Work Text:
Izuku really wishes he could figure out exactly how his friends had gotten onto the topic of hanahaki seemingly out of the blue, but he supposes he wishes even more that he could shut the fuck up for once in his life.
"I'm just saying," he says, voice high-pitched in his frustration as he gestures toward the movie playing, "the confession is not a cure-all. That's not how it works!"
"I thought that was the whole point!" Ochako shoots back, gesturing as well. "You confess your love and—poof! The flowers are gone, right?"
Izuku groans and buries his head in his hands. "That's only if the love is requited," he says. Again. For the millionth time since he muttered something about the inaccuracy of the movie's lead actress being suddenly okay after pouring her heart out to her love interest. "Confession only helps mitigate the effects. Like cold medicine subduing the symptoms and not actually getting rid of the virus. It doesn't get rid of it in full, it just makes it...manageable. It doesn't go away, but the chance of dying from it outright is considerably lessened, and it's possible to live with it for several years, assuming nothing forcibly makes it worse or something."
"How do you know so much about this?" Tenya asks from the other side of Ochako. "You seem...personally familiar with how this disease works."
"Yeah, Deku," Ochako says, frowning at him, "how do you know any of this? Don't tell me you just decided to start researching rare diseases one day. I mean, I'd believe it, but still."
The tickle at the back of his throat he's become intimately familiar with over the course of his life makes itself known, like it knows it's being talked about, and he coughs once into his arm without thinking about it. His friends give him strange looks at the timing, and Izuku sighs.
"Because I have it," he tells them, and he coughs again. This time, he hacks until he's got a handful of small petals in his hands, and he makes a face at the taste of them as he pulls them off his tongue. "Oof. You never get used to the taste, that's for sure."
"You have hanahaki?!" Ochako screeches, and Izuku is suddenly very, very glad most of the dorm is out tonight—it's just him, Ochako, Tenya, and Shouto sprawled over the couch, and Katsuki studying in the kitchen. "What the hell?! How long?!"
"Um." Izuku thinks for a minute before leaning over the back of the couch. "Hey, Kacchan! Was it your sixth birthday or seventh when I started coughing up flowers?"
"It was my eighth, nerd," Katsuki calls back, not even looking up from his homework. "We went camping that year."
He snickers before adding, "Auntie thought you'd eaten the poison ivy."
Izuku turns back to the wide-eyed looks of shock on his friends' faces.
"Ten years, then," he tells them casually. "Wow, that's such a long time. A whole decade! Time sure does fly."
Ochako's mouth opens and closes a few times while Tenya stares hard at a place in the distance, and Shouto is giving him an incredulous look, which is really just the slight widening of his eyes. Izuku just waits because he knows he's not going to be able to get out of explaining himself further, but it's kind of funny to watch them process what he's already said.
It's been so long since his hanahaki has been a big deal to him that whenever someone new learns about it, it's absolutely hilarious. Not that many people know about it—it's not a secret, per se, but it's also not something he just goes around talking about, either.
"Ten years?" Ochako finally manages. She looks ready to pass out, her face a bit pale. Izuku internally winces; his friends care so much about him, and this really isn't a very funny topic, but he can't help it. "How are you still alive?"
Izuku shifts on the couch, tucking his feet beneath him. "Like I said, confession helps mitigate the effects of it."
"So you have confessed?" Tenya asks. He sounds a bit dubious. "And they...didn't reciprocate?"
Izuku shrugs. "It was...sort of a forced confession. And we were eight."
"Who is it?" Ochako demands, and there's a bit of fury in her expression now. "Who wouldn't immediately love you back?"
"Um," he says intelligently.
Awkwardness fills his chest along with a burning sensation like embarrassment. It stirs the flowers in his chest, makes them tickle up against his lungs, and he rubs a hand absently over his sternum. Thinking too hard or too much about his disease—and the exact conditions and causes of it—always makes it harder to ignore, and in turn makes it act up worse.
His eyes shoot over to Katsuki still bent over his homework, and Izuku watches him with a soft smile for a heartbeat before turning back to his friends, the smile turning sheepish as they make the connection and their eyes go wide again.
"What?!" Tenya screeches along with Ochako this time, and Izuku winces outwardly as well as internally.
"In his defense," Izuku says, "Kacchan has always had ten brick walls between him and his emotions at any given time. I'm used to it."
"Oi," Katsuki calls, offended. "I'm right here."
"Wait, wait, wait," Shouto finally says, and his confusion is almost palpable in his furrowed brow as he looks up at Izuku from his seat on the floor. "You mean Bakugou knows you're in love with him? And you two still aren't together?"
Izuku purses his lips; his face feels way too hot now. He twists his fingers together and ignores the urge to cough again. "They're very thick brick walls."
"Oi."
Shouto just gives him the stink eye, and then he crawls up onto the couch to peer over the back and give it to Katsuki. Izuku watches with mild amusement as Katsuki, as if by intuition alone, holds up his hand without looking up and flips Shouto off. It's all very sweet, in a very funny way, and Izuku can't help but giggle.
"I don't see how this is a laughing matter, Deku." Ochako finally seems to have calmed down, which Izuku is grateful for. "You have hanahaki. You are literally dying from unrequited love for that asshole over there."
"Oh my fucking god," Katsuki groans, but they ignore him.
"I'm not dying," he protests, and then he coughs, just because the universe hates him. "I'm not dying any faster than anyone else," he amends under her glare. "It's just...something I live with."
"But doesn't it bother you?" she presses, reaching out across Shouto to take his hand. He lets her play with his fingers. "Doesn't it bother you to know he doesn't—"
"He does, though." Izuku cuts her off with a firm shake of his head, squeezing her hand. "It might not be the same way I love him, but Kacchan loves me just as much. That's never been in question."
He sighs, sinking further into the couch. This part of his not-secret isn't really his to tell, but his friends deserve some kind of explanation, and he wants them to understand. Shouto adjusts next to him until all four of them are squeezed together, and his arm drapes around Izuku's shoulders to pull him into his side.
"It seems complicated, from the outside," he says after a moment. "Most people don't understand how I can be okay with loving someone who, by all appearances, doesn't return that love, but—but there's more than one way to love someone. And no particular way is better or lesser than any other way. It just is."
A warm hand settles in his hair, and Izuku smiles as he leans into it, tilting his head up to catch the fond eye roll Katsuki gives him as he ruffles his curls.
"What the nerd is saying," he says to the others, "in the most fucking roundabout way he can, is that I'm aromantic. I don't experience romantic love like the sap here. Never have."
Izuku watches his friends process this piece of information, still smiling softly as Katsuki moves his hand from the top of his head to his neck, where he starts massaging in gentle caresses. It loosens the tension he hadn't realized he'd been carrying, and he feels his shoulders slump under the ministrations.
He doesn't doubt his friends' capacity to be understanding, and he's proven right when, after a minute, Tenya speaks up.
"Why doesn't that count, then?" He directs the question to Katsuki. "If you...care for him, why isn't that enough?"
Katsuki shrugs. "Fuck if I know. Not like there are detailed accounts of this shit just lyin' around. It's a pretty rare disease and no one knows fuck all about it."
"I think it's because I do wish for more, sometimes," Izuku says quietly. Katsuki's hand on his neck pauses just briefly before continuing to massage into him when he reaches up to wrap his own hand around his wrist. "I'm content, don't get me wrong, but, well."
He shrugs. His chest aches tenderly in the place where his heart is with both warmth and cold. "I'm human, too. Sometimes we want more than what others can give us. And I think that's what feeds it—that ache and desire for something we can't have."
He has to lean away then, the tickle that's always present at the back of his throat suddenly insistent, the burning in his chest ripping up his esophagus with a fierce intensity he hasn't felt in a while. He coughs, hard and wet, until he's spitting an entire bloom onto the floor, coated in saliva, and the metallic taste of blood lingers on his tongue. His breath comes easier, and he sags back, hair matted with sweat and exhaustion in his bones.
"Shit, nerd," Katsuki murmurs softly, his hands steady on Izuku's shoulders and rubbing his thumbs into them. "When was the last time you hacked up a whole flower?"
Izuku hums in thought. "Middle school, I think."
The pause he gets this time is more pronounced, Katsuki's hands lingering close to his neck. Izuku can't see his face, but he can picture the way his jaw is no doubt clenched, the way red eyes are probably averted to glare off into the distance, full of guilt and regret.
Why don't you just choke and put me out of the misery that is you following me around?
He knows that's what Katsuki is thinking about now—about how Izuku nearly did just that, right in front of him after the words left his mouth.
That's the only time the flowers have been bloody. Izuku hadn't been able to get the taste of it out of his mouth for weeks.
Neither had Katsuki, after he spent three straight minutes breathing into Izuku's lungs for him as he screamed for someone to help.
Izuku reaches up and wraps his hand around Katsuki's wrist again, a grounding weight; he squeezes gently, and Katsuki lets out a huff before resuming his impromptu massage. Shouto's arm is around his waist now, and both Tenya and Ochako have reached over to rest comforting hands on his knees, their expressions just as soft, full of care and worry.
"Thanks, guys," he says with a grin. He forces some lightness into his tone as he adds, "It's nice to have this off my chest."
"We're sorry we pushed it so hard," Ochako says with a small grin of her own. "We didn't know."
Katsuki snorts, and Izuku can feel his eye roll. "'Course you didn't. Nerd never shares the important stuff 'til it kills him."
"Sounds like him," Shouto agrees in his usual deadpan, and to Izuku's relief, all they do is laugh.
They share a quiet moment until Katsuki breaks it again, moving to slide into the space on Izuku's other side with a smug, "Also, the nerd and I are together, for your information." Izuku snuggles into his side as he adds, "It's just. Not like that."
Izuku takes his hand and curls their fingers together, giving Katsuki an innocently sweet look as he says, "Kacchan likes sex."
It's worth his own mild embarrassment over just saying the words to watch his friends sputter at the unexpected statement. He giggles harder when Tenya opens his mouth, no doubt to remind them about fraternization rules in the dorms, before Ochako elbows him in the side and gives him a Look. Shouto just shivers in disgust and gives them both the stink eye again.
"Did not need to know."
"Tough shit," Katsuki says with a shit-eating grin. "This nerd's the kinkiest little shit around and it's great."
Izuku swats at him and gives him a look while his friends cough and sputter again like they're the ones with a rare lung disease, communicating without words the reminder that he knows Katsuki came prematurely two seconds after he'd heard him say fuck the first time they'd had sex. Katsuki snaps his mouth closed and looks away, his cheeks going red, and Izuku is filled with such fondness for him he can't help but lean up and press a kiss to the corner of his mouth.
"I love you, Kacchan," he says softly, and he feels the flowers in his lungs ease up, his next breath coming smoother.
Katsuki turns his head back, presses a kiss to his forehead, and says, "I know."
Eventually, Ochako insists that they at least finish the movie that they'd all but forgotten, and Izuku is pleased when Katsuki just groans loud and dramatic but settles into the couch fully to watch it with them. He kicks his feet up on the coffee table in front of them and slides his arm around Izuku's shoulders above where Shouto still has his wrapped around his waist, and it's comfortably warm between them as Ochako presses play.
"I do have a question," Tenya says after another minute of watching the leads tearfully kiss. "Why does a confession not fully cure the disease? Why just mitigate, as you call it?"
Izuku shrugs from his place between the warmest people he knows. "I think it has to do with the emotions themselves. Like, the entire reason you get hanahaki is because of the love you have for someone else, and the way it sits and...festers in you when you aren't allowed to let it out and share it. There's probably a whole thesis in there about why expressing emotions is important, actually, because if you don't, then they can turn negative and start affecting not only your mental health but physical health too—
"Anyway," he continues after Katsuki tugs on his hair before he falls too far into rambling, "there aren't enough cases of hanahaki reported to do a proper study or anything, but it makes the most sense to me to think the flowers feed specifically on the emotions, so the more you're allowed to express and share, the less that's kept in you to feed them. Confession is a way to express it, let it out, so the flowers have less to feed on."
"But why wouldn't that cure it outright?"
"That's where the reciprocation comes in," Izuku says. "If you confess but they don't reciprocate, you're still keeping a bit of that love for yourself. You're not allowed to share it all, because you can't force it on them, or force them to accept it from you."
Katsuki squeezes their fingers, and Izuku squeezes back before continuing, "So there's still something left to feed the flowers, just less than if it's fully unexpressed."
"And full reciprocation eradicates it because you're sharing all your love," Tenya murmurs, finishing Izuku's explanation for him. "Hm. I suppose that makes sense."
"Still sucks, though," Ochako says sadly. "Like—I don't know. It's not fair."
"Nothin' in life ever is," Katsuki mutters, and none of them have a response for that.
When the movie ends, credits rolling over a montage of post-confession and reciprocation life of the lead characters, Tenya and Ochako finally bid them goodnight, heading up to their rooms, and Shouto helps Izuku and Katsuki clean up the remains of the popcorn bowls before heading up himself. Izuku sits on the counter and watches as Katsuki washes the dishes by hand.
"I'm sorry," Katsuki says into the quiet between them after a while, and Izuku looks up at the red eyes he's been in love with most of his life.
"For what?"
Katsuki takes a deep breath, setting aside the last bowl. His hands curl into fists with nothing to hold.
"For not being able to love you right," he answers finally. "Or—not the way you need, at least. The way you fuckin' deserve."
It's an old and tired argument between them, one they've gone over a lot in the last few years as they've grown and matured into young adults who more fully understand what it all means. As kids, love was a nebulous thing, something vague and indefinable, and it was easier to ignore just what it meant that Izuku would sometimes cough up flowers any time Katsuki rebuffed his affection. Now, it's still indefinable, but there are layers to it that complicate it, and sometimes they trip over those layers more often than not.
Izuku twists his fingers together in his lap. "I'm sorry I make you feel like you have to," he says, just as softly. His throat tickles. "It shouldn't be an obligation."
"You're not an obligation, Izuku," Katsuki says. He turns burning red eyes on him, and Izuku's breath hitches like it always does under that gaze. "Fuck you, you think I'm really here just because—"
"Aren't you, though?" Izuku interrupts. His voice is watery, and he can feel the sting of tears behind his eyes. He blinks rapidly to force them back. "You can't tell me it didn't influence your decision at all, Katsuki. Guilt is a hell of a thing. Don't lie to me."
"Hey."
Katsuki steps between his legs, and Izuku is helpless to let him press in close, the heat he radiates comforting and calming. He closes his eyes and breathes in the scent of him, the warm and spicy scent of his cologne, the sweet scent of the rest of him. Fingers trail over his jaw, and Izuku swallows thickly when a rough thumb traces over his bottom lip. When he opens his eyes again, he feels pinned under Katsuki's intensity.
"That's Kacchan to you, nerd," he murmurs softly, the corner of his mouth quirking up, and Izuku can't help but match it. "And like fuck would I ever lie to you, guilt or no guilt. You know I don't do things I don't want to."
Izuku does know—Katsuki has never done any less in all the years they've known each other—but.
But Katsuki had tried pushing him away in middle school—had bullied him to the point of ostracization from the rest of the school—and Izuku had been forced to lock away any hint of his feelings for the first time since he'd started coughing up petals.
Had had to let them sit in his chest and fester and grow inside him with no room until he'd started coughing up full blooms, something he'd never experienced before, and that terrified him to the core because he had a deadly lung disease borne of his love for his best friend who hated him.
Why don't you choke—
There was so much blood in his mouth that day.
Oh, god, Izuku, don't you fucking die on me, you hear me?! Don't you fucking dare—breathe, dammit! Fuck you, fuck you, you can't fucking do this—
There was so much guilt in red eyes in the days after that.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, I'm so fucking sorry—
The guilt has lessened over these last few years, as they learned their way back to each other and found how they fit together again. Figured out who they are in relation to each other, what they want from each other. It's manageable now, just like the flowers in his lungs.
But it's not gone. It'll never be gone.
Just like the flowers in his lungs.
"I guess I just wonder, sometimes," Izuku finally says, feeling as if an eternity has passed, though he's sure it's only been a handful of seconds, "if you would've been happier if you'd never known."
Katsuki watches him for a heartbeat, brow furrowed. "No," he says. "No, I don't think I would."
Izuku slumps, whatever tension that was keeping him up finally snapping. He leans against Katsuki's chest, burying his face in his neck, and Katsuki's arms wrap around him, warm and heavy and comforting and familiar. He feels Katsuki bury his nose in his hair, a content hum rumbling against his cheek.
"Kacchan gives the best hugs," he murmurs after a moment, and smiles when he feels more than hears Katsuki chuckle.
"Damn right, nerd," he says just as softly. Lips press a kiss to his head. "And don't you forget it."
Izuku wonders, absently, how they must look from the outside like this: wrapped in each other's arms, pressed close together, breathing the same air. Like a couple, he imagines, two people in love comforting and supporting each other with words of care.
He's grateful that Katsuki indulges him in these quiet intimacies, likes to be gentle and soft with him the way he craves, even if it isn't wholly what he wants.
For now, it's enough.
The ache in his heart pulses more warmth than cold even as petals tickle against his lungs.