Itachi hunched over the sink, his eyes watering as he coughed out bloody speckles into the porcelain basin. This had been going on for years and was progressively growing worse and worse.
At first, it was just a burn in his lungs, full and aching and draining him of breath. Then it progressed into a persistent cough. And now, as Itachi hacked into the sink, bloodstained petals fell into the basin as well as an intact flower, damp and red. It seemed funny to him every time it happened that such a pure, white flower could be tainted by his blood but at least he knew the cause of it.
He suffered from a disease called 'Hanahaki', which was both obscure and morbidly beautiful. You see, when someone fell in love with another but did not have their love returned to them, the feelings inside them would grow and bloom into flowers until they filled their lungs. That was unless the person told their beloved and had their love returned or they fell out of love with them, but neither of those were options for the suffering Uchiha as the one he loved over any other had ended his life long ago.
Fittingly, the flowers that had bloomed from those feelings that welled inside of him were locust flowers; flowers that meant a love that endured even through death.
They bloomed for him. They bloomed for Shisui, whose life had ended in the pursuit of peace and made Itachi's heart clench painfully whenever he recalled it, having seen his end with his Sharingan eyes.
If only Shisui knew what had become of him now and what he had done to stop the coup d'état. Would he accept his feelings? Would he love Itachi in return?
It was pointless to imagine those 'what-ifs'. Shisui was dead and there's no coming back from that.
His only option was to meet him and that would happen soon enough.
Sasuke was already trailing him so it'd only be a matter of time.