Chapter Text
She coughed up a full rosebud after Ben's funeral. Vanya held it in the palm of her hand, studying the blood-speckled petals in the dim light of the moon. It wasn't that big and hardly took up space in her hand, but Vanya could feel the stem it had been jostled off of poking at the back of her throat, waiting for another bud to take its place. The small rose was tossed in the trash without even a sigh as Vanya reached for the box of tissues, wadding up a few so she could cough up the blood.
Vanya didn't cry like she had the first time the petals appeared.
Didn't even sigh as she felt another rose begin to bloom.
It was nothing new.
Vanya rubbed at her throat, wincing at the tenderness from using her voice for the first time in years,
"It wasn't anyone's fault!"
Despite what the others thought, Diego's words didn't send her running inside. It was the rose that had begun to push itself forward and the thorns cutting at the inside of her throat. She went inside so no one would see the petals float from her mouth to the ground or the blood staining her teeth.
Vanya heard some of the others out in the hall, but she didn't pay attention to the voices floating outside her door. Instead, Vanya pulled out the notebook she'd been writing in and grabbed her pen. She hadn't played the violin in years and had taken up writing as her hobby. Dad had taken the violin from her when the Hanahaki started, saying he didn't want his instrument tarnished by blood or have petals get caught in the strings.
None of her siblings noticed when she stopped playing.
Or talking.
Or maybe they had, and just didn't say anything?
The door to Vanya's new one-room apartment swung shut as her landlord exited and she quickly pulled out her pills. She swallowed one with difficulty, feeling it get stuck between the thorns in her throat before slipping down to her stomach.
She was seventeen years old and now had an apartment.
The landlord was an older Italian woman who'd skeptical at first, renting to someone who was still considered a minor in the eyes of the law, but she quickly figured out why Vanya was so desperate to leave home,
"I've seen my fair share of flowers in the trash. You aren't the first, and definitely won't be the last," She struck up a deal with Vanya after that.
Vanya was exempt from rent until her eighteenth birthday, but she had to help with general cleaning and upkeep around the building. And with a seventeen-year-old with limited money and options, Vanya didn't see another choice.
Her eighteenth birthday came and went.
She was now paying for rent and utilities.
Vanya had a job working full-time at a restaurant in the dish pit.
She would return late at night with aching legs and pruned hands, walking quietly up to her apartment and avoiding the creaky steps so she wouldn't wake up the other tenants. But one night, the door to Gianna's (Her landlord) apartment swung open, and the older woman gestured for Vanya to come inside. Gianna made some tea and sat down across from Vanya at the rickety kitchen table,
"I've never pried about the whole Hanahaki situation, why you have it, or who caused it. But if I had to guess, I would say it's because of your family," Vanya, unsure and nervous as to why this was being brought up now, slowly nodded. Gianna sighed before continuing, "I figured. The only reason I'm bringing this up now is that I may have just rented a room to your brother. Diego Hargreeves," Vanya froze, hands shaking at the mention of her brother as Gianna continued, "I didn't tell him you were here. But I figured you should know," Vanya's only response was a tight nod before she exited the apartment.
The walk up to her room was daunting, Vanya stared at the doors passed, wondering if her brother would open one and begin berating her. But she made it to her door without incident.
She slammed the door to her apartment shut, flinching at the footsteps that stopped outside,
"Vanya, open the door!" Her brother demanded, "Open the damn door! I need to talk to you!" Diego was knocking, his fists slamming against the feeble wood.
Vanya could feel the vibrations of his pounding against her back, but it was nothing compared to the petals working their way up her throat. She kept a hand to her mouth, stifling the urge to cough, hoping Diego would give up and walk away. He stopped knocking, but instead of hearing his feet slamming against the floor, Vanya heard the sound of something scratching against her lock. Panic rose in her throat along with the petals, and Vanya knew if she didn't get them out soon, she would choke!
Her saving grace was the little five foot nothing, Gianna who yelled,
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" The sound on her lock stopped, "I have half a mind to evict your ass right now! Trying to break into someone's home! How would you like it if someone did that to you?!" There was some grumbled response from Diego that Vanya didn't catch, but she did hear him storm down the hall.
There was a timid knock followed by, "Are you alright?"
Vanya's response was to cough up the petals caused by seeing her brother again onto the floor.
After working three double shifts in a row, Vanya's manager took one look at her then promptly sent her home the moment she walked in. So Vanya wearily trekked back to her apartment.
Diego was standing outside, bag slung over his shoulder and a book under his arm as he spoke with a girl who looked about their age. He made eye contact with Vanya and she could feel his eyes on her as she unlocked the door to the building. Before it closed, Vanya heard the person Diego was talking to ask who she was, and heard her brother's response,
"Just one of my neighbors,"
Vanya felt guiltily relieved when Gianna told her she had to evict Diego a few weeks after her twenty-first birthday,
"Don't get me wrong, you're brother's a good kid, just got behind in rent," That was all that was said on the matter.
"You should send these to some publishing person!" Gianna exclaimed. Vanya had just turned twenty-four, was still washing dishes at the restaurant, and still suffering from Hanahaki.
It was her day off and she was sitting in Gianna's apartment with the older woman reading one of the notebooks she'd written in, listening to the older woman praise her short stories and poems,
"Now I'll admit I'm a bit biased, but even a blind man could see these are good!" Vanya shook her head, feeling the twisted thorns rub at the inside of her throat as Gianna continued, "I mean it, Vanya! It would at least be worth a try!" Vanya wasn't sure, but the old woman persisted.
So next week, Vanya sent off a few of her writings to a magazine that was taking submissions under the name Luda Agapov. (It was ironic, she was suffering from a disease of unrequited love, and she chose two names meaning love.) Weeks passed with no response and Vanya began to think she'd done something stupid.
Until she received a letter in the mail with a check and copy of the magazine with her short story and poem. Gianna practically jumped and danced around her apartment with joy, exclaiming she told Vanya she could do it!
And for once, Vanya wasn't bothered by the petals scraping against her throat.