A/N shitty college au, see bottom for more notes/clarifications
It's not love at first sight, but not a slow burn, either.
You first encounter him, accidentally bumping into him and being surprised as you land hard on your back, staring up at a cerulean sky. It's dotted with lovely white clouds, and you remember a flash of sapphire eyes, framed with straight blue hair that falls just above his chin.
He gives you a hand that you gratefully accept, helps you gather your things as you scurry off to class, intimidated by the unfamiliar world and culture, anxious about the thin language barrier, embarrassed with your accent and slow way of speaking. You give him a quiet, barely audible "Arigato," and hurry off to class, unable to even look at those chips of sapphire in his eyes.
You sit down at your desk, making it in time, and you don't even remember his face, just some friendly smile, the scent of cologne, his striking blue hair.
You forget about the encounter within the day.
You meet him again, a year later. Your new roommate. Whether a blessing or a curse is yet to be determined, but you're optimistic to meet what you find to be a familiar face with a foreign name.
He stumbles over your name—understandable, you're not native, happen all the time—and gives you an awkward handshake. He's cheerful, bubbly, happy to meet you. The memory of the crash resurfaces, arising from the murky fringe of your recollection.
He's never forgotten.「Just the kind of person I am!」he quips.
You can't help but smile, his cheerfulness is infectious.
You quickly separate to your halves of the room, unpacking and tidying the mess. In your mind, you secretly congratulate yourself for not breaking into a deep red blush in the face of what was definitely...someone attractive.
You tear up a paper, angry with your countless failed attempts at poetry. His response is to merely hand you a cup of scalding tea
「Good for calming you down.」He adds with a laugh, one that perfectly compliments his easygoing, cheerful demeanor.
One sip of the brew, and the anger melts away almost immediately. You sigh, at peace.
The steam wafts up through the air, fogging up your glasses, and it seems to only accentuate some of his features rather than blur them entirely. You notice—not for the first time—the gentle smile, chips of sapphire that shine out behind his hair and through the mist, the way he holds himself, approachable and regal and assured.
You exhale suddenly, realizing you were holding your breath and blankly staring at your probably-not-even-interested roommate for a solid minute.
Embarrassed, you drink the rest of the tea and return his mug before turning back to your books, making futile attempts at trying to study when your mind only wanted to focus on the loveliness behind you.
You fall in love, and it's painful. Your heart pulls constantly with an ache, wanting to look at him, wanting to admire the ease with which he does anything, wanting to receive his warm smiles and ignite his sweet laughter.
You feel an inexplicable tug, one that seems to start in your gut and burst into pain and desire in your chest, a strange, one-way tether trying to pull you towards him.
Half of your mind tells you that you aren't in love, you don't even swing that way, he probably doesn't either, and you REALLY needed to get back to all the notes you haven't been taking, because you were just too preoccupied with thinking about a boy.
And the other half hopefully cries out, tells you to embrace your love and seek it out, seek the impossible yet incredibly, totally possible reciprocation, to find and return feelings he definitely had for you, you weren't just wishfully thinning, and besides, you were smart enough and didn't need to take notes all that detailed anyways. You already read the chapter ahead of time, so it was okay to go back to daydreaming about moonlit trysts and morning embraces and midday picnics by riverside and of love.
You were fully in love, and you couldn't help but feel so giddy and scared and confused at your self-confession.
You cough, reflexively. You've had a cold for a little bit now, so it's nothing much. And besides, you could definitely try asking Marth for tea.
It's hurting you, to be in love, but you didn't realize how, if at all.
The seeds are sown, and they immediately take root, soon quickly growing to full bloom.
Impending doom approaches. But for now you are blissfully unaware.
Marth waves you goodbye before he walks out the door for winter break. Your heart hurts a little, aching for the light drizzles and gentle sun and warm comfort of your mother's cooking. You can't return to London, money's tight, so you just stay on campus.
Your heart aches a little when you subconsciously begin to take note of the absences. The lack of laughter in the hallways, the gentle strums of your roommate's breath at night, the deafening climate of the cafeteria.
It's just you and your books, alone in your room with all your things and feelings and thoughts and sometimes the sight of the odd student here and there, heard passing by or glimpsed during meals or seen through the window as you gaze at snowfall, coughing and curled up in blankets with mugs of tea.
You can't make it as good as Marth can, but he left you enough leaves to sustain you through break.
「I know how much you like it, and you'll need something warm with how sick you are, so have these! I'll make you a pot when I come back, promise!」
The memory of him quickly passing a metal tin to you before he rushes out the door, headed for the train station back to Kyoto. The steam fogs up your glasses and you shudder.
The pain in your heart worsens day by day, your cough seems almost pneumatic in nature, and you can't help but wonder if you've managed to inhale something, somehow.
You spend more and more time in bed with a book, in a chair by a window, tea at your side, wishing and dreaming and hoping for glimpses of lovely cobalt hair and the scent of flowers, the gleam of the gold clip in his hair.
Something tickles at your throat. You to clear it, before dissolving into a wild coughing fit.
You drop your book, back hunched over as you hack violently into your arm. Suddenly, you collapse onto fours, the edge of your vision blurs and blackens, framed with pain instead of the usual untidy golden wisps of your hair. Your eyes close as you continue, feeling like you'd throw up any second, feeling like your throat was tearing apart and you were bleeding. It seems to go on for ages, and when you finally catch your breath, your eyes widen at the sight of rose petals and blood on the linoleum tiles. Your right sleeve is a little damp, sticky and smelling almost metallic. You don't need to double check to know what it is.
The word reverberates in your head, your vision begins to blur with tears of fear.
Hanahaki.
Shaking, you rise and begin to clean up the mess, bile rising in your throat as you look at the lovely, too-perfect petals. Grown from pain and heartache, smelling sweetly with their rosy scent and your blood. Nauseated, you dump the paper towels and petals in the trash, debating if it was worth burning them.
You decide against it, and unsteadily return to your room, collapsing in the bed, pulling the covers over your head and blocking out the world, shutting out the sight of the snow and the disgusting smell of love, not even bothering to kick off your slippers.
I am in love. And the thought nearly causes you to devolve into another fit, one you barely keep down by squeezing your eyes shut and balling your hands into fists, nails digging into the skin until you bleed. The feeling dissipates, and you fall into a restless, uneasy sleep.
Marth returns from his homeland after three days, and the sight of him causes the petals to rise up again for the second time.
You are afraid. Afraid to think, to see, to speak, to die.
He notices you curled up in your bed, refusing to rise. He leaves cups of tea which you readily ignore after heaving petals into the first one, dumping it out before he noticed.
Your friend's worried, you don't even notice.
He catches you vomiting petals and blood into the toilet at 2 AM, Saturday.
He pales, you wince at the oblivious pity and the pain.
「Oh God….why didn't you say anything?」
He helps you clean up after yourself, not noticing how every slight touch caused another wave of nausea and coughing.
「Who is it? And you know you can be treated for it?」
You shake your head, unable to even look at him.
You voice is trapped in your throat, blocked up and muffled by rose petals.
「C'mon, tell me. Nobody deserves to suffer from this.」
You bite your lip.
Now or never.
You lean forwards, kissing him, desperately pouring what little energy you have for love and passion into the gesture.
He pulls away almost immediately, shocked and sputtering.
Tears well up in your eyes. You're barely able to keep down the waves of petals as he tries to explain how he doesn't return your affections, wild-eyed and panicked.
He backs out of the bathroom, afraid.
「I'm sorry, I don't—」
Your eyes begin to sting as you start to cry.
「It's okay. I understand.」You tell him, feeling pain, knifelike, rise up.
You back out of the room, he stares at you, horrified, 「Please, you know you can—」
"Ie…" You whisper before running.
You barely make it out of the building and into a nearby alleyway before the pain forces you to stop. Bent over, hands on your knees, you gasp for air, tears streaming down your face, feeling your heart and soul tear into shreds with every passing moment.
After a minute, you begin dry heaving, unable to vomit, you haven't eaten in days. You're lightheaded, the air stinks of the roses growing inside you, the piss and the trash and the shit inside the dumpster you've collapsed against.
Wheezing, you manically look around you, praying Marth anyone would find you, take you to the hospital and get you treated.
You cough reflexively, and there are no petals, for once. Only blood and thorns. You fall to the ground, barely able to think.
Your vision blurs, begins to darken. You see flashes of blue and hear indistinct Japanese.
Your chest feels as if it splits open, and you try to laugh around the growth inside your throat. Lovely roses, pure scarlet and smelling as sweet as decay spill out from the gap.
Your head drops to the ground, you're laughing and gurgling up blood, and you feel yourself breaking all over, roses gently sprouting and bursting from the wounds. The world goes quiet, you're blind, and there's still the repugnant scent hanging in your nose.
"I love you." You rasp out.
The scent fades.
More A/Ns:
hanahaki is the fictional disease where unrequited love leads to coughing up flower petals and dying. i used 「」to denote when marth was speaking in japanese. The setting is basically a college in japan and shulk's from europe/britain so he's not a native speaker. I also wrote this at like...12-1AM over a few nights so it might be a little disjointed at parts.
PM me if you need any more clarifications or want to tell me how much this story sucks lol