Series: Inuyasha/Noragami
Pairing: Kagome/Yato
Prompt: Hanahaki Disease - Forget-Me-Nots

It had started out as a tickle in his chest, a small rattle with every inhale. When it finally became too much and he coughed a few times to try and clear out whatever was causing the irritation, Yato was shocked to pull his hand away and find his palm full of tiny, delicate petals in a shade of blue not dissimilar to his eyes.

This was wrong. Something was wrong. He'd seen others with the disease before. It was always sad, seeing someone's unrequited love on display for all the world. But Yato knew who had his heart, and he knew he had theirs in return.

So what had happened?

The trip to the shrine was made in a rush, but Yato still glanced around the shrine before stepping foot on the grounds – other gods could get touchy about him being on their turf. But his caution was forgotten when he spotted her going about her usual shrine duties. She wasn't a priestess for him, but she was still his priestess.

"Kagome!" He called out as he approached her.

Kagome paused before looking around, confused. When she shrugged and went back to what she was doing, Yato felt his heart crack a little. Coughing again, a flurry of blue petals fell to the ground with a few full blooms and flower buds mixed in. Yato took a few breaths, wincing at the burn in his throat where the flowers stuck and scratched on the way up.

He stayed for several hours, trying to get Kagome to notice or acknowledge him, becoming more desperate and frantic with each failed attempt. The most he ever got was a glance in his direction, and he swore their eyes met, but soon it was like she was looking right through him.

She hadn't stopped loving him. She couldn't perceive his presence anymore. She'd forgotten that she'd ever loved him to begin with.

The pain was overwhelming and all consuming. The burn in his chest and throat and lungs was dulled considerably by the ache in his heart. It seemed to spread through his blood like poison, making his whole body ache.

He'd returned to Kofuku's home without a word and barely moved from where he decided to lay in the floor, despite the best efforts of Kofuku and Yukine. But once they'd seen the petals and flowers that accumulated around him and stuck to his lips, things became a lot clearer.

"It's so sad…" Kofuku had said in a hushed tone where she sat with Daikoku.

"And ironic," Daikoku added. "They usually are to some level, but that's just mean. Forget-me-nots?"

When they saw Yato flinch at the very mention of the little blue flowers, Kofuku scooted closer to her friend and petted his head. "You know," she said softly as she continued to smooth his hair in an effort to ease some of his pain, "they have another meaning. They also stand for undying love."

Yato curled further into himself. 'Great,' he thought. 'So I'll be coughing up these flowers forever?' He was a god, so he doubted he would ever die from them, but the pain of it, of the scratching flowers and the fresh wave of sadness they brought whenever he saw them, was almost more than he thought he could handle for eternity.

For days he did nothing. The petals would work their way up his throat a few times a day, wet and sticking to the inside of his mouth. He wanted to burn them. They were nothing but a painful reminder of something wonderful he'd lost. But they were her flowers. They were a physical representation of what they'd had and how much he'd loved her, how much he still loved her.

But then it happened.

After more than two weeks of wallowing but finally getting used to the taste and texture of flower petals coating his tongue, none came. Yato woke up already preparing to cough up everything that had accumulated as he slept, but there was nothing. No tickle, no tight feeling, no shortness of breath. His chest was light and clear and still very full of love. He was still trying to figure out what was going on when he felt it, that unmistakable presence that was all her.

Yato was stumbling over his own feet by the time he got to the front door and flung it open to reveal a stunned Kagome. Surprised by his distressed state, Kagome eventually smiled up at him and held up her shopping bags. "I brought stuff to make lunch for everyone. It feels like it's been forever!"

"Everyone…" Yato's brain was still trying to catch up as he spoke, "Everyone's out today."

"Oh," Kagome let her bags fall back by her side before shrugging and toeing off her shoes to step inside. "I guess it'll just be the two of us then," she said with a smile as she breezed past him.

Yato wondered if he'd finally lost it. Walking up behind Kagome as she started her prep for cooking their lunch, he wrapped her arms around her shoulders and held her tightly. He buried his nose in her hair and inhaled as she laughed at him, putting one of her hands, soft and warm, over his as she asked what was up with him. Yato simply shook his head and held onto her a little longer, even as she continued to giggle at his odd behavior and go back to cooking.

She was really there. She saw him. She talked to him. She laughed and touched his arm. She ate with him. She loved him again.

Yato didn't want to question it, he was afraid to. He just wanted things to go back to the way they were before the stupid flowers had shown up. And they did, for a while at least.

The day came again when the flowers returned, and Yato's screaming had woken up the rest of the house.

With time it became apparent that Kagome's powers, still developing as they were, had entered a state of flux where they would dip between almost nonexistent and then extremely powerful. But this also meant that there were periods where she simply lacked the awareness to perceive him or his existence which naturally made her forget about him.

"Why not just tell her?" Yukine asked him once after Yato had practically coughed up an entire bouquet. "It's not fair that you have to go through it by yourself."

"She doesn't need to know," Yato answered simply. He knew it would only make her feel guilty during their times together when she remembered him, and it was those good times that helped him tolerate the scratching and the tickling and the choking and the ache in his chest. It might be a long time before the flowers disappeared for good, but he would endure each time, his love undying, until she remembered him again.