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Ryuu has had crushes before. Maybe more than his fair share even. It’s just that he’s met a frankly unfair number of hot people; like how is it even possible that all four of the clubs former third years were so pretty. The beauty marks. The muscles. The fact that they were also all great people. How. But in spite of all of the undeniably stunning people he’s met none of his crushes have really moved on into being something more.
Sure, he was pretty stuck on Kiyoko-san for a while, but he was never in love with her or anything. He loved the idea of being in love with her probably, but he knew in reality he hardly had a chance. Real, actual being in love wasn’t anything he has any experience with.
How was he supposed to know he was falling in love with every passing day, and probably since they had met. Every joke, every casual touch, every late night action playing loud enough that Saeko came out to yell at them. Every time they swapped lunches, or stayed an extra 20 minutes at the corner where they split ways walking home after practice. Nobody had ever told Ryuu that falling in love with your best friend was as easy as breathing, so easy it could happen without you even noticing.
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The coughing first starts at practice. Ryuu is on the sidelines, watching the team as he takes a water break. Watching Yuu mostly. Ryuu’s almost always standing in front of him when they play, but when he does get the chance to watch it’s almost impossible to look away. The intensity and purpose that Yuu plays with is more than a little distracting, even if it is just practice. Just going for receive after receive of Kinoshita’s serves Yuu looks as determined as ever.
The pair pauses their practice and Ryuu finally lets his gaze float off and around the gym, taking in his other teammates. When he glances back at them they are leaning close to hear each other over the noise of a full gym of volleyball players. Ryuu’s throat itches. Something makes a grin break out over Yuu’s face and he ducks under the net to slap Kinoshita on the back. Kinoshita rubs the back of his neck and then they are both laughing loud enough that Ryuu can actually hear it from across the gym. The itch in Ryuu’s throat spikes and he ends up choking on his water, falling into a coughing fit enough to draw Yachi’s attention.
By the time Ryuu manages to wave off Yachi’s fretting attempts to help and actually gets breathing mostly right again Kinoshita and Yuu have gotten back to practicing. He nearly gets distracted watching again until Ukai-san yells at him to get his ass in gear. He goes and joins spiking practice and the whole hardly-an-incident is quickly forgotten.
But. The cough persists, dry and irritating, right at the back of his throat, for days. Ryuu blames it on the changing seasons and allergies, because there is no reason not to. (Except for the fact that he’s never had bad allergies before.) Everyone else seems to think the same, and besides a reminder to rest when he needs and eat right from Ukai-san, life goes on. He keeps walking home with Yuu, bumping shoulders all the way; laughing at how he eats when they stop for popsicles and then coughing until he goes back in to buy him water.
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The first petal comes on a normal weekend night, Yuu and Ryuu having claimed the whole living room in the name of popcorn and action movies so loud they all but drove Saeko out of the house. But it’s long past movie time now, and Yuu is sprawled out on the guest futon on Ryuu’s bedroom floor. Ryuu should be asleep too, but coughing is keeping him up. It’s been bad all evening. During the move a fit hit him so hard the Yuu paused the movie and started rubbing circles on Ryuu’s back. Somehow that only made it worse. His coughing hasn’t calmed down for more than a few minutes since, he’s surprised Yuu can sleep through it.
Staring at his sleeping friend Ryuu can feel another nasty wave coming on and just gives up on getting good rest tonight. He does his best to muffle some of his hacking without also suffocating himself with a pillow. It doesn’t work very well. Ryuu slips out of his bedroom and beelines to the kitchen for more water. Maybe he should just stay on the couch if he isn’t going to actually get to sleep anytime soon; before he actually does ruin Yuu’s night’s sleep.
He finds himself laughing fondly as he fills up his glass of water, thinking about how useless Yuu is when he first wakes up if he doesn’t get enough sleep. The morning he tried to help Saeko make breakfast and tried to heat something up in their unplugged microwave for about 5 minutes was absolutely hilarious.
Another coughing fit sneaks up on and interrupts his laughing. This one is bone rattling, shaking Ryuu bad enough that he drops his glass to the bottom of the sink. It slams into him out of nowhere, like a punch to the gut, and he finds himself clinging to the sides of the sink support just so he can try and ride it out; but it keeps going until his throat is absolutely screaming. He feels like he might throw up from how strong it is.
It feels like he’s been coughing forever by the time it stops. But it takes twice as long for Ryuu to actually catch his breath again, head hanging down and still leaned over the sink. When he finally opens his eyes again he’s still breathing heavily but at least somewhat evenly. He stares blankly at the bottom of the sink as his brain catches up to what he is looking at. There, among the shards of glass he didn’t hear breaking, are three flower petals spotted with blood. Not thinking about the risk of the glass shards at all, Ryuu picks one of the flower petals out from the mess. It’s oddly hot in his hand.
A few half formed and far off thoughts slide into place slowly as he stands there holding the little petal. As they come together they bring a deep sense of dread with them.
He might love Yuu as more than a friend.
This probably isn’t just a cold.
He is totally fucked.
After desperately cleaning the glass shards and evidence out of the bottom of the sink, Ryuu spends the rest of the night on the couch, coughing and crying. He sneaks back into bed just before the sun rises, and nobody is any the wiser.
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It is a quick and painful spiral after the night in the kitchen.
Realizing he’s probably in love with Yuu opens Ryuu’s eyes to all the casual affections they share. How close they are. How fucking stunning Yuu is all the time. Instead of being fun and exciting these not new but now identifiable feelings leave Ryuu cold as ice and struggling to breath. To make matters worse just this little shift in perception makes it infinitely harder to look away from Yuu whenever they are in the same room.
Walks home together take longer than ever because of all the times Ryuu has to stop and catch his breath and/or cough like he’s trying to hack up a lung. He grows increasingly useless at practice. On a few occasions he gets to coughing bad enough that teacher’s ask if he needs to go to see the nurse, sometimes he says yes just so he can go hide somewhere before he spews flower petals all over his desk. Usually he goes to the clubroom, since he knows nobody is going to stumble across him there in the middle of the day.
He starts hitting the cough drops like his life depends on it, anything to soothe his throat that feels like it's slowly getting torn to shreds day by day. Handfuls of all whatever cheap brands he can pick up at convenience stores are stashed in basically every jacket he owns.
Everyone knows something is wrong, there’s not a subtle bone in Ryuu’s body and even if there was it’s not exactly a quiet affliction. He gets away with people ignoring it for a week and a half but Take-chan steps in after he has to step out of the gym to “catch his breath” one to many times. Ryuu is banished from practice until he can come back with a doctor's note. Ennoshita ends up walking him home early that afternoon, because to make up for a few days of being slack Take-chan apparently decided Ryuu can’t even walk himself home and Ennoshita says it's a captain's duty.
It’s mostly quiet, except the ever present coughs, as they walk towards Ryuu’s house. Ennoshita doesn’t say anything but the odd comment about shops they pass until they are standing on the front sidewalk. When they stop and Ryuu is about to say goodbye he looks him dead in the eyes and says, “Tanaka you look awful lately.”
“Way to kick a guy while he’s down Captain,” Ryuu says, trying to play it as a joke with a tap against Ennoshita’s shoulder even though he knows that he is totally right.
Ennoshita ignores Ryuu’s attempts to brush him off, a stern set to his usually gentel face. “What’s going on? You almost never even get colds but you’ve been coughing for weeks.”
“The pollen is really bad this year?”
“Bullshit. Tell me the truth.”
“Is that an order from my captain?” Ryuu asks, weakening. It’s been so hard, not telling anyone, when all he wants to do is scream about it.
The determination on Ennoshita’s face mingles with frustration and something else Ryuu can’t put his finger on. “Yes.”
“I’m sick.”
“I know.”
Ryuu shakes his head, and stares at a street sign in the distance. He’s never had a hard time saying what needs to be said. But this is too big. “No. I’m like. Really sick. I...uh.. I’m not sure I want to tell you about it.”
Guilt. The something Ryuu couldn’t name was guilt. It becomes more obvious as it grows over Ennoshita’s face. “I know Tanaka,” he reaches into his pocket and pulls out some red stained, partially formed flowers. They are wilted but Tanaka would recognize them anywhere. “I found these in the clubroom. They’re yours, aren’t they?”
“Do you want to come in?”
Over tea, Ryuu tells Ennoshita everything. It takes some of the weight off but also makes the whole thing feel some much more real. It had been upsetting and awful sure, but until he saw someone else getting upset over it it still felt like a really awful dream sometimes. Ennoshita does a fairly good job of keeping his poker face until Ryuu’s into another bad coughing fit. His alarm visibly grows as Ryuu dirties the table with spats of blood and a frighteningly large pile of petals and partially formed flowers.
“Tanaka this is really bad,” he says as Ryuu tries to catch his breath.
He knows how bad it is. He knows about hanahaki, and what this means, what his options are and that he is quickly running out of time to have any. It’s not a particularly common condition in real life but it’s been played to death on tv and movies. Besides, he’s got a family history of it, an older cousin of his came down with it when Ryuu was in middle school. He knows that progression can range wildly, and so can survival rates. His cousin had it for months before it even became a problem; Ryuu apparently isn’t as lucky.
At this rate he probably can’t even make it to graduation.
“What are you going to do?”
Ryuu had no idea.
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With a fake doctor’s note in tow, Ryuu tells Take-chan and Ukai-san that he had bronchitis. They come to a compromise, Ryuu doesn’t come to morning practice, but if he is feeling up to it he can come and sit through afternoon practice. Under no circumstances is he to actually play. He can feel Ennoshita staring through the back of his head the whole time.
Hinata and Kageyama look at him like he’s a poor, dying man as he sits on the sides during practice and helps Yachi track numbers as best he can. Yuu gives him a hearty amount of ribbing about needing rest and a genuine get well soon, much to the protest of Ryuu’s heart and lungs. Ennoshita looks at him with all the pity and frustration in the world, Ryuu considers not coming to afternoon practices after all just to avoid it.
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He and Yuu still do movie night that weekend, even though Ryuu says he’s too tired to actually make it through a movie no matter how cool the stunts are. It isn’t even a lie, he hasn’t slept properly since the night he coughed the first three petals and he’s absolutely exhausted. Yuu insists they hang out anyway, even if they don’t watch anything, in the name of tradition.
They end up skipping the movie since Ryuu is wilting quickly by the time they get back from afternoon practice. After dinner they just go straight to Ryuu’s room, and half watch a few stupid videos on Yuu’s phone. After a while Yuu gets bored and drags Ryuu into a mostly one sided conversation. “Ryuu, what are you doing after graduation?”
Nothing. Probably being a jar of ashes. “I dunno. I’ll probably just stay in town and get a job or something.” God he hates the sound of his own voice lately.
“I think I’m going to leave town,” Yuu says.
“Going somewhere else to play volleyball?”
“Nah. Well I’ll probably still play sometimes.”
“But you aren’t going pro?”
Yuu shakes his head, “I really like playing volleyball, but there’s a lot of other stuff I want to do you know? And I can’t do it if I’m stuck somewhere. I want to explore the would you know?” He waves his arms around as he talks, and while it's hard to see Yuu doing anything but play volleyball it is easy to see he’s just as passionate about this “The world is huge! And I’ve hardly seen any of it. Who knows, there’s probably something I’ll love even more than volleyball out there.”
Ryuu is sure Yuu could take on anything he set his mind to, no doubt. It’s a shame hearing about it now is the closest he’ll get to seeing that. “What kinda stuff do you want to try?” And Yuu starts talking in the way Ryuu knows means he won’t stop for ages. He does his best to listen, but laying down it’s hard to keep his eyes open. He’s not sure how he manages it between the coughs and Yuu’s excited voice, but Ryuu finds himself falling asleep.
He wakes up to the sounds of Yuu setting up the guest futon. “Wha?” He croaks, disoriented and guilty that he fell asleep.
“Hey. You really must have been tired to sleep through your best friend talking about his dreams,” Yuu says, joking but a little flat underneath it.
“Sorry Yuu I’ve just been-”
“You’ve been like crazy sick. Don’t worry about it, you need sleep. Let’s just go to sleep.” He gives Ryuu a good rub on the head before he settles in. Ryuu does his best to drift back off, but he can’t manage it. He spends most of the night coughing up parts of flowers in the bathroom.
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It hurts too bad to keep going to practice. Physically and emotionally. He has to keep leaving to cover the dirt behind the gym in blood and flowers periodically throughout practice, so he’s only half there anyway even as he tries to be helpful from the bench. He can’t even make it through classes, by the end of the day he just wants to lay on the ground outside the school and sleep. It’s easier to just go home.
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Somehow Ennoshita ends up cornering him about his absences before Yuu does. He must follow when he sees Ryuu rush past his classroom door, because he slams his way into the bathroom Ryuu is hiding in in the middle of a class period.
“You’re running out of time!” He says, like Ryuu doesn’t know that. Like it isn’t made 100% obvious by the number of blood soaked nearly-full bloom that are making a mess of the bathroom counter right now. “You have to tell him.”
Ryuu’s voice creakes as he raises it in retaliation. “ So he can pity me for the next few days and feel guilty for the next few years of his life for something that isn’t his fault”
“You don’t know-”
“Neither do you. I won’t ruin the best years of his life anymore than I have to.” Ryuu snaps back, and brushes past Ennoshita before he can make another argument. He slams the door behind him and leaves the mess for Ennoshita to clean up.
Ryuu doesn’t bother going back to class, and plays hooky from school the next two days. Not just that he’s avoiding Ennoshita, he can hardly get out of bed anyway.
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Sometime before dawn on the third day, he coughs up a fistfull of whole flowers alongside the partial blooms. There are no individual petals left. He spends most of the morning sitting in relative silence on the bathroom floor. He gets himself up and drags himself down to the school in time for afternoon practice though. There are some things he can’t leave as they are.
Team members are just starting to get into the gym by the time Ryuu gets there, and he stalls by talking to some of the first years while he waits for Ennoshita. He definitely owes him an apology. Probably more than that.
Instead of Ennoshita’s voice telling him off for coming to practice after skipping school or calling the team to order he hears a very excited “Ryuu!!!”
For a second everything is normal, flowers and upcoming funerals forgotten. Moving totally on instinct Ryuu turns around and catches Yuu as he runs towards him. They are both grinning and laughing like idiots as Ryuu’s hands go around Yuu’s waist. Halfway through the lifting motion, the laugh turns into a cough.
It’s a violent one, that shakes Ryuu’s whole body and makes his vision spot out. His arms buckle first. Then his knees. The smile slides off Yuu’s face. He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something. He doesn’t get to before Ryuu crumples to the ground and takes Yuu with him.
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Ryuu comes to in a much emptier gym than he passed out in. He can hear Take-chan talking, probably on the phone, somewhere above him. His vision is still full of spots as he tries to look around. He’s laying in a pool of blood and flowers, and Yuu and Ennoshita are hovering by his side, both their knees stained red.
His throat feels like he’s been gargling glass shards, and his chest is on fire but he’s still coughing. His cheeks are wet, and tears blur his vision along with the floating spots. He can still make out the panic on both his friend’s faces though.
“Ryuu wha- How long!?-Who!-What the fuck??” Yuu asks, and he sounds desperate. He looks over and Ennoshita, expecting his support, sees that he isn’t nearly as surprised as he is himself. “Chikara did you know? What the hell is going on?!”
“Noya-” Ennostia tries to interrupt but Yuu keeps throwing questions at Ryuu that his head is spinning too bad to answer. He gives an attempt to say anything, anything at all, but all that comes out is a croak and something like a sob.
Take-chan kicks them out of the gym, but Ennoshita has to all but drag Yuu out the doors. The last thing Ryuu sees before he blacks out again is his enraged face.
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Reality filters in and out. COnfusing glimpses of strangers standing over him, the sky, blood soaked flowers, and pain. He tries to ask anything, say anything, but he can’t. The next time he properly wakes up he’s in a hospital bed, all alone.
The fire in his chest is dulled, and there’s an oxygen mask over his face, but his head feels like it’s floating a foot off his body. He lies there confused and helpless, filled with dread and thinking of Yuu’s face as he was pulled out of the gym until the painkillers pull him under again.
Nurses come and go in Ryuu’s spotty consciousness, and he does his best to choke out any answers he can. The doctor comes and tells him things he already knows, but it still hurts to hear that it's too late for anything but a miracle. They can only manage his pain and try to make it easier now.
He glares and the muted flower painting on the wall and resigns himself to a quiet last few hours.
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“Ryuu!”
“RYUU!!”
“RYUUUUU!!”
Yuu? “Sir you can’t- Visiting hours are this afternoon between-”
“I don’t care! RYUU!?”
“Yuu!” Ryuu tries to scream back, but it's barely audible.
It doesn’t matter though, Yuu comes bursting in the door with a nurse on his tail seconds later. “Sir-”
Ryuu has to rip his eyes off the desperate expression on Yuu’s face to look at the nurse, lift the oxygen mask, and beg, “please let him stay...please.” Thankfully the dying tend to have a little extra sway, and she caves easily.
“Fine. For a little while. And only if he stops yelling.” She shoots Yuu a suspicious look, as she leaves, and Ryuu can see that she doesn’t go very far from the door. Yuu doesn’t spare a second before he rushes the rest of the way to Ryuu’s bedside.
“Yuu-” Ryuu begins, lifting the mask again and trying to head off whatever storm is coming.
Yuu pushes the mask back down onto Ryuu’s nose and mouth and holds it there. “Don’t say anything. You keep that fucking oxygen on,” he sounds like he’s been crying, and this close Ryuu can see the puffiness of his eyes. “Chikara told me everything.”
“Everything?” Ryuu says, his already quiet voice muffled by the mask and Yuu’s hand.
“Yeah, everything. Stop talking you fucking idiot,” Yuu says. “I can’t believe you. You were just going to die? Just die and leave me here like that would somehow be better than even trying to find out how I felt. Like I could never love you. Like you aren’t the coolest, manliest, nicest, most amazing guy I know? You were being stupid fucking coward Ryuu and you almost killed yourself because of it-”
“I can’t believe you wouldn’t even consider that I might love you, Ryuu. Can you even see yourself? You’re the most lovable person I know, and I know you better than anyone. How could I not love you! Now you better fucking get better because you are better than this cowardly bullshit and you are going to prove it to me. And we are graduating and I’m dragging your sorry ass all over the planet if I have to. You’re never leaving my side again.” It all comes quickly and loudly and just so. Yuu.
Yuu moves his hand from over Ryuu’s mask to cupping his cheek. They are both crying, Ryuu so violently his whole body is shaking. He has to wipe the tears from his eyes to actually look at Yuu, to see him flushed from anger and crying, tears running down his cheeks, and absolutely beautiful. “Yuu-”
“I said don’t talk stupid,” and Yuu leans in and presses their foreheads together.
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Saeko nearly strangles him the night he was admitted, before she crys with him, and then nearly strangles him again. The team comes and visits, when Ryuu’s finally allowed more visitors. Take-chan and Ukai-san give him the lecture of the century. Tsukishima brings flowers, twisted bastard. Ryuu thinks it's hilarious. Ryuu doesn’t get out of the hospital until after graduation, but Ennoshita takes about a million pictures for him. It is comfortably the most active room on the floor.
In the weeks of Ryuu's stay the nurses come to adore and hate Yuu in equal measure, but either way he’s there visiting every day he can. When Ryuu finally does get released, Yuu does kick his ass, as promised, in the form of a through, through, conversation about trust and trust. It’s exhausting but worth every minute. Afterward they watch a way too loud action movie on Ryuu’s couch, and Ryuu is too happy to even care that it sucks.