"You're Bleeding."

A few days later, in the empty sekai, Kanade was talking to Len, mulling over everything, it all sloppily coming out, seemingly all at once, all while she coughed and sputtered out at the same time, len intently listening, being understanding even though he didn’t exactly understand what was going on.

A little while later, once all the blood had been cleaned up and Kanade was back in her bedroom making music as per usual, Len walked over to Miku, asking her a question, with him trying to not show worry.

“Miku, do you know what Hanahaki is.?”

“Hmm.. I don't think I do.. Though when one of the group comes to sekai we could use their phone to look it up for you?” Miku replied then suggested, hoping that would be an okay suggestion as she herself had no clue, and to their convenience, Mizuki appeared in the sekai a few moments after, a little way away from len and miku, almost as if on cue.

“Ah! Len, Miku, yahoo!” Mizuki called out as they trotted over to the pair of virtual singers, a smile on their face as they did so, Len and Miku’s faces lighting up a little in turn.

Then the normal greetings ensued, with the hellos and how are you’s, the conversation falling silent for a little while until Len decided to speak up, turning to Mizuki while Miku was turned to Luka, who’d come over a few minutes after Mizuki showed up.

“Mizuki, can I look something up on your phone.? I asked Miku about what I wanted to find out but she didn’t know, so I was um.. I was waiting until someone with a phone came so I could um.. Borrow it..” Len slightly stuttered, finishing his sentence in the end, his fingers ending up finding themselves fidgeting with each other, but not enough to make a scene.

“Oh, of course you can len! What do you want to look up?” Mizuki replied then asked, bringing their phone out and opening the search engine, holding the phone out in front of the two, prompting Len to speak.

“U-um.. I was wondering if I could look up what um.. What Hanahaki is.?” Len requested, to which Mizuki nodded, then they entered the question on their phone, letting the results load before handing their phone to Len, letting him take a look.

Len’s face somewhat fell as he read the search results, though he tried not to let his upset and nervousness show, after about 5 minutes handing the phone back to Mizuki, saying a soft “Thank you” along with it.

Mizuki gave len a wink and a thumbs up with their hand that wasn’t holding their phone as if to reply with a silent ‘you’re welcome’, while len moved off to another part of the sekai, though he came back to the main area after not too long, clutching a frog plushie to his chest, the one Mizuki gave him not too long ago.

Mizuki smiled upon seeing len with it, watching him go over to miku, asking her to come apart from luka so he could talk to her, and after they’d moved a little way away len started talking, though he was speaking so soft Mizuki could only really hear his mumbles every now and again, though they decided it wasn’t worth prying into, with that sorta thing being rude anyway, so they went over and begun conversion with luka, asking for some advice on effects to use in Niigo’s next MV considering the themes they were going to be using in the song, and showing her a few demos on her phone she’d whipped up earlier so that they could make getting to a decision easier.

Back in the real world, beyond sekai, Kanade was only seemingly getting worse. She couldn’t even go five minutes without being interrupted from her thoughts by petals tickling their way up her trachea, with her having to cough them up into her palm, now more often than not covered in blood, but as the days passed, there was definitely more and more purple spreading from the tips, which was something that kanade dreaded because she knew what it meant, but she just tried to ignore it, at least for now.

By this stage, there were about 5 already full bags of flowers next to her desk chair, only adding to the clutter in her already-messy room. Honami time and time again every time she came over to housekeep offered to clean her room for her, though every time, Kanade denied it. She didn’t want Honami finding out about her secret, unsure what she’d think.

One day when Honami was over, in an attempt to get kanade out of her room, asked for kanade to go out to the store to get a few things, to which said girl reluctantly agreed, leaving to just go to the 7/11 down the road from Kanade’s residence.

Admittedly, it did help her a little bit. She could have a good think about everything that was going on and figuring some plans out too, not too sure where they’d all lead her to but at least they were out, and she could think about them without being distracted or stressed, for once. She almost even considered venting to a random street cat she happened to pass by, though it wouldn’t be worth it, and plus the cat didn’t deserve that either, even if it probably couldn’t understand a thing she would’ve said.

While kanade was out, Honami took this as an advantage. Kanade would be out long enough for her to clean in there, so that’s what she did. First she started with the boxes, sorting them out by their contents then putting them in neat stacks off to the side, then grabbing all the stray music sheets and paper off the ground. Honami picked those up and sorted them too, stacking them neatly on a free space on Kanade’s desk, which she observed didn’t have that much. So then the next thing Honami cleaned was the desk, throwing the empty noodle cups in the trash, same with cans of energy drinks and wrappers of energy and protein bars. After that, she dusted and wiped everything down, being careful with the music equipment, as she herself knew how fragile it was. then she moved onto the few remaining small things left, which thankfully weren’t too many. . Honami’s attention next got drawn to the random bin bags seemingly all sitting next to Kanade’s desk chair, for some weird reason. Honami started to haul them out with all the rest of the trash, but when she got to the last bag that was still open and not tied, Honami decided to take a look at its contents. a little peek couldn’t be bad, no?

Well, long story short, Honami was wrong.

The sight that greeted the girl was nothing short of a horror story. Beautiful, purple tipped white carnation flowers and petals, all swimming around in a small sea of blood at the bottom of the bags, though there were more flowers than there were blood, despite the blood that was caked on some of the flowers and petals already.

Honami then quickly tied up the bag, not wanting to look at the sight anymore as she knew where they’d come from, a gross pit forming in her stomach as she did so, almost feeling like she was about to hurl up her whole stomach and then some right then and there. She then positioned the bag outside with the rest, then went back into the room to finish off what she started, finishing by tidying up Kanade’s desk, then her bed.

A little while later when Honami was finished, she went to take the bin bags out to the trash, when she heard the key turn in the lock of the front door, said front door opening, hearing the shuffling of small footsteps from Kanade coming inside, and hearing the bag of whatever she’d gotten from the convenience store get set on the table. Honami then rushed, managing to get it in the bin before Kanade came down the hall, and when she did, Honami managed to make it up and look like she’d just been finishing up in the bathroom, smiling at kanade as she came down the hall, though it was fake.

Kanade didn’t notice the fakeness in Honami’s smile thankfully, smiling back at her, speaking. “I got what you asked from the konbini,”

“Thanks Kanade, I'm glad you agreed to do it. Do you feel somewhat better?" Honami replied then asked, her smile becoming a little more genuine as she asked the question, as she knew that with how Kanade was cooping herself up in her room, having no airflow was probably bad for the poor girl.

“Yeah, I do. I didn’t think I would, but yeah. Thanks for making me, by the way,” Kanade replied, her small smile from before growing slightly, not much, though it was noticeable enough.

Honami thankfully noticed, as well as speaking after kanade did. “I’m glad then, i’m happy i could do that for you,” she replied, nodding towards kanade as she finished her sentence.

After a few moments of silence, Honami spoke up again. “Shall we go back to the kitchen?”

“Yeah, we should,” Kanade agreed, beginning to shuffle out of the hall with Honami in tow, with once they reached the kitchen, Honami started emptying out the bag Kanade had brought back from her outing, setting everything out on Kanade’s kitchen bench before turning to said girl, speaking to her. “Do you wanna help me today? It could be good for you, you know,”

To Honami’s suggestion, Kanade thought for a little, bringing a hand up to her chin as she did, though instead just quickly making up an excuse, talking a few moments later. “I have some really important deadlines coming up, so I think it’d be better if I didn't tonight. Another night, maybe?”

“Alright, no worries. And just letting you know, I cleaned up in there while you were gone,” Honami replied, a small smile on her face.

Hearing Honami’s last words, Kanade’s heart instantly dropped, right just praying that Honami hadn’t looked any closer at the contents of the five or so bags of just petals, flowers and blood, nothing else, and if she did, how angry Honami would probably be with her for lying.

Kanade then went back to her room after nodding a thanks to Honami, noticing her cleaning, silently thanking her for it, though still feeling a pit in her stomach at the possibility of Honami seeing what she’d been trying her best to cover up. Kanade then quickly got back to work, ignoring the DMs that popped up when she opened her computer up, feeling bad about it, but getting back to work either way.

The DMs, however, kept popping up, with Kanade noticing they were only from Mafuyu, which was weird. She never DMed first, unless it was important. Kanade then clicked on one of the messages to take her to the main message chat, though she made sure she still appeared offline, not wanting to play with Mafuyu by appearing online then offline for a small period.

Kanade then read through the messages, feeling bad for her, but there wasn’t really much she could do.

As Kanade read Mafuyu’s messages, there were lots of recurring themes, for example ‘where have you gone?’ and ‘please come back, Niigo needs you’. Kanade still ignored each and every one of them as a pit formed in her stomach, making her feel like she’d just ate something 20 years out of date, closing the Nightcord application almost immediately after, unwilling to see anything more of how she’d hurt others.

As Kanade closed nightcord, she let out a breath, deciding to just open her music application to occupy her brain, trying to push all the messages she saw out of her brain, trying to drown them in her music making, thinking that would be the best way to go for now, and especially until Honami finished and left.

About 15 minutes later, there was a gentle knock on Kanade’s door, coming from Honami, to which Kanade quickly took her headphones off and turned her attention to.

Honami then called out to Kanade, with a gentle scent of whatever she’d cooked seeping into Kanade’s room from behind her. “Kanade, i’ve made us both dinner, care to come and eat with me?”

To which kanade nodded with a smile, getting up from her chair and walking over to Honami, giving her a gentle smile before walking out to the dining room, with Honami following.

Honami had cooked something simple, yet filling. She’d made some omurice and some miso soup, two meals sitting on the table, each for Honami and Kanade, waiting for them.

Honami sat down, then Kanade, who nodded a quick thanks to Honami, then she spoke a quiet “Itadakimasu,” before starting to eat, glad that Honami had remembered to size down her portions this time, as Kanade normally had difficulty finishing off Honami’s smaller sized meals, but for now she needed them much smaller than normal, especially with the botanical gardens that was trying to grow in Kanade’s lungs and get into the rest of her body.

Either way, Honami then followed suit then started to eat her fill as well, finishing before Kanade. The girls ate in silence, which Honami understood. She knew something was up with Kanade recently, she just couldn’t figure out what.

So after both girls had finished and both washed up their dishes, Kanade went back to her room, with Honami lingering back to pack up her supplies, then she went to go see Kanade, gently knocking on her door when she arrived there.

Hearing the knocks, Kanade quickly took her headphones off and turned her attention towards Honami, who was now sitting on Kanade’s bed, silently beckoning the silver-haired girl over with a small gesture from her hand.

Kanade obliged, coming and sitting next to Honami, not saying anything but having a questioning look on her face, which Honami understood, she didn’t regularly pull Kanade aside from her duties just because, or for no reason.

After a few moments of somewhat comfortable silence, Honami spoke up.

“Kanade.. I just wanted to chat to you for a little while, is that alright?” Honami started, thinking easing into it would be her best bet.

“Yeah, it’s alright.. What about?” Kanade inquired, swallowing hard for a moment, having a subtle sinking feeling that it would be about the garden currently in her lungs, though Kanade didn’t want to ask, praying Honami didn’t know already, but that wouldn’t really help in kanade’s situation, not anymore..

“Well, to be quite honest, I'm not really sure where to start.” Honami confessed with a chuckle, though she continued. “I don’t know, you’ve just seemed.. A bit off lately? Like.. you’ve been cooping yourself up in your room more often than not, even more than when you were insanely focused on saving Mafuyu, and I'm just.. Getting worried, I guess.? It’s almost like.. You’re sick, but you don’t want anyone to know.”

Hearing what Honami confessed to her, Kanade’s breath caught in her throat, both metaphorically and physically, to which Kanade swallowed, hard, pressing the flowers down, then she spoke after a few moments. “I’m.. I'm not really too sure why, but I keep getting these sudden feelings that she’s going to do something, so I want to keep trying, just to be safe.” Kanade responded, even though it was a lie, which Honami saw through.

To Kanade’s surprise, Honami didn’t go down that easy today, insisting. “No, Kanade. I know that’s not the truth. Please, you can trust me. I promise, I won't tell anyone else. Including your closest friends. I swear on it.”

“W-well then, do you mind if i confide in you for a bit.?” kanade softly spoke up in a small voice, to which Honami nodded, a small but reassuring smile on her face.

“S-so, you know Mafuyu, right? Well, I.. I- love her, though I.. don’t think she loves me back. And so I got this- this disease, and it’s- it’s just been getting worse overtime, and i don’t know how to stop it," Kanade replied, looking down at the ground as she spoke, seemingly not wanting to make eye contact, which Honami didn’t mind, understanding and accomodating.

After a few minutes of thought, Honami spoke up. “I.. I thought it might be something like that. I did catch what was in those bags by your chair, and I was going to ask you about them but I didn’t want to invade your privacy.”

In response, Kanade nodded, not really sure what to say, but it was clear she was trying to think, so Honami spoke up again.

“Maybe it might help if you.. Describe to me how it feels? Because I want to help you, because I'm not sure what’ll happen if someone doesn’t, and I don't really want either of us to find out.” Honami continued, hoping that what she said would move them forward a little bit, and it did, because Kanade spoke up a few moments later.

“I think that would be good. But.. please, don’t tell anyone else.” Kanade was looking right into Honami’s eyes as she spoke, in an almost begging fashion. Either way, Honami agreed, nodding her head in response.

After a little while, Kanade and Honami had managed to do some searching and figure out what the disease was, Hanahaki.

‘Hanahaki Disease is a disease in which the victim coughs up flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love. It ends when the beloved returns their feelings (romantic love only; strong friendship is not enough), or when the victim dies. It can be cured through surgical removal, but when the infection is removed, the victim's romantic feelings for their love also disappear.’

is the google search result Kanade and Honami ended up getting, to which Kanade sighed when she finished reading it, not wanting to die, confess her feelings, or forget Mafuyu. Though she knew that either way one of those things would have to be done, just hoping to prolong it as long as possible.

Leading on from that, Honami then asked Kanade a question. “So, if it really came down to it.. What way out would you choose?”

“Well… I never, ever want to forget Mafuyu, and either way I still want to save her, so surgery’s out of the option. I guess then that leaves me with the choice to either own up about my feelings or…” Kanade took a pause, “Die, which I'm not sure would be best.” kanade replied, and even after she talked she still mulled over her options in her head, still nowhere closer to choosing, tears welling up in her eyes at the thought of really doing either option, though she made sure to hide them from Honami, who could somewhat tell but with something like this she didn’t dare pry.

“Hmm..” Honami hummed in thought, desperately wanting to help, but not being able to come to any conclusions herself, knowing that this decision would have to be made by kanade and kanade alone, though she still wanted to help, if she could.

“I’m not entirely sure, and of course it’s ultimately up to you, but I think you should tell her. As far as i know, everyone close to you would hate to lose you.” Honami continued, not wanting to step near guilting kanade or anything, but she just wanted to make her stance on the issue known.

“You’re right, but i.. I don’t think I can make the decision now, I think I'm going to have to have a think about it and come back later, i don’t know if i can do it now..” Kanade confessed, to which Honami nodded.

“That’s completely fine, I understand. Take as long as you need, though please keep me updated. And again, I promise to not tell another soul,” Honami replied, a kind look on her face as she mimicked zipping her mouth shut and locking it with a key, which put kanade at ease, at least a little more than she had been.

Kanade nodded in response to what Honami said, then grabbed her phone out of her jacket pocket, checking the time then putting it back, speaking. “Honami, it’s getting late.. Shouldn’t you be heading back by now.?”

“You’re right.. But I'm glad I stayed either way. I’m glad I potentially stopped anything bad from happening.” Honami replied with a nod, slowly getting up from where she sat, still looking towards Kanade, then slowly advancing towards her, wrapping her arms around the smaller girl’s midsection and chest in comfort, which Kanade gladly took, releasing a few moments later with a thankful smile.

As Kanade pulled away, Honami gave a small nod which kanade nodded back to, indicating she was going to take her leave soon, as it was getting late for Honami to return home, and as well to let kanade get back to what she needed to do too.

Honami finished packing up after a few short minutes, giving Kanade’s door a gentle knock as she came past, stopping outside it so that both girls could say their goodbyes, with Honami being the first to speak up as they walked to Kanade’s front door. “Stay safe okay.? For the sake of me and everyone else,” Honami said, in a slightly pleading tone, but Kanade understood why it was there.

“I’ll try my best, I promise. Please don’t worry too much.” Kanade replied with a nod, smiling a little bit to prove her point, though she really wasn’t sure how far she’d get. Either way, they’d finally reached Kanade’s front door, with the two girls giving eachother one final hug before Honami left, grabbing her cleaning supplies off the table then giving Kanade one final wave as Kanade shut her door.

Though contrary to what Kanade wanted, Honami worried regardless. She was still scared that with Kanade’s workaholism she wouldn’t do anything about it, and just continue on with her work, like she did most of the time, and everything would just be left to fester. Of course there was absolutely nothing Honami could do on her own, but she so, so wished she could. As a friend, and even more as a caregiver basically, Honami felt horrible in that she just had no way to help, because as always Kanade would probably refuse it until it got too late, which she found had been quite the recurring theme, hoping and praying that someday she’d learn to break the cycle and know when to ask for help or have someone there with her, though of course Honami wouldn’t really ever be able to tell when that’d happen.

Immediately after Honami left her place, kanade went right back to work. Though before she did, she caught sight of her phone, buzzing away on her bed. She was sure if it vibrated any more, it’d explode. Though either way, Kanade picked up the phone, beginning to try and read the rapidly incoming messages, turning her phone on silent so her whole body didn’t just vibrate along with her phone.

More or less, all of the messages were from niigo, asking her where she went and if she was okay, to which kanade felt bad. Some of them were even making threats, saying they’d barge through Kanade’s front door, just to see what she was hiding so badly. Though Kanade ignored those too. Sure, she never meant to worry them all, and not this badly either, though Kanade pushed through, putting her phone back down on the bed as she went back to her desk, promptly resuming her work, a feeling of guilt resting in her chest, which made it tighten, the carnations in there nowhere close to helping that.

About after maybe a week, Kanade still hadn’t contacted niigo, not once. This clearly distressed all of niigo, specifically Mafuyu. Even though she always had a ton of stuff to do, every moment she spent free was texting kanade, just hoping, praying she was still around. Mafuyu ultimately had no clue whatsoever why Kanade was being so avoidant, she normally never was like this, and if she needed time away from the group, she always let them know what for, how long, and anything else the group would need to know. Mafuyu just didn’t understand, normally she told her everything, and if she didn’t tell the rest of niigo something in the group chat, she’d at the very least contact Mafuyu and tell her what was going on.

By this point, Mafuyu had so many theories it was scary, and none of it ever even alleviated her worries either, which just made everything in existence a killjoy essentially. Kanade was her only light in the world, and even though Mafuyu didn’t know that it was flickering out, the fact that it was gone from just her presence made her feel like there was a big, gaping, Kanade-shaped hole where her insides were missing, so much so it more often than not made her feel sick to her stomach.

By this time, the carnations in Kanade’s lungs had almost fully grown, the disease was in its final stages. It left Kanade wheezing, coughing and heaving with every single breath. Flowers and streams of blood almost constantly flowed up Kanade’s trachea, splatters of blood ending up everywhere, staining the white keys of her keyboards, staining her desk and monitors, basically everywhere. It ended up pooling in the cracks of her keyboard, making the keys almost impossible to press once it dried. Even so, Kanade worked the hardest she could, physically pushing herself to the limits as she worked and cleaned, cleaned and worked.. Despite everything, she had to keep working. She didn’t allow herself to stop. She couldn’t stop. She wouldn’t stop.

After about a few days of pure, pure agony and suffering, Kanade could tell the end was probably imminent. She didn’t want to have to go out this way, but every day just living and existing was getting more and more painful with every second that walked on. So then, she was surprised when she heard someone unlocking her front door, what kanade just presumed to be some robbers picking her lock or something, just something to hopefully end her painful misery earlier, something else to while the small minutes she had left away, then she’d be left to rot in her flower garden, left to decompose until some unfortunate neighbour smelt the rotting and came and investigated, though Kanade would be way, way too long gone by then, you probably wouldn’t even be able to tell who she was by that point, you probably wouldn’t be able to even recognise the lumpy shapes of a corpse as a human one. Kanade just hoped nobody would have to see that, especially..

Mafuyu.