Chapter Text
The Grove of Epiphany
Laboratory
Anaxa fell to his knees, coughing. He felt lightheaded from the lack of air as he vomited the flowers from the back of his throat—soft tissue torn raw from the petals. Every wheezing inhale stung as though thousands of needles had embedded themselves beneath his ribs. For one irrational moment, he thought of simply not breathing at all.
Unfortunate that air remained necessary for his survival.
Beads of sweat dripped down his temple as golden blood trickled from his lips. “N-not, yet.”
He couldn’t die just yet.
There was still something to be done. Something that could only be done at the final stage of anthoemesis.
Anaxa pushed himself off the ground, using the nearby table for support. He forced himself back to his feet as he leaned against the wood with his elbows. A flask of petals floated in a liquid, while another flask held his blood.
A different ache went through his heart. A pain unlike the roots slowly ripping him apart tightened around his chest. Phainon never came back after that day. If not for the cold meal left within the pot and the clean house, he would have thought the other man was a hallucination from a severe cold.
It didn’t matter. Phainon’s absence just expedited his research.
With the back of his hand, he wiped off the blood from his lips—barely looking at it. He took a quill from the table to record his findings. His hand shook as his penmanship became barely legible the more he wrote. He briefly missed Hyacine’s presence. Her steady hand in place of his would have been useful here. Hopefully, she could still read his handwriting.
It was better that she wasn’t here. Patients in need of urgent care had appeared near another city’s border, desperate for a medic. She hadn’t been at the Grove for the last few days. If she were here, he doubted he would have gotten this far into his research.
Anaxa glanced at the thin, red petals within the flask. The edges had crystallized with a glassy sheen, no longer resembling the soft tissue of an ordinary flower. Just as he suspected, anthoemesis was mutating. The soul-borne affliction that had taken physical form a decade ago was undergoing metamorphosis.
It would only be a matter of time before a deadlier strain awakened in those whose blood could not suppress its physical form.
Behind him was a bloody trail of crystallized spider lilies eagerly waiting for their host’s demise.
The Grove of Epiphany
Cipher’s speed carried them to the Grove within seconds.
“—Cipher, find Hyacine! We’re going to need her!” Phainon ordered. “I’ll look for Anaxa!”
He didn’t look back to see if Cipher followed his orders. He ran through the halls and across branches, searching the places Anaxa was most likely to be.
Thankfully, it was the middle of the curtain fall hour. Most of the Grove lay in slumber.
Anaxa would choose some place where he couldn’t endanger anyone.
Phainon turned the corner and ran through vine-covered passages, toward the only destination he had in mind.
The roots disintegrated within the petri dish.
It’s done. The experiment was a success.
Anaxa stared at the large, silver liquid flask in front of him. A small drop of the silver liquid had dissolved the root sample, destroying its link to the soul.
“Hah… haha...” A weak laughter escaped his lips as the joy of discovery consumed his being. Small drops of blood dripped onto the wood with a soft patter. The elation temporarily numbed the pain in his body even as he rasped and wheezed through his triumph. He stopped to cough out another flower from his throat, not even noticing it fall to the floor.
“W-with this… the objective is completed.”
The small smile didn’t leave his lips even as his vision blurred— the adrenaline finally ran its course. He no longer had the strength to stand on his own.
Just before he fell, familiar arms caught him from behind. A faint smell of wheat and citrus hung in the air as a presence as warm as the sun embraced him—a warmth he had accepted as gone months ago.
“Phainon…?”
He hadn’t heard the door open or the footsteps come in.
They slid to the floor. His body had lost all its strength, and Phainon held him upright against his chest, knees bracketing him on either side. He couldn’t see Phainon’s face, only feel him bury it against his neck.
“Why… are you here?” Anaxa asked quietly after a moment. There was a rasp in his voice, and his throat stung from just breathing. The soft tissue was too worn from the constant abuse of blooms. The aches in his body felt distant, almost unreal. So did the man holding him.
Why did Phainon have to appear now, of all times? Just as he was going to die…
“Please, Anaxa.” The arms around him tightened as though afraid that he might disappear. There was something desperate in Phainon’s voice, the words barely holding together. “Tell me your true feelings.”
Ah, Anaxa thought as he looked down. Crimson flowers surrounded them with specks of gold and crystallized sheen that shimmered under the lab’s pale, dew-like glow. It was almost beautiful.
So he finally knows.
“Please. Before it’s too late.”
Anaxa stayed silent as he listened to Phainon’s plea. A memory of his dying student flashed in his mind—the patient he couldn’t save, even in their final moments. How cold it must have felt, loving someone who couldn’t return their feelings.
His hand weakly held onto the strong arm that encased him—neither having the strength to push him away nor comfort the man behind him.
“… I can’t.” Not when a confession would only lead to shackling Phainon to a dying man.
Phainon’s breath hitched. “Why?”
“M-my body won’t last long even if I do w-what you want.” Anaxa swallowed the blood pooling at the back of his throat. “I-I’ve already sacrificed too much of myself…”
Even before the disease had taken root. Before Phainon. Before love. Anaxa had already been living on borrowed time, his life spent in pursuit of truth no matter what it cost him.
“… I don’t have long in this world, Phainon.”
There wasn’t a future with him.
Silence settled between them for a few moments. Anaxa’s labored breathing was the only thing breaking the fragile quiet. He couldn’t tell whether it was his heartbeat or Phainon’s softly pounding in his ears.
“I know.” Something wet dripped onto Anaxa’s neck, running down to his collarbone. “I’ve known for a long time that you weren’t looking for a future. That you were never going to live long.” Phainon drew a shaky breath. “I was just so scared of losing you that… I fooled myself into thinking you loved someone else.”
“And I only understood the truth when I was about to lose you forever.”
Anaxa weakly raised a hand to the head buried in his neck, running his fingers through Phainon’s white strands. “… You were just protecting yourself.”
A larger hand grasped his just when he lost the strength to keep it up.
“… Even then,” Phainon said, his voice breaking with every word. “Even if you don’t have long in this world… please, let me be by your side until your last moments.”
Anaxa let out a heavy wheezing breath and leaned back. Phainon’s warmth behind him felt comforting. Safe.
After a confession—no, a vow like that… how could he not be moved?
With his hand still in Phainon’s hold, Anaxa turned in his arms until he could at least see Phainon’s face. He took in the tear-streaked cheeks, the shadowed cyan eyes, the reddened nose. He looked so much younger than he had ever seen him.
“… Phainon of Aedes Elysiae,” Anaxa whispered. “There was never anyone else. Only you.”
His fingers tightened weakly around Phainon’s hand.
A faint, broken smile touched his lips. “If you can still bear to, will you return my feelings?”
“Yes.”
Phainon did not hesitate.
In Another City
Hyacine had been in the middle of caring for a sick patient when the door to the makeshift hospital was slammed open.
“Titans! You were harder to find than a mouse in Okhema’s sewers—!”
“Lady Cipher?” Hyacine looked up to see the Demigoddess of Trickery standing before the door, out of breath with her hoodie down. An unusual sight. “Is everything alright?”
“C’mon, Pink Girl, we got an emergency.” Cipher grabbed onto her wrist. “I need you to come with me.”
“Wait, the sick—” She resisted against the hold.
Cipher stopped to look around them as though she had finally realized exactly where they were. Her ears flattened against her head as groans of pain and coughs reached them. Hyacine was the only medic here. “Aw, fuck.”
Then Cipher turned to her. “Okay, Pink Girl, what’s wrong with them?”
Hyacine glanced at her patients with a frown. “I’m not sure.”
A sweet floral scent hung heavily in the air.
Something cold settled within Phainon’s chest.
The flowers around them weren’t withering.
“Why—?”
Anaxa erupted into a series of coughs in front of him, covering his mouth with both his palms. He held Anaxa to his chest as he waited for the gasping coughs to pass. The racking reverberated against his chest, and he shut his eyes.
Was there really nothing he could do?
After a moment, the violence stopped, and Phainon opened his eyes as Anaxa leaned against him weakly.
A crystallized spider lily fell to the floor, joining the others in their crimson, flowery grave.
Anaxa panted as he spoke with detached calm—the opposite of what Phainon felt. “So, that’s what’s changed.”
“Changed?”
“The soul-borne affliction mutated. Evolved,” Anaxa said quietly, a rasp in his voice. “It no longer perishes when feelings are returned.”
He spoke with a daze as though he had already accepted what was to come. Phainon’s fingers tightened around Anaxa’s shoulders.
“It adapted to the cure of confession.”
“Soul-borne affliction…” The room seemed to narrow around them. “Everyone has it?”
Dread filled him when Anaxa just nodded. The fleeting happiness he had felt moments ago vanished. The truth he had wanted to hear for years felt empty, while the vial in his pocket only felt heavier.
The pull on his sleeve brought him back to reality, and Phainon looked down.
“—Phainon, please help me stand,” Anaxa said. His aqua eye held a resigned look, but he didn’t dare turn toward him.
His chest constricted as he helped Anaxa to his feet, an arm over his shoulder and one hand braced around his waist. Anaxa sagged against him, his legs ready to give out without the support.
They stood before a table covered in lab equipment. Half-filled bottles and empty tubes littered the surface. Hastily scribbled research notes were scattered on one side with written instructions and ingredients.
Phainon recognized the telltale signs of an experiment that had just finished. His eyes were fixed on the flask of silver liquid, trying hard to ignore the golden stains on the table.
“This is the cure for anthoemesis.” Anaxa gestured to the full flask in front of them. The silver liquid shimmered, barely visible gold drifting within it. “A small drop diluted in water will be enough to eradicate the rot within the soul without touching the memory. Give this to Hyacine with my notes.”
Anaxa inhaled a deep breath. Phainon forced himself not to flinch. There was a high-pitched whistle with every breath the sage took.
“… I suspect that the city, where Hyacine is, needs this.”
A cure that didn’t require the cost.
A perfect remedy.
And yet…
“It doesn’t work for you,” Phainon said, confirming his thoughts.
Anaxa stayed silent for a moment before replying. “… No. It should work on every strain of anthoemesis.” His gaze lingered on the flask before slipping away. “Except mine.”
He knew it.
He lowered his eyes away from the silver liquid. The cure could heal everyone else but the one in his arms. The fates were cruel, and reality even more so.
“Phainon,” Anaxa said, breaking the silence. His voice was weak and quiet. “Can I… make a final request?”
Phainon tried to force the words out of the blockage in his throat, but couldn’t do anything but stay silent. He wanted to say, “Anything for you.”
Anaxa just smiled as though he already understood.
“Could you… hold me?”
Phainon had carried Anaxa a little away from the lab equipment and flowers. The halls were silent and empty, yet a cool breeze poured through the window-like gaps of stone and vines. Still, he remained inside the lab next to the broken door, shielding the man in his arms to prevent unwanted eyes—even when no one was awake.
He sat with his back to the stone wall, feet flat against the floor, Anaxa cradled against his chest—so small and fragile. He could breathe a little easier when the moving air filtered out the thick, sweet fragrance of the spider lilies.
The lights had gone out earlier, leaving only moonlight to sift through the lab’s single glass windowpane. The glow caressed Anaxa’s light green locks and pale skin. Ethereal.
He pressed a soft kiss to mint-green hair, his lips lingering there before a shaky breath left him. His chest ached, but he forced himself not to falter.
They loved each other.
It’s enough. It had to be.
And he would always remember.
“Anaxa.”
Anaxa’s eye stayed closed, but Phainon knew that he was listening. He could feel the slightest movement of a nod against his chest.
“If there was a way for you to live,” Phainon said softly, “would you be willing to listen to my final request?”
His arm tightened around Anaxa.
“It was only meant to be a last resort, and I was prepared for you to hate me for it.” Phainon unfurled his fingers to reveal the vial in his palm. “But regardless of the cost, I had wanted you to live. Even if you hated me afterward.”
Anaxa opened an aqua eye. The clear liquid rested in the small glass vial between them. He studied the vial with some interest. A hint of recognition flashed in his eye before settling on resignation. He was able to discern his own work, even in a different container. Phainon had always wondered what kind of world Anaxa saw through his eye to be able to tell from just a look.
“I’ve… always wondered when you’d ask,” Anaxa said through a painful exhale. “You… carried it for a year.”
It wasn’t a question.
Phainon’s lips lifted into a small, fractured smile. “You’ve always known.”
“Hyacine is a medical professional,” Anaxa scoffed, though it sounded more like a cough. “She knew… when even the smallest amount went missing.”
Of course, she did. Yet she had never confronted him about it. Not after all those knowing stares, as though she had seen the theft written plainly on his face.
“I’ve long accepted this outcome…” Anaxa slowly lifted his hand toward the vial, laying his palm on top of Phainon’s. “As long as you were the one who asked. But…”
An aqua gaze met his.
“… Is this what you truly want?”
‘Even with the cost?’
“No.”
Anaxa’s fingers stilled.
Phainon closed his hand around the vial. “But I’d rather you live.”
‘Even if you don’t remember me.’
“I could never hate you, Phainon of… Aedes Elysiae.” Anaxa’s gaze softened.
Phainon pulled Anaxa closer, pressing his face into pale green hair before the tears could slip from his lashes.
The night was quiet when Cipher arrived at the Grove alone.
She hadn’t been able to take Hyacine with her in the middle of what seemed like a pandemic. When one of the patients started coughing up flowers, Hyacine had sent her here to ask for Anaxa.
She tracked Phainon’s scent in the Grove. Her footsteps were light against stone and wood until she arrived before a broken door. The first thing she noticed was the scent of blood, and her nose crinkled at it.
“—Hey, Delivery Boy, we’ve got a problem in another city. I couldn’t bring Pink Girl with me,” Cipher said as she walked through the door. She paused when she found Phainon sitting next to the entrance with Anaxa, who seemed unresponsive, in his arms.
“Cipher,” Phainon said, his voice hollow. His bangs shadowed his expression as he hung his head. “There’s a silver flask on the table with notes. Take those to Hyacine. She should know what to do with it.”
Cipher walked towards the research table. There was a large flask of silver liquid with messily written research notes scattered askew across the bloodied surface. Her hands swiftly gathered the papers and took hold of the glass flask. She turned back toward Phainon.
“Hey, is Grove Boy…” She trailed off, her eyes flickering to the side when she caught a glint of light. There was a familiar vial that lay on the floor with a visible crack in it. It looked as though it had been thrown against the wall. Nothing was in it.
Oh. Her ears flattened against her head, and she looked away. Her tail stilled behind her.
She left the scene without another word.
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Their First Meeting
“Um, Professor Anaxa. Am I in trouble?” Phainon asked once all the students had left the room. He was the only one called to stay afterward.
“First of all, it’s Anaxagoras. Second of all, no. If anything, I’m quite impressed.” Anaxa crossed his arms. “I’ve never had a student debate with me for so long. On their first day, no less.”
“Haha, you think so?”
“Yes.”
“So…” Phainon scratched his cheek. “I can, uh, keep coming to class?”
“Of course. You may have been reassigned to this school, but you’ve more than earned the right to attend officially.” Anaxa gave him a questioning glance. “Unless you’d rather be in another school?”
“No!” Phainon said with a shout. His cheeks reddened at his own outburst. “I mean, sorry, but I’d be more than happy to stay in your class, Professor.”
“Then it’s decided.” Anaxa lifted his lips into a smile. “Welcome to Nousporist School, Phainon of Aedes Elysiae. I look forward to getting to know you.”
Phainon stood stunned for a moment before he gave a bashful grin. “Likewise, Professor Anaxa.”