Look Both Ways Before You Cross My Heart
It all started on a normal day. Juvia had come over to Gajeel's place in order to make him taste the heart-shaped cookies she had baked for Gray. Being Juvia's closest friend and having known her the longest, it was only natural that he would be the one tasting them. Juvia had excellent baking skills, so he never understood why she didn't trust herself enough to directly make Gray eat her baked goods. Gajeel wasn't one to complain though.
He grabbed one out of the plate and put the entire cookie in his mouth. Without any surprise, Gajeel started humming as he chewed, fully satisfied by how good it tasted. He snorted when he saw the usual bright smile that set on Juvia's face. She always seems so surprised, he thought.
He finished swallowing the last piece of cookie left in his mouth when a sharp pain stung the inside of his chest. He froze, feeling the pain traveling all the way up to his throat. His face twitched as he violently coughed into his hand, and to his surprise, something came out. He hid the thing in his hand then, and he told Juvia that he had just swallowed a piece of cookie down the wrong pipe.
He knew he lied. The texture of the thing was far more different than that of a coughed-up cookie. He waited for her to saunter off his place to finally have a look at what put him in so much pain earlier. He opened his hand and his studded eyebrows furrowed at the alien sight. Resting on his palm was a blue rose petal. He stood there with his eyebrows furrowed for quite some time, wondering when and how he managed to swallow a flower, but when Lily came in, he quickly slid the blue petal in his pocket and elected to ignore it.
A week went by without anyone noticing anything bizarre in Gajeel's behaviour. He would show up at the guild with a frown on his face, as usual. He would go up to Levy and start bickering with her, as usual. And he would pick petty fights with Natsu about whose cat was better or which power was the best, fire or metal, and as usual, the winner would always end up being Erza's mighty fist.
However, he would hide in a solitary place of the guild more than usual. Unbeknownst to anyone, he would bring a hand to his chest and feel what seemed to be thorns biting the base of his lungs. Alone, he would twitch and freeze and gasp for air and roll on the floor in agony as he coughed more and more blue petals out of his decaying lungs.
Gajeel was not well-versed in medical slang, but he could tell that the situation he was in was a bad one. And he knew why. He could feel it in his gut, deep down. Instinctively, he ruled out all the seemingly logical explanations and narrowed the options down to one. Only one thing could hurt him this much. But he didn't want help, so he kept silent.
Gajeel thought it would go away at one point or another. Well, he hoped for it to do so, but if his assumption as to what caused him to go through all this pain was right, it would probably get worse over time.
One night, the pain was unbearable. Lily woke up to a frantic fit of coughing coming from the room next door. He immediately changed into his battle form as he barged in Gajeel's room.
"What's happening, Gajeel?!" Lily growled.
The sword he bore in hand fell to the ground, and his eyebrows raised in shock. His question was met with the heavy breathing of a panting Gajeel kneeling down on his bed, with his hands supporting him, as if praying for mercy. It was an eerie sight, and with the half-closed shutters filtering the moonlight of the ominous night sky, what could have been seen as a magnificent sight seemed, at this moment, sinister. Dozens of blue rose petals ghosted over his bed, and some had fallen on the floor. Lily gave a closer look at the petals as he walked towards Gajeel's bed, and frightfully noticed that some of them were tinted with the colour red.
He gulped. "What on Earthland happened here?"
Gajeel's heavy breathing didn't stop for a while after Lily's question had been uttered, and he hated himself for it. It made him sick to witness how weak he became. The fast motion of the rise and fall of his chest made him ache even more, because the thorn-like creatures that had settled their nest in Gajeel's chest pushed harder around his lungs.
It took a moment for Gajeel to have a steady breathing back. It still hurt, but he could withstand this minor pain. He took another deep breath – as deep as his damaged lungs allowed it to be – and looked up at his worried and dumbfounded Exceed.
A forced, toothy smile appeared on Gajeel's face. "Don't worry," he exhaled, "just showing off my romantic side." A painstaking laugh escaped his mouth as he laboriously sat up on his bed. "Look at all those petals, aren't they magnificent?" Gajeel asked with the voice of an enthusiastic salesman.
Lily's facial expression remained stoic. "This isn't funny," he retorted sharply. "I can smell blood."
"What's the big deal?" Gajeel laughed. "I can smell blood too, and I can smell rotten tomatoes and Natsu's stinky feet and ya don't see me bragging about my sense of smell all around the city."
"GAJEEL!"
Lily's roar echoed throughout the room, leaving a dead silence linger between him and the cornered, wounded beast. Gajeel's fake and forced smile faded; seeing the intense eyes of his brother-in-arms made him realise that he couldn't just laugh his problems off, especially because it was Lily, and he wouldn't be able to get away with it.
"It started about a week ago," Gajeel answered abruptly, snapping Lily out of his intense focus. His voice was grave. He looked down at the blue petals and a shy smile bloomed on his face. "I just started coughing them up all of a sudden."
Lily's eyebrows furrowed at the casualness of this revelation. "And do you know why it happens?"
"I guess," he sighed nonchalantly.
"Don't give me that!" Lily snapped. "It doesn't look like it feels very pleasant," he remarked, "why don't you tell me? I didn't think we were friends who kept secrets from one another."
He smirked. "That's why I'm not tellin' ya," he snorted, "'cause deep down ya probably already know."
Once again, Lily frowned, but Gajeel didn't let him ponder over the question.
"Don't tell anyone though" he warned, "it'll be our little secret." He looked around at the mess he made in his room, and thought about the amount of unnecessary cleaning he'd have to do the day after. It wasn't a pleasant thought.
"How can I not tell anyone? I need to tell Wendy! You may very well be in danger."
"I said no one!" Gajeel barked. Lily stared at him with alarmed and confused eyes. "I think I know what's happening, and it'll pass, don't worry."
Lily knew he couldn't do anything against this stubborn Dragonslayer when he was in such a grave yet confident state. He kept silent for a moment in hopes that Gajeel's determination would waver, but it never did.
"Okay," he conceded, "but next time something this bad happens, I won't keep my mouth shut."
He left the room without a sound, and when the door shut, Gajeel lay back down on his bed and slept. This coughing fit was more violent than the others and this interaction with Lily sure was heated; he needed to rest.
As Gajeel had asserted, Lily acknowledged the fact that his brother-in-arms' health seemed to be better. At least, that was what he could see through his own eyes, he never ruled out the possibility that Gajeel was hiding his condition from him. However, a week after this heated night in Gajeel's room, the worst happened.
"You could have died back there!" Lily barked.
Gajeel and Lily were in the guild infirmary with Wendy in charge. She was bandaging Gajeel's shoulder that had been lightly slashed with a rusty sword. She was surprised that he had actually managed to get hurt on such an easy mission, but she preferred not to express her astonishment the moment Lily barked at him.
The mission the brothers-in-arms were on was an easy one. They just had to neutralize a bunch of robbers with no magic skills who had attacked the bank of Magnolia. However, in the midst of the fight, Gajeel's whole body twitched and he fell down his knees, suffering from yet another violent coughing fit. Had Lily not been there, he would have been dead by now.
"C'mon," Gajeel quipped, "he just hit my shoulder, no big deal." He smirked, scratching his chest with his uninjured arm. "I was just caught off guard for a moment."
"This is unlikely of you," Wendy remarked as she finished healing his shoulder.
"Not you too," Gajeel sighed.
Lily cleared his throat then, and looked Gajeel dead in the eye. "You have to tell her. If you don't, I will."
"Tell me what?" Wendy asked, confused.
"Nothing," Gajeel answered quickly, shooting Lily a death stare. "He's just being paranoid."
At this moment, as if karma had finally caught up to him, a strangled cry escaped his mouth as he bent over, grabbing his chest with his hand. "Shit," he choked, "Wendy, step back!"
A chill ran down her spine and the urge to help him was strong, but she did as she was told. She stepped back quickly, preventing her from a direct hit of projectiles that shot out of Gajeel's mouth. Dozens of blue rose petals spread across the wooden floor. His heavy breathing as he fell down his knees made them caress the floor gently, like a waterlily hollowing across the pond.
"Wendy, do you know what this?" Lily asked gravely.
She needed a few seconds to recover from such a display of pain and struggle. She had been with Gajeel on the battlefield many times before, but this wasn't the level of pain she was accustomed to. She couldn't bear it. She wanted to help, and after thinking it through, she thought about something she learned a while ago. She observed the rose petals with intense concern. Her train of thought traveled far back in time, and the destination it reached reminded her of story times around a bonfire. Sometimes they were happy stories. Sometimes they were sad stories. But sometimes, once every full moon, they were devastating; they were tales of ancient times, and everyone wished for them not to be true.
"The Hanahaki Disease." Her voice was as low as a whisper, as if mentioning the name of such atrocity would only feed it and strengthen its hold on its victim. "The Guild Master of Cait Shelter told me this story when I was younger… I never thought such a thing could be real until today."
Lily frowned and eyed her curiously. "Hanahaki Disease, you said. What is it?"
Wendy swallowed heavily, thinking about the story she was told. "If the petals had not been blue, I would have examined him thoroughly before narrowing it down to this disease. But there's no doubt about it…" Her breathing became heavier, her fingers tensed, and the thoughts rumbling in her mind were everything but pleasant. "Natural blue roses don't exist. Genetically speaking, it's just impossible. However, this heartbreaking illness could easily pull this off."
Lily was surprised by her choice of word. "Heartbreaking?"
"Yes," she admitted gravely. "The Hanahaki Disease is an illness that is born from unrequited love."
Lily's jaw dropped as understanding dawned upon him, and Gajeel, still on all fours on the infirmary bed, did nothing but chuckle. "Heh, I knew I was right."
"Wait a minute!" Lily piped. "How is this possible?! You don't just cough up rose petals because someone doesn't love you back!"
Wendy clenched her fists, trying desperately to come up with a logical explanation to this disease, but she couldn't find anything. "I don't know how this abomination came to be, I thought it was just a legend."
Silence lingered between Wendy and Lily as they looked down at the pitiful sight displayed before them. A Dragonslayer on his knees who seemed to beg for mercy as blue rose petals shot themselves out of his mouth every passing minute. Wendy's hands were tied, she couldn't do anything against a disease she knew nothing about.
Gajeel decided to lay back down when he glanced up at them. He judged that his condition was better and that he wouldn't cough up flowers in a while. He always trusted his instincts when it came to this, he lived with this disease for quite some time after all. Also, he couldn't stand the pity in his friends' eyes. He managed to control his breathing and looked blankly up at the ceiling.
As Wendy painfully scratched her hands out of guilt of being useless, the silence broke. The sound of rushing footsteps could be heard in the corridor. Rushing footsteps that seemed to be heading right to the infirmary. Wendy and Lily snapped their head to the door and opened their eyes wide in shock as a blue-haired girl brutally barged in.
"Lily, I found it! It's the Hanahak-"
Levy's jaw dropped before she could finish her sentence. She was welcomed in the room with a plethora of blue rose petals scattered across the bed and the floor. Distress could be read on her face when she set her eyes on Gajeel. She was panting from all the running she made from her place to the infirmary, and her breathing got even heavier with the adrenaline. She knew exactly what was happening, and she needed to make a move fast.
Gajeel was the last one to lay his eyes on her. A shy smile appeared on his face then. He regarded her with intense awe as the sunlight from outside caressed and lit up her face, and consequently, lit up and heated his heart as well. He contemplated her a little while longer as the whirling motions of her orange dress stopped. Her wavy, wild blue hair brought a little something to her that he couldn't quite pinpoint, but he knew it drove him crazy. His entire being seemed to bask in her glorious glow whenever he lay his eyes on this majestic fairy. What a heavenly sight.
But blood and blue rose petals sprayed his field of vision once more, making this heavenly creature look like she was on the battlefield, and the atrocious pain came back.
"Gajeel!" she screamed.
"Levy! We can't waste any more time!" Lily growled. "Do you know how to heal him?!"
Levy blinked and snapped out of her distress. She ran to Wendy and Lily with wobbly legs and opened up the book she held in her hand. "It's here," she said, showing them the page entitled 'Hanahaki Disease'.
"Lily, why did you tell her?" Gajeel interrupted curtly.
"I told her the day after I caught you almost dying alone in your room! Did you really think I cared so little about you that I wouldn't tell anyone?"
Levy didn't give time for Gajeel to get angry at him and moved on to the description of the disease. "The Hanahaki Disease is an illness born from one-sided love. The patient coughs up flower petals when they suffer from unrequited love."
Wendy nodded in understanding."Yes, I was told about this story when I was younger, but I wasn't told how to cure it."
"This is a very old book," Levy explained, "so the language is foreign to us, but as you can see between the lines, I managed to translate most of it." A hint of pride could be felt in her tone, along with relief when she went on with the rest of the passage. "It can be cured without side effects only when the feelings are returned."
Wendy and Lily's eyes shot open wide at this discovery. In the darkness of ignorance, a new spark of hope lit up their world. But when they both glanced at Levy's proud yet clueless face, they understood that their spark of hope was just another shot in the dark.
"Now," Levy said, "maybe this person loves you back but you don't know that yet. So, Gajeel, who is it?"
Wendy bit her lip at this question. She glanced at Lily and saw utter despair in his eyes. After all this time, how could she not know? Most of the guild members must have figured it out by now. How could she not know? How could she not feel it?
Levy heard a sigh coming from Lily and turned her face to him. "What is it? What's wrong?"
On the bed, Gajeel released a weak giggle. "For a smartass you're really slow," Gajeel answered. "It's you, Shorty."
Levy froze, and the book fell out of her hands. She had heard rumours about Gajeel, about how he might have feelings for her. She never believed them. She always thought he just liked to annoy her. She didn't dislike it, it was always in good fun in the end, but she never thought it went further than this.
"No time for flashbacks, and no time to process the feelings you clearly don't have for me either," Gajeel snorted. "It's okay, ya don't have to feel guilty, ya can't just force yerself to love me back."
He looked up at the ceiling again as a few other rose petals shot out of his mouth. He wondered what he was thinking when he fell in love with her. He probably didn't think about anything; this thought alone was enough to make him smile again. He just fell for her, nothing more.
Levy looked down at all the blue rose petals spread all across his bed. Blue, my hair colour, she thought. She scratched her hand out of guilt. It's all my fault, she thought. Of all people, why did he fall in love with the one he almost killed once? She had forgiven him a long time ago, he redeemed himself in the best way possible. He was a Fairy Tail wizard now; he fought to defend this guild time and time again, he fought to protect her and his friends.
He was a changed man since the first time they met, but she didn't think of him the way he thought of her.
Wendy cleared her throat then, snapping Levy out of her self-deprecating thoughts. She had picked up Levy's book off the floor. "Levy-san, it says here that the infection can be removed through surgery," Wendy noticed.
Levy gave herself a mental slap. "Of course! I'm so sorry, I forgot you could also cure it this way!" she remembered. "The instructions for the surgery are on the next pages, do you think you can pull it off?"
Wendy flipped the page and looked cautiously at what was written. She couldn't afford any mistake.
"Okay, I need to know when it all started," Wendy addressed.
Gajeel glanced at Wendy and then back at the ceiling. "About two weeks ago," he answered.
"Two weeks," she muttered as she read the next paragraph of the book. "There are instructions for when it has only been two weeks, it doesn't seem too diff-"
"Make it a month," Levy interrupted curtly, staring at him. Wendy and Lily looked back at her, confused. Levy sighed. "This prideful idiot would lie about how long he has suffered. If you asked him 'On a scale of 1 to 10, how much pain are you in?', he would say 5 even if it was a 10. I know him, he's that kind of idiot."
Gajeel rolled his eyes. "Tch, show-off."
"Gajeel!" Lily barked, "Don't lie to us! We're trying to save your life here!"
"A month," Wendy said with gritted teeth as she read another paragraph of the book, "it means it has gone way past critical. You being alive right now is nothing short of a miracle."
Her breathing became heavy again and her hands started trembling. The pressure she had to withstand was overwhelming. She flipped through the pages and looked through the drawings and instructions. It all seemed very technical and complicated to Lily, but Wendy seemed to understand most of what was written. She was a healer after all. It took her two minutes to get a grasp of what should be done. A lively fire lit up her eyes when she looked back at Levy.
"Levy-san, I can do this!"
Levy and Lily opened their mouth wide, drawing a hopeful and enthusiastic smile on their face.
"Almost every guild members are out on missions and we don't have much time, so I'll need your help."
"No problem," Levy and Lily chorused.
"I need you to get me a scal-"
"Hold on!" Gajeel interrupted. "There's one thing ya haven't told me."
Wendy frowned in confusion. "What is it?"
"What are the side effects of the surgery? Ya ain't gonna tell me that you're only removing the illness. Ya don't just remove something out of my body without any side effect!"
Wendy didn't seem to understand where he was getting at. The side effects weren't important to her, she just wanted to save his life, but she read the book more thoroughly so Gajeel could let her carry her duty. She pointed her finger on a line of the book.
"Ah! Side effects." There was only one line in this paragraph, and her mouth opened slightly as she read it. She quickly glanced at Levy and saw an indescribable look, one of relief and sadness. "Th-the side effects…" I can't tell him such a thing, she thought. "The s-side effects… are not important!" she yelled.
Such a reaction coming from the petite healer was a shock to everyone. Levy and Lily froze as she slammed the book shut, but Gajeel was not impressed.
His voice got deeper, and a hint of threat mixed with the voice of a suffering man could be felt in his tone. "Wendy, I'm not joking. I have the right to know. Tell me."
Wendy took a deep breath, knowing that she didn't have the right to leave him in the dark. His tone was more than serious, and she didn't know how far he could go to get this piece of information. A chill ran down her spine at the idea.
"The feelings for the loved one disappear along with the petals."
Her voice quavered as she finished her statement. Levy and Lily looked down at the petals with a hatred that was never seen before. It's their fault. Why did it only target Gajeel? He's not the only who lives with unrequited love. Why him?! They couldn't believe it. They refused to believe it.
The three of them refused to believe that the cure for a broken heart would be to break this very heart.
As for the victim of this heartbreaking disease, he was smiling up at the ceiling. If a minute ago he was ready to be violent to get a piece of information, now he was peaceful. It was as if this piece of information appeased him.
He sighed a content sigh. "Wendy, come here," he whispered.
Again, she did as she was told, this time because she knew she had no time to waste asking questions. She walked calmly towards his bed and stopped beside him.
"What is it, Gajeel-san?" she asked worriedly.
Gajeel turned his face to her, stretched his arm out and put his hand firmly on Wendy's head. "Thank you," he said, "for everything you've done until now. You've been amazing." He took a deep, hurtful breath, and showed her the most genuine toothy smile that has ever appeared on his face since the disease hit him. "But I'm not having this surgery."
A moment was needed for the three of them to react or even process what he had just said. He is not having this surgery… He is not having this surgery… Their eyes shot wide open with rage and lack of understanding.
"What the hell are you talking about?!" Lily roared.
"No way in hell are we going to let this disease kill you!" Levy snapped.
Wendy slapped his hand off of her and glared at him in anger. "We've fought for each other time and time again," she said with gritted teeth. "We risked our safety to save the people we love most, and now we have yet another possibility to keep you alive and healthy. How dare you not save your own life?!"
Despite the tears streaming down her face, Gajeel witnessed her unwavering resolve. She was a Dragonslayer in the flesh. Gajeel's toothy grin faded, and again, as if this ceiling held all the answers to all his questions, he looked up.
"D'ya know how it feels to be in love?" he asked serenely.
Her anger dissipated instantly at the question – more specifically at the peacefulness of his eyes as he uttered the question. Why would it matter if she knew how it felt? What mattered was his life. What mattered was the amount of tears leaking out of her eyes when she thought about a world without Gajeel Redfox. Why would this matter?
"No, I don't," she answered.
"Well me neither," he laughed instantly. He held a hand over his chest and scratched it hard, the pain was rising but he didn't express it. "Well, I dunno how I'd describe it would be more accurate," he corrected. "But I know it feels amazing."
Without noticing it, Levy blushed when he giddily smiled up at the ceiling. His feelings for her were so raw it hit her right in this heart of hers. She felt warm at the knowledge that she was able to bring so much joy to one human being, but she felt downright horrible for not feeling the same way when he was in so much pain because of it.
"Gajeel-san," Wendy hissed, making Lily and Levy shiver, "I don't care what it feels like to be in love. I want to save your life, and if you don't want me to, I'm going to have to use force to achieve my goal."
The aura emanating from her was sharp and threatening. It was the aura of a cornered dragon trying her very best to keep her offspring alive. Levy and Lily looked at her with concerned eyes, but they understood her distress. They would help her in her endeavour, because they wanted Gajeel alive as well.
Gajeel smirked. "Interesting, kid. Ya forget one thing though," he snorted. "Ya know me, I'll fight back."
"I'm not afraid of you, Gajeel-san."
She stood her ground admirably. Once again, she looked down at him with unwavering resolve. She was determined to save him by any means necessary. Anywhere, anytime, Gajeel would have congratulated her for it. He would have expressed how proud of her he was, because he was. He was so proud of her. But today was a different day, and he couldn't let her do as she pleased.
"I think ya noticed, kid, that there are thorns inside my body. Lemme tell ya, it hurts like a bitch." His face twitched as he said this, and given the fact that he coughed up five blue rose petals in a row, he didn't fake the pain. "If I fight back," he continued with difficulty, "my body will change positions a lot, and the thorns will get all excited inside my lungs." A sick grin appeared on his face then. "One wrong move and… game over."
With one sentence, Gajeel managed to shatter Wendy's resolve. Her eyes twitched as she blinked back tears. Her fists clenched, not because she was mad but because she didn't know what to do anymore. She felt powerless against Gajeel's will to die.
"Gajeel-san," she sobbed, "why don't you want to live?"
"Because I'd rather die than live in a world where I don't love Levy."
His answer was short and immediate, and to him, it just felt like it was the most obvious fact in the world. He didn't have to think. He just knew. He wouldn't be happy living in a world where he has been stripped away from the unconditional love he felt for Levy.
Before they could add anything, Gajeel sharply interrupted their train of thought. "Now that everything's settled, Wendy, Lily, out."
Wendy and Lily blinked in confusion. "What now?!"
"I need to have a private conversation with Levy," he declared.
"Bu-"
"Wendy," Lily interrupted with a deep voice, "let's do as he says." He frowned at Gajeel for a few seconds, trying to read into his eyes. Nothing. No spark. No light. "He's not the man we used to know anymore. He's delirious."
"Heh, I might be," Gajeel sighed contently.
Wendy looked back at Lily, and a second was enough for her to realise that the fire of hope in his eyes had not died out yet. She wiped the tears off her face and decided to follow him out of the room. Whatever his plan was, they needed to be quick.
"Lily," Gajeel coughed as he headed to the door, "before you go."
Lily snapped his head around and almost wavered at the sight. Gajeel was fully standing on the infirmary bed with wet blood sliding down his bare chest. His smile was bright as he stretched out his arm to him. How glorious he looked, just as if he was the last man standing in the middle of the battlefield.
Lily puffed out his chest and proudly walked up to him. No matter what he said, no matter how delirious he thought him to be, he couldn't deny that they were still brothers-in-arms. He looked up at him with the eyes of a prideful warrior, and stretched out his arm to him as well. No words needed to be said for one to understand the other. Their eyes spoke to their heart's content, and their fists bumped.
Gajeel grinned. "Take care."
Lily mirrored his smile. "Yeah, see you soon, brother."
And with this, followed by a worried Wendy, Lily turned on his heel and walked out of the room.
When Gajeel heard the door close, his smile disappeared, and he released everything his throat had tried to contain all this time. A strangled cry escaped his exhausted body as he vomited his lungs out. Dozens of blue rose petals mixed with blood squirted out of his mouth in one brutal cough.
"Gajeel!" Levy screeched as she rushed beside him, "please lay back down," she implored.
She gave him a hand and supported his back as he went back down. He was in a pitiful state; his upper body was covered in blood, and some of the blood that dried made some of the blue rose petals stick to his body. Surrounded by blue petals and the heart-wrenching smell of blood, the room looked sinister.
A chill ran down her spine and all the way back to the tip of her hair when she realised it could be his deathbed.
"That damn cat," he hissed, "he ran off to the guild to call up Master so he can come here and force me to have this damn surgery."
Levy's eyes widened at how fast he understood Lily's plan. Lily didn't tell her but she had guessed. She was surprised that Gajeel so quickly caught up to it, especially in his state. Whether he knew or not didn't matter though, all that counted was for Lily to be quick enough, and she had no doubt that he would be.
Gajeel didn't stop coughing rose petals out of his mouth. Sadly enough, it became so redundant to him that it became a background noise, even though it hurt even more every time. He glanced at Levy who had knelt down beside him; this glimpse she had of her was enough to make him smile again.
"So, Levy… d'ya like bread?"
Levy blinked. "What?"
"I dunno," Gajeel laughed hoarsely, "just tryin' to find something to talk about."
Levy tried to fake a smile, to tell herself that everything was going to be fine and that she could joke around and bicker with him because he was going to live, but the smell of blood on the bed sheets made her think otherwise, and she almost broke down crying.
"G-Gajeel," she stuttered, "this isn't the time to be funny." She whimpered as she gathered enough strength to go on. "Please, I beg you, let yourself live."
"And stop loving you?" he asked. "No way in hell. It'd be more painful than death."
His resolve was unshakable. No matter how much his love hurt, he would never get rid of it. He thought back to all the moments of joy she brought him without even her knowing. He thought back to all the times she saved him without even her knowing. The more he remembered the good times with her, the more his heart beat. And the more his heart beat, the more the thorns inside him grew. He winced in pain as he could feel them creeping up his heart.
But none of it mattered. He knew he was done for already. However, even when going through all this pain, the love he felt for her was strong enough for him to smile. That was all he could do after all, and he was glad of it.
"Ya shoulda been more careful," he sighed contently.
"I should have been more careful? What did I do?" she wondered.
"I guess my heart is a dangerous thing," he snorted. "It had rarely been traveled, it wasn't used to people before. And then I let you in and you turned everything upside down." He laughed at the idea of an even tinier Levy strolling around his heart. "Dammit Shorty," he chuckled, "look both ways before you cross my heart."
How was she supposed to respond to that? She knew he wasn't blaming her, but she didn't know she had taken that much importance in his life. She never saw herself as anything special. She loved to read. She loved to spend nights alone working on deciphering a new language. She could be funny sometimes. But why on Earthland would he fall in love with this kind of person? It didn't make sense to her. How could she have looked both ways if she never knew where she set her feet in the first place?
"I guess I thought you wouldn't catch me jaywalking," she joked.
Her own eyes shot wide open at this answer. She didn't expect herself to joke around in such a situation, but deep down, it felt right. She always had a homely feeling next to him, as if anything was allowed whenever one was around the other.
Despite his hoarse and pained vocal cords, Gajeel managed to laugh. "Gihihi, ya ain't that tiny, Shrimp," he gasped. "I've got a good eye, and no matter how tiny you get, I'll see you. I will always see you."
The end of his sentence sounded more serious than its beginning, but it didn't matter as he lay on his side and got hit by another violent coughing fit. Levy was horrified but she did not move away from the torrent of blood and blue rose petals streaming down her feet. She would stay by his side until everything was over. However, this crisis felt more important. It wasn't just a coughing fit, this time, Gajeel was vomiting the petals. They didn't stop flowing as Gajeel's complexion turned whiter.
"Hang in there, Gajeel," Levy cheered desperately, "help is on its way, you won't have to suffer for long. You're not alone, I'm here."
Gajeel panted and gasped for air when the last drops of rose petals managed to stream out of his bloodied mouth. He immediately lay back down as he tried to have his steady breathing back. However, this moment of calm was kept short. His whole body tensed and he brought his hands to his throat. He could no longer breathe.
"Gajeel! What's happening?! Help!" she cried out.
Only choking sounds could be heard from him. She could see all of his veins with compacted blood in them, whether they were on his throat or his forehead. He looked like he was about to explode from high pressure. Gajeel opened his mouth wide and tried his best to exhale. Something obstructed his throat and was preventing him from breathing normally. After each passing second, she could see it making its way up his throat. With one strong, final attempt from Gajeel, the thing popped out of his throat, and he could finally breathe.
It took him multiple seconds to take control of his breathing. His breathing wasn't obviously that of a normal person, but he managed. When this was done, they both looked down at what tried to choke him. They had to blink more than once to believe what set before their very eyes.
It was a full-blown flower. Instead of coughing out petals, Gajeel had coughed out a whole flower. Neat and unscathed, a full-blown blue rose set on Gajeel's chest.
"Gihi, look," Gajeel gurgled, "I brought a flower to my own funeral."
Levy gave a closer look to the blue rose. It was true that its petals were neat and unscathed, they were perfect. The long stem, however, looked dangerous. The size of the thorns was abnormally huge compared to usual rose thorns. They seemed sharper, and to prove it, she only had look at the stains and drops of blood that accumulated on the stem. It must have ripped through some of his organs as it popped out. It must have hurt. Concerned, she looked up to check on him.
His eyes were closed.
His body wasn't moving.
"Gajeel?" she called timidly.
No answer.
"Gajeel?!" she repeated, louder this time.
No answer.
She shivered and started breathing heavily when she understood what was happening. "Gajeel!" she cried out, shaking him. "Come on," she cheered with enthusiasm, "Wendy's coming back here soon. Just hang in there, okay?"
No matter how forcefully she shook him, no answer could be heard. Tears started welling down her cheeks all the way to his bloodstained chest as she bent over him. Her hands and her ear ended up resting on his chest. She couldn't hear any heartbeat. She couldn't feel any heartbeat. All she could feel was a bloody cross piercing through his heart.
The deadly thorns had committed their vicious deed.
A deafening, shrill shriek burst out of her mouth at the realisation. Her distress echoed inside the room as her tears flooded Gajeel's body and dried it off of its blood. "You can't do this to me!" she screamed vainly. "I said I'd say by your side until everything was over! I meant until Wendy came back and healed you, you idiot!"
She scratched his chest with her fingernails out of utter frustration and despair. "How dare you?!" she sobbed with gritted teeth. "It wasn't supposed to happen this way… Fuck! Why do you have to be so stupid?!"
Her heart drummed an inconsistent melody against her ribcage as she thought back to all the other times where Gajeel had been stupid. "You've always been an idiot, from the first day we met," she whimpered. "From the moment you tried to nail me to this tree when you were still a Phantom Lord wizard and dropped me twice because you weren't fast enough to bind me properly without me falling off!"
She always chuckled whenever she remembered this moment. How clumsy he was. This time, she didn't laugh. She just screamed. "From this moment to all the moments you picked petty fights with Natsu to show off how much better than him you were even though nobody cared!"
Levy's whole body trembled, and her belly ached when she remembered all the other times with Gajeel. "You've always been an idiot, even until the very end," she sobbed with her head buried in his chest, "such an idiot." She clenched her fists, raised her head and contemplated in despair his peaceful face with light red tears streaming down her face. "So why do I care so much about you?!"
She buried her face in her hands and carried on screaming. Her voice was exhausted and started to get hoarse, but she didn't care. She could only think about her dead friend, and all the moments they had. All the moments they would have had… and all the moments they will never have. "Who's going to bicker with me when I'm at the guild?" she sobbed. "Who's going to call me Shorty or Shrimp even though I say I hate it? Who's going to make fun of me whenever I trip or fail to reach a book placed on a way too far up shelf for me?"
She chuckled a little at the memories. And she realised that he was beside her a lot more than she thought. "Who's going to help me reach for that book? Who's going to make me feel big when I think I'm too small? Who am I going to turn to in moments of need…"
The sound of rushing footsteps coming from outside interrupted her train of thought; it was probably Wendy and the others, but she knew it was already too late. She also discovered one thing about herself, but she knew it was already too late. Who's the idiot now? she thought. As her tears kept on flowing, she felt a sharp pain stinging the inside of her chest. She froze, feeling the pain traveling all the way up to her throat. Her face twitched, and what she was afraid of happened.
She sprayed out of her mouth a dozen dark rose petals – as dark as Gajeel's hair. They floated in the air with whirling motions for what seemed to be an eternity, and after their intimate dance with gravity, they slowly but gently died down his chest, covering Gajeel's blue rose.
A/N: Sorry about that.
Well, I hope this was entertaining. A friend who reads a lot of K-Pop related fanfictions told me that the Hanahaki Disease was very popular in her fandom, and I just loved the idea so I decided to write something based on it! I think I like how it came out but I'd love to know what you think! Feel free to tell me about your feelings :)