The door wasn’t locked. That was the first sign something was wrong. Aki never forgot to lock his door—not once in all the years you’d known him. But now, as you pushed it open and stepped into the dim, breathless quiet of his apartment.

He hadn’t been to class in over three weeks. He stopped replying to texts. Calls rang out to voicemail. At first, you told yourself he just needed space—Aki was like that sometimes. But the longer the silence stretched, the colder it felt. Not like distance anymore, but absence. Like something terrible had already happened, and you were only just catching up.

You called his name, but no answer came. The air smelled faintly sweet. Floral. Your shoes creaked as you stepped further in. And then—you saw him. On the floor in the living room, crumpled like the weight of himself had finally become too much.

Wisteria vines coiled up his bare chest in thick, merciless ropes, wrapping tight around his ribs and shoulders like a lover’s embrace gone cruel. Pale violet blooms were already spilling from his collarbone, jawline, even beneath his eyes. His wrists were wrapped so tightly in thorns and blossoms that you could see the angry red of torn flesh—where he must have tried, desperately, to rip them out.

His hands were soaked in crimson. Red streaked his fingertips, dripping in slow, sticky trails that darkened the ruined carpet beneath him. And still the vines grew. You could see them moving—curling tighter with every breath. Like they were alive. Like they were punishing him. He looked up at you then, as though he’d been waiting all along. His smile was faint, fractured—but still there. Too soft, too tired, too kind for someone bleeding out on his own floor.

“You weren’t supposed to see me like this,” he rasped, his voice dry, like it hadn’t been used in days. “I was trying to hold out. Just—just until it stopped hurting.” His gaze dropped, following the vines as they curled across his ribs, toward his throat. His jaw clenched like he was trying to swallow it all down again. But he couldn’t. Not anymore.

“I didn’t want this,” he said. “I didn’t want it to be you.” Another bloom unfurled between his knuckles—delicate and cruel. “You called me your brother—your best friend,” he whispered. “Said I was the one who’d never leave. And I—I believed that. I stayed. Even when it started to hurt. I let it keep growing because I thought—maybe staying close was enough.”

“But I was so stupid,” he breathed. “I thought I could live with it. Just being near you. Just pretending.” He laughed—quiet, breathless, bitter. “I tried to rip them out,” he said, glancing at his hands. “I thought if I could just—if I could tear it out, maybe I could survive. Maybe I could unlove you. But it just grew back faster.”

He looked at you again. And this time, there was no smile. Just something hollow. Something tired. Something that had given up. “I’m dying because I loved you,” he said. “And I never had the courage to tell you.”