A/N: So... I've always shipped AoMei really hard. There are so few AoMei fics around, so here's my contribution! :D If you're confused about what's happening, please note that:
Hanahaki Disease is a fictional disease in which the sufferer coughs up flowers when they experience unrequited love. It progresses from petals to entire flowers, and ends when the person of their affections returns their romantic feelings. It can be cured through surgical removal, but when the disease is removed, the victim's romantic feelings also disappear.
There are many versions of this disease, so not all of the above may hold true for other fics.
When Mei clears her throat for the fifth time in an hour, her face screwing up in discomfort as she swallows, Ao decides that he cannot ignore her condition any longer. "Mei-sama, perhaps you should—"
"It's nothing," she interrupts brusquely, her gaze stubbornly fixed on the report before her.
Ao shifts on his feet, frowning as he considers the way she is hunched over her table, the line of her shoulders stiff from sitting too long in her office. Even with the soft morning sunlight illuminating her, she looks pale and grey— not adjectives which suit her at all. It is obvious that the stress of leading a secret rebellion against the Yondaime Mizukage's despotic regime is wearing her down, badly.
"Chojuro! Get some hot tea and honey!" he shouts at the half-open doorway. The seals on the walls and windows buzz faintly as they activate to prevent any sound from escaping their hideout.
There's a yelped affirmative before the boy's chakra signature disappears down the hallway of their rundown apartment. Ao sighs, his eyes slipping closed in a moment of pure exasperation. With Zabuza and Haku having defected and formed their own rebel group, Chojuro had relapsed into his anxiety-ridden, tanglefooted manners. And here Ao thought there was some hope of making a proper shinobi out of him.
"For goodness sake, Ao," Mei grumbles with a roll of her eyes. Ao doesn't know whether he should be insulted that she has finally deemed to look up at him and it's to protect her Cho-ju-ro. "He's not my tea lady and you're not my butler. You're my adviser so advise me."
She voice promptly breaks as she is wracked with another fit of coughs.
Ao's irritation rapidly morphs into worry when the coughs show no sign of relenting, even when Mei doubles over gasping, unable to catch her breath. Her lungs have always been weak, but they have only worsened over the years. "Mei-sama," he murmurs helplessly, shrugging out of his haori to drape it over her shaking form. She bats at him as he tries to tuck it around her shoulders, and he has enough self-preservation instincts to step back at her watery glare. "You should rest," he insists. "The rebellion would be useless without you."
Mei wipes at her mouth with the back of her clenched fist, her exhausted gaze falling to her lap. "Shut up."
His unexpected disappointment at the absence of her usual vitriol disappears when he catches sight of the smudge of red at the corner of her mouth. It isn't her lipstick - that would be several shades lighter and great deal more pinkish - but blood.
Her eyes widen when he leans forward suddenly, his gaze fixed intensely on the line of colour. "Mei-sama...!'
With a hand slapped squarely over his face, she shoves him back, giving him an awful crick in the neck in the process.
"We are calling a medic immediately, Mei-sama," Ao declares, wincing as he turns his face away. A whiff of blood tickles his nose and his heart clenches. "This is no small matter. As your advisor, I insist..." he trails off as he realises that there is a sweet, flowery scent lingering beneath the heavy copper of blood.
Guilt flashes over Mei's face before it is hidden behind an uncompromising frown. "I know." She turns her face away and scrubs at the bloodied corner of her mouth angrily. "Obviously."
His stomach twists. "Mei-sama, if it's... It could kill you."
"I know."
The defeat in her voice and the dullness of her usually vibrant, seaglass-green eyes perturbs him more than anything.
Hanahaki has an infamous death-rate. Sufferers of this disease cough up flowers until they choke on them, suffocated on the physical manifestation of their unrequited love. It's a tragic, meaningless death. The Yondaime despises the condition; anyone found to have it is considered unfit for the shinobi ranks, and so left to die.
Ao wonders if he should be out there killing some ungrateful wretch who thinks themselves too good for Mei.
When she looks up again, it is with a small, tired smile. "Don't worry. I won't let this affect our rebellion."
Our rebellion. The way she says it moves him, even after all these years. Even with a life-threatening conditioning plaguing her, she is putting Kiri above all else. But that shouldn't be surprising. Her will has always been indomitable. When Ao sighs, it is with both pride and sorrow.
Just who is this man who managed to capture his future Mizukage's heart so thoroughly, that she would literally wither away from the lack of his affections? His Mizukage is no little woman, weeping because of another's whims and fancies.
Bitterness rises up at the back of his throat as she brings her clenched fist up onto the table, her delicate fingers unfolding to reveal a crushed string of bluebells. Their broken petals are streaked with crimson; their greenish-purple stem bent in several places. Why some imagine this grotesque disease to be poetic is beyond Ao, but Mei is still smiling wanly at the lump of blue on her palm.
No one should have this kind of hold over someone like Mei.
"Have you confessed?"
Mei stiffens, her fingers twitching as if she wanted to hide the flowers away again. "No," she grits out, refusing to look at him once more.
"Then you should try," Ao states matter-of-factly, pushing away his misgivings as he focuses on what is most important: saving Mei. "It is the fastest and easiest cure. It would be foolish not to try before resorting to more extreme methods."
"Wouldn't it be selfish, though?" Mei wonders out loud, her gaze meeting his with a challenge flashing in her eyes. "It would be cruel to force someone to bear the burden of my feelings. I don't want him to feel guilty if he does not return my feelings... and I die."
"You're too soft-hearted, Mei-sama," Ao grumbles. He folds his arms and thinks hard. Perhaps she had fallen for one of the young lords, or even one of the accomplished shinobi from the middle-caste clans. Ao just hopes it isn't Zabuza, or Ao will have a hell of a time trying to kidnap that man.
"Is he part of the rebellion?"
"...yes." She looks vaguely sheepish, but Ao is relieved.
"Then he should understand how important it is for you to live."
"I'm sure he does."
"Then?"
Mei's mouth drops open in incredulity. "Then? Is he supposed to discover some sort of hidden passion for me out of sheer duty to his Mizukage-to-be?"
It is Ao's turn to roll his eyes. "If he's in this damn rebellion even though Yagura's flaying people alive to get at us—" Mei flinches and Ao pauses, berating himself silently for his callousness. "Then the lucky bastard's half in love with you anyway. Even without Zabuza's followers, you remain the most popular choice for Godaime. And you won't die, Mei-sama. If worst comes to the worst, it's not too late to consider surgery to remove that damn Hanahaki."
"And remove together with it any ability of mine to love, ever. I'll be no better than Yagura," Mei muses. The profound sadness in her whisper makes Ao frown.
"Rumours of those side-effects are greatly exaggerated. I don't see how surgery can prevent anyone from experiencing a specific type of emotion unless they perform a serious lobotomy."
"It's a complex condition and you're hardly a med-nin," Mei protests, but Ao barrels on.
"And even if those side-effects are true, removal of Hanahaki excises with it romantic love, not platonic love. I'd be greatly concerned being Mizukage entails romancing the population."
Mei looks amused despite herself, and Ao thinks it a welcome change compared to her sombre frown from before. "Stop interrupting me," she says reprovingly.
Ao inclines his head in apology and Mei huffs, her expression becoming distant as she laces her fingers beneath her chin.
"What about you, Ao?"
He lifts an eyebrow at her, noting her suspiciously bright gaze.
"Are you "half in love" with me as well?"
She doesn't look like she's teasing. An anticipatory stillness has taken over her, like how a predator would fall still before pouncing on its prey. What a fine hole he has dug for himself, he thinks as a cold sweat breaks out at the nape of his neck. Damn his hyperbolic tendencies and his inability to keep his mouth shut around her.
Mei might flirt with half her enemies and flaunt her cleavage to the rest, but none of that means she'll tolerate any indiscreet talk, especially talk about herself.
"You know I'd do anything for you, Mei-sama."
He must have said something right, because her interrogative gaze softens, and turns sly.
"And you do know that nothing good comes out of saying "I'll do anything", do you?"
It takes a half a second too long for Ao to realise that Mei is teasing this time, and another half second to pinpoint the reference she had made. Damn, she's read those books by that perverted Konoha-nin?
"Don't worry," Mei continues, suddenly coy in a way that she has never been with him. "Your virtue is safe with me."
Ao's mouth goes dry at the terrible inappropriateness of it all.
The moment is shattered when there a hesitant, barely audible "umm" sounds at the doorway. Ao's spine snaps ramrod straight as he spins towards the door, his hand already dropping to his weapons pouch.
"Tea?" Chojuro squeaks, his face incredibly red. Embarrassment crashes over Ao as he wonders how much their only remaining Swordsman heard.
"Thank you, dear," Mei says, perfectly composed as always as she gifts the young shinobi with a kind smile.
"Y-you're most w-welcome, Mei-sama!"
The boy is blushing as bright as a sunburnt tomato. It clashes horribly with his blue hair, Ao notes. He wonders if he himself is in the same sorry state.
Once the boy is safely out of the office and Mei is sipping happily at her honeyed tea - not much use for the Hanahaki but enough to soothe her throat - Ao turns back to her. He's itching to stab someone. "So, who should I be dragging into this office?"
"Exactly no-one," she replies imperiously. Setting her coughed-up bluebells carefully upon a piece of scrap paper, she produces a handkerchief out of nowhere and wipes her hands. "Come here, Ao."
His confusion deepens when she takes his hand, her fingers tracing around his wrist and the scars on the back of his knuckles before clasping her palm against his. Her hand is warm and soft in his; her grip tight but not uncomfortable. Ao would be content to hold her hand like this forever, but the entire situation is undeniably strange. "Mei-sama?"
She stares at their hands like they're some kind of revelation, her head bowed. "We've known each other for so long, haven't we? All those years we suffered in ANBU and now as missing-nin."
Emotions that Ao thought he had long excised from himself surge once more with vengeance, threatening to choke him as he traces the familiar spill of her auburn waves with his gaze. They have crawled through the pits of death together, with first the Sandaime on their heels and now the Yondaime bearing down on them. It's a miracle that they've survived this long at all. Despite himself, he tries his best to memorise this strange, intimate scene.
"What are you doing, Mei-sama?" he whispers.
She raises her head, her eyes shimmering. "I've had Hanahaki for a long time, Ao. Ever since we escaped Kiri." Her lips press into a bittersweet smile. "Do you remember? We were shipwrecked in Lightning, and both of us were half-dead from hypothermia. We'd found that surreal sea of flowers..."
Ao remembers. Of course he does. Shelter had been so far away that they'd collapsed right in the woodlands, where a blanket of bluebells had stretched as far as the eye could see. He'd lain there with Mei shivering in his arms, wondering whether they'd wake up once they fell asleep. It won't be the worst fate to die peacefully with her beside him. The hunter-nins can do anything they want to their corpses, but they'll be long gone.
"You're the only one who has stayed by my side." She ducks her head to the side as another round of coughs seizes her. Ao stares, unable to believe what she is implying even as he sees blood-streaked bluebells tumble from her mouth again. Her hand slips from his nerveless fingers.
"I'm sorry," she gasps, sweeping the bluebells off her lap with an exhausted twitch of her hand. Ao watches as they scatter. "This isn't fair to you. I should have been content with what we have. T-this isn't some duty you owe your future Mizukage."
He's moving before he realises it, his hands on her shoulders and his knees hitting the ground as he pulls her towards him, off the chair and into a crushing embrace. "No," he breathes, his heart pounding hard in his throat. Her shock makes her tense but he holds on, desperate to make her understand that her galling apology isn't needed. "This isn't some duty. I..."
It's the height of impudence.
His head is spinning. He'd never dared to imagine such a thing would happen— like she said, she is his lady Mizukage. Even without that title, she has always been so far above him.
Mei's arms come up between them. With her hands splayed against his chest, she pushes slightly. Ao reluctantly lets her go, disappointment and fear crawling up his spine when he realises that she's shaking her head, her expression filled with bemusement. For one horrifying moment, he wonders if he had daydreamed so vividly that he'd convinced himself of a fantasy.
"I don't understand. You've never mentioned anything." She looks up at him, and her eyes are the most beautiful, crystal like blue-green that he's ever seen, like the shallow seas in on the brightest of days. He could drown in them. Her smile, too... "Ao?"
He shakes himself. "How could I?" Ao replies wryly, calming now that he sees the source of her doubts. "You're young. And my caste—"
Her eyes blaze. Before he can finish, she grabs him with one hand anchored behind his neck and another cupped along his jaw, and silences him with a kiss.
He has always appreciated her decisiveness.
"Don't you dare talk about caste," Mei warns when they break apart, panting. "I'm abolishing all that when I'm Mizukage, and you know that, you repressed bastard. Wait, have you ever had Hanahaki as well?"
Ao laughs breathlessly, tasting blood and the bitter aftertaste of the flowers scattered around them. "I've never allowed myself to dwell on the possibility of loving you romantically. It would have been selfish to distract you like that," he says, serious despite the levity of his tone as he echoes her words. "You have such great dreams. I told myself that I would be useless to you, if I ever developed Hanahaki."
"Shut up, Ao," she growls, nipping at his lips again. "You and your emotional compartmentalisation. It's unhealthy."
Warmth fills his chest as he pulls her close, his hand sliding through her spill of auburn tresses. "Yes, Mei."
A/N: Hope you guys enjoyed!
So, uh, if you're a reader of Ghost (my other story) I'm really sorry for going AWOL! :'( I thought I could post another chapter to let you all know I'd be going on hiatus again because of some intense real life stuff... but... writer's block! At least it's not a cliffhanger? Haha. Anyway, I'll be around!