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When it first happened, he assumed it’s a prank instigated by an extremely courageous subordinate.
People don’t just cough petals out of nowhere, after all.
He stalked around the Shinsengumi headquarters with a bazooka over his shoulder, interrogating each and every one of their members, until all of them shook their heads frantically, faces blue. “Whoever it was, I’m gutting your innards if it occurs twice.”
The second time, he realized that something was wrong, as he stared down dubiously at the thin crimson petals on his palm. He wiped them off with a tissue and flushed it into the toilet bowl, feeling slightly nauseous at the bitter aftertaste in his mouth. Nothing, he brushed it off, it’s nothing.
And now, as he wheezes in bed with red petals of spider lilies splayed over his futon, he thinks, it’s definitely fucking something.
“What the actual hell,” he grumbles, glaring at his reflection in the mirror. Between his thumb and index finger is a wrangled blossom which came straight out of his throat. He doesn’t recall eating his dinner from a bush in the garden. Vomiting flower petals isn’t a valid excuse to skip work, though, so he dresses into his uniform and strolls to the main Shinsengumi building.
“Good morning, captain!”
“Sougo, don’t forget to- oi, I see that grenade in your hand, oi!”
He enters his office and plops down on his chair. Reluctantly, he turns on his laptop he hasn’t used in at least two years. This is stupid. But heaving petals is even more stupid, so he types rather fiercely on his keyboard anyway. ‘Puking petals, has a virus taken over the world or is it just me,’ enter.
There is nothing relevant on the first page, but the foreign term, ‘hanahaki disease,’ catches his attention on the second. It literally translates into ‘puking flowers,’ that’s a delight. Click.
It’s a pretty outdated blog, posted a couple months after the Amanto took over and brought all this advanced technology crap to Earth. He suppresses the urge to exit upon seeing the pink and yellow borders of the page. Patience. Be patient.
The title: ‘Hanahaki Disease – an Ancient Myth.’
A myth, not even reality. He’s off to a terrific start.
‘It is rumored that centuries ago, humans have suffered from a mysterious illness of coughing up flowers…’ he whistles. Seems like this might be enlightening. ‘According to historians, there are primary sources and records which explicate this disease in detail. While there is no fixed name for it, humans of that era appeared to have called it the Hanahaki Disease – quite self-explanatory. The person who has contracted the disease will begin to cough flower petals at arbitrary intervals, and then these intervals will gradually shorten.’ Okita reminds himself of his own – it began approximately a week ago, then three days, and then today.
He does not believe this will end well.
‘The person cannot control the flowers – writers of these records have stated, ‘the blossom grows in the stomach, feeding off the nutrients of its owner.’ Once the roots settle in and encase the contractor’s lungs, it is over. A “painfully slow death,” quoted directly from one of the transcripts.’
Yeah, there’s the death sentence.
With a groan, Okita scrolls down.
‘The trigger of the disease was not identified for decades; for some reason, none of the patients were willing to elaborate on the details. It was sixty years later when a medic finally verified the cause: unrequited love.’
He rereads that last sentence four times.
Five, six.
Yeah, it does say, ‘unrequited love.’
“Bullshit.” I wasted twenty minutes on that rubbish. He marches out of his office, agitated. When Kondou questions him where he’s going, he grunts, “Patrol.”
“Why’re you pissed?”
“Too many nonsensical idiots on the Internet.”
Kondou merely shrugs at that and allows him to move on. As he trudges through the streets of Edo, the two words ring in his head like an ambulance siren, unrequited love, unrequited love, unrequited love. There must’ve been thousands of lunatics a few hundred years ago, for so many of them to be spouting such trash and putting in the effort to transcribe that on textiles and stones. They can all choke on rose thorns, for all he cares.
“Ah, Okita-san?”
He wasn’t keeping track of where he was as he fumed, but he is by the corner to Otose’s snack bar. Shinpachi is at the entrance with a handful of groceries.
“Are you patrolling?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, please go straight ahead because –“
“Hey, sadist!”
“- I don’t want you monsters destroying the store, damn it, she’s already there.”
Okita unsheathes his katana and grins at the impact of the familiar foot against his blade. A petite girl with fiery orange hair tied into mandarin buns growls at him with a piece of sukonbu between her teeth. “China, you’re heavy. Gained weight, hm?”
“That’s not somethin’ ya tell a girl!”
“You’re not a girl.”
Kagura’s sapphire orbs glint with ire. Okita sneers, and readies to launch forward for another round, when –
Fuck.
Something tickles the back of his throat. He skids to a halt and doesn’t have the leisure to dodge the Yato’s merciless kick which lands on his shoulder, which sends him toppling into a wall. He represses his cough, a hand over his lips. “Do-S?” The girl’s voice echoes from afar, and all that runs through his mind is that he has to get out of here, somewhere else, where he can’t –
“Bathroom.” He muffles and scrambles into the store, to a vacant stall in the men’s restroom. Shit, shit, what, he locks the door and doubles over the toilet bowl, hacking and choking, his fingers digging into his chest. Those dreaded, stringy petals float atop the water, which is being dyed pink with his blood. He blinks rapidly, attempting to process everything that just unfolded. He was patrolling, then greeted by Shinpachi, and attacked by Kagura.
(‘… the cause: unrequited love.’)
What are you thinking, he exhales, you’re not a dumbass, don’t be one.
When he’s out, Kagura is still chewing on her sukonbu. He can bet that this is her tenth piece. “Geez, if ya gotta poop in the middle, ya can just tell me.”
“I didn’t poop,” he shoots back, but she’s not listening. Of course. He resumes with patrolling, the repugnant phrase engraved into his head for the remainder of the evening.
Unrequited love.
He’s a dumbass.
At home, he’s on that blog again, simply because he wasn’t finished reading in the morning. It physically hurts his pride to even view ‘unrequited’ and ‘love’ in the same sentence on his laptop, more or less right beside each other. But, well – a plant in your lungs can’t be delightful news, so he deals with the humiliation. Given that this shitty blog is true, anyway.
‘There is no information provided regarding the cure of Hanahaki.’ Wonderful. He’s going to die with flower petals plastered to his gums. An honorable death for a samurai. ‘However, there are cases where the contractor’s condition improved, and even fully healed. It was one of the two – the contractor no longer possessed romantic affection towards the “trigger,” or the person they were in love with, or the contractor’s feelings were returned.’
Inhale, exhale. He goes on.
‘In our period, there have not been any reported incidents of the Hanahaki Disease. Some medical professionals speculate that it must’ve been genetically inherited, but there doesn’t seem to be a definite answer.’
The author leaves the address and contact information of a so-called Hanahaki Disease expert on the bottom of the page. Okita squints at it; probably a scam. He shuts his laptop and lulls himself to sleep afterward.
He decides to give it a shot after almost suffocating on a spider lily stem through the night. His head pounds with all that coughing, and the interior of his throat stings. The stem most likely cut the muscle tissue inside.
Ignoring Hijikata’s angered exclaims and chastising for slacking off, he follows the map on his phone to the address. Surely, this suspicious expert could tell him something more worthwhile than unrequited love.
He’s proven wrong, as the dwarf-sized bearded doctor sniffs at him.
“Yeah, you’re in love, lad. Congratulations.”
He almost murders a civilian on the spot.
“Okay, okay, okay!” Doctor Bushou screeches once he whips out his sword. “Jesus, kids these days. Sit down there – I’ll do some checkups. Man, it’s been at least twenty-five years since anyone’s come to me about Hanahaki, especially with the Amanto bunch prancing about… ah, breathe in for me. That’s right. And breathe out.” Okita glares at the stethoscope but does as he’s told. The last time he’s visited a doctor was when he was born.
“Hm, how long have you been presenting symptoms?”
“Eight days.”
“And the flower is?”
“Spider lilies. Red.”
“Oh, unlucky. Spider lilies are poisonous.”
Out of all flowers, I have a poisonous one in my lungs. I always wanted that thrilling experience in my life.
Doctor Bushou taps his clipboard with his pen. “I have good and bad news. Which one do you prefer to hear first?”
“Bad, I guess.”
“Well, the obvious part is that you have the disease. One hundred percent.” Okita was hoping it’d be a virus infection, but now that option is tossed out the window. “You seem to be informed about the major points of the illness, but I’ll gloss over some other details. To begin with, there are stages to the Hanahaki Disease. It begins with petals, but eventually the flower overgrows as it eats up its owner. That’s when you throw up the whole flower, which is naturally worse than just petals.”
“Cool.”
“Here’s the good news, though – there is a cure, other than the two solutions listed on historical records. There aren’t many surgeons remaining who can conduct the necessary procedure because the gene for this disease is considered extinct, but I can do it. Consider me your savior.” Bushou grins; Okita is not humored. “It is shocking, though. Hanahaki is a recessive trait, and because most of those possessing the gene have died in the past, there’s less than a one in hundred million chance to have it.”
He snorts. “I’m special.”
“That’s one way to put it. Anyway – it takes around six months for the roots to consume your lungs. Once that golden time elapses, there’s nothing I can do for you. Though yours might be shorter, because spider lilies’ poison can be fairly toxic, especially since you have the whole bloody creature in you. You’ll be coping with headaches, nausea, abdominal pains, all that.”
“Yeah, whatever. I can get it now, right? That operation.”
“If you desire so. However, I must warn you,” the doctor lowers his clipboard, “once the flower is removed, so are your feelings for that person.” That brings a frown to his face. “And it’s not only the romantic affection, but everything – your emotional connection to that individual will be severed, and it cannot be revitalized.”
Unrequited love. Emotional connection severed.
“If you’re fine with that, then we can proceed anytime. I’m not busy.”
Emotional crap aside, he doesn’t even know who he’s supposedly producing oxytocin for.
Which, by the way, still sounds like absolute psychotic bullshit.
He nibbles on his tongue. “… I’ll come back.”
“Alright.”
As he regresses to the chaotic Shinsengumi halls, the events from yesterday replay within him, along with the image of that violent girl with her vinegared seaweed. His throat constricts.
No.
Impossible.
He dreams of the night she almost died.
The night they almost died.
“Let go,” she demanded, as her fingers loosened in his grip. His nails clawed into the rocks of the cliff as he bit down on his blade. Ever think of going on a diet, China? He thought, as his muscles quivered. “I said let go!” In his periphery, Naraku’s archers had their arrows aiming for him. Without their backup plan, they would’ve been killed. He would’ve fallen into the depths of hellfire with her.
Might as well have a companion, was what fleeted across him then, hell would bore me less, with you around.
He didn’t let her go.
The severity of his predicament only hits him three weeks through, amidst an ordinary pursuit of the Joui rebels.
Two hours into scavenging and ransacking the city, with the Shinsengumi corps wreaking havoc, Kondou scampering off to Otae in his underwear, and Hijikata being sidetracked by Gintoki, not to mention Katsura’s, “It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura,” he is breathless, panting as he slides to the ground, grasping his chest.
Exhausted after a two-hour hunt was something unprecedented to the Shinsengumi’s 1st Division captain, Okita Sougo.
“That’s what you get for all that disgusting tabasco you gobble down during breakfast,” Hijikata admonishes, and he counters:
“I can’t wait for the day you gain two thousand kilos from mayonnaise.”
“I’d die of high cholesterol levels, you fucking brat.” With a cigarette between his lips, Hijikata cocks his head, “Seriously, though – this isn’t like you. Take a day off if you’re actually sick; you’ll hold us back.”
“Please, it’s probably the mayo from yesterday’s supper.” He drags his feet to a deserted alley and coughs freely, red splattering over the sandy soil below. More petals. You presume that it’d be a pretty sight, with flowers and all, but frankly, flowers drenched in blood and spit and acid aren’t pretty in the slightest.
They’re lifeless, wretched.
He chokes out the remnants of clogged blood and collapses to the concrete. There’s a perpetual gut-wrenching sensation spurring in his stomach, and it further challenges his capacity to breathe.
(With the flower gone, everything disappears.)
If there was nothing from the beginning, then what is there to disappear?
Even so, he spend the rest of the noon on the floor, the soaked fragments of himself between his fingers.
They reencounter again, after a month since that debacle at Yorozuya.
He’s napping on the park’s bench, a shortcake topped with tabasco sauce beside him, when he senses a presence behind him – no, above him. Directly above. He pries open his eyes; there’s a smudge of tangerines and ocean blue, until the blob solidifies into the shape of a person.
“China.” He states blandly.
Kagura has her parasol spread over them. She is not munching on a sukonbu, for once.
“I’m not in the mood to play with you today – shoo, shoo.”
“I’m not a fly, don’t flap me off!” She yaps, to which he responds with a, ‘is that so,’ and shuts his eyes once more. Her presence shifts along with the shadow of her parasol. “Ya look like a dried anchovy.”
“Thanks, at least I’m not fat.”
He instinctively avoids the uppercut flung towards him. “Don’t be an idiot and ask the nurse ladies to poke an injection into yer buttocks if yer ill. Or what, do ya want a sukonbu?”
“As if I’d want that putrid garbage.”
“Hmph.” Sunlight shines over him as she hops on the bench, the comforting shade of the parasol lifted away from him. “Drop dead, sadist.” Her scarlet cheongsam grazes his jawline as she jumps into the air and blasts off. Strands of vermillion red peek out of the ornaments over her buns, and albeit temporarily, an illusion of a vibrant spider lily flutters along her footsteps.
“Ah,” he stifles a cough, “I’m fucked.”
Manjushage.
That is the name of red spider lilies in their language – flower of the heavens. They’re often associated with passion, hell, death, and – final goodbyes.
Passion, hell, and death he could accept, but final goodbyes?
He’s twenty, for god’s sake.
“If I choose not to get the surgery,” he hunches over the bed in Doctor Bushou’s clinic. “Then I kick the bucket.”
“Well, not if the person reciprocates your feelings.” The elder hums, stroking his beard, “Which is complicated, to be candid. It can’t be the person merely reciprocating your feelings; you have to know it for certain. As in, even if the person does like you back, it’s pointless if you don’t realize it. The gene isn’t omniscient, you must understand. It all depends on you. You can even try to stop, you know, loving them.”
Love. The monosyllabic simplicity is abhorrent, as it doesn’t represent even an ounce of its complexity.
“So, have you decided? I’ll let you know; I predict that you have three months and a half at most. The toxins from the manjushage are affecting your health.” Doctor Bushou regards him sympathetically. “Don’t you have Edo on your shoulders, young man?” He glimpses at his Shinsengumi badge.
“… I’ll be back.”
Emotion is a fancy term for a biological, strictly anatomical process. Love is a consequence hormonal interaction, as much is ire, dejection, and pleasure. He can live on with his bloodthirst, his unquenched desire to predate. And yet, he can smell the waft of lavender and rain as his sister’s voice resounds from the abyss of his buried memories – you know that’s not true, Sou-chan. You’re smarter than that.
A country on his shoulders, and flowers of the afterlife in his lungs – what a blessing.
He avoids the Yorozuya like the plague.
It’s cowardly, but it’s favorable when he pictures the contorted expression of the Yato when she witnesses him doubling over, blood spilling from his stature. She’s loud, with her deafening screams and jabs. The roots of the plant threaten to overwhelm his body when he merely allows his thoughts to transition into how she swings her purple parasol, how she chomps her pickled seaweed, or how she sticks out her tongue when he mocks her attire. It’s laughable. Okita Sougo, rendered powerless as he panted over the tiles of the shower stall, carmine liquid and ripped petals sucked into the drain – the 1st division captain of the Shinsengumi, one of Edo’s most feared demons – weathering away.
How long, his head spins as he gazes at the concoction of his saliva and blood inundating the floor. It’s been a month and three weeks. He had relinquished the grace to count the nights he was aggressively awakened from his shallow slumber, as the petals evolved into full blossoms, crinkled and battered, cascading from his lips to the sink, the toilet, and his sheets. Washing the blankets and mattress covers became a nuisance, so he slept with a pillow and nothing else. The ache in his stomach must’ve liked its new home because it didn’t seem to be scheduling for a move out day anytime soon. The scratchy rawness of his throat couldn’t be resolved with those saccharine candies anymore, too.
“Sougo,” Kondou commands him to his office and gestures at him to take a seat. “What’s going on?”
“I drank expired milk.”
“You ate a cup of yogurt which was half a year after its expiry date, and you recovered within ten minutes in the bathroom.” The commander folds his arms. “Your subordinates have been expressing their concerns to both Toshi and I. Even I don’t recall seeing you in such a state, and I’ve known you for years.”
“Such a state,” he reiterates, “please elaborate, commander.”
“Frankly, like shit.”
“Like a dried anchovy?”
“No, a rotten, dried anchovy.”
“Charming.”
“I’m not joking, Sougo. Are you eating properly?”
Okita snorts. “We had dinner together an hour ago. Your memory is deteriorating by seconds, commander.”
“Okita Sougo.”
Kondou Isao’s aura is disparate, the air tingling around him. Okita knows when the man means it and when he doesn’t. All because he cares about his men – too much, he thinks. But that is Kondou’s redeeming feature. “I’ll be fine.” He dusts off his pants and rises, “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“Don’t slip away from us like your sister.” He bristles at that. “I have no right to face her in the other world, if you do.”
Okita doesn’t respond and departs Kondou’s study.
He can’t pinpoint the origin.
She was just another foreign girl with a sukonbu obsession, built of superhuman strength, with a blood-starved beast hibernating in her body – a monster of the Yato family. She was childish, the polar opposite of the standard model of a Shounen manga heroine, and was horribly talkative, even with stuffed cheeks.
Perhaps it was when her kick almost punctured his groin, and he noticed she was ruthless, even when he was injured, whereas any other human being would’ve held back. Perhaps it was when she struggled to escape his grasp at the cliff to save one of them – to spare his death. Or perhaps, it was when he recognized that her hair was not ‘orange’ – it glimmered like the morning dawn, whether it was dirtied with mud or under the moon.
Manjushage – they signify passion, death, and final goodbyes.
Death? Don’t fuck with me. Another rush of nausea assaults him as he bends over. He can probably create a bouquet out of the spider lilies he’s vomited tonight. The tattered blossoms are filthy heaps of petals. They don’t resemble her at all.
She’s nothing like death.
She’s the furthest thing from death.
“Souichirou.”
He swivels around; a man with a natural silver perm waves at him nonchalantly, a carton of strawberry milk in his other hand. “Hey, Danna.” If it were any other day, he would’ve replied with a witty remark about his sweet tooth, or how he was wearing his shirt inside out – but his attention span has shortened dramatically over the course of almost two months, with all his migraines and bodily impairments. Quite regrettable, really.
“Hey,” Gintoki lowers his milk, “you alright?”
It was the most frequently asked question of the month. “Indigestion.”
“Didn’t know indigestion was such a grave illness.”
“It sure is now.” Shit. Bumping into the man reminds him of her, and that’s never positive news.
“Kagura was curious of your whereabouts.” Gintoki says unknowingly, and there it is – not even a tickle now, it’s an unbearable, scorching burn. His fingers crawl to his neck, but he curls them into his collar, repressing the urge. “You haven’t been around, yeah? I guess the Shinsengumi actually does something other than fooling around.”
Hijikata-san wouldn’t be too placated to hear that from you, Danna, is what he opts to say, but the bulge of the flower rests on his tongue. His hand flies over his mouth as he stumbles to somewhere less populated, not smack in the center of Edo – fuck this, fuck this, fuck this, his knees buckle as the flowers are thrust out of him, one after another. His vision whitens as he loses his breath – his grunt is raspy as rivulets of blood trickle down his chin.
“Oi, Okita. Hey, bring yourself together.”
Gintoki is crouching to his left, though he’s not touching him. Okita appreciates the distance.
“That’s one hellish variety of indigestion. Don’t tell me it’s infectious.”
“Don’t fret, it’s a genetic thing.”
Gintoki frowns. “Does Hijikata know?”
“I was hoping nobody would,” until – until what? “Don’t dare tattle about it to anyone else, Danna. Especially not,” he coughs lightly again. He erases the radiant color of her cheongsam from his mind. “Especially not China.”
Gintoki stares at him, bewildered. Then, he eyes the spider lilies. “… These are gross.”
Okita chuckles.
They are.
To be blunt, she is not his type.
She’s not soft-spoken or gentle, unorganized and vicious. Her puke stank, and she burped on him before. He had lost his appetite for the next couple meals.
But then – but then.
There was something lonesome to the azure glint of her orbs, something reminiscent of his shards, the shards of his past which he fought to ignore for years. And yet, the sun embraced her with its warmth, though he distinctly recalled that the Yato’s weakness was meant to be sunlight. A Yato who held a semblance to the sun, the brightest star – that’s who she was.
“Sadist.”
He is on the bridge where they previously sparred before he departed Earth with the Shinsengumi. The girl glares at him, her fists balled. “China,” he grumbles, “what is it?” Don’t cough. The moment you do, it’s over.
“Let’s fight.”
His instinct boils. It’s been a while since he’s felt like this, since the damned plant has commenced its happy garden life in his lungs. Of course, it’s a dastardly idea. He can’t fight at par with Kagura in this condition, but he’s also not the kind to reject an invitation for a duel. His katana glides out of his scabbard.
The initial three minutes are endurable, but his stamina wanes from thereon. Blood pools under his tongue. It’s to be expected; he hurled over the toilet when he did as much to even think about her shoes, or the color of her parasol. Now that she’s right in front of him, throwing punches and lethal kicks in all directions, it feels as if the death god himself is pointing his scythe at Okita’s heart.
At last, his sword sinks to the river. Her foot hovers over his nose. He anticipates the finishing blow, but it never arrives. She’s like that, too generous, too altruistic for his tastes.
“Yer weak.” She declares. “This ain’t yer strength.”
It’s drizzling. The skies are cloudy and gray. The world might as well end.
The world might as well end now, so that he doesn’t die from the stupid plant in his lungs, but along with the rest of the human population today.
Then she dies, too.
An acrimonious flavor of blood and something more sour coats his tastebuds at the thought.
“Fight back,” she grabs his collar and pulls him up. Her face is scrunched. She sounds mad, but she isn’t. Her eyes scream otherwise. “Fight back, sadist. I know ya. Yer stronger than this, yes? This ain’t ya. Cut me down, retrieve your dumb sword,” her fingers curl around his wrist, and Okita swallows the flowers down. Not now. Pain explodes in his lungs. Not now. I won’t allow it. She forces his hand into the air, attempting to make him slap her arm. “Come on, is this all ya got? Hey, sadist,” she’s cracking. One of her ornaments have unstrapped itself, her tousled locks brushing Okita’s cheekbone.
“You’re ugly when you make that expression.” What am I doing, his thumb caresses her round face, “Don’t.” She’s soft.
“Yer an idiot.” She hisses disparagingly, “I told ya to go to the hospital for an injection. Yer sick. Are ya blind or does the Yorozuya have to buy you a cleaner mirror?”
“There’s no way I’m requesting anything from you guys with your exorbitant reward money.” He cups her cheek with his shaking hand. She doesn’t move away, to his surprise. “Hey, China. Smile.”
“50,000 yen.”
But she strains a smile. It’s clearly forced, with how her teeth show rather jovially.
“And while you’re at it, get off me.”
“100,000 yen.”
He huffs.
She really isn’t his type.
“Lad, you really don’t have much time.”
“I know.” He can feel his impending doom. Really, if he received a message a year ago that he was going to die with a flower rooting itself in him, he would’ve categorized it as spam and lived on. In other words, this was unavoidable. He has ruminated on his fate these past three months, after thousands of bathroom sessions and resorting to spending his stocked vacations to skip work. He couldn’t afford having this found out by Hijikata or Kondou. They’d definitely knock him out and make him do the revolting surgery.
He laughs inwardly. It’s easy – a removal of emotional bonds. It’s not like he had to give up an arm, a leg, his kidneys, nothing physically debilitating. Right, his feelings. That’s all it takes.
Which is why he hasn’t gotten the surgery till this day. He has to inhale for at least five seconds until he has sufficient oxygen to respire, and he has to muster all his leftover power to walk more than a kilometer. He has stopped himself from chopping off his head on multiple occasions, with the constant ringing and aching and pounding. He can barely eat, because his body doesn’t even have time to process it, the mush of food in the water with his blood and petals.
“You’re malnourished and sleep-deprived. I think the growth of the flower has accelerated. Maybe three weeks and a half – maybe two. I don’t even know. This is an abnormal rate, but then again, it is a notably poisonous specie.” Bushou flicks at Okita. “I’ll do the surgery for free. I won’t charge you for anything. How about you get it?”
He stares dazedly at his feet, and then snatches a pen and scrap paper from the doctor’s desk. After a terse scrawl, he tosses it to the old man. “That’s my boss’s contact. If news goes around that Okita Sougo from the Shinsengumi died, do me a favor and call him. Tell him it was a lung disease.”
“Okita-kun –“
“He’ll believe it. My sister died of something similar.”
It appears that the Okita’s don’t have much luck with health and longevity.
He can feel the roots slithering over the inner walls of his lungs. “It’s fine. I won’t let it kill me.”
He won’t be killed by her.
They go on a mission. Okita forgets the purpose – it was something about ninjas and the Amanto, but he’s fuzzy.
“Sougo, stay out of this.” Hijikata orders sternly, “You’re not yourself. You haven’t been for a while.”
He can’t even formulate a comeback. “’M good.”
“What’s gotten into you, anyway? You’re not usually like this, are you even Okita Sougo? Nowadays, when I look at you, you just remind me of,” the vice-captain snaps his jaw. You just remind me of Mitsuba, he knows. How she evaporated before Hijikata, elegant and contented. “We can’t lose you, for the sake of the Shinsengumi.” It’s not only that, of course, but the demon isn’t an individual to say such words outright.
“They’re coming too, aren’t they?”
“What?”
“The Yorozuya.”
They most definitely will because that trio (and the dog) was a horde of brainless shitheads. “They shouldn’t,” mutters Hijikata, but they both know better. “Why?”
“Nothing.”
Tonight.
It’ll be tonight, then.
He joins the troops despite Kondou and Hijikata’s yammering. “It’s the mayo, I told you.” ‘People don’t die from mayo,’ is Hijikata’s insistent rejoinder, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about much anymore. Do people have anything to care about when they’re on their deathbed?
There’s a crescent moon illuminating the twilight.
It’s a decent night to die.
The Yorozuya barges into the battlefield instantaneously, although they are scattered and uncoordinated as always. He exchanges a brief glance with Kagura, but they rush towards their opponents and mix into the crowd. Don’t faint here. He grinds his teeth as his sword clashes with a shower of kunai. You’re sturdier than this. Hold out. I know you can. With a swing of his blade, the enemies fall to the ground like leaves.
And then, he’s uncertain how it goes down, but he sees a rifle aimed at the defenseless girl, as she fights another group of ninjas. He’s evidently not the only one, as Shinpachi hollers, “Kagura-chan!” In movies, these scenes are in slow motion, aren’t they? In reality, he guesses it’s not as epic.
Blood spurts from his lungs and wounds as he kicks off the floor using his katana, extending his hand towards the girl who twists with dilated pupils. She’s a cloud of ruby red and lapis blue. Her jaw descends as she shouts – and though for a millisecond, he faces her. The crescent moon glows in the night sky. She stands there unyielding, blazing, blinding – a star.
You’re nothing like death.
She’s nothing like the fragile manjushage in his body.
“Okita!”
A bullet pierces him. Blood – more blood. The world rotates, and he heeds a thud. Oh, that was me.
“Sadist,” someone shakes him, and it hurts. Fuck, be gentle. However, he’s aware that the person is someone incapable of gentle – physically, anyway. He’s quite fond of that roughness. Ah, shit. Do people admit all these stuff when they’re about to die? “Sadist, wake up,” her arm wraps around him. She’s warm, like his futon. He hasn’t slept with a futon in some weeks. “Yer not dyin’ here, ya ain’t doing that.”
Death by flowers, which sprouted from his pretty stupid feelings for this girl, or death by saving that same girl, fading away in her arms?
It’s lamentable that he likes the second choice better. They’re both despicable.
How Okita Sougo has fallen.
But it’s alright, like this.
“You’re not going to be,” he can’t even see properly. A shame. I would’ve liked to see you cry. It must be raining again, though, because droplets of liquid wet his face. “You’re not going to be the reason I die, China.”
Okita Sougo will die performing his duty as a Shinsengumi officer, not from these emotions.
“Don’t talk,” her voice wavers, “don’t talk.”
“You keep talking, then.”
Perhaps death wouldn’t be so different, if you’re loud as usual.
(“Fuck, is the ambulance not here yet?”
“Sadaharu is probably going to get there faster!”
“Don’t be stupid, he’s not riding a dog to the hospital!”
“He’s disappearing, his pulse- shit, come on, come on…”)
It’s nice to be notified that hell has beds and ceilings, too. They must be adapting the mortal world.
As if, he raises his wrist. There’s an IV needle connected to a drip.
Then –
(“… all emotional connection is severed when…”)
“Oh, lad, you’re awake –“
He growls, “Don’t tell me you did it.” Another inch, and he can strangle the doctor with his bare hands. The way his heartbeat accelerates brings back the memories from when he had to cope with Mitsuba’s passing. It’s panic and disbelief.
“Calm down.” Bushou grumbles, “I didn’t do it. You should be able to confirm that yourself.”
A blink. He replays a spar with the girl. He coughs – still there, got it.
“The hospital staff contacted me. It was a miracle that a doctor noticed you had Hanahaki. We were able to cooperate so that the bullet was removed successfully without damaging the flower inside.” So he indeed was a professional, after all. Okita still had his suspicions. “I meant to keep it confidential, but it seems like one of your friends already knew.” Gintoki. It was Gintoki. “I had to explain what it precisely was. Now everyone has heard you are dying over unrequited love.”
“I would’ve preferred death, to be perfectly candid.”
“Don’t be like that. They had a six-hour debate and argued that they drag the girl here and make her utter ‘I love you.’” Bushou chortles, “And then one of them said, ‘don’t discriminate, it might be a guy,’ so they spent another six hours on that.”
Okita grimaces.
“At least I think they reached the correct answer. You’ll have to check.”
The door flings open.
Kagura has her hands on her hips.
“I’ll leave you two alone, then.” Bushou tiptoes out, and Kagura approaches his bedside. She props herself on the edge of the mattress, her back towards him.
Silence.
“Firstly,” she abruptly says, “I wanna smack yer head.”
“Denied.”
“Yer ribs.”
“Denied.”
“Yer balls.”
“I’m a patient.”
“Hmph.” She has two fingers in a ‘V,’ “Second. Is it really me?”
He stalls.
“Because Gin-chan said it was me. But there are other girls, like Nobume-chan, Soyo-chan, and who knows, it’s possible that it’s Mayora –“
“Don’t even.”
“Discrimination is a crime, sadist.”
“This isn’t like that.” Crap, he dropped his guard, and now the surge has marked its arrival. He shoves the girl off the bed and she cusses at him, but he everything transforms into white noise as he hacks, the familiar sensation of blood and the flavor of petals swarming his nostrils. Flower heads and plucked petals flutter to his lap, to the untainted blankets, now sullied. He didn’t want her to view this side of him. He didn’t want anyone to, but especially her.
She gets hurt too easily – in the heart. It’s irritating.
It pains him.
“Don’t call the nurse,” he whispers, “it’s not a big deal.”
When he lifts his chin, he’s stunned.
Because she’s crying.
Oddly enough, she’s not loud when she cries. It’s just tears streaming from that glistening ocean blue, as rubs them away with her palms, her lips quivering. It doesn’t feel as satisfying as he thought it would.
In fact, it’s rather disheartening.
“China,” he mumbles, “I mean it. It’s not serious.”
“Don’t die.” She sobs against his shoulder, saturating the fabric. He goes static. “Don’t be sick. Don’t die like Mami,” Mami. Her mother. “Don’t die like that.”
Slowly, he speaks. “There’s nothing I can do.”
“But there’s something I can do, ain’t there?”
Okita doesn’t move. “It’s not that simple.”
“That’s because ya overthink everything, sadist.” She looks up. Her eyes are puffy and swollen. “Love ain’t that hard.”
He digs his nails into the bloodied sheets. “You don’t understand.”
“I do,” she doesn’t even flinch. “I was planning on takin’ it one step at a time, but if ya were dyin’ over it, I would’ve sped up the pace. This is why communication is important, you idiot sadist.”
Do we even communicate in any other language than violence? “China, what –“
She rams her lips against his. It’ll certainly bruise the next morning. He steadies himself, processes the fact that their lips are pressed together, and, oh. I guess I’m not dying. He places his hand on her waist and pulls her in, tracing the crescent moon on her scalp, strands of tiger orange laced through his fingers. Their first kiss tastes like his blood and the bitter sap of spider lilies.
When they part, she spreads out her palm, “Two million.”
He snorts. “Won’t I suffice?”
“Yer not worth that much,” is her response, but she is smiling.
She’s an entrancing blossom in the obscure darkness of the room.
It takes another month or so for the plant to completely unhinge itself from his lungs. Nobody questions him when he excuses himself to the bathroom repeatedly, and he’s finally liberated when the roots escape.
Manjushage – a symbol of passion, death, and final goodbyes.
“Hey,” Kagura tugs at his arm, “that flower. What does it mean?”
He ponders, then answers, “The sun, life, and new beginnings.” He adds, “Nothing like you, basically.” She kicks him in the shin.
The gods can go fuck themselves.