Chapter Text
"-huge, muscular monster!"
The new student's eyes widen. They're blue: the truest, clearest blue eyes that Sibyl has ever seen.
If Sibyl were a nicer person, if Adrian weren't potentially at risk, that look might have given her pause. Instead she points her finger accusingly at Athena and by extention, the huge figure behind him.
"You moved into an abandoned house, miraculously made inhabitable again over night-" Sibyl holds up a finger and continues.
"Then you sit next to him despite knowing he's a human catastrophy-" She holds up another finger.
"And you have one of the biggest spirits I've ever seen behind you! Be honest, who actually are you?" Sibyl stares at Athena's paling face and waits for a response.
She's not sure what she's expecting. Denial would be useless but she's seen enough people cling to lies for comfort that it's a possibility. Admitence would be expecting too much, rarely is one confrontation enough for anything to get done. Her mother's job had taught her as much. Something in the middle maybe, admitting to lying but then using another lie to recover his control of the situation.
What she isn't expecting is for him to break into a coughing fit. His right hand goes to cover his mouth and his left is pressed to his heaving chest.
It sounds wet, like the sound of phlem coming up.
Blood drips from between his fingers. Droplets spill onto the ground, burgundy dark on the gray turf.
Sibyl watches, frozen, as Athena stumbles back, grasping the fence behind him for support. His bloody mouth is uncovered now, red and wet , and open like a gaping wound. The coughing goes quiet in favour of laboured breathing until-
Something - multiple things - splatter onto the ground in front of Athena's feet.
Nothing in Sibyl's life, not spirits nor bullying nor Adrian's bad luck, could have prepared her to see a classmate throwing up flowers.
Suddenly, muscular monsters don't feel like a big deal anymore.
"You-"
The final flower hits the cement. They have small petals, hundreds to each flower, and each flower is a little smaller than Sibyl's palm.
There are six full flowers. Three to each lung if they had been spread equally.
She can't imagine how they fit.
They're red with blood but the few petals not soaked with red are a pristine white, the same as Athena's hair.
"Please, don't tell Adrian. It's embarrassing enough that you've seen me like this," Athena, looking mortified, presses a hand to his bloody lips as though to hide them. His skin is flushed scarlet but whether that be from embarassment or light-headedness, Sibyl isn't sure.
"Is this why you wanted to be friends with Adrian? Because you're..." Sibyl isn't sure how to phrase the rest of her question.
"Unique" would be patronising.
"Different" would be even more so.
"A freak" would be rude.
"Pathetic, huh?" Athena looks down at his feet. His uniform was mercifully spared from the stream of flowers, still entirely clean. He looks past Sibyl's shoulder and goes to move around her.
"Where are you going?"
"Leaving. I-" Athena clears his throat. "Don't want to be seen like this"
"...I have tissues in my bag," Sibyl offers. She shifts her bag to her front and roots through it.
The metalic scent of blood is strong.
But hopefully, her lemon scented wipes are stronger.
She pulls out the pack and after taking a look at Athena's dripping hands, opens it to take out a handful of wipes.
Athena accepts them quietly. He cleans his mouth first. When he smiles at her hesitantly, she realises they have another problem.
"You look like you've eaten someone," Sibyl blurts out.
"You're funny," he says drily. Still, he reaches for the zip of his backpack and pulls out his water bottle. He takes a swig, swirls it around his mouth and spits it through the fence. The plants outside begin to droop heavily with the weight of the dirty water but luckily it's watered down enough that no red smears are left on the green leaves.
He repeats this until most of the blood is gone for his teeth. The only part still left stained is his gums where the blood has sunken into each little crevice.
Athena looks down at the blooming clusters of petals on the ground.
"The flowers?"
"Throw them over the fence, maybe," Sibyl suggests. Athena bends down, grabbing flowers by the fist full, crushing them in his fists, and tosses them over the fence.
Sibyl has the feeling that if they were something solid, a brick or stone perhaps, they would have flown over the gate and hit the next nearest building. But the flowers are made of dainty petals so instead of pelting the next house, they're tamed by the wind: slowed into a ballera-esque descent.
They fall among the grass and weeds. If Sibyl hadn't known exactly where they were from, she would assume they were a strange, spottled species of rose.
"Thanks. I can see why you and Adrian are friends."
"Pardon?" Sibyl asks. She likes Adrian more than she likes anyone but it makes the statement sound no less insulting.
Athena is wiping his hands with the rest of the tissues. "You have a talent for managing a crisis is all I mean. I had been prepared to flee but you... you helped, a lot. Thanks is what I'm trying to say," Athena smiles the same phony smile he had been using before his episode. The perfect, nothing too much, nothing too scrunched, smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes.
The muscular spirit behind him looks more honest than Athena. Its wiping at its big face, lips pulled down into a quiver, beating at its chest with one hand like it feels the Chrysanthemums in its lungs too. In the sunlight, golden beams shinning through its semi-transparent being, its hulking body doesn't look nearly as threatening.
"Who-"
"Please, don't ask," Athena pleads, pouring what's left of his water bottle over the bloody spot where his flowers once sat. The blood dilutes, sinking into nothing more than a particulary dark patch of cement.
As much as Sibyl wants to pry, she doesn't finish her question. The spirit is weeping into its palms.
"Adrian doesn't know?" Sibyl asks instead.
"No."
"He wouldn't judge," Sibyl says. She curses her need to defend her friend because she ought to be trying to scare Athena away, not encourage him. Yet she continues, "he's been judged enough in his life that he gives more grace than most. Too much grace, sometimes."
"It's not about him judging," Athena crosses his arms uncomfortably. He shuffles, grinding the heel of his shoe into the fence. "You won't tell, right?"
"It's not my bussiness to."
It takes three more minutes for Adrian to show up. He has an armful of what must be at least nine drinks unlike the three Sibyl had acutally asked for. Although, every other can has a hole somewhere in its metal so supposedly it 'evens out'. She doesn't bother to ask whether the cans had holes to start with or if they progressively gained holes as Adrian returned to them.
Sibyl ends up sipping at a singular can, chatting intermittedly with Adrian, as Athena down several like its alcohol. Adrian laughs at the sight, watching as Athena drinks from a hole at the bottom of the can.
Sibyl knows Athena isn't actually thirsty. But the strong, artificial flavours will help cover up the bitter, coppery taste of blood.
That night in bed, Sibyl stuggles to sleep. She grabs her phone and deftly types into the search bar of her browser.
It's as she thought.
Hanahaki Disease. A rare condition experienced by less than 3% of the population.
Those inflicted by it are defined by their inability to love again after having been rejected by their first love. Society frowns upon these people for the most part, claiming that sufferers are overdramatic for being unable to heal after a broken heart. Typically, the younger the inflicted, the worse the ridicule is.
It doesn't help that there had been a period in which the disease was said to be entirely fabricated, a lie made up by women who hadn't wished to be remarried after their husbands died of mysterous circumstances. Some people had admittedly faked it, swallowing flowers and wine only to throw it up publicly to be declared unmarriagable.
Nowadays, there are few to no faked cases yet the disease still gets a bad rep.
Scientists have yet to find a reason or cure for Hanahaki but there have been legends of its supposed origins.
Most tales are of a scorned god of love whose anger had boiled over after a peasant had renounced their godly faith, claiming that their one love had taken what was once their love with them in death. In retaliation, they had created the Hanahaki disease, inflicting the peasant and all tragic lovers to its fatal flora.
Except...
Hanahaki in it's beginning stages should only be a handful of petals. Not full flowers.
Hanahaki is a progressive disease and its full development takes anywhere from a year to five depending on how well someone is managing their detereorating health.
Sibyl is shocked Athena is still standing. People usually die before even a singular full blossom is formed.
She wonders how long Athena has been in love for.
She wonders how badly he must have been rejected to be throwing up a funeral flower.
Sibyl's sympathy for Athena doesn't stop her from giving Adrian a talisman, certain of the spirit she had seen. It does mean that secretly she's glad when she's proven wrong. She's more than willing to overlook the very clear apparition she had seen that day, to even apologise genuinely to Athena.
Because Athena is clearly going through enough right now.