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Later, when Izuku visited the doctor to make sure that there weren't any leftover petals in his lungs, he told her that the entirety of his particular case of love-sickness had lasted, from start to finish, approximately thirty-five minutes.
She had multiple eyes, two in her head and five floating around her, and all of them swiveled to his face. "You're certain?"
"Yes?"
Quicker than he could blink, she was sitting in front of him with a pen and notepad in her hand, her eyes wide and unblinking. "That would be—it's the fastest recovery from hanahaki that I've heard of. It might even be a record—" She scribbled furiously into her notepad.
Izuku said, politely, "Wow."
"You understand that hanahaki is a disease born from longing? By the time the petals first appear, the seeds have already taken root and have been growing for weeks, at least. Most patients feel embarrassment or sadness over the appearance of the petals and try to hide it, thus exacerbating their symptoms as time goes on."
He felt just a bit irritated by her question and explanation. As though he might not have understood the nature of the disease when, regardless of the amount of time they'd been in bloom, he had nursed flowers in his lungs. But he replied, "Yes, that makes sense. I was going to hide it, too."
"But you immediately told the—object of your affections?"
"Oh, no. I mean, I wasn't going to, but he found me," said Izuku. After a moment, he added, "He blasted my door off its hinges."
The petals hadn't surprised him. Izuku had been brushing his teeth, still half-asleep, when he felt a tickle in his throat. He spit into the sink and drank a bit of water from the faucet to try and stave off the oncoming cough with no luck. He spluttered, pounding his chest with his fist, as he violently hacked up a number of long, thin, bright yellow petals.
There wasn't any blood or viscera like in some of the more dramatic tellings he'd read about. They were fresh, wet with spit and toothpaste, and were, Izuku thought, perfect. Or, as near-perfect as petals could get when they were expelled from someone's respiratory system.
Hanahaki.
He washed the petals down the sink with a sigh. Izuku knew that eventually he would have to speak to Kacchan. Flowers growing in his lungs, flourishing in his silence, would only impede his ability to be a hero. He only hoped that he and Kacchan could still be partners after he confessed his feelings.
Breakfast first, he decided. Before any doctor's appointments or destroying a painstakingly repaired friendship he would get something to eat.
A bowl of fresh rice settled both his stomach and his nerves somewhat. Listening to his friends talk had a similar calming effect. Uraraka had plans to go shopping with Asui, Jirou, and Yaoyorozu on Saturday. Yaoyorozu had never used coupons before and she was eager to try her hand at it. Already in her purse was a bag of carefully clipped and organized coupons, and Uraraka found that extremely endearing. Iida and his brother were going to see a movie. Todoroki planned on replacing the tatami mats in his room. They usually lasted longer, but apparently the frequent temperature fluctuations in Todoroki's room wore them out more quickly.
"What about you, Midoriya?" he asked.
Izuku took a moment to drink a glass of water. His throat tickled. "Well, I—" And then he coughed just hard enough to dislodge a few petals from his lungs. They fell from his lips into his mostly finished bowl of rice.
Uraraka stared at him. "Deku, are those—"
He cleared his throat and took his chopsticks, quickly stirring the rest of the rice in his bowl. "Are what?"
"Midoriya," said Iida.
Todoroki plucked the bowl from his hands and examined its contents. "Hm."
"Okay, well—" Izuku stood and tried to think of an excuse. "Goodbye," he said, and then dashed back to his dorm room.
He wrapped himself in his blankets and was just getting comfortable hiding on his bed forever when his door exploded.
"Kacchan!" He caught the door with Blackwhip before it could knock his collectible All-Might figures off their shelves. He set it against the wall and hoped Aizawa wouldn't be too angry about the destruction of school property. "What are you doing?"
A snarl greeted him. Kacchan's lips were curled over his teeth. He was breathing heavily, as if he'd been sprinting the entire way to Izuku's room. He had his palms raised, sparks flickering between his fingers. "Who is it? What's their name?"
"What's whose name?"
"The name of the person you're in love with, you fucking dweeb! Who is it? I'll drag their ass in here and make you confess! Get that pollen and shit out of your lungs!"
"What—Kacchan—how do you know about—"
"Everyone knows, dumbass! Now, tell me who it is so I can bring them here and get this over with."
Izuku flushed. "What do you mean everyone knows? I just coughed in front of—"
Katsuki rolled his eyes so hard Izuku was surprised they didn't just pop right out of his sockets and fall to the floor. "In front of your three musketeers of dorks! They talked to Asui, Yaoyorozu, and Jirou, and they talked to Hagakure and Ashido, and Ashido told Kirishima."
A game of telephone with his heart at the very center. Izuku winced. "And Kirishima told you?"
"I made him tell me. Every was mumbling about you. I thought you might've taken off again."
He'd never meant to make Kacchan worry like that! With wide eyes, Izuku said, "I'm sorry, Kacchan."
Kacchan looked away, scowling. "Don't apologize, just—tell me who it is."
"I can't." He had to at some point, of course, but Izuku had wanted to prepare himself. Write a few drafts of his confession first, so that it was as efficient and painless as possible.
"Yes, you can. I won't hurt them." Kacchan's insistence on that matter made Izuku suspicious. "We got to get this over with."
"It's not about—I don't want to talk about it with them at the moment."
"Are you fucking for real right now? You're coughing up petals. That means those flowers already have roots. You want them to get in deeper? Grow a fucking bouquet in your chest cavity?" When Izuku only tugged his blankets tighter around himself, Kacchan snapped, "Look, asshole, we're on a time crunch here! You wait long enough and you're dead—are you getting that through your thick skull?"
Izuku shouted, "If it was that easy, then I wouldn't have hanahaki at all, Kacchan! I don't want to talk about it right now! I don't want to ruin what we have! He's not going to—I mean—" Izuku stumbled. "I mean, this person—"
Kacchan's crimson eyes narrowed dangerously. "So, it's a guy? Do I know him? I know him, don't I? Is it Four Eyes? You're both nerds."
"What? No, Iida's my friend—"
"Eyebags?"
"Shinsou is also just a friend," said Izuku.
A growl left Kacchan's throat. "If it's Icy Hot, I swear to fucking—"
"No, it's not! They're just friends, I have friends!"
Kacchan scoffed, as if the idea of someone enjoying the company of so many others was disgusting. Then he stilled, and turned slowly to stare at Izuku with a look of abject horror on his face. He whispered, "It's not All Might, is it?"
"Oh, my God, NO!"
"Then who is it, Izuku?" he yelled.
Izuku threw himself on his bed and rolled onto his side, nose pressed to the wall and with his back to Kacchan. What else could he do? When Kacchan got an idea in his head he was like a dog with a bone—he wouldn't let it go. "It's you," he mumbled.
"Hah? Didn't catch that, dork."
"I love you, Kacchan." Izuku closed his eyes. There it was. Like ripping off a bandage. He hunched his shoulders and waited for the inevitable explosion.
Except, it never came. There was a long silence, and if Kacchan had been capable of a quiet exit he might have thought he'd simply left, but when Izuku turned and sat up there was Kacchan, just—standing there, gazing at him.
"Me?" His voice was a low rasp. There was bafflement on his face, and disbelief. "It's me?"
Izuku let out a little laugh. He emerged from his blankets and rubbed the back of his neck. "Who else would it be, Kacchan?"
"I really figured—if it was anyone, it'd be Todoroki."
"Kacchan, I just said I only see him as a friend!"
A long-suffering groan reverberated around the room as Kacchan threw up his hands. "Well, I don't know, Izuku! Fuck! Why would it be me? Out of everyone, all the people who—" He grimaced. "Everyone loves you. I don't see why you would choose me."
As if Izuku had ever had a choice—as if his heart, with all its ventricles and arteries, hadn't been Bakugou Katsuki's since the day he barreled into Izuku's life all those years ago. "After everything we've gone through—you still say that?"
"Everything I put you through, I mean. I treated you like shit."
"You apologized."
Kacchan snorted.
Izuku said, "Kacchan—" and then doubled over, coughing, as the flowers in his chest spilled from his lips.
"Izuku? Izuku! What's wrong? I thought it was over—you confessed—"
He held up a hand covered in damp petals with stems and roots twined around his fingers. "They don't just disappear. I mean, the confession dislodges them, but how else am I supposed to get them out of my lungs?"
"I don't know! People don't talk about after." Kacchan took a step toward him and then reached for Izuku. It was not a tentative motion—Kacchan had never done anything tentatively in his life. But it was slow, and wary, as though he thought Izuku were some sort of wild animal that might snap at his touch. But eventually his palm met Izuku's back, and he rubbed his shoulder blades in a motion that was a bit too rough to be soothing but which Izuku appreciated anyway.
With another cough Izuku said, "I researched it." He'd read as many articles as he could, and looked at as many photos as he dared.
"Of course you did. Probably wrote everything down in one of your notebooks."
That was true, but Izuku wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of being right, so he said nothing.
"Wrote all that shit down," Kacchan continued, "And then—what? You were just going to let yourself turn into a living rosebush?"
"That would really hurt. The thorns. I think all that I had in me was sunflowers," Izuku said.
Kacchan stared at him with horror. "Sunflowers—those are fucking huge!"
"They can grow small! These petals are small. See?" He pointed at the petals drying on the floor. Kacchan looked at them, mouth pressed into a thin line.
Suddenly he clawed at his hair with his hands and shouted, "You stupid—I love you, too! Fuck! And you wouldn't have said anything!"
"Kacchan—"
"Make a doctor's appointment, you stupid asshole! Get the rest of that shit out of you! Then we'll talk more about this!" He began stomping out of Izuku's room, then paused, turned, stomped back, grabbed Izuku's face between his hands and kissed him with fury, teeth clicking and noses squashed together. When he pulled away a yellow petal was stuck to his lower lip. Kacchan wiped his mouth with his forearm, muttered, "Tch!" and stalked out of the room.
And that had been that. Izuku didn't reveal all the details to his doctor, but he told her enough. She asked if he might give her permission to write about his case—anonymously, of course. Izuku had agreed, because for as dramatic and romanticized as hanahaki was it still wasn't very well understood, and he was happy to help contribute to that medical knowledge if he could.
When Izuku returned to the waiting room and found Kacchan still sitting in his seat, flipping through cooking magazines. He snapped a photo of a page with his phone, looked up, saw Izuku, and tossed the magazine back onto the table.
"You good?" Kacchan asked.
Izuku patted his chest with his palm. "Perfectly healthy."
As they walked Kacchan grabbed Izuku's bag and slung it over his shoulder. He did that now. The both of them knew Izuku could carry a small car for a few hundred feet; a book bag was nothing. But Kacchan had certain ideas about what boyfriends did, and if Izuku protested that he was fine and could carry his own book bag Kacchan would clutch it to himself, bare his teeth and say, "No, you can't, fuck off," while reaching for
Izuku's hand to hold. So, this time Izuku simply fell into step beside him with a sigh of relief. He didn't enjoy doctor's visits.
They walked in silence. It was a pleasantly warm day, and the sun was shining. Izuku smiled at the passersby and received smiles in return.
Eventually Kacchan broke the quiet and asked, "Why'd it take so long, then?"
"What?"
"At the doctor's. If you're good, then what took them so long? I went through six magazines."
"You read quickly," Izuku said. He paused. If he told Kacchan what the doctor had told him, then Kacchan was going to be unbearably smug about it. But if he kept it from him, then Kacchan would assume the worst, and he channeled all emotions such as fear and concern into anger, and they'd probably have a ferocious argument. "The doctor had questions for me, because my case is especially interesting."
"Yeah?"
"It's, uh—it might be the fastest hanahaki has ever been cured."
As expected, Kacchan smirked. "Heh, yeah. I get shit done."
"I was the one who confessed!"
"Only because I took out your door!" Kacchan snapped. "You wouldn't have done a fucking thing about it! Always thinking you have to deal with all your bullshit by yourself! Nerd!" He scoffed. His hand sought Izuku's, and, upon finding it, Kacchan laced their fingers together. As always, his touch was warm, and slightly sweaty.
Izuku squeezed his hand. "I would have waited," he agreed. "But it's a good thing I fell in love with you, isn't it, Kacchan?"
Kacchan scowled, blushed, and stared pointedly ahead as they walked. Around them, gardens were in bloom. Peeking their heads over a fence was a great number of sunflowers, with full, bright, cheerful yellow petals. The flowers were rooted firmly in the soil and Kacchan was by his side—all where they were supposed to be.