Archive of Our Own

The first time it happens, Aventurine thinks he had simply caught a cold from the trip.

“―cannot fathom why Jade had assigned me to join you on the mission,” Ratio is griping. “I cannot stand your chaotic tactics to get information. Enraging him on purpose? He was a trained assassin. He was flinging knifes at you―”

“Which bounced off my shield―”

“Which dissipated after two hits because you had expanded your energy before that to protect me. If I had not taken him down―”

“Thank you for that, doctor. I knew you’d have my back,” Aventurine shoots back with an easy smile.

Ratio exhales through his nose, eyebrows pinched and eyes blazing. “You are infuriating. I cannot stand you―” he continues, and this isn’t new.

Ratio being pissed at him after another victorious mission where his plans might’ve been a tad bit too reckless? He doesn’t know what Ratio’s harping about. They’ve known each other for years now, gone on a dozen missions together, and they’ve always succeeded. Aventurine had made sure they would succeed in the end, no matter the methods to get there.

So this sight isn’t new. Ratio hurling scathing words at him isn’t new. What is new, however, is his throat tightening, like there is a pebble lodged inside, struggling to break out. His breath stops for a moment before he lets out a loud cough, hand covering his mouth in time out of reflex of years trained to be polite and proper.

And then he can’t seem to stop. His throat burns and the coughs come out like distorted music notes from someone slamming their hands on a piano key repeatedly, and by now Ratio has stopped his tirade to look at him, brows still furrowed but no longer in an angry way.

“Are you alright?” Ratio asks after Aventurine finally stops coughing, hiccuping a few times to catch his breath.

“Yeah, I’m fine―” he starts to say then looks at his own palm still cupped beneath his chin.

Red.

A puddle of red has accumulated in his open palm, glittering from the light filtering through the window in the office they’re in right now.

“Aventurine?”

He snaps his head up, plastering on a smile immediately while dropping his hand down to his side so that the table can hide it from Ratio’s view. “I’m fine, doctor. Probably caught a strange bug from that planet. Hope you didn’t catch it too!”

Ratio stares at him for a moment. When he sees nothing but Aventurine grinning back at him, he huffs, “I am not as careless as you. I always do research and take precautions before stepping foot on a new planet. It would do you well to be more careful next time, too.”

“Next time? Aww, you wanna team up with me again?”

The other man heaves a sigh, “Do I even have a choice in the matter?”

No. No, Ratio doesn’t. Aventurine knows that.

His throat feels funny again. The moment Ratio leaves, having said his piece, Aventurine holds for five more seconds before his body seizes and coughs again.

Except this time, what comes out is not blood. At least, not only blood, but a cascade of pink too, fluttering out and overflowing his two open palms, drowning his lap and the table in front of him.

Hundreds of pink cherry blossom petals, splattered with specks of red, of his blood.

It might be because of the sunlight shining through, but the pink from the petals look too much like the color of his own eyes, and this just makes Aventurine feel more nauseous.

Aventurine isn’t dumb.

He might’ve been naive once, too many years ago. He might not be intelligent like Ratio, with his eight doctorates and accolades across the universe, but he’s street-smart. He has to be, to survive until now.

He knows of the legends, the rumors, the gossip. He has to keep up with them all in case they can be a useful chip in his next wager. So of course he’s heard of this particular legend.

Of this particular disease.

They call it the Hanahaki Disease. It originates from Izumo. But that planet is long gone now and this disease is nothing but an urban legend. Harboring an unrequited love so deep it makes you vomit cherry blossom petals mixed in with your own blood? That it will weaken you the longer you yearn until you eventually die from illness? How romantic.

How foolish.

How can someone be so foolish to love another so much they’ll eventually die of heartbreak?

How can Aventurine love Veritas Ratio so much he’ll vomit flowers for him? Since when has this feeling started?

And how can he not notice it until the proof of his feelings stared at him in the face as he sits on the hard, cold tiles of the bathroom, hands gripping the bathtub he’s leaning over and countless cherry blossoms filling up the tub to the brim.

He can take a bath with how much petals there are in the tub, if he wants to.

There’s a knock on the door. A muffled call of his name and Aventurine winces, glancing back even though Ratio can’t see him through the barrier.

“Yeah? I know you must want your daily bath after a hard day at work, but you can do it in your own hotel room, you know.”

“It’s not that, it’s…” Ratio pauses, tone sounding almost confused. “You ran to the bathroom in the middle of our discussion, Aventurine. It’s been ten minutes.” Another pause. “Are you alright?”

Of course the other man would think it strange, Aventurine devising the next step in their plans when he suddenly needed to bolt.

What else was he to do, puke blood and petals all over the documents splayed on the table?

The same documents that Ratio had thrown down in a huff earlier, stating, “Your plan is ridiculous. You are ridiculous. I want no part of this―” like…

Like Ratio was saying he wanted no part of Aventurine in his life.

Of course he doesn’t. He’s being forced to work with Aventurine. Everyone does. Nobody would work with Aventurine if they had the choice.

Ratio included.

This makes his throat clog again, and more petals fall from his lips.

“…Aventurine?”

Aeons, he feels dizzy, and there’s blood dripping down his lip.

“If you don’t answer in three seconds, I’m coming in.”

“I’m fine,” Aventurine tries to grit out, holding his head in two palms as if that could help stabilize him. As if the problem isn’t coming from inside. “Can we table this discussion for later. Heck, maybe you can just ignore me for this trip. You said you wanted no part in my plan, anyway. That’s fine. I can work this alone. You think of this as a vacation. I won’t tell on the management that I did all the work, promise.”

There’s a moment of silence as Aventurine tries to see through the haze of pink-red-pink in his vision before Ratio says, “I said I want no part of your plan. I did not say I will not cooperate with you for this mission. Think of a different plan and I will join you. Preferably one that doesn’t involve you letting the opposing group kidnap you so we can know where their base is.”

Aventurine laughs, the sound empty and hollow. “It’s the easiest and fastest way. We’ve spent one week here with no leads. It’s simpler to let them show me where their base is themselves.”

“With you getting kidnapped, walking into their base alone?”

“I’ll have a tracker on me. You can come back me up once you know the location―”

“You’ll be alone until then. Probably bound and drugged―”

“I’’ve developed immunity to many types of drugs and poisons, you know that.”

“Yes, from letting yourself drink and taste and take those drugs and poisons willingly, as if you’re just a testing rat in a lab―”

“I’m a follower of the Amber Lord. I can protect myself―”

“Aventurine,” the other man’s voice raises, almost shouting, and this is new. Ratio doesn’t shout. He’s always the epitome of calm and grace.

But Aventurine can’t even bring himself to feel surprised, because he’s tired and exhausted and there’s still blood in his mouth and his vision is spinning and―

And he just hurts. So much. All over.

So he snaps back, “Ratio. This is the plan for this mission. You either help me or you don’t. Now excuse me, I’d like to shower. You may leave.”

He turns on the shower, the water cascading down until the petals float along the hazy red mixed in with his blood, until enough time passes that Aventurine can hear Ratio leaves, footsteps fading away.

Aventurine leans against the bathtub, closes his eyes, and tries to breath through the noise that sounds too much like raindrops falling down on him.

Too much like that day too long ago, and his sister that he will never see again.

Ratio does end up joining him for the plan. Aventurine is confused, considering how opposed he was the other day, but he’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. No matter how reluctant Ratio is, a scowl permanently etched onto his face the whole mission, they’ll succeed. Sure, Aventurine comes out with more bruises than before he stepped foot on the planet, but it is a victory.

Always. Aventurine will always be the final victor.

But he’s tired. The more time Aventurine spends together with Ratio, the more the flowers want to come out. Which makes sense, he supposes. The more he sees the other man with a displeased frown on his face, his exasperated, irritated tone whenever they speak, the more his throat clogs.

It’s dangerous, working with Veritas Ratio.

It’s exhausting, working with Veritas Ratio.

So after getting back to Pier Point, Aventurine heads straight up to the upper floor of the IPC Headquarters, straight to Diamond and Jade currently in a conversation, some investment he does not care about right now, and tells them to stop pairing him and Ratio up.

They quiet at his words, staring at him for a few moments before Jade speaks up. “You two work well together.”

“I work well alone.”

“You work better with him.”

“Okay, correction. I want to work alone. Regarding whether it’s better if he joins me on the missions or not, does it really matter if the results are still satisfactory in the end? After all, I’ve never failed a mission before, with or without him.”

Jade hums, knowing there’s nothing to disagree with. Diamond then speaks up, “Very well. As long as you can guarantee our success, you may choose to work alone from now on.”

Aventurine grins, bending down in an imitation of a bow at the other man. “You know I’ll never let you down, Diamond.”

So that is that.

Ratio stops getting assigned to work with him. Aventurine doesn’t know if the doctor is assigned to someone else now, or if the IPC finally lets him do his research on his own, and Aventurine is vehement to keep it this way: not knowing what Ratio’s up to now. Not keeping up with his whereabouts and wellbeing.

Unfortunately, the saying of “out of sight, out of mind” is terribly untrue. Aventurine doesn’t vomit any less just because he no longer physically sees Ratio. Ratio’s still there, plaguing his mind. Every time the petals flow out of him like waterfall, he finds himself cursing the other man. Why. Why did he have to fall for Ratio? Why must it be Ratio? Why must he fall at all?

Aventurine had thought he had long grown numb to the feeling of wanting. Of longing. Maybe he’s still naive, after all. Like his child self from so long ago, wishing for happiness and a simple life with his sister. Wishing for the rain to fall again. Wishing for the flowers to bloom in the unending desert.

The rain did end up falling again, the day the Katicans came and slaughtered his sister and the rest of his people. Whether the flowers ended up blooming… he didn’t know. He had been taken into captivity after that, and wouldn’t come back to Sigonia until years later, when the IPC had turned the planet into a more hospitable land, to the point where he almost didn’t recognize the land he once lived in anymore.

So why, after everything he had been through, does he still long for Ratio? Is he actually just this pathetic and his heart had leaned towards the one person who had treated him as an equal? Who did not despise him nor look down on him, yet definitely was not fond of him, either?

Like a dog begging for scraps from the first person that had shown it kindness.

“You’re pathetic, Aventurine,” he mutters to himself as he gathers a slew of petals into two palms. They’re soft and so pretty, if not for the occasional tainted red splotches from his blood. If not for the coppery, metal smell that lingers in the air and taste on his tongue that seem to be a permanent occurrence now.

“You are not Kakavasha anymore, so then why… do you still long for the impossible? Why?”

If there are a few drops of clear liquid falling from his eyes down onto the petals in his hands to join the red-pink-red, then that’s only for Aventurine to know.

He had never let Diamond down before, he’d promised the man himself. So of course, he cannot let him down on his newest, greatest project. One that is beyond the scope of his rank, yet somehow Opal still handed this down to him anyway.

“Diamond trusts you,” Opal says, and Aventurine forces down a laugh, because Diamond doesn’t trust him. Not in the usual meaning of the word.

Diamond trusts that Aventurine will stake anything to complete this mission, anything at all. Including his own life.

And―sure. Why not? It’s not like he isn’t going to die soon anyway. Vomiting flowers and blood almost everyday now for two years is exhausting. Aventurine’s tired. So tired.

He wants to rest.

Maybe forever.

So he answers, “Sure. Tell Diamond I’ll take care of it,” and goes to devise a plan. Thinks of all the players that need to be involved in order for his plan to come into fruition. Like gathering up all the actors and distributing their roles to create the perfect play.

There are guests that will be joining in the Charmony Festival, like the Nameless, including the vessel for the Stelleron itself. There is that Masked Fool. The Stelleraon Hunters.

And of course, the Family itself. And its head, Sunday. His biggest challenge yet. He had already gotten Topaz and Jade’s permission regarding their cornerstone, no matter how reluctant Topaz was when he'd asked or how Jade just smiled mysteriously as always in response.

But there is still one role left to play. An important role, that can’t be filled by just anyone.

Someone he trusts enough to let in on his plan. Someone fearless enough to be willing to lie and trick the Family which might have dire consequences if Sunday finds out the truth.

There is only one person in mind. Someone he hasn’t seen in two years.

The Penacony Project must not fail.

And isn’t it fitting anyway, to see the person that has caused him all this anguish one last time before he’ll vanish forever?

Veritas Ratio looks the same as always. A tall, imposing figure radiating understated confidence. His crimson-hazel eyes sweep up and down Aventurine’s form once before he states, “You look pale.”

Aventurine scoffs. “Wow, first time we’re seeing each other in years and those are your first words to me?”

“You look like you should be resting in bed. Possibly in a hospital room. Not about to go to a festival on another planet.”

“Just a simple ‘nice to see you again’ would suffice, but I guess you’ve never been one for small talk,” he waves him off. “Let’s go, the train is departing soon.”

Ratio stands his ground. “Are you alright?” he asks in a softer voice, and Aventurine feels his skin crawl.

Am I alright? Aventurine thinks almost hysterically in his mind. Of course I’m not alright, and it’s all because of you, he wants to yell.

Ratio is still staring at him in that unwavering way of his, and Aventurine suddenly feels exposed. His chest starts to hurt, and he prays the feeling won’t make its way up his throat and splatter blood and cherry blossom petals all over the ground again.

“I’m fine,” he tries for a grin, hopes it’s convincing enough. “Just peachy! Never been better, in fact! Festivals are fun, doctor! Well, maybe not to you, but for me: the excitement, the crowd. Can’t forget the casinos! Did you know Penacony has one of the largest casinos in the Galaxy? Well, considering it’s all in a dream, I guess they can make it as big as they want, but I hear whatever you win in the dream will be compensated in real coins in the physical world. Great, ain’t it?”

He’s word-vomiting, he knows. Ratio still hasn’t said a word, just gazing at him, almost as if he’s… searching for something? Contemplating about something? Aventurine doesn’t know. His vision is starting to swirl.

He pulls his left hand behind his back when he feels it trembling. He wills his legs not to shake, not to give out. He needs to sit down, right now.

“The train is going to leave soon,” he reminds the other man. “We should go.”

“I think you should go to a hospital instead,” Ratio answers.

“I’m going to Penacony,” he states, voice hard. “If you don’t want to then go home. Or stand there for all I care.” He turns around to leave.

There’s a heavy sigh behind him before he hears footsteps moving closer towards him. “I will go,” Ratio says. “Only because you are a danger to yourself, as always, and someone needs to keep you in check.”

“I’m not a pet you need to look after, doctor,” Aventurine spits out, suddenly angry.

“You are not a pet to me,” the other man simply replies, voice calm.

Then what am I to you? Aventurine wants to ask. A partner? A coworker he’s forced to sometimes work with? A nuisance? A nutcase who always puts both of them into dangerous situations but somehow comes out victorious in the end?

“Aventurine, you need to learn to take better care of yourself,” Ratio continues as they board the train.

“Yeah yeah, so I won’t fuck up the mission, right? I’m fine, don’t worry.” He rolls his eyes, moving towards the farthest seat in the cabin and pulling his hat over his face to cover his eyes in total darkness so he can just breathe for a moment.

There is another sigh from Ratio, but the man does not say anything more and Aventurine is grateful for the quiet the rest of the train ride to Penacony.

Ratio’s reaction to his plan is disastrous.

“Are you asking me to be complicit in your death?”

“I’m not going to die,” Aventurine pouts, adding a ‘maybe’ in his mind. Not like he’s going to tell Ratio that. “Just going to the other side of Penacony, yeah? After all, I won’t truly know what’s going on until I’m there myself.”

Ratio is a bit mollified at his answer, but remains unconvinced. “It is still such a risky plan. You are trying to go to a place where no man has ever come back from. What if it… fails?”

“It won’t fail, because I won’t fail,” Unless I want it to, on purpose, he supplies in his mind. “Come on, doc, you know me. When has my plan ever failed? None, zilch, nada, right?”

Ratio sighs, closing his eyes and pinching the space between his brows with two fingers. He’s always sighing in Aventurine’s presence. Aventurine feels bad. Ratio must really hate being shackled with him for missions. “Is there truly no other way?”

“Nope. You either help me or I’ll do this plan myself.”

Ratio stares at him then, and the look in his eyes is… different. Not irritated, but almost… sad? No, that can’t be. “Yes, it always comes to this, doesn’t it? Either I help you or you’ll do this alone.”

Aventurine looks away, eyes finding the foams bubbling in the Dreampool instead. “I’m sorry,” he says, meaning it. He always puts Ratio in these situations, where he pretty much gives the other an ultimatum. Is he being manipulative and taking advantage of the doctor’s kind heart that wants to innately help everyone?

He is such an atrocious person. Maybe it’s fitting he contracted the Hanahaki Disease, after all. How fitting for someone who has manipulated countless others before to wither away due to one of the people he’s taken advantage of.

“If you are sorry then start taking better care of yourself,” Ratio repeats his words from the train. “For your own good. Not for the sake of the mission,” he clarifies.

Aventurine aches all of a sudden, his stomach twisting into knots before making its way up his heart, squeezing painfully. It goes up his throat and he hastily slaps two palms over his mouth as he dashes to the bathroom.

“Aventurine, what―” Ratio is calling as Aventurine shuts and locks the door behind him before hurling all over the bathroom floor. The petals are flowing out like endless rain and it hurts more this time than the past two years’ worth. He slides down the door, choking on blood and petals and pink and red and pink and―

“Aventurine, are you alright? Open the door―” The doorknob jiggles and Aventurine puts all his weight against the door, never mind that it’s locked.

“Don’t come in,” he yells, throat burning. “Please… Don’t come in.”

There is a pause before the doorknob stops jiggling. Aventurine curls into himself as petals fall and fall and fall. It’s been so long that he thinks Ratio is gone by now when the other man speaks up, “Are you stabilizing?”

“Yes…”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

Aventurine smiles bitterly, because there is nothing Ratio can do―nothing that he wants to do, of his own will, anyway.

Because this is an unrequited love and Ratio does not love Aventurine.

Him contracting the Hanahaki Disease is proof of that.

He clears his throat, says, “I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not,” the other replies instantly.

“Fine, I will be okay. I’m just feeling a bit under the weather.”

“You look on death’s door, Aventurine,” Ratio says, voice heavy. “You need to go to a hospital. Find out what’s wrong and get help.”

I already know what’s wrong, and no, nothing can help me, he thinks. Outwardly, he says, “No. Everything commences as planned. You are to go meet Sunday tomorrow.”

“Surely I can rearrange it for one day later.”

“No, we’ve wasted too much time already. Robin is dead. There cannot be more victims, Ratio.”

“Yes, no more victims, but what about you?” Ratio stresses, voice raising.

“I am but a cog in the machine,” he recites almost robotically.

“Aventurine.”

“I’ll be fine,” Aventurine says, trying to sound confident and reassuring. “Look, the faster we get this mission over with, the faster I’ll go to a hospital after everything’s done and get myself checked out by a real doctor, okay?”

Ratio is quiet for a moment before speaking, voice but a murmur, “Do you promise?”

Aventurine wants to laugh, because―Promise? Like they’re little kids pinky-swearing a promise of meeting at the playground tomorrow to play together again? “What, you want to hook our pinkies together to make an eternal promise, doctor?”

“I’m serious,” Ratio sighs, exasperated before his voice turns soft again. “Promise me after this mission you’ll properly check into a hospital and find out exactly what’s wrong and get proper treatment for it. That you won’t go on another mission before you’re one hundred percent, completely alright.”

Aventurine blinks, taking in the words before a sad smile curls on his lips. “Sure, I promise,” he replies.

After all, if he physically is unable to go to a hospital because there is no ‘after this mission’, that he’s hurtling towards death, then that doesn’t count as breaking the promise, right?

The plan goes off without a hitch.

Almost too perfectly. Sometimes he amazes himself.

The worst part has been his Future Self laughing derisively at him in the Theme Park as he splatters petals and blood all over the floor, taunting about his unrequited love and how pathetic he is, as if Aventurine hasn’t already felt pathetic enough.

But whatever. It has only been him and himself at the park. No one has to know and see the great Aventurine on his knees, one hand dragging nails across the dirt floor while the other is clutching at his throat trying to just breathe as bloody petals keep piling higher and higher. That they cover his knees, thighs. Staining his outfit, too.

Once he transforms using his cornerstone, his current outfit will evaporate like how Aventurine will, soon, too.

He even gets to talk to Acheron in the Nihility’s Void. To be honest, Aventurine greatly respects her. She strides her own path and never lets anything change her, affect her.

He’s envious of that independence, for he has never had that himself.

Sleep is a rehearsal for death, and we sleep so we can prepare for it. That makes sense. It’s the most enlightening conversation he’s ever had, considering the thousands of people he had talked to for his job, and his chest is starting to feel lighter until she says this one thing.

“Take a good look at your pocket. Your friend has already given you the answer.”

In all honesty, Aventurine had been trying to not remember the capsule the doctor had given him. He didn’t want to… hope, or be disappointed. After his conversation with Acheron, he had actually felt good enough to forget about the capsule, if only a moment.

So of course Acheron would know of its existence somehow, and remind him of it.

Reluctantly, Aventurine takes the object out and pops open the cap. In it lies a single piece of paper, with clear, pristine script written on it.

The impossible in the dreamscape is not “Death”, but rather “Dormancy”.

Do stay alive. I wish you the best of luck.

Like an earthquake rumbling within him, the sudden pain seizes his body, spreading from his chest up to his throat and comes flooding out like a torrent of endless blood-red petals.

Acheron pauses from where she was walking away to turn back, eyes widening. “You… Hanahaki Disease?”

Fuck, he’d almost forgotten Acheron is the one sole person in existence that is from Izumo. Of course she would know about this disease.

“Haha, yeah. Just my luck, huh?” he coughs out, wiping away a string of blood on his lips. “If I don’t die from this Void, I’ll still end up dying from this disease anyway.”

“But… how?”

“What do you mean, how? Didn’t this disease originate from your planet?”

“Yes, of course I know of its existence. I mean, how can it happen to you?”

“Why not? Isn’t this proof enough?”

“But… the note…”

“Veritas Ratio is a kind person, even if he refuses to admit it or show it outwardly,” he cuts in, voice firm. “All lives are precious to him, even including one as wretched as mine. He wants me to be alive because he wants all lives to be alive. Not because of anything else. These petals melting into the abyss are proof of that.”

Acheron gazes at him for a long moment, long enough that he starts to feel uncomfortable. Finally, she speaks, “Hanahaki Disease has always been rare, even back when Izumo existed. There were not many records of actual cases, let alone any that had remained after the planet’s destruction. Thus, the little you’ve heard of it is of simple gossip, embellished or sometimes, omitted. Many facts about it got lost in the sea of time.”

“What are you talking about?” Aventurine blinks, confused.

“I’m saying,” Acheron continues, voice gentle and fluid like the first white clouds forming after a pouring rain, “there is a fact about Hanahaki Disease that you might not have come across. That many might not have known. It is that… the affliction is based on the victim’s perception of what is to be true, not what is actually true.”

“…What do you mean?”

“Simply put, one can incur Hanahaki Disease if one thinks that their love is unrequited. It has no bearing on whether or not the love is unrequited in reality. Nobody is all-knowing, after all. You only know what you believe you know, and contract the disease because of that belief.”

“Are you saying…” Aventurine feels his world turn upside down, and it’s getting hard to breathe again, but strangely, the itch in his throat is gone. “No, that can’t be―”

“I am only telling you what I know is the truth, as the remaining survivor of Izumo,” Acheron says, turning around again. “What you make of it is up to you, once you get out of this Void and return back to where you belong.”

With that, she leaves, and Aventurine’s knees give out as he falls down. He squeezes his eyes shut, palms cradling his head as he tries to calm down, to breathe properly, and this feeling is so familiar, yet… There is no copper taste in his mouth. No suffocating feeling of overflowing petals clogging the depths of his throat.

There is no way… that Ratio can possibly love him back, right? That he only contracted Hanahaki Disease because he thought Ratio does not love him back? That the truth can be… the opposite?

Aeons, is it possible to hope, now, after all he’s been through?

Then again, isn’t he already hoping he’ll come out of this Void alive? That this is not the time to meet his mother, father, and sister yet?

So then… what’s one more hope, right?

Maybe… Just maybe… If he gets out of this alive, and returns to where he belongs… He’ll come to the hospital to get himself examined properly to ease Ratio’s mind, to complete the promise.

And then… He’ll ask Ratio… And no matter what the doctor’s answer might be, at least there will be peace in knowing the truth.

Maybe it’s okay to hope, after all.