Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You have Bheloma. Stage I.”

The words reverberate within the walls of his mind, hanging heavy over his head like a dark rain cloud.

“It’s still well within infancy. We’ll get you started on treatment—” The doctor’s voice fades away, his vision tunneling against the X-rays that hang over the light box. The white outline of his bones glows ethereally bright against the darkness of his lungs.

If he hadn’t been paying attention, he wouldn’t have seen anything out of the ordinary, but the doctor’s words bounce around in his head like a tennis ball.

“You have Bheloma. Stage one.”

He sees what the doctor sees. A small cluster of white nodules just to the right of his heart takes his attention. It’s so small, it would’ve been easy for an untrained eye to miss it. Thin, spider-like veins branch out from the nodules, looking more like tiny hairs trying to stand on end, the way goose pimples make the hair on his arms stand. But to him, the lines remind him of the roots from the plants he potted back at the shop today.

“Stage one. Bheloma.”

How could this happen?

Why him?

“Understood?”

Hajime Hinata snaps out of his reverie. He stares down at the prescription script in his doctor’s hands, his mind falling blank. He can’t read the doctor’s writing, but he recognizes the name of the medication.

Alpraphyline.

“Take this two times a day. One in the morning and one at night,” his doctor explains. “We’ll start with a sixty-day supply and then monitor the progress from there. Keep me posted if any new symptoms arise.”

Hajime blinks. Then stares. At the doctor’s insistent staring, he swallows the lump in his throat. “Understood,” he murmurs.

How could this happen to me?

Chapter Text

Alpraphyline tastes like bitter powder on his tongue. It starts to dissolve when it lands in his mouth and gets stuck on a tonsil on the way down. He takes several gulps of water to shake the uncomfortable pill from his throat; it goes. He feels it slide down his trachea, and fights the urge to throw up. He burps. The aftertaste makes him gag.

Two times a day, every day, for however long it takes to reverse the spread of his illness. It's early enough in his diagnosis for Hajime to avoid the worst of the disease, but how long will that last?

Bheloma is tricky. The causes are often unknown, but there are rumors. Superstitions. Folktales passed down by surviving generations, each story more outlandish than the last, but they exist. Hajime knows of a few stories; whether he believes them or not is another matter entirely.

“They say it only happens when your love is unrequited.”

“Supposedly you spit up flowers. Every flower has a meaning.”

“It can be fatal if your love isn’t returned.”

Bullshit. Bullshit!

Hajime snaps his laptop shut, rage licking his veins. That’s not how the human body works. His heart hammers in his ears; his throat is dry. He fists his T-shirt, wishing it were his own heart. He imagines what it would be like if he could break through his rib cage and squeeze his beating organ into stillness. He thinks back to the x-ray of his lungs, to the white nodules dotting the space closest to his heart. How would the nodules change if they were flowers?

Humans can’t spit up flowers. He scowls. Nausea bites the back of his throat. He takes another drink.

The alpraphyline makes his stomach sour, but eating would only make it worse.

“They say it only happens when your love is unrequited.”

He glances back to his abandoned laptop, the soft roar of the cooling fan drowns out the loud thumping in his ears. 

He knows it's bullshit because Hajime has no one to love, and no one to love him in return.

So why is he sick?

Chapter Text

Humans cannot throw up flowers.

Humans cannot throw up flowers.

Humans cannot throw up flowers.

He repeats these words in his mind like a mantra. With every heave his diaphragm makes, his mind screams those words over and over. Sweat beads his brow from the exertion; his throat and jaw sore. The sickness passes, but the pain remains.

Humans cannot throw up flowers.

Humans cannot throw up flowers.

His once porcelain white toilet is stained pink from droplets of blood. He coughs to clear his throat from obstruction. Nothing but spit dribbles past his lips. He smears it along his arm. 

Alpraphyline makes him sick, but the Bheloma makes him sicker.

Humans cannot throw up flowers.

Humans cannot throw up flowers.

No petals are swimming in his toilet, but Hajime can’t help but see them through the amorphous forms his blood makes in the water. Maybe he’ll see them the more his condition progresses. Maybe the alpraphyline doesn’t work after all.

Shut up. It hasn’t been long. Give it time.

He flushes the toilet.

Humans cannot throw up flowers.

Humans cannot throw up flowers.

Chapter Text

Voices fill the café in a cacophony that hurts Hajime’s head. It drowns out the echo of his diagnosis—a welcomed reprieve since his doctor’s words have been replaying in his ears like a broken record. Now, the intermittent conversation of strangers filters into Hajime’s mind. “What did she say?” “He did what?! ” “My husband—”

“You have—”

He reaches for his tall glass of lemonade and drowns the rest of his doctor’s words behind a sea of sugar. Sitting across from him is Kaede, her long blonde hair rolled into a neat bun on the top of her head; the music note hair pins catch the light every time she moves. It’s a comforting distraction from all the noise surrounding them. She converses with Makoto, who sits between her and Hajime. He laughs at her words, their voices lost to the crowd. 

Across from Makoto is Shuichi. He sips on his blueberry smoothie, watching the hustle and bustle of the café with a silent, but watchful gaze. He’s just as quiet as Hajime, his mind full of a thousand and one anxieties. It shows in the way his eyes flicker from person to person; how the corners of his mouth twitch around the smoothie straw. How, every time Shuichi pulls away, Hajime finds more teeth marks embedded into the straw’s papery material.

Shuichi taps an index finger against the table. One tap. Two taps. Three.

“Stage—”

“Do you think he knows—” “My wife—” “The stupid dog ran out of the barn again—”

Pulp slips past Hajime’s throat. He coughs and Shuichi’s eyes are on him like a startled cat.

“Sorry,” Hajime murmurs. “Pulp in the lemonade.”

“Oh,” Shuichi smiles apologetically. “I figured.”

“You know, you could’ve ordered your lemonade without it,” Kaede chimes in. She looks between them, her smile kind, as it always is. “You’ve been quiet for an hour now, Hajime. Is there something on your mind?”

Too much, is what he wants to say. Instead, he says, “Not really. I don’t have much to talk about today.”

“You say that every time we meet up.” She watches him, her eyes trying to peer into his soul. “I’m starting to think you just don’t want to share.”

I don’t. “I don’t really live an interesting life like you do, Kaede,” Hajime shrugs. “We can’t all be famous pianists.”

She scoffs, but there is no hint of annoyance in her tone. “I would hardly call myself famous. And, I would argue that none of us live very interesting lives.”

“I don’t know about that,” Makoto interjects. “Shuichi hunts down cheaters for a living. That’s plenty exciting.”

“Harrowing,” Shuichi murmurs, his fine brows knitting forward. “And terrifying.”

“Do you have any exciting stories to share with us today, Shuichi?” Kaede asks.

And just like that, all eyes are on Shuichi. He swallows at the sudden attention, but Hajime can see the way his shoulders broaden; how his anxious demeanor morphs into something resembling confidence. Shuichi likes the attention, even if he refuses to admit it.

“Well…”

Stage one. Bheloma.

Nausea prickles the back of his throat. He swallows.

How could he possibly tell them? What would he even say? I have Bheloma. Stage one. The doctor said that I need to take medication two times a day, every day, to reverse the progress.

I have Bheloma, stage one. It’s not something to worry about. We caught it in time.

I have Bheloma, and before you say it, no, I don’t throw up flowers. It has nothing to do with being in love with someone who doesn’t love me back.

He watches them as Shuichi recounts a wild story involving his latest client and the measures it took to catch the client’s cheating spouse. Any other time, he would’ve been just like Makoto and Kaede, listening with rapt attention, reacting in all the right places. He would have asked questions. He would have wondered why people do the crazy things they do just to hurt the people they claim they love. But today, all Hajime can do is watch. And wonder how differently this conversation would have gone if he told them the truth.

I have Bheloma and I don’t know what to do.

Chapter Text

Alpraphyline gives him weird dreams. It takes like ass, it makes his stomach queasy, and now his dreams are plagued.

He’s been having the same nightmare for the past few nights. He dreams of a world covered in vines; where the buildings are choked down to their skeletons and the streets are hard to walk. He runs through the city as fast as he can, jumping over vines and dodging curtains of foliage. No matter where he looks, all he sees is green.

Sometimes, he’ll catch a splash of color from a flower in his peripheral.

For every block Hajime runs, a different flower appears: purple hyacinths, blue columbines, orange lilies, and petunias.

Sometimes the flowers mix, but every time he makes it past the street that he calls home—

He falls.

He falls into a sea of blood-red spider lilies. They cloud his vision the deeper he sinks, their long, spindly petals feel like pinpricks against his skin. Deeper and deeper he falls, until he breaches the other side, into a soft landscape filled with white lotus flowers.

It ends the same way it starts—with a sunflower wilting against the strangulating vines.

He wakes with a start, his heart in his throat, his chest heaving. He’s soaked in sweat, and jitteriness shakes every limb of his body. It takes two cups of ice-cold water and turning on every light he has in his apartment to settle his nerves. But the fear remains. 

The sunflower’s decay is embedded behind his eyelids.

He doesn’t know what the flowers mean despite working at a flower shop for five years. He knows that flowers have a language of their own, even if he doesn’t believe it. He boots up his laptop and scours the internet for information. 

There are too many articles, too many websites, too many forums filled with nonsense that Hajime feels a headache brewing in the back of his eyes. Contradiction fills every corner of the internet. Pages upon pages of flowers and colors and meaning fly past his vision—it is too fast for him to catch. Everything blurs together until it is an amorphous mass of white, black, and gray .

He blinks. The sunflower’s corpse stands before him, shriveled and brown. Its head hangs low, but the stem stands tall, despite the deep, emerald-green vines tangled around it. There are no brilliant yellow petals left, but Hajime can still see them being swept away by the wind. They dance in the sky, careless and free. He reaches for them, fingers spread wide. A yellow petal swoops down, barely a breath away from the tip of his finger. His body stills, the air in his lungs gone. 

Time slows just for him, and he watches with bated breath as the flower petal falls just out of reach. Swept away once more by the wind.

Jealousy swells in the pit of his stomach.

He blinks. He’s back in his living room, his laptop open in front of him. There on the screen is an image of a sunflower, tall and large; its inflorescence open wide. There are no vines entangled around it. There is no red, red sky overhead or the endless dark green of the vines. There is only a sea of brown and yellow and a bright blue day. Underneath the image is text that reads:

Sunflowers represent long life and lasting happiness.

He slams the laptop shut.

Chapter Text

Sixty days.
One hundred and twenty pills.
Two times daily. One in the morning. One in the evening.

Fourteen days.
Twenty-eight pills down. 
Ninety-two left.

It doesn’t matter how many times he counts, the number of pills remaining stays the same. And yet he doesn’t stop himself from tilting the pill bottle over and watching the small white tablets scatter across the countertop. One by one, he counts. He separates them into pairs and groups them into columns until all the alpraphyline forms neatly in front of him.

Ninety-two pills.

Forty-six days left.

Bile burns in the back of his throat. He whips toward the sink, dunking his head low into the bowl until everything in his stomach surges with vengeance. The sickness passes, as it always does, but the pain remains, as it always does.

Ninety-two pills.

Forty-six days.

He washes his mouth out with water and then soothes his burning throat with tea. Chamomile, for his nerves. Honey, for the burn. And a peppermint candy, for the nausea. He works like clockwork: heating water until it bubbles; he lets the chamomile tea bag sit and watches as the herbs paint the clear water a dark yellow-green. He stirs in the honey, slow and methodical. It pools at the bottom of the white tea cup until his stirring melts the coagulated honey into the water. He likes his tea sweet. It's the only thing that hides the bitterness.

Ninety-two pills.
Forty-six days.

“You have Bheloma.”

He takes a sip. The tea burns his tongue and sears all the way down his throat. It tastes good. Sweet and refreshing. It’s better than the sour bitterness of alpraphyline.

It’s sweet enough to distract him from the gaping maw he feels in his chest.

He takes another sip. And then another. And then another. Until all that’s left are bits of tea leaves from the chamomile and residual honey that did not properly dissolve. He stares at the sediment as if expecting to see something more than just crushed tea leaves and sticky honey. He’s not sure what he’s looking for or why he even bothers, yet he can’t look away. He doesn’t bother to blink.

The longer he stares, the more the residual tea changes shape. It’s slow at first, barely noticeable, but Hajime notices the gap between the leaves and the honey grow smaller and smaller—until it lumps together into an amorphous mass of gunk. He turns the teacup around and around. The shape looks like something ; something that shouldn’t be, but is.

Sunflowers—

He pours more water into his teacup.

Ninety-two pills.
Forty-six days.

“Stage one.” 

A lump forms in his throat. Pressure builds in his chest; it travels from his lungs

to his trachea, until he feels like he’s choking back a sob. His eyes burn with unshed tears, but he refuses to let them fall. Crying won’t change his diagnosis, nor will it save him from the pain to come. Crying solves nothing. 

All it does is make things worse.

Forty-six days. 
Ninety-two pills.

Chapter Text

“Hey, can I ask you something?”

Snip! 

The dried brown leaf falls onto the counter with an inaudible plop . His eyes linger on the curled dead leaf for a second too long, his mind still processing his companion’s words. He doesn’t bother to sweep away the growing mess of dead leaves that circle the plant he’s pruning, just as he doesn’t bother to acknowledge the person standing behind him.

He doesn’t need to see Makoto Naegi to know that he’s being watched. He can feel Makoto’s eyes bearing into the back of his skull, filled with concern, as he always is when it comes to Hajime.

At least it’s not pity. Hajime muses. He doesn’t think he can handle anyone’s pity right now, let alone Makoto’s.

He spins the pot around, quietly snipping more shriveled leaves and watching them fall to the counter with barely audible crinkles. He’s not sure how long he does this or how long Makoto watches him, but the silence between them feels like it stretches on for eternity. Makoto has the patience of a saint. He doesn’t press, doesn’t speak; he doesn’t huff his breath like Kaede does when she’s at her wit's end or narrows his eyes in exasperation the way Shuichi does when his patience runs thin.

He’s so quiet, so kind, that the silence between them fills Hajime with guilt. He cuts the last dead leaf from the flower he’s working on and sweeps the mound of shriveled, dried leaves into a waste bin before— finally —turning to meet Makoto’s gaze.

Hajime was right about the concern. His bright hazel eyes are clouded with worry, his eyebrows knitted together. Makoto watches him with intensity as if searching for answers through Hajime’s demeanor. He won’t find any, but Hajime welcomes him to try.

“Are you okay?” Makoto’s voice breaks the heavy silence. It startles Hajime, despite expecting it. Somehow, he didn’t think to expect Makoto’s gentle tone. “You’ve been withdrawn lately. More so than usual, I mean,” Makoto hastily amends. “You don’t respond to the group chat anymore.”

“As if I ever did,” Hajime jests. Makoto cracks a feeble smile, but Hajime knows it’s only for show. For his sake.

For both their sakes.

“I’m sorry. I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

I have Bheloma. He wants to say. Stage one. He bites his tongue.

Makoto’s gaze is unwavering. He feels exposed as if Makoto can see every inch of Hajime’s turmoil; the longer he stares, the more he sees. He pictures the x-ray in his mind’s eye; imagines the cluster of nodules so dangerously close to his heart. The way they glowed a bright white against the dark translucency of his lungs.

He imagines the nodules as seeds, sprouting roots along his bronchial tubes, filling his airway with flower buds until he’s choking for air.

He swallows the lump in his throat. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Makoto’s voice startles him a second time. Hajime meets his gaze, taking him in for the first time in ages.

Makoto is short compared to the rest of them, standing only at five feet. He’s thin, too, which only adds to his boyishness. He’s older than Kaede and Shuichi by a few years, but often gets carded the most out of the five of them. He’s not intimidating by the least and aside from Hajime, Makoto Naegi is the most average an average person can get. And yet, somehow, Hajime feels terrified. 

He shakes his head and manages a convincing smile to soothe Makoto’s concerns. “I’m just having some bad luck. It’ll pass, promise.”

“Bad luck?” Makoto echoes in bemusement. “I thought I was supposed to be the unlucky one here.”

“You’re klutzy, not unlucky.” Hajime snorts. “Then again…”

“Hey!”

Their laughter eats away the fear Hajime feels brewing in the back of his mind. Like a soothing balm on a bad burn, he feels a weight evaporate from his shoulders. Makoto still watches him, and his concern remains, but it’s not as penetrating as it was earlier.

Hajime doesn’t feel like an image of an x-ray being examined by a doctor.

“I’m sorry.” The words come out against his volition. It catches him off guard, just as it does to Makoto.

“For what?” His friend questions. 

“For worrying you,” Hajime answers. For lying. His mind continues. For keeping everyone away.

“I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologize for, Hajime,” Makoto assures him. “I promise.”

“Yeah, well…” He shrugs. “Felt like the right thing.”

Makoto never once looks away. “Well, if you feel like talking, you know you can always reach out to me. You have my number.”

“I know. Thanks.”

“Hajime?”

“Yeah?”

Hajime meets his gaze, and for a brief moment, he thinks that maybe—maybe—Makoto really can see the x-ray in his mind; that, maybe, he can hear the doctor’s voice whispering that same broken recording. Perhaps, he can even see the dreams where the sky is red and the world is choking on vines. Where flowers have a language and humans can grow seeds in their lungs. But he knows the truth. He knows Makoto cannot see what he sees or hear what he hears. 

He doesn’t dream what he dreams. He doesn’t feel what Hajime feels.

It’s why he says what he does: if he knew what Hajime was going through, he would not have spoken such lies.

“It’s going to be okay.” Makoto smiles warmly. “I promise.”

I’m sorry.

Eighty-four pills.
Forty-two days left.

Chapter Text

He unmutes the group chat for the first time in months. His phone pings pings pings with an onslaught of incoming messages from the other occupants in the chat. His co-workers are not normally this chatty. In fact, muting the chat isn’t necessary on most days. Makoto, Komaru, Kaede and Shuichi don’t abuse the group chat unless it’s work-related. Today, though, Makoto’s sister is in a tizzy after spilling a container of fertilizer only ten minutes before closing time. She’s not usually the klutzy one among them—that title goes toward Makoto, after all—but Komaru is young and impatient. Her impatience is often her downfall.

He watches Komaru’s messages fly up the screen. She writes erratically, with typos in every word, and sends message after message of sentences with two to three words. It would’ve been funny had Hajime been there to see the mess, but he has a hard time finding joy in anything lately. Kaede and Makoto join in on her tirade. They send her words of assurance, emojis, and several gifs that bely what they truly feel. It brings a smile to his face. It makes nostalgia bubble in the back of his mind.

Shuichi doesn’t respond for the first twenty minutes of Komaru’s spamming, but when he does, it’s a gif of a man dressed as a detective looking every bit as confused as Shuichi feels. Hajime chuckles his second real laugh in two days.

“It’s going to be okay—”

The group chat settles down after Komaru’s latest response—an image of her face, exasperated with their responses and her circumstances. Hajime keeps his eyes glued on the screen, wondering who would be the next to speak. He doesn’t want the distraction to end. The ping ping ping of their notifications is an odd comfort compared to the ominous tick tick tick of his living room clock.

He watches the group chat with bated breath. A minute passes. Then two. 

The chat dies, and so does Hajime’s interest.

Eighty-three pills.

He pulls away from his phone and sighs.

Tick. Tick. Tick. goes the overhead clock.

His eyes slide toward the kitchen counter. It’s almost time for bed and he hasn’t taken his nighttime alpraphyline.

Eighty-three pills.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Sunflowers represent long life and lasting happiness.

“It’s going to be okay.” “I promise.”

Something ugly wells up inside him.

He struggles to swallow the lump in his throat again but manages with an agonizing gulp. His mouth is dry, his tongue oddly sticky. It takes too much energy to rise to his feet, and the soles of his slippers drag against the floor with every step he takes. He eyes the alpraphyline with a weary gaze.

When did this become so daunting?

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Exhaustion nips at the back of his eyes. 

When did he get so tired?

Eighty-three pills.
Forty-one days left.

He pops a pill into his mouth and downs it with a rush of cold water. The ugliness stirring in his chest settles, but something else chases in its wake. It feels too much like disappointment for Hajime’s liking, though he isn’t sure why he would feel that way at all. The alpraphyline does not scratch him on the way down like it usually does, nor does it leave his mouth tasting like bitter powder. In fact, he doesn’t taste anything at all.

Maybe it's finally working. He muses. He glances at the bottle of pills, a trickle of something good tickling his spine. Maybe… there’s still hope yet.

He smiles.

Eighty-two pills.
Forty-one days left.

Chapter Text

“Hmm… Hmmm …” His doctor hums thoughtfully. His old, kind eyes bounce back and forth between two copies of his lung’s x-rays. One copy is from three months ago. He remembers the day he took it; he had just lost his wallet and his house keys when he was on his way out the door. It took the entire cleaning staff and his parent’s gardener to help him find his things. The search took well over two hours—long enough for him to miss the train and the bus he’d planned on taking to the hospital. 

It was the gardener who found his things in the rose bushes by the front door, and it was the taxi driver he ended up taking to the hospital, who broke the news about his train derailing on its way to Togami Station.

He stares at the second X-ray, the one he’d been subjected to yesterday. To his untrained eyes, the x-rays look identical.  The roots in his lungs have long since blossomed, and he can see, with painful clarity, the almost perfect outline of several flower petals where nodules used to be on both sides of his lungs.

He doesn’t recognize the flowers by their shape, nor has he had the privilege to see what they look like in the open air. Unlike most Bheloma patients, his symptoms have never aligned with expectations. His friends call him lucky, and in some twisted way, they may be right. 

After all, it’s not every day a person can survive stage four Bheloma, let alone not have it progressed since his diagnosis as a child.

Then again, nothing in Nagito Komaeda’s life is predictable. Not even the promise of death.

His doctor hums for the umpteenth time that minute. His brows are wrinkled now and the corners of his mouth, permanently marred with laugh lines, seem stuck in a perpetual frown. He looks older than he should be, as if staring at Nagito’s x-rays has aged him by at least twenty years. It wouldn’t surprise Nagito if that were the case. Bheloma can be terminal without treatment. It’s as wild as the roots within his lungs and as misunderstood as the weeds that force their way through concrete slabs in the city. By all accounts, he should be dead. Dying, even. And yet…

His weeds remain unchanging.

“ Hmmm… ”

“I don’t think anyone has taken an interest in me with that much intent before. Not even my own mother!” Nagito jests.

His doctor jumps nearly a mile high in the air. He catches the edge of the examining table, steadying his wobbly knees before turning wide eyes toward Nagito. He smiles pleasantly in return, or so he hopes. He’s been told on several occasions that his smiles can be unsettling, even when he does not mean for them to be. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just, you’ve been staring at my x-rays for so long, I was starting to wonder if you’d forgotten about me. Not that I mind being forgotten,” Nagito quickly amends. “I’m used to it.”

His doctor shakes his head. “Apologies, my boy. I always find your results to be so damn confounding. Excuse my language.” He returns to the x-rays and peels them away from the light box. 

“No changes,” he says after a beat of silence. “Though, I’m sure you already knew that. It’s remarkable . You’ve had this condition for how long now?”

“Twenty years—”

“ Twenty years !” His doctor echoes, flabbergasted. “And not one progression!” He slides the x-rays into their protective folder and hands it over to Nagito, his pale blue eyes as warm as the winter sky. “But no regression, either. I don’t know if you’re lucky or unlucky, but what you're experiencing is truly a phenomenon.”

The x-rays feel heavy on Nagito’s lap, but he doesn’t mind. It brings him comfort like an old worn blanket being draped on his shoulders.

“What medication are you on currently?” His doctor asks.

“Azelavene 20 milligrams, flexedifinil 10 milligrams, and pemiride 30.”

“Once a day?”

“Every day,” Nagito nods.

“Good. Continue.” He writes a few scribbles in his notes. “Have you had your blood taken already?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” His doctor echoes. “Surely something is working.”

Nagito can’t stop himself from chuckling. You say that every time we meet. “Same time as usual?” He asks instead.

“Yes.”

“Good,” Nagito mirrors. “Have a wonderful week, doctor.” He smiles.

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu is Nagito’s oldest acquaintance. Perhaps even his oldest friend , though he’s sure the feeling is not mutual. He sits alone at a small, but busy café; his eyes burning holes into the cup he’s nursing between his hands. He’s a thousand miles away, caught up in a series of thoughts so harrowing, it surprises Nagito.

More surprising is that his companion is nowhere in sight—though that doesn’t mean Fuyuhiko is left on his lonesome.

Nagito doesn’t know much about how things work in the Kuzuryu clan, but he’s heard the stories. He’s grown familiar with the rumors. The Kuzuryu clan are old blood—as old as the Togamis—but unlike the Togamis, Fuyuhiko’s family never shied away from their egregious traditions.

It was a practice from years ago, from a time too far for Nagito to comprehend, of children being selected upon birth to serve their Kuzuryu clan masters. They were trained to be the best, to serve and protect. They were meant to be the clan’s private army, but only a select few were given the privilege. 

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu is one. 

Though, whether Peko Pekoyama is his modern-day slave or just a personal bodyguard, is something Nagito isn’t sure about. Maybe one day he’ll think to ask. 

Today, his friend is without his protector, and the stress of her absence weighs heavily on his shoulders. He’s so far withdrawn that Nagito isn’t surprised by how easy it is to join him at the café. He sits across from Fuyuhiko and reaches for the menu left idle on its silver holder.

He scans through the list of teas and pastries, but nothing calls his attention. He’s not too fond of sweets.

“You know, any normal person would ask before making themselves comfortable.”

“Oh, sorry,” He sets the menu down on the round table and intertwines his fingers. He glances at Fuyuhiko, who still hasn’t torn his eyes away from the cup in his hands. He smiles apologetically. “You looked so depressed, I couldn’t bear to leave you alone. I thought ‘maybe he needs some company!’, even if the company was mine.”

Fuyuhiko snorts, his baby face tinging pink in the way it does whenever Nagito speaks. “I don’t know why I even bother. S’not like you’re normal,” he murmurs. With more effort than necessary, he finally tears his gaze away from his drink and meets Nagito head on. His eyes are sharp, his brows perpetually knitted together, but there’s a gleam in his eyes that catches Nagito off guard. Is it concern? Pity? He can’t tell which.

“How’d the appointment go?”

Nagito blinks in surprise. “Well!” He smiles. “There are no changes.”

“Isn’t that always the case?”

“Yup!”

His friend snorts again. “How is that even possible?” He tilts his cup from side to side, sloshing the green liquid— green tea ; Nagito’s mind helpfully adds—around the rim. “So no new growths, but no recessions, either?”

“Yup!” Nagito echoes with far more cheer than necessary.

Fuyuhiko rolls his eyes. “How can you be happy with that? You’re stuck. I can’t tell if that’s lucky or unlucky.”

“Lucky, I think,” Nagito breathes a quiet, raspy laugh. “After all, it’s not every day I get to see you by yourself! Which brings me to a very important question, if you don’t mind?” He settles Fuyuhiko with an inquisitive gaze. “Where is Peko? Did you love birds have a falling out?”

The apples of Fuyuhiko’s cheeks burn a bright red. He shoots Nagito a sharp, deadly glare—and if looks could kill, he’s sure he’d be dead three times over. Luckily for Nagito, Fuyuhiko poses no threat.

“Fuck you,” he curses. He sips his green tea noisily in a poor attempt at buying time. “She’s nearby. I told her I wanted some time to think without her hovering over my shoulders.”

“That’s dangerous,” Nagito muses.

Fuyuhiko’s dangerous glare is back. For a brief second in time, Nagito thinks he can feel the pain of that glare stabbing him in the chest. He rubs his sternum in an attempt to assuage the twinge.

“You know the hospital is right across the street,” Fuyuhiko warns. “Don’t fuck with me.”

He raises his hands placatingly. “Sorry, sorry!”

“No, you’re not,” his friend snorts. “ Fucker. Anyway, my old man was getting on my nerves today, so I thought it’d be a good idea to relax somewhere far the fuck away from home. Hence, why I’m here .” Fuyuhiko gestures to the café as a whole before turning his attention back to his tea. “I think I overstayed my welcome, though. Shit’s fucking cold.”

“Cold green tea is still delicious, though I prefer mine warm too.”

Fuyuhiko grunts in acknowledgment, though he doesn’t say a word. They sit in silence after that, both lost to the monotonous noise of the surrounding café. Nagito doesn’t mind; he enjoys Fuyuhiko’s company, even when the conversation stills. Their silence is pleasantly comfortable, and it's through these small moments in time that Nagito can take in his friend’s appearance.

He’s always been the better dressed of the two, and today is no exception. Fuyuhiko only wears the finest suits, tailor-made for his short stature and thin, but fitted, frame. They’re the same age, but Fuyuhiko’s baby face and height make him look several years younger than Nagito. It’s funny every time he thinks about it, though it’s always best never to openly admit it. He does it anyway, of course.

If stage four Bheloma can’t kill him, he doesn’t believe Fuyuhiko can either.

“Hey.”

Fuyuhiko’s voice pulls Nagito from his thoughts. He peers back quizzically at Fuyuhiko, surprised by the sudden interruption.

He’s watching him with that gleam again, that look that Nagito can’t distinguish between concern or pity. It’s more prominent now than earlier, and it lingers even when Nagito is sure that he’s noticed it.

“Thanks for sitting down.”

Something grips at his throat. Nagito swallows. He beams.

“Of course!” Thanks for letting me stay.

Chapter Text

There’s beauty in Bheloma. 

To grow them within one’s body, to have every seed bloom into a different flower, full of different colors and different meanings. There’s beauty in their uniqueness, just as there is beauty in how their seeds bloom. After all, who doesn’t love flowers?

Who wouldn’t want to make a bouquet out of plants grown from one’s very flesh?

If he could see the weeds growing in his lungs, would he want to keep them as souvenirs? To place them as the centerpiece on his mother’s cherished imported cherry wood mantle?

If he could pull the roots from his very mouth, would he give it to the gardeners to propagate?

Would they grow at all?

Do I even have flowers?

Nagito heaves a heavy sigh. He lingers by the window overlooking his mother’s lavish garden. She has an army of gardeners on the ground today, as she always does whenever the month turns. They work in tandem—tilling the soil, checking acidity, pruning, and spraying; planting, and cleaning. When he was a child, he loved to watch them work. He’d stand out on the garden patio, and watch through the marble columns as the men slaved away tirelessly over an array of colors. To him, their work seemed like magic; they were human-sized fairies who came every month to heal the sick and dying. When they were done, he’d run through the maze of flowers with his dog in tow. Together, they’d brush through the foliage and sniff every flower imaginable.

Now, he watches them from afar, his heart heavy in the way it’s always been since his furry companion passed, all those years ago. He lets his eyes linger in the center of the garden, where a large, four-tiered, white marble fountain stands tall and proud. It spews crystal-clear water from the peak of its first tier and casts a shimmer of rainbows in the air as it falls. If heaven were a place on Earth, Nagito would believe his mother’s garden was it.

“Eden reborn.” He overheard her say once.

Would she say the same for the weeds in his lungs?

Hushed voices dance in his ears. He pulls away from the window and glances down the hall. He sees no one on either end, but the soft murmurs of voices remain. He thinks nothing of it.

Sometimes, the housekeepers like to gossip. He’ll catch them at any given time, whether through luck or habit, he’s not sure which, but they never hear him or feel his presence. They like to speak in whispers, with their hands hiding their mouths, as if that alone would muffle their words even more. It never does.

Nagito always hears them speak.

And speak they do. Despite standing out in the open, with his hands stuffed into his pant pockets, Nagito’s ears pique with interest.

“— unchanging —”

“ Seriously?—”

“—How is that possible—?”

He presses his back against the wall, unaware of the fact that he’s followed their hushed voices toward the end of the hall. He recognizes their tones despite not seeing them. He can picture them in his mind's eye with crystal clear clarity—the three older housekeepers he’s known since birth. They stand around in the middle of the hall, crowding together with hands over their mouths. They speak quickly, but quietly, their wrinkled eyes wide with feverish excitement. He’s learned through the years that nothing gets these women as giddy as new gossip does.

“How long has he been sick? It’s been a few years, hasn’t it?”

“More than that! It has to be twenty years at this point.”

“ Twenty? ” The third speaks. “And still no change?”

“None whatsoever,” the first clarifies. “It’s remarkable he’s doing as well as he is, given how long he’s been sick.”

“Did the doctors say anything?” The second questions. “It must mean his medications are working, right?”

“Has to be,” the third agrees. “How else can his condition remain unchanged? He must have the cure!”

“I don’t know,” the first housekeeper admits. She sighs. “I don’t even know how to feel about this. Is this good? Is this bad?”

“Can’t they do anything? Surgery? Something? ”

“I don’t know.”

“How are they handling it?” The third asks instead. Nagito feels something in the air shift. Tensions weigh heavily around them like a thick, woolen blanket. It's suffocating.

They must be talking about his parents.

“I don’t know,” the first housekeeper murmurs. “You know how they are, it’s hard to tell for sure.” 

“Do they even care ?” The second housekeeper hisses, but she’s quickly shushed by the other two.

“Don’t you dare say that out loud,” the first housekeeper scolds. “It’s not our place to assume what we don’t understand. The missus has her reasons, and it would do us well not to question it.”

“Yes, but—”

He pulls away from the wall and strolls down the hall, past the window overlooking the garden; past several doors that lead to rooms upon rooms upon rooms. He pulls away from their hushed words, from their misplaced concerns and frivolous rumors; but his ears continue to burn. Their words echo in his ears.

“Do they even care ?”

“You know how they are—”

“—no progression—no regression—”

“— can’t tell if that’s lucky or unlucky—”

“You’re stuck.”

 “They say it only happens when your love is unrequited.”

He stops in his tracks. He remembers hearing those words once, a long, long time ago. Though from whom it came from, he can’t recall. Not that it matters, the circumstances for his roots are not like what the stories say. Nagito has never loved anyone the way the fables say he should nor does he expect to. 

Only flowers can be loved, after all, especially those that grow in Eden. 

Something bubbles in his chest. It builds and builds, until it’s halfway through his trachea does he finally let go—

A shaky breath escapes through the air. It’s raspy and weak, but the pressure builds again, and again. A second follows the first, and then a third. A fourth. Until it’s a continuous motion of raspy breaths—

He’s laughing. It’s harsh on his throat and airy to his ears, but the action fills his stifled lungs. It hurts. It hurts.

It hurts.

It hurts.

It hurts.

It hurts.

Do weeds grow in Eden?

Chapter Text

His cocktail of medications stifles his dreams. He feels them in his head, trapped through layers and layers of vines and netting; squirming and wriggling against their binds. Most nights, he dreams of nothing. He’ll lay his head against his too-fluffy pillow and wake up to the sun’s warm rays blasting against his eyelids.

But sometimes, a dream will slip past the fine netting. 

Sometimes, it finds its way through the dense, medicated fog that clouds his thoughts, and latch its tendrils into the forefront of his mind. He doesn’t know when or how it happens, but it does; and on those nights, he lets himself live.

Tonight, he dreams of a world covered in vines; where the buildings are choked down to their skeletal frames and the streets are smothered in weeds. He strolls through the sea of green with his hands buried into his pockets and his trusty, worn jacket billowing in a warm, tender breeze behind him. 

He’s had this dream countless times before, back when he was younger and the weeds in his lungs were still seeds that had yet to take root. Whether it’s a nightmare or a dream remains to be seen, but to Nagito, the familiar scenery is a welcome sight. It feels like home.

He walks with confidence, despite the obstacles, yet he knows there is nothing to fear. He’s trudged this path a thousand times already; he knows where every upturned vine lies, where every tangled weed falls and where every twisted debris hangs. In his dreams, there is no such thing as luck or happy accidents. There are no tragedies to lurk in dark shadows or the nonsensical whispers of gossipy old women hiding around sharp corners. All he can see is the endless sea of green, 

green, 

Green .

A flash of color stills his walk.

There, amidst the emerald of tangled foliage, is a flower. She stands alone atop a mass of weeds and grass, nestled safely by her deep, green large leaves. Four flowering stems shoot up from her crown of leaves, and though she is small, Nagito can still see how her stems weep with twenty-eight petite, bell-shaped flowers. They look delicate—fragile—but somehow still hold firm against the breeze. He hears them jingle; a soft, high-pitched twinkle that the wind carries to his ears.

He’s seen this flower before, but where?

There’s a whisper in the wind. It tickles his eardrums and caresses his cheeks. He can’t make out the words in the air, but the jingling of the flower bells pulls him closer. It feels familiar, like an old memory just beyond his reach. 

It sounds like a lullaby.

It does not bring him comfort.

He takes a step forward, toward the lone flower. Her bells continue to chime, though her stems hang low. The closer he gets, the more she bends, but her music never ceases.

He stops in his tracks, the distance between them the same as before. He’s made no progress despite his efforts. Something burns in his throat just as pressure builds in his chest. He swallows.

It’s then he notices the change in her lullaby. From a gentle, soothing twinkle to a somber, slow chime. It pierces through his heart like a sword to the chest; her song bleeds into his soul, filling him with a sense of longing and despair. He knows this feeling—he hates it with every fiber of his being.

He wants to reach out to the bells; he wants to wrap his fingers around her stems and rip her roots right out of the Earth. But as quickly as the thought comes to his mind, it’s gone, replaced with nothing but that sinking pit of despair.

He turns his back on the flower and returns to the weed-covered street. He ignores her somber song and the barely audible whispers in the wind. He ignores the way the vines wrap tightly around rusted beams and broken decay. He ignores the pressure building in his chest and the burning of his throat.

He ignores the pain of his fingernails biting crescents into the palm of his hand. 

He walks onward for ages, chased by her somber lullaby; until the surrounding foliage grows and grows and grows. Until the buildings are swallowed, and the decay has given birth to vines, weeds, and grass, does he finally stop. He stands in a vast nothing but greenery, and yet…

And yet…

He turns.

His breath hitches. His eyes burn.

There, nestled on a bed of vines and leaves like a twisted throne in a wild, forgotten jungle, is the white bell flower. 

She’s no closer to him than she was before. He swallows back a sob.

Even in my dreams…

I’m stuck.

Chapter Text

He’s always been at the mercy of Fortune’s mood swings. He’d planned to spend the morning at his favorite bookstore, with a nice cold drink and a few biscuits to eat. He’d been looking forward to this day for ages; ever since he discovered his favorite authors were releasing several different books at the same time. Even better was that today just so happened to be Bound To Please’s shipment day.

How lucky for him that everything would coincide on this spectacular day!

But Lady Fortune is an impish mistress.

He should have known better than to plan ahead. He should have known that double-checking, triple-checking, quadruple-checking his alarms would keep Lady Fortune from interfering. That, if something seems like good fortune, may not be.

He knows better, and still, he fails to remember.

When he wakes up that day, it’s not to the bright morning sun peering through his curtains or the harmony of the morning birds singing their lover’s chime; he wakes to the loud chatter of the cleaning staff bustling through the halls with noisy equipment and girlish giggles. His room is brightly lit by the afternoon sun and hotter than Chef Teruteru’s overused oven.

When he peeks at his phone, he’s met with a black screen. He holds down the ON button. A flash of light washes over the screen and then—a drain battery sign flashes once, twice—the screen fades to black again.

Dead.

He steals a glance at the digital clock sitting on the nightstand. Its bright green numbers flash at him mockingly, frozen on a time he knows is wrong: 01:01 AM

Behind the digital clock is a second clock. This clock is older than he is, but more reliable than all the clocks in his arsenal. And on every other day, he’d hear the loud tiktiktik of the hands moving forward. Today, though, neither hand on the clock moves. It’s frozen too:

4:28 AM.

None of his clocks had a chance to ring.

Nagito flops back onto his mattress, a heavy sigh escaping his weed-infested lungs. It comes out like a wheeze, but it fills the room all the same.

“Well now, that’s cruel.” He says to no one.

Still. His eyes trace the ornate French quarter relief tiles that decorate his ceiling. Still…

Silence permeates the rest of the hall. It bleeds into his room, and fills his ears with an uncomfortable, soft buzz. He remains on his bed, his arms spread eagle on either side of him; his sheets knotted and twisted around his slender legs. He would’ve tripped on his way out if he tried to escape. Maybe it’s a good thing his alarms broke today.

Still.

The silence stretches, filling every nook and cranny. It bears down on him like a weighted blanket, pulling him deeper and deeper into his mattress until it hurts to breathe. And it hurts to move. And it hurts to blink; to think.

Still.

The ceiling tiles blur in his vision. The edges of his eyes prickle as if the silence were stabbing him with hundreds of small needles. But the discomfort is not enough. He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t move.

He remains unchanging.

…Still.

A soft tinkle breaks through the buzzing of his ears. It pulls him closer, calling him in a way that’s hauntingly familiar and tragically beautiful. Comfort explodes throughout his chest as the jingle grows louder and louder, until—

He blinks.

Silence fills his ears again, but this time, it no longer feels oppressive.

With a heavy hand, he reaches for his morning cocktail and chases away the bitter taste of medicine with yesterday’s lukewarm water.

Amid his disappointment, a glimmer of good peeks through the veil. He doesn’t get the opportunity to drop by Bound To Please for his book haul, but something else—something better—stops him in his tracks.

“Yo!”

He barely has his foot on the first floor when Fuyuhiko’s voice carries across the room. A smile forms on his lips before he can process what’s happening, and he’s already on the move when his eyes catch sight of his visitors by the door. Fuyuhiko is never alone, but this time, Nagito is graced by his companion’s presence.

Peko Pekoyama stands tall and proud between Fuyuhiko and the door. Her red eyes are alert, as they always are whenever he sees her. She takes in everything she sees from his mother’s grand foyer. It’s her job to protect Fuyuhiko from dangers, even ones that lurk in the Komaeda household. (And perhaps even from his luck.) But just like every other time they’ve been here, Peko finds nothing.

More importantly than that, she regards Nagito with a small, but kind smile.

“Good afternoon, Nagito,” She greets him. “You seem to be doing well.”

Draped around her arm is a wicker basket filled to the brim with supplies.

“You weren’t answering my messages,” Fuyuhiko adds. His eyes Nagito from top to bottom before quirking an eyebrow. “Did you lose your phone again?”

“Sorry, I guess I forgot to charge the battery last night,” Nagito says with a sheepish smile. “Even though I’m positive it was fully charged. I’m sorry for troubling you!”

Fuyuhiko snorts. He digs his hands into his trouser pockets and starts in the direction of Eden. It doesn’t surprise Nagito; his mother’s garden is everyone’s favorite place, after all.

A picnic in the garden, how nice! He muses.

“How many fucking times do I have to tell you to change your phone? If the battery keeps dying like that, then you’ve clearly got a faulty model.” Fuyuhiko huffs.

They fall in step behind him, their footsteps bouncing off the walls of the hallway. Peko lines up beside Nagito, an impish gleam in her eyes.

“He thought the worst, you know,” She whispers. “There was an accident at the bookstore this morning. When you didn’t answer our messages, he insisted we came here to check up on you.”

“An accident?”

“Yeah,” Fuyuhiko says, his voice somber. “Some asshole thought it’d be a great idea to run his car through the place. Luckily, no one was in the store at the time—according to police reports anyway, but shit’s fucked.” They step out into the heat of the afternoon. Nagito grimaces at the transition from a dark, cold hallway to the bright, almost blinding light of the afternoon sun. “It’s going to take a few days to get the damages cleared up, but that’s the worst of it, at least.” Fuyuhiko finishes.

They enter through the flowery maze. Fuyuhiko leads them through with ease, having walked this path a thousand times before. They reach their destination within seconds, where several ornate chairs and tables await them. Nagito sits under the parasol's shade, relieved to be out of the blazing sun.

“So you thought to have a picnic in my mother’s garden instead?” He smiles. “You must have been very worried about me. I’m honored!”

“Fuck you,” Fuyuhiko deadpans. “It was Peko’s idea.”

He doubts it, and the subtle wink Peko gives him in return only asserts what he already knows. Still, he thanks her for her thoughtfulness.

“You're welcome,” Fuyuhiko says instead. All Nagito can do is smile.

From the wicker basket, they set the garden table with plates, cups and utensils. Fuyuhiko passes the snacks to Nagito—fresh croissants from their local bakery, a few sweets for Peko, and homemade sandwiches cut into pairs with a sense of carefulness that Nagito isn’t sure comes from Peko… or Fuyuhiko. Either way, his stomach growls, and he digs into his sandwich with eager delight.

It tastes like heaven.

He’s always been at the mercy of Fortune’s mood swings. He knows better than to defy her wishes.

Still.

He forgets.

Chapter Text

“Why do you cry in your sleep?”

Her words startle him out of his thoughts. He’s careful to keep his reaction from showing, but when his eyes catch her gaze, he wonders if it's already too late.

Peko’s eyes are sharp as knives. They’re a deep and striking crimson, and though he’s used to the way she watches him, there’s something about her gaze now that seems to penetrate deep into his mind. Almost as if she were searching for the remnants of his nightmares. Any normal person would look away, but Nagito doesn’t bother. He doesn’t want to break their connection. Despite her intensity, he sees what lies beneath the intimidating facade.

She’s worried. For him.

He can’t fathom as to why, but something swells deep in his chest.

He laughs.

“I wasn’t aware I cry in my sleep. Am I really that pathetic?”

“There’s no weakness in tears, Nagito,” She frowns. “I’m just… surprised. You said your medication prevented you from dreaming.” She pulls a strand of light-colored hair behind her ear. She breaks their connection, leaving him hollow. “I’m sorry if I’m overstepping a boundary but—” She’s watching him again, but this time, Nagito doesn’t reconnect. “It’s not something I can ignore.”

Ah. He glances around the room, taking in his surroundings. They’re in Fuyuhiko’s hideout—his home away from home—despite still being on Kuzuryu clan property. Fuyuhiko watches them from where he sits behind a large, wooden desk several sizes too big for him. He looks more like a child playing pretend than a future mob boss. Peko, on the other hand, stands beside where Nagito sits—lies.

He realizes with startling clarity that he’s not sitting but lying down on his friend’s impossibly comfortable couch. The book he thought he’d been reading lies face down on his chest, still on the same page he’d left it on before unconsciousness whisked him away. He doesn’t remember falling asleep.

He doesn’t remember dreaming at all.

“When did I fall asleep?” He asks instead.

“Half an hour ago,” Fuyuhiko shrugs. “We assumed you were wiped out from shit.” From shit, he says, when Nagito knows he really means from Bheloma. “So?”

“So?” He echoes.

Fuyuhiko scoffs. He gestures toward Peko. “What were you dreaming about? It must’ve been intense if it had you crying like that.”

“Was I making a scene?”

“No,” Peko interjects. She reaches for his face before he can react and wipes the corner of his eye with a gentle swipe. He hadn’t even seen her grab the tissues. “They were just… flowing. Like a river.” She hands him another white tissue for the rest of his tears. It’s just as soft in his hands as it was in hers.

“What were you dreaming about?”

“Nothing.” He wipes the tear tracks from his cheeks and grows even more surprised when the tissue comes back stained by his tears. “I don’t remember dreaming about anything.”

“Seriously?” Fuyuhiko quirks an eyebrow. “Nothing at all?”

“I don’t often have dreams on my meds, but I remember the ones I do.” A ghostly image of the Maybell flower flashes in his mind’s eye. He shakes it away before it can sing. “I thought I was still reading.”

He can feel their eyes on him, even when he doesn’t give them the same courtesy. Their silence unsettles him in a way it never did before. It feels too much like the silence his parents give him whenever he says or does anything that warrants their disappointment, except, its easier to understand the source of their disappointment. But here, with Fuyuhiko and Peko, he suddenly feels like an outsider looking in; like he’s crossed a threshold he shouldn’t have.

Like he’s no longer someone they tolerate by mere happenstance.

Ah. I must have said something wrong.

“I’m sorry,” his voice breaks the oppressive silence. He’s not sure what he’s apologizing for, but he doesn’t think he can take this isolation for much longer than he already has.

Luckily for him, his apology snaps them both back to reality.

“Listen,” Fuyuhiko starts. He stands in front of Nagito, though Nagito doesn’t remember seeing him leave his desk in the first place. “I know we’re not the sorta people to pry into your business, but we’ve been watching you deal with this shit for years now and we’re starting to think that, maybe, it’s about time you start dealing with it.”

“Wha—”

For the second time that hour, Peko hands him something else—a flyer. He’s seen this flyer countless times before on the city streets, but never has he taken the moment to read it.

(Whether by choice or his luck’s grand design, he will never know.)

            A support group. For the weeds in his lungs?

For someone like him?

He’s not sure what to say; if he can say anything at all.

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Fuyuhiko continues after a beat. “I’m gonna be real with you, Nagito. We don’t understand what you’re going through, and there’s no guarantee that this group is going to be any better, but maybe something good will come out of this.”

Peko nods. “It might help you find common ground with others who have the same experience as you.”

“You’ve always been freakishly lucky like that,” Fuyuhiko shrugs. “We’re not gonna hold you at gunpoint or anything, but if I were you? I’d give it a go.”

There’s something in his eyes that Nagito barely catches. A glimmer of hope; a barely whispered wish. It’s gone in a flash, but the memory remains seared into Nagito’s mind.

He does not want to disappoint them any more than he already has.

“Okay,” He breathes. “I’ll go.”