and to his office's phone, ringing up Louisa May immediately.
"Louisa! There's an emergency! I need your help —call the doctors or something! There's something seriously wrong with Atsushi!"
No, no, no...not someone else he cared about.
First his daughter and then his wife...why was the universe cruel to him? What did God have against him?
He couldn't lose Atsushi too.
༻❁༺
This was something out of a nightmare.
Doctors bustled about, baffled and rapidly consulting each other, but he just stood in front of the board that had the x-rays displayed.
Flowers.
It was pretty in a morbid way, the flowers blooming inside of Atsushi's body. A macabre blooming garden inside a human body, her heart and lungs wrapped in flower vines and flowers blooming prettily as petals fell from them and scattered inside of Atsushi.
To think —he'd laughed and even called the petals coming out of her mouth cute, not even knowing the real danger in them to her.
"What is this?" he whispered, staring and unable to tear his eyes away.
The doctors couldn't figure it out, had never seen such a thing. They'd been uncertain when they just thought of the petals being vomited up, but after the x-rays, they were just at a lost now.
Louisa joined him quietly, looking at the x-rays herself. He heard her sniffle and he tiredly glanced at her, seeing her wringing her hands.
"Is Miss Nakajima going to be okay?"
"I don't know, Miss Louisa," he said, feeling drained and yet angry. He didn't know who or what at, maybe he was angry this was happening at all. "But I won't stop until I make sure she will be."
Louisa's smile was trembling, but he was adamant.
"I hope so. She really...she really brought us all together, you know? After The Guild fell before, I tried my best to help pick you up, but really...Miss Nakajima was the one who really helped. And she made you actually really smile and actually be happy —I don't think anyone's ever seen you sincerely happy, Lord Francis. And even though, after the fall, you were more humble and open and friendlier with the rest of us, we didn't actually become friends until Miss Nakajima came around to make it so."
Francis was taken aback by Louisa May's words, but she wasn't...wrong. But all it did was just reinforce how much Atsushi meant to him.
Remembering who she'd been consulting with and who had also taken x-rays, he decided he needed to take a trip to the Agency and have a talk with one Akiko Yosano.
Leaving Louisa behind, he distractedly found his own ride to take to the Agency, trying not to think of Atsushi in his bathroom, to not remember the bloody scene.
It didn't work at all.
It just burned into his mind more and he couldn't help wondering why hadn't he pushed her about it earlier. She had clearly hadn't felt fine before and he knew spitting up petals wasn't something normal. And it had kept happening, becoming worse and lasting far longer than could've been in any way safe.
But he'd just laughed it off.
Furious at himself and swearing this would never happen again, he got out of his parked car and headed towards the Agency's building. The café entrance was quiet but serene, so he didn't think anyone else knew of Atsushi's condition.
"Oh, it's you," a certain voice said huffily and he turned to see Lucy in her working outfit, clearly at break because she was just sitting at one of the café's tables and reading one of those Japanese graphic novels.
"Is Yosano here?" he asked flatly.
Lucy straightened up and gave him a curious look, looking reluctantly concerned. "No, she had an errand to run with Dazai. She should be back soon."
Francis took a breath to steady himself, but as he glanced over the cover of her book, he froze and stared.
A girl with flowers coming out of her mouth.
"That book," he demanded as he strode over.
Lucy straightened up quickly, eyes widening. "Lord Francis?!"
"Miss Montgomery. The girl with the flowers being coughed up on the cover, what does it mean?" he tried not to be impatient.
She quickly gave him the book. "It's called 'The Girl Who Spit Flowers' in English. She has what's called Hanahaki, I guess? I'm still practicing my Japanese and I'm using those manga to help. But anyway, I guess she's in love with someone who doesn't love her back —she gets the disease because of that and flowers start blooming in her lungs and her heart, which makes her cough up flower petals. It's supposed to be painful and there's supposed to be blood, but I just started the book, so I haven't gotten there yet."
It is painful, he wanted to say. Painful, bloody, and so horribly beautiful and agonizing...
"Do you know how it ends?" he whispered, afraid to know.
"I don't," Lucy admitted. "I'm hoping it has a happy ending."
Me too.
They were alerted to the café door opening and he turned and saw Yosano and Dazai entering. One look and they both knew each other knew.
"Come with me, Fitzgerald-san," Yosano said with a grim tone.
Clenching his hands, he returned her book and moved away from a silent Lucy, following after the duo. Lucy stared at their backs anxiously, wondering what was going on.
"You know what's happening," Francis accused. "You took x-rays," he directed towards Yosano.
Yosano gave him a side look, walking towards the elevators. "She has something that looks like Hanahaki."
"Hanahaki is fictional," Dazai said lightly, but he looked too serious. "But somehow the urban legend isn't quite an urban legend."
"We'll need to talk...options with the others," Yosano said gravely.
"Options?" Francis' insides felt like they'd been frozen.
"This doesn't sound good," Dazai muttered, the elevator reaching their destination quickly.
The three of them quickly reached the Agency's main office and entered the chaotic room, with everyone up to their usual antics and in a good mood.
Yosano cleared her throat and looking at her face guaranteed everyone else became serious, the chaos dying down as they looked to them.
"Yosano, what's up?" Ranpo straightened up, smiling lightly but his eyes were slightly opened to show his own seriousness.
"I have something to say about Atsushi-chan," she announced to a stock still room.
"I have the President," Dazai spoke up, having gone to get him earlier while Yosano had called attention to herself.
"What is the meaning of this?" Fukuzawa asked and Francis looked to Yosano blankly.
Options. She was speaking of options. What kind of freaking options?
"Atsushi-chan is suffering from Hanahaki," Yosano revealed.
Tanazaki raised his eyebrows. "The fictional disease? The one K-Pop fans like to do tons of fan edits on?"
His sister lightly elbowed him. "Not just K-Pop fans, Junichiro!"
"I thought that was just a folklore?" Ranpo asked, seriousness on full blast as he set aside his Ramune bottle on the desk next to him.
"Excuse me, but what is Hanahaki?" Kenji interrupted, raising his hand.
"I second that," Edgar spoke up hesitantly and Francis dazedly just noticed the other was there as well.
"It's a myth that someone with a one-sided love towards a person gains the affliction, where they start blooming flowers in their heart and lungs and start to vomit up flower petals. To that end, it becomes steadily worse as time passes and the afflicted begins to cough up blood with the petals, though some say they start coughing blood from the beginning," Yosano explained.
Francis heard a gasp and he looked to see that Lucy was in the corner, hidden and quiet so no one had noticed her enter and stay there. She was clutching that damned book.
Dazai took over. "Eventually, they begin vomiting up full flowers, which means the disease is in its last stage. Death is usually the outcome."
"But it's not real," Edgar argued vehemently, oddly getting louder and passionate about this. But The Guild, what was left of it really, had grown extremely protective and attached to Atsushi. "How can you talk about it like it's real, when it's supposed to be a myth? How can you even be sure Miss Atsushi has it? What if it was an ability from a Gifted?"
Yosano and Dazai traded looks. "We did what we could to see if it was a Gifted," Yosano said. "Atsushi-chan thought it was and part of the reason why she put off telling me until recently. She thought it was some stupid affliction she'd accidentally run across because an ability-user accidentally triggered their ability for the first time or just when they'd accidentally used it when Atsushi-chan had been around at that time."
"A name, description? Have you found any of that?" Francis interrupted, voice tinged dangerously. Yosano shook her head. "I need something! The Eyes of God can't be used if you can't give me something to look for!"
What the hell was the use of The Eyes of God then?! If he couldn't use it to find that bastard, whoever it was, then he couldn't force them to stop this stupid affliction on Atsushi!
"It's not an ability," Dazai suddenly said, denying that firmly.
"But how can you be so sure?" Edgar insisted, moving towards Francis.
"Yeah!" Lucy added on, also standing by him.
The three of them stood there, with the others looking at the three Guild members sticking together stubbornly.
"I touched the petals," Dazai said unrelenting. "They didn't go away. I couldn't even feel traces of an ability. My Gift didn't work with them at all."
"But if it's not real, how can you be sure then that it is actually Hanahaki?" Francis stared at them straight in the eyes, gritting his teeth and feeling his fury building.
"She's not —" Yosano cut herself off uncertainly.
"Fully human," Dazai confessed, making the whole room —not just The Guild members —stare at him in shock, while Francis' fury was immediately doused. "Her ability...isn't quite an ability. Partly so, but also traces of...supernatural leanings. She's got divine blood, enough that it links her weretiger transformations to Byakko."
"Byakko?" Ranpo said dubiously. "The White Tiger god?"
"Guardian of the West," Dazai nodded in confirmation. "So I would say she actually would be susceptible to contracting a 'mythical disease' , considering she is somewhat mythical herself."
"I will admit that I know someone who'd dealt with Hanahaki," Fukuzawa spoke up, surprising everyone. "I will go find him and speak to him about this."
"He did?" Yosano asked breathlessly. Hope built in Francis. "How did he survive it?"
"He wasn't the one afflicted," Fukuzawa's usual sternness became graver. "The one who loved him was."
"...Loved?" Lucy asked faintly while dread settled in his gut.
"She died from the Hanahaki. He did not realize her feelings and she never admitted it," Fukuzawa admitted. "She died in his arms. From then on, however, he has researched all he could about it." He looked uneasy. "There were rumors she was either one or descended from a kitsune."
That made everyone uneasy and try not to think about Atsushi and what that could mean.
"In the meantime then, Dazai and I will continue to look into other cures, as well as —if there is any way that we are wrong about it being an ability user —continue that route too," Yosano said, pushing forward.
The Tanazaki siblings raised their hands. "What can we do?" Tanazaki asked while Naomi nodded eagerly.
"We still need to hold down the fort," Kunikida spoke up then, pushing his glasses up, though the deep frown he wore showed how he was feeling. "The President will be gone. Yosano and Dazai will be working on this. Kenji, Junichiro, you two will be working on Agency cases with me. Haruno-san, Naomi-san, you two will be helping with us and continue to have the Agency go on smoothly. That leaves —"
"Me," Ranpo gave a grim smile. "I'll be researching."
Fukuzawa turned to Francis. "Obviously, while we could keep Atsushi-kun in the associated hospital close by, that doesn't guarantee her safety or allow her to be watched. That's not including the...unusualness of her disease. If it's not too much trouble to ask you to look out for her —"
"Of course it's not too much trouble," Francis said in a strained voice. "Besides, she's already with us and being looked after by Guild doctors."
He barely noticed their caught off guard looks. "She was...staying overnight with us. She'd had some sort of attack. There was...there was so much blood. It was all over my bathroom...the floor...on her...and those fucking flower petals...God, it was horrible...So...So much blood...Why was there so much blood and petals everywhere? It was...How could it be so damn beautiful too?"
Francis kept muttering, looking at his hands and seeing them trembling. The image of her in his bathroom, painted in blood and petals and red all over —
"Lord Francis?"
Hands were on his wrists and he blinked back into awareness, seeing both Lucy and Edgar watching him worriedly as they held his wrists. Beyond them, the rest were also watching them unsurely, looking at him in worry as well.
"I found her and had her looked at, which is how I saw and found out about the blooming flowers inside of her," Francis finished wearily.
"Then please continue to take care of her," Fukuzawa asked, bowing towards him.
"Of course," Francis muttered again. Like he wouldn't. He looked to Yosano blankly. "Options. You were wanting to talk something about options."
Yosano looked unhappy. "There are only three ways this will be ending, according to the myth. She'll die of it, unable to maintain the flowers inside of her. Or she'll be cured through whoever she has feelings for returning her feelings, or she has surgery to remove the flowers."
An odd pang shot through him at the idea of her having feelings for someone and an even stranger feeling at that someone returning her feelings. He shook it off though and focused on the last part, feeling relief, confusion and anger that the surgery hadn't been brought up and especially immediately considered.
"Why hasn't she gotten the surgery then?" Francis demanded.
Yosano frowned. "There's no guarantees. This is, to us, still a fictional disease —so whatever we've heard about it is not for sure and we can't trust anything we've heard. We also don't want to chance it. Doing it is also supposed to remove her memories and her love of the person she has unrequited feelings for forever."
"I could care less about the bastard she has feelings for and wouldn't mind it if she forgot whoever they were and stopped loving them. Honestly, if they can't or won't return her feelings, they aren't worth it —Unable to realize what a perfect person they have in love with them and properly appreciate Atsushi, they're probably an idiot!" he was practically snarling.
Why were they even debating this?
For some reason, the Agency were all giving each other looks, while Lucy was looking at him strangely as Edgar grimaced.
Yosano just sighed then. "The myth also says that the surgery could just get rid of her ability to love altogether."
That made him grow cold. The very idea that Atsushi wouldn't be able to love was inconceivable. Her ability to love and sincerely appreciate love was one of the best things about her —one he truly appreciated and (admittedly) needed from her and adored about her. That trait of hers was one of the things that drew him to her and what had made her take a chance on him; had helped her care about him and help him back to being back on his feet and being himself again.
"Obviously death is not something we want to end up happening, and surgery seems to be off the table for now," Francis said agitatedly. "Which leaves us with one way forward that we know of."
"Letting her get the man she's in love with to return her feelings," Dazai concluded.
"So it's a man. Good to know," Francis took note of, frowning. "Do you know who he is?"
"We don't know who he is and we're only guessing it's a male since we're probably sure Atsushi-chan is into men. But that's it. Why would you want to know?" Yosano asked, oddly challenging.
"Why wouldn't I?" Francis asked, baffled at the question. "Don't we need to know who he is, so we can find a way to get Atsushi cured?"
"What if he doesn't return those feelings?" Ranpo suddenly asked.
"Why wouldn't he?" Francis demanded. "Atsushi is a lovely girl! Who wouldn't love her and want to be with her?"
"What if he has feelings for someone else? What if he's married? What if he really just doesn't have feelings for her?" Ranpo continued to prod at Francis.
Francis clenched his jaw. This was ridiculous!
"Just let me have a talk with him," he growled. "I'll talk sense into him."
"What are you going to do? Bribe him? Pay him to 'love' her back?" Ranpo strangely sounded mocking and it was grating on Francis' nerves.
"If that's what it takes!"
"That's not genuinely returning her feelings," Dazai remarked candidly.
"She doesn't have to know that," Francis insisted. "As long as she believes he is, then it should work!"
"You can't keep doing it —it won't last forever and she could find out," Yosano pointed out gently.
Francis slammed his fist down on the desk to his side, with Edgar gingerly moving slightly away.
"It'll last long enough! Long enough for her to move on and find someone else! Someone better and who would actually properly love her, like she should be loved!"
"Then I suppose we'll just leave it to you, if we do find out the identity of the man Atsushi-kun has feelings for," Fukuzawa cut in, speaking firmly. "Thank you for your help, Fitzgerald-san."
Francis inhaled deeply, clenching and unclenching his hands.
If it was up to him, he'd find someone who'd show Atsushi how to be loved and cared for, and who wouldn't have put her through this whole mess in the first place.
༻❁༺
He sat by Atsushi's bedside, feeling disoriented and upset. There was nothing for him to do, but sit there and angrily brood over the situation. He couldn't find the man who'd caused Atsushi's state and shake sense into him, and there was no way for him to relieve her pain.
They were just there, practically waiting for death to come.
"You look bothered," Atsushi's weakened voice reached him and he immediately looked to her, reaching for one of her hands.
"I am bothered!" he snapped. Seeing her flinch, he softened and squeezed her hand. "I'm bothered that you didn't tell me it was this bad. I'm bothered that you're suffering, both because of your stupid feelings for the bastard who won't appreciate you and because of this Hanahaki thing that's putting you through this pain. I'm bothered because I'm stupid and didn't even notice until it had become like this."
"I'm sorry," Atsushi said, giving him a small smile. "I didn't want you upset over this."
"Tell me who he is," Francis demanded. "Let me know and I'll have him here in a second."
Atsushi laughed before the coughing started and she turned to the side and hacked out a bunch of petals that was accompanied by blood. He hissed at the sight, hurriedly standing up and bending over her to rub her back and try to soothe her in any way he could. Afterwards, he found something to clean her up and cleaned up the petals, ignoring the bloodstains.
"He's not such a bad guy," Atsushi murmured. "He's kind —when he wants to be," she giggled tiredly. "Utterly arrogant and presumptuous. But he cares for those he considers 'his' and under his guidance. He's someone to be admired and amazed at, and his confidence and charisma is pretty inspiring."
Francis felt odd and dissatisfied hearing her talk like that about someone other than him, and to hear the fondness in her voice about some other man filled him with a strange disquiet.
"He's a lucky man," he muttered to her, hiding his unhappiness.
She gave him a sad smile that made him want to hunt this asshole down and force him to love her.