Chapter Text
He started coughing up Sakura flowers a few months after he came back to Konoha. He was sitting at Ichiraku, idly moving the noodles and broth around the ramen bowl with his chopsticks as he mindlessly listened to his teammates chat with each other.
“I used to do so many stupid things, back in the day when I was in love with Sasuke.” Groaned Sakura, forgetting the suffix she had related to his name for almost an entire decade.
“I did stupid things for you too, Sakura-chan.” Laughed Naruto good-naturedly. Neither of them paying attention to Sasuke, talking about Sakura's love for him as if he wasn't a vital part of this very exchange.
After that, they carried on with superficial conversation, both members of team seven, sunny and bright as ever. Completely ignoring their dark, gloomy teammate desperately leaving the ramen stand in a hurry.
That night, he coughed, panted and screamed in agony until his throat was raw. Then, finally, he threw up an entire dozen of bloodied pink flowers.
“What’s this?” he asked to himself worried and scared, hesitantly picking up the cherry blossoms marred with his own blood with the tip of his fingers. As if the flowers were poisoned or something worse.
The day after, Tsunade herself gave him his diagnosis, but not before every single medical staff in the building apart from Sakura did some sort of exam on him. “I’m going to cut the chase with this, Uchiha.” She told him. “You have a very rare disease called Hanahaki. Only one person of every ten patients survive this.”
He hummed his understanding, his shaking hands betraying the blankness of his stoic face.
“Is it treatable?” Asked the last Uchiha.
“Don’t you want to know about the disease?” Inquired the medic, sardonic as ever. “What causes it?”
“Is it treatable?” he insisted.
“Yes, it is. But you’re not going to like it, or maybe you won't care. I definitely can't begin to understand what goes in that head of your, let alone your heart.”
“Just tell me what I have to do.” Sasuke wasn’t willing to allow some weird sickness be the thing that ends up killing him, not after everything he survived up until now.
“Hanahaki it's a sickness of the heart and the soul,” explained Tsunade, professionally. “Shinobi are more prone to fall from it, since it manifests as an alteration of the patient’s chakra. Basically, your emotions are so disturbed that your chakra is physically manifesting in the form of flowers that take root on your lungs.” The whole thing sounds like a fantasy, like one of those fairy tales his mother loved so much, when she was still alive.
“What kind of emotion…” He wondered out loud.
“Hanahaki can only be born by one emotion.” Interrupted the Sannin. “Unrequited love.”
Sasuke accepted her words at once then. Aware already of the person at fault for his sudden sickness.
“What is the treatment, Tsunade?” He growled again, this time with wariness on his tone.
“The only known treatment for Hanahaki if for the reciprocation of one’s love, or…” She stopped herself, biting her nail in a nervous habit.
“Or…” Prompted the heir of the Uchiha.
“Or for you to undergo a surgery to extirpate the feeling.” She confessed.
“My feelings for…” He found himself without words for the first time in years.
Tsunade sighed, looking at him with pity for the first time since he she came into the room with the news of his diagnosis. "Your feelings for whoever won't reciprocate this love that it's damaging your chakra."
“No, neither option it's possible.”
“I thought you would say that.” Sighed the medic, closing her eyes, suddenly tired. “Let me prescribe you some medicine. It won’t cure you. But it will ease the symptoms.”
“Aa” Nodded Sasuke, his voice empty. “Thanks.”
“It’s supossed to hold your for a few years, but you are one of the Shinobi with the biggest reserves of chakra on the village.” Stated the Hokage, just this time, not at all proud for the strength of her people. “And you know what they say about the Uchiha.”
“No one loves like the Uchiha.” He agreed with a sad smile marring his young, handsome features.
Later that afternoon, Sasuke left the hospital with a death sentence over his head. The flavour of blood and sickly-sweet cherry on the deep of his throat.
Cherry blossoms taking root on his heart.