Written August 19th, 2017. And this is the last one I'm doing for the writing prompt so far, also requested by PokemonRio . Featuring the remade SaiKo (Dracule Saito x Akiyama Koe) ship, which I'm now tentatively calling Sylen (Sirius Donovan x Kylen Averyanova), and of course, since I wanted to experiment: the hanahaki byou AU.

Roses.

They are everywhere he can see—sketched on tattered bits of paper, paper napkins, the margins of his reports to his Squadron Leader and his other superiors, scrawled messily on the white board his Captain used for debriefing before missions, sketched on the walls of his quarters.

His sketches were considered to be beautiful, with spiralling lines in black, blue, white and red.

Black—like the ink staining his fingers.

Blue—like the skies he used to watch with her.

White—like the paper he'd written his unsaid feelings on.

Red—like the blood which drips from between his fingers as he doubles over, coughing and sputtering, a crimson petal spewed from between his lips, followed by a fully formed rose as it flutters to the floor. He gasps, silently, brokenly pleading for someone, anyone, to put him out of his misery.

Sirius Donovan may have been a prideful man—and he still is, even on the verge of death, refusing to submit and merely surrender.

But even the mighty fall, and he knows that the time has come.

He can feel the petals lingering in his throat, begging for release, the flowers touching the roof of his mouth, clogging his airways, and he coughs, forcing them out. He heaves for breath, for the oxygen his body is screaming for, and he closes his eyes and denies that he's crying, that the tears which fall from his eyes are his own as he silently begs for mercy.

His heart thumps faster, the beat a staccato rhythm that drums inside him as he clenches his fingers around a pen, which breaks from the force of his grip—and briefly, he curses the extraneous strength being a soldier had given him. The ink drives a large black stain across his desk, marring the once pristine wood, but he doesn't care.

Sirius knows he's making too much noise, anyone can hear from outside his door—and what is he even thinking? He doesn't care, he doesn't think as he grabs at the front of his shirt, as if that might assuage the build up of the flowers threatening to break free from his lungs, as if his hold might stop his wildly beating heart.

He'd promised his squadron that he'd get better. Even though he didn't believe it—because he just wasn't worth it.

(That was the fourth time he lied.)

He'd smiled and held her hand, dodged the punch she attempted to give him when he cheekily—jokingly—kissed her cheek and told her that he would be fine. Because he didn't want to see her red-rimmed eyes again.

(The third time.)

He'd assured his Captain that he was getting better even when she found him kneeling beside a collection of red (red, red) roses and a trail of blood had been dribbling down his chin. That was the time he saw her façade break when she said, "I know a liar when I see one." (Later, he remembers seeing her pull a bright blue petal from between her lips.)

(The second.)

He'd told himself that he'd try his best to get better. Even though he knew that he wouldn't.

(The first time.)

Now he sits on chair set before his desk, his letter—his note—splattered with his blood.

And as Sirius Donovan coughs, once more—

—the red, red rose falls from between his lips, as red as the blood which flows from his slitted wrists.

—

Roses.

She knows everything and anything, of the spiralling lines and unfinished sketches pinned to his walls.

But she didn't know of the roses which grew and corrupted his lungs, whose petals fell from his lips in the same way his lies fell and made her believe.

So she kneels before his grave and takes out his note, before she turns away, coughing as tears fall from her gray eyes and she says,

"I love you,"

as a white, blood-splattered rose petal falls from her lips.

end.

...this is pretty meh-ish, since it's a rush job.. eh.

Well, that's that—my first time writing a hanahaki byou AU, btw.

Prompt: The way you said "I love you"—#28. When I am dead.