Bara no Ki ni Bara no Hanasaku Spoiler Information By Mastress Alita http://blgames.ukepile.com *Please do not post this guide on other sites without permission! Also do not direct link to this guide!* This document is meant to provide additional story information for the boys' love game "Bara no Ki ni Bara no Hanasaku," and is SPOILER HEAVY. If you do not want to be spoiled about the main plot elements of the game, including the main storyline and character background information, then please read no further. I personally suggest playing the game for yourself using Anime Games Text Hooker to help get a machine-translation of the game text as you play, and then check out this guide to help clarify things if you find you were confused in some areas. Or, for those who have already played the game without any translation help and were completely mystefied to the story, this may prove helpful. This is NOT a translation, nor an in-depth summary; this is just a brief summary of some of the main plot elements that present themselves throughout the majority of the routes. It by no means covers all the information available over the many, many routes available in the game. Please be aware that I am not fluent in Japanese and use Anime Games Text Hooker with translation software and a dictionary to aid me when I play games, so some of these details may not be 100% accurate. However, most of this information should be fairly accurate, and I will always mention when I'm making assumptions based on plot points that were not quite clear to me. If you have a better understanding of Japanese and have played "Bara no Ki ni Bara no Hanasaku", and find errors in this story information, please let me know so that I can fix them and provide the most accurate information possible. MAIN STORYLINE (LOVE ROUTE) --------------------------- It is the early Showa era, during the early stages of World War II. In Japan many prestigious boys' boarding schools exist, where students study mathematics, science, philosophy, and German language, hoping to make a future for themselves, while indulging in women and alcohol in their free time. Hyuuga Kaname works as a handyman at such a school, Riotsu. One day he is cleaning up under the large rose tree in the garden of the school and visiting with Amano Junya, a first year student who is friendly with him, when he discovers the corpse of a dead bird. He tells Junya that he will return later that night to bury the bird beneath the rose tree. That night when Kaname returns, he finds the bird corpse missing; suddenly his nostrils are filled with a medicinal smell and he faints. He regains consciousness to find himself tied up and blindfolded, and he is raped beneath the rose tree. The next day, Kaname is delivering the mail to the teachers at the school, and stops in to see Tsukimura Mikihiko, one of the professors on campus who is his closest association. One of the letters sent to Tsukimura is addressed from "Hanakuihidori," and when Tsukimura opens the letter, inside is a photo of Kaname sprawled out under the rose tree, unconscious and covered in semen from the brutal rape. Kaname is horrified, and Tsukimura advises him to investigate around the campus to discover who the "Hanakuihidori" is that has committed this crime against him. He decides to take Tsukimura's advice and starts investigating the students around the campus. The next time he sees Azusa and Mayumi, Azusa calls Kaname filthy and a male prostitute. Azusa had gone out of the dorm that night, and was outside waiting for Mitsunobu to return to find out where Mitsunobu had been slipping off to at night; when Mitsunobu did return late that night, he and Azusa ended up seeing Kaname with a man under the rose tree, and had heard him moaning. Azusa, having heard Kaname was the son of a mistress, assumed that like mother like son, and that Kaname must be a dirty prostitute as well (he did not see the scene well enough to tell that it was a rape and not consentual). Though Kaname knows there is no way Azusa could be the Hanakuihidori himself (his body is too small), he definitely has someone who appears to have witnessed the crime, and may have seen who the Hanakuihidori was. At the same time that Kaname is investigating Azusa, he also gets to know Mayumi, who initially is very kind to Kaname, but only when Azusa is not around. Kaname tries to convince Mayumi to help him find out the identity of the Hanakuihidori and gain him as an ally. A few night later Azusa wakes up at night from a nightmare about his past, having remembered a terrible incident where his parents where having sex in front of him as a child and his father was inviting him to take part. Not able to sleep, Azusa then notices a photograph on the windowsill in his dorm: it is the photograph of Kaname's violation from the Hanakuihidori. He'd promised Mitsunobu he wouldn't spread around rumors about what he and Mitsunobu had seen that night (in exchange to get tutored by Mitsunobu), but after receiving the photo, he decides he could just leave it out somewhere so that it would be found, thus not breaking his promise. He felt that Kaname deserves this for reminding him of the childhood trauma that he had forgotten. That weekend Mikihiko asks Kaname to come to one of the empty classrooms. There he finds Azusa tied up. Azusa had threatened Kaname with the photo, and Kaname had told Mikihiko about it, and now Mikihiko says it is time for Kaname to "nip the bud of fear by his own hand": not only should Kaname get back the incriminating photo from Azusa, but he should teach him a lesson by creating blackmail on Azusa by humiliating him sexually and taking a photograph. Kaname was seen violated by Azusa, so Kaname should do the same, not to mention Azusa could now sue Mikihiko if he wished, endangering the teacher that Kaname cares about. (Here Kaname has the choice to go along with Mikihiko's wishes or not: doing so leads to the humiliation route, not doing so continues the love route.) Kaname cannot bring himself to violate Azusa, and he is released. Meanwhile, there are rumors at school about a beautiful "kiss girl" in the redlight district: a girl who sells kisses to customers. One evening Mayumi is on the streets of the redlight district, wearing a cape draped over himself to hide his body, selling his lips to men on the streets: he is the "kiss girl" (his reason for doing so is revealed later that he wishes to make money separate of the Hiura household, so that he can create a life for himself). He is discovered by one of his customers, who turns out to be another student at Riotsu, an upperclassman named Kurata. To keep him quiet, Mayumi tells Kurata that he will give him something even better: Kaname. Since by this point Mayumi and Kaname have become fairly good friends, Mayumi asks Kaname to follow him into the woods behind the school the next day at school, where Kurata is waiting, and then offers him over to Kurata. Kaname does his best to fight off Mayumi and Kurata, but ultimately Mikihiko comes to his rescue. The next day Mikihiko summons Kaname into the woods, where he has Mayumi bound up naked in a rucksack. He feels that the only way to shut Mayumi's mouth about what has happened to Kaname, since Kaname had foolishly trusted him in asking his help in finding the Hanakuihidori, not to mention to punish him for trying to have Kaname violated by Kurata, is to sexually abuse him and take photo evidence. (Here Kaname has the choice to go along with Mikihiko's wishes or not: doing so leads to the humiliation route, not doing so continues the love route.) Kaname cannot bring himself to violate Mayumi, and he is released. Kaname is cleaning up in the gardens one day when he sees a strange man with blond hair and blue eyes. When Kaname asks him who he is, the man introduces himself as the Hanakuihidori; this of course terrifies Kaname and he runs away and faints. He goes back the next day and meets the man again and questions him about giving that name, and the man says that introductions are difficult for him because he goes by many names, so he finally admits that he is Mizukawa Hougetsu, an author. The more Kaname gets to know him the more he starts to doubt that he could be the "real" Hanakuihidori, and he finds out that on the night that he was raped, Hougetsu was busy fuilfilling a deadline and was stuck inside his house until it was finished, so he could not be the true criminal. As the days go by, he and Kaname develop a very good friendship, but Hougetsu asks Kaname not to mention him to Mikihiko. One night Hougetsu receives a letter at his home from the Hanakuihidori with the image of Kaname's violation inside. He talks with Kaname the next day, and finds out the day he met Kaname, Kaname was searching for Amano Junya, his friend who had suddenly gone missing. Hougetsu makes Kaname promise him that no matter how painful things are, he must never wish to die, and Kaname is completely perplexed as to why Hougetsu would ask him such a thing. Hougetsu then tells him that since he writes detective novels, he will help Kaname find the criminal. The next day a child shows up at Kaname's house (paid off with a dumpling) sent with the message to tell Kaname to go to Hougetsu's house in the forest. Kaname assumes Hougetsu must have sent the message since he frequently goes to that dumpling shop, but finds it strange since he doesn't know where he lives). He goes to Hougetsu's house and finds Mikihiko there. Mikihiko has Hougetsu tied up, and isn't happy Kaname kept Hougetsu a secret from him. In any event, Hougetsu has seen evidence of Kaname's violation, not to mention seems to know more about Mikihiko's past than he seems to be comfortable with, and once again he tells Kaname to silence him by creating sexual blackmail. (Here Kaname has the choice to go along with Mikihiko's wishes or not: doing so leads to the humiliation route, not doing so continues the love route.) Kaname cannot bring himself to violate Hougetsu, and he is released. Kaname continues investigating the students at the school, and suspects second year students Kaneko Mitsunobu (who doesn't even know his name and just calls him "Madchen") of possibly being the Hanakuihidori because he is never in his room at night. The truth is Mitsunobu goes to gentleman's clubs in the redlight district at night. He saw Kaname under the rose tree returning from the club the night Kaname was raped but did not see the other party, but became interested in Kaname after that. Kaname follows him one night and ends up going to a club with him, being dressed as a woman for his amusement. He drugged Kaname's drink with an aphrodisiac and made a move on him. Kaname could tell by the feel of Mitsunobu feeling him up that he was not the Hanakuihidori, and told him that if he didn't stop, he'd spread the word to his father and the newspapers, ruining the reputation of the Kaneko family. Mitsunobu admits defeat and stops. When Kaname gets home, he has to masturbate (imagining Mikihiko) because of the affects of the drug Mitsunobu gave him. Mitsunobu offers to pay Kaname's school expenses if he will become "his thing", but Kaname refuses. Mitsunobu then receives the photograph of Kaname's violation from the Hanakuihidori. He tells Kaname that he expects to meet Kaname at the club that night, or he'll show the photo, and Kaname let's Mikihiko know about the threat. That night Kaname once again goes to the club (dressed as a woman), and Mikihiko also shows up at the club (disguised as one of the masked workers there), and he poisons Mitsunobu's drink with the same aphrodisiac that Mitsunobu had used on Kaname. Once again Mikihiko tells Kaname to get photographic blackmail on Mitsunobu so he will stop treating Kaname that way, and to shut his mouth about knowing about the incident that occured under the rose tree. (Here Kaname has the choice to go along with Mikihiko's wishes or not: doing so leads to the humiliation route, not doing so continues the love route.) Kaname cannot bring himself to violate Mitsunobu, and he is released. As Kaname is investigating the students, he notices that Tsuchida Norizane, who used to always be so nice to him, has suddenly turned very cold to him since the incident under the rose tree. As he looks into it, he finds out that Norizane is the one that found him after the rape and took him back to his home, so he pities Kaname. Kaname figured out his involvement by finding the button from his uniform outside his house; Norizane had just one new button on his uniform, giving it away. Norizane at a witness at the time of the rape itself, clearing him of the actual crime, as well. A few days later Mikihiko asked Kaname to his office late at night; when Kaname arrived, he had Norizane there, tied up. He told Kaname that because Norizane found him there under the tree, he was a witness to the scene, and could spread the information publicly, and additionally, Norizane became "cold" to Kaname after witnessing his humiliation, and could also now turn Mikihiko in as a criminal, therefore Kaname will have to create photographic blackmail to make sure he keeps his mouth shut. (Here Kaname has the choice to go along with Mikihiko's wishes or not: doing so leads to the humiliation route, not doing so continues the love route.) Kaname cannot bring himself to violate Norizane, and he is released. Kaname recalls several other little clues about the Hanakuihidori as the days roll by; he had a very strange smell of cigarettes to his breath, so he must have smoked a particular brand or type of cigarette, and in order to take the photograph, he would have to have had a nice camera, something that most people did not have access to yet at that time yet; in particular the photograph looked like it came from a European-brand camera. Kaname also received several letters to his house from the Hanakuihidori, each one with a strange line of prose on it, and later Mayumi recalls that he saw a book of collected poetry in the library that had a poem with the penname "Hanakuihidori" on it: all the collected letters that Kaname received were each a line of poetry from the poem by the "Hanakuihidori" in the poetry anthology. However, Kaname can't seem to fully piece together the puzzle, and just goes on with the daily dealings of his life. Then one day as he is working in the garden, cleaning under the rose tree, he thinks he sees something. He digs a little more, and notices hair. It is a corpse. Not just any corpse, but the corpse of his friend, Amano Junya. Suddenly all the pieces start to come together, and he realizes why he smelled medicine before he was raped under the rose tree: though it is painful to believe it, surely the murder, and the rape, both must have been Tsukimura Mikihiko. He covers back up the body, and plans to search Tsukimura's office that night to find the film negative of the photograph to prove his suspicions. Kaname's lover will play "look out" for Kaname as he goes into Mikihiko's office to do the search. That night as he is looking for the film negative in Mikihiko's office, he is discovered by Mikihiko, and he confronts him and asks him if he is indeed the Hanakuihidori, and Mikihiko says that yes, he is, and the negatives that Kaname is searching for are in Mikihiko's jacket. There is a struggle between Mikihiko and Kaname, and Kaname's lover bursts into the office to confront Mikihiko and help Kaname. When Kaname and Kaname's lover leaves, Mikihiko lights up a cigarette, smoking it while staring out the window at the rose tree as he tells Kaname goodbye. By the next day, the police have already discovered the body of Junya under the tree, Mikihiko is dead by suicide, having smoked poison, and his fortune has been left to Kaname, along with a diary with the final words, "I love you." CHARACTER BACKGROUND INFORMATION -------------------------------- Kaname: Kaname is the son of an aristocrat, Hyuuga Koji, and his mistress, Mayuko. Mayuko, being a lowly mistress, was not treated well by the family; in addition to often receiving abuse from Koji when he was drunk, she and Kaname were also often "pushed away" in order to not soil his reputation. Apparently Kaname and Mayuko were fairly close and also looked extremely similar (Kaname admits he grew his hair out because then when his father came home drunk, he would mistake Kaname for Mayuko and take out his abuse on him instead of her). Mayuko ended up committing suicide by cutting her wrists with a razor, which left a great emotional scar in Kaname. Kaname also has a younger half-brother named Seiji (the son of his father and his father's wife). Even though Kaname is the eldest son of the household, because he was born from a mistress, he was considered unsuitable to become the head of the family, and Koji had him sign a contract formally giving up the right to head the family in exchange for the money to attend school, and Kaname agreed to the terms. However, the money ended up going to Seiji to send him to study in Europe. Though Kaname and Seiji had gotten along pretty well when they were young children and often played together, this insult left a bit of a rift in their relationship (to make matters even worse, Seiji ends up not even going to Britain to study, and instead "fakes" that he left to attend school overseas when he in fact had stayed in Japan). Though Kaname had passed the entrance exams to Riotsu with top scores, and was even offered a scholarship, he declined because he didn't want to borrow the money, and instead he took a job as a handyman at the school, determined to earn his own money to put him through school. Tsukimura helps him a lot by providing him with private tutoring and letting him borrow books (and at the end of the game, Tsukimura leaves everything in his will to Kaname, so Kaname would have the finances to go to school if he wished). Azusa: Azusa is from a small but wealthy family that consists of his parents, his older sister Ayumi, and himself. His parents were friends with Mayumi's parents, and Azusa and Mayumi would play with each other as children. When Mayumi's parents were killed in a boating accident, Azusa's parents took in Mayumi to their family. Both Ayumi and Azusa became traumatized as children by witnessing their parents being intimate with each other (and though the event isn't given a lot of detail, I'm assuming this may have been a more violent sex act than simply gentle love-making). Azusa's mother was quite vocal and begging for him to stop and the children to not look, but Azusa's father was saying that it was fine, it was only natural, and he was even "inviting" Azusa to take part. This event had major consequences for both children: Azusa became terrified of intimacy, can't stand to be touched, and finds anything sexual "dirty", while Ayumi became opposite and found an obsession with sex, and sexually abused Mayumi. Azusa was never aware of what was going on with Ayumi and Mayumi; as far as he was concerned, Ayumi was a perfect woman, gentle and proper, and he idolized her greatly. Azusa had apparently forgotten about his own trauma until after he found out about Kaname's sexual relations that night under the rose tree, so he blames the resurfacing of these painful childhood memories on that "dirty gigolo" Kaname. Mayumi: Mayumi's parents were killed in a boating accident, and he was taken in by Azusa's family, since their parents were friends. Azusa's older sister Ayumi immediately took an interest in Mayumi, and apparently saw him as her "male self": apparently they both looked the same (Ayumi apparently had long, straight black hair and pale skin) and their names were very similar, only different by one character. Though she seemed nice to him at first, Ayumi sexually abused Mayumi all through his childhood at the Hiura household: she never used her hands, but would "touch" him using cloth, feathers, or a doll's hand, put things in him like carrots or dildos, and often told him how "dirty" he was and would have him beg for forgiveness. As a result, Mayumi doesn't like girls because of the cruelty he received from Ayumi. His relationship with Azusa is also complicated, given his upbringing in the Hiura household. Mayumi kept the horrible abuse he received secret from Azusa, because he didn't want to ruin Azusa's image of Ayumi, since he idolized his sister. Mayumi also quickly fell into a pattern of letting Azusa bully him around and not standing up for himself. In childhood, Azusa often played tricks on Mayumi, and once put a caterpillar in Mayumi's miso soup, which he ended up biting into without noticing, causing him to develop a horrible fear of caterpillars. Even to the present Mayumi continues to let Azusa dominate him: Mayumi wanted to go to a different school that was more focused on liberal arts, instead of Riotsu which focuses on math and science, but was stuck going there since Azusa got to decide on the school, he often has to carry around Azusa's things for him, and even when he disagrees with Azusa he won't stand up to him. Though they can be thought of as "childhood friends," their relationship is complex, since Mayumi feels a lot of envy, hatred, and yearning toward Azusa, considering the abuse he endured at the hands of Azusa's sister that Azusa did not have to suffer, and the fact that he is carrying around that burden on his own while Azusa is oblivious to it all. Hougetsu: Hougetsu is from mixed Japanese and English blood. His father was a British diplomat, that while visiting Japan, fell in love with a geisha. He returned to Britain but Hougetsu remained in Japan, and grew up there, so even though he looks very foreign in appearances (with blond hair and blue eyes) he speaks completely fluent Japanese. In various endings, when the situation with World War II advances, Hougetsu's obvious foreign heritage causes him various social problems. Hougetsu goes by many names. He introduces himself to Kaname as the Hanakuihidori, because he didn't want to give out his real name (which is apparently a problem for him because he goes by three different names). His Japanese name is Mizukawa Shigeru (which is the name he gives Mitsunobu when he meets him), his British name is Reif (which is what Mikihiko called him in their past), and Mizukawa Hougetsu is the penname he uses on his books. Hougetsu is an author of detective novels that lives in the woods not far from Riotsu in a house with a wall around it that has no opening, so it must be climbed over to enter the home. He stays there with his maid, Tomi, and is visited by his editor. His most famous work, "Under the Tree", is about a homicide that occurs around a family inheritance, and it features homosexuality and incest, with erotic passages describing sexual encounters; because of the abnormal relationships and erotic descriptions in it and his other works, many tried to prohibit the sale of his writings. There was a scene in the book of a boy burying a bird corpse under a rose tree, which is why Hougetsu said that is what he was doing when he first met Kaname. The boy character in "Under the Tree", Masahiko, was based on Mikihiko. When Hougetsu first meets Mitsunobu he introduces himself as Masahiko and uses various lines from the book but Mitsunobu recognizes it immediately because he is a HUGE fan of Hougetsu's writings; after that Hougetsu didn't want to reveal to Mitsunobu that he really WAS Mizukawa Hougetsu, so he gave Mitsunobu his real name, Shigeru, instead of his penname of Hougetsu. Hougetsu knew Mikihiko from high school; they both attended Riotsu together, and were roommates in the dorm. He loved Mikihiko back then, and confessed his feelings to Mikihiko. Mikihiko accepted his confession at that time and they kissed, but the next day when Hougetsu tried to kiss Mikihiko, Mikihiko acted cold and confused, having forgotten the whole thing. Apparently he'd never really felt any love for Hougetsu, but just simply agrees with whatever anyone asks rather than to refuse someone, which is why he had accepted Hougetsu's confession and agreed to the kiss. The whole incident really broke Hougetsu's heart, but he never really completely got over Mikihiko. Mitsunobu: Mitsunobu is from a distinguished family of viscounts, and his father is a member of the House of Lords with the Diet. Because of his family situation, his future is pretty much decided for him: he is expected to become a politician like his father, and marry a woman of his father's choosing or risk being disinherited. Mitsunobu's dream is to become a writer (he's a huge fan of Mizukawa Hougetsu's writing), but knows it is a foolish dream, both because he will have to succeed his father in the House of Lords, and because he has no confidence in himself. Mitsunobu doesn't know how to stand up for himself and strike out on his own for what he really wants, so instead he simply floats through life, indulging himself in the pleasures of the moment to distract himself from thinking much on what lies in the future. He's a second year student at Riotsu, though he's the age of third year students (he is a year behind because he took a year off of school in elementary school due to illness). He is a top student so he often ditches classes since it doesn't seem to matter, preferring to spend his time reading novels, writing, and smoking in the shed in the back of the school grounds. At night, he sneaks out of the dorm to enjoy the night life of the redlight district. He watches adult shows, associates with the geisha Kikuchiyo, and frequently visits a members-only gentleman's club where patrons are guided into private rooms by masked staff members to enjoy alcohol and sex with their company. Norizane: Norizane is from a large family that descended from samurai. He is the second son in the family, but has an older brother and sister, and six younger brothers and sisters. His parents were ill for a while, so it was up to the older children to take care of things around the house, so Norizane became very skilled at cooking and sewing as he took care of his younger brothers and sisters. Norizane is a recent transfer student to Riotsu, and he's a second year student. He is skilled at kendo, and is often practicing kendo in the school dojo, where he has a nice view of the school gardens, where Kaname is often working. Norizane is one of the few people at Riotsu who is nice to Kaname from the very start. He actually has feelings for Kaname, and has known Kaname since childhood; they attended school together in Kobe at elementary age, and he was aware of Kaname's family background including his half-brother Seiji, but Kaname seems to not remember Norizane from so long ago into his past. Mikihiko: Mikihiko came from a rich family. His father was a doctor and the head of a major hospital. When Mikihiko was a young child, his mother committed suicide, hanging herself from a rose tree. After that, Mikihiko associated the rose like a "grave" in his mind. Apparently Mikihiko looked very much like his mother, particularly as he got older, and in his post-mortem diary he makes it sound like his father "visited his bedroom" (assumably for sex) after his mother's death because he looked so similar to her. In this, Mikihiko and Kaname had very similar childhoods: both lost their mothers to suicide, both looked similar to their mothers, and both received abuse (Kaname physical abuse and Mikihiko sexual abuse) from their fathers because they looked like their mothers. Apparently Mikihiko's father was pretty guilty about this and had confessed to Mikihiko that he wished he would die, and Mikihiko granted him this wish; he was seventeen at the time, and in high school. He was left extremely rich as the only child of his parents, gaining his father's inheritance and the hospital he owned. Mikihiko ended up majoring in medicine, like his father, and gained a medical licence, even though he truly had no interest in becoming a doctor and helping people, and he worked in the hospital he had inherited from his father. There was a young boy at the hospital there who had revealed to Mikihiko that he wanted to die, and Mikihiko gave him a lethal injection; after this incident Mikihiko left the country to go study in Germany suddenly until things cooled off. When Mikihiko returned to Japan, he started working as the biology teacher at his former high school, Riotsu (he attended Riotsu with Hougetsu in his past, and Hougetsu is the only person that knows about Mikihiko's past, including about how he killed his father and the young boy at the hospital). After he started teaching at Riotsu, he met Kaname, who worked there as a handyman, and he would teach Kaname various subjects in their free time and loan him books. He falls in love with Kaname, apparently an emotion he didn't think he would ever feel. Mikihiko also meets Amano Junya at Riotsu. Amano Junya has Tuberculosis, and confided in Mikihiko that he wished that he would just die because he was just wasting his family's money in school expenses, because he was just going to die anyway, but because his family was Christian, it would be a sin for him to commit suicide. So Mikihiko kills Junya, giving him a lethal injection, and buries his body beneath the rose tree in the yard, the tree that is associated so closely with death to him. And that was the night Kaname arrived to bury the dead bird. It's difficult to truly understand Mikihiko's intentions regarding Kaname's rape; I personally think this is because Mikihiko himself didn't even truly understand his own intentions. In his post- mortem diary, Mikihiko makes it sound like that was not his first intention; rather, he did not want Kaname to discover his illegal activities regarding his murder of Kaname's friend Junya, so he knocked Kaname out with the chloroform when he arrived at the tree, but then seeing him there unconscious under the tree, he seemed to be overtaken by his own desires. When Kaname himself asks him at the end of the game, when he discovers that Mikihiko is the Hanakuihidori (a penname Mikihiko used on a poem he wrote) and asks why he did all those things to him, raping him and trying to force him to do those awful things, Mikihiko's answer to him is that he did it because he "wanted to change him"; he wanted Kaname to learn "to nip the bud of fear by his own hand", hense the rape and the blackmail scheme involving the different people around the school. Mikihiko appears to be sick though it is never stated with exactly what in the game; it can be assumed perhaps some sort of cancer, since he smokes marihauna cigarettes. In the Love Endings, when Kaname discovers the truth about the Hanakuihidori, Mikihiko commits suicide by smoking poison, and leaves his inheritance and a diary to Kaname. In the Humiliation Route good ending (which is the "good ending" for Mikihiko and Kaname), he provides the finances for Kaname to attend Riotsu, and after he is certain Kaname is suitably well off he still finishes off his life by smoking poison, knowing his life would be ending soon anyway, considering himself "still alive" as long as Kaname is okay. Therefore it can be assumed Mikihiko has been sick with something for some time, and is basically just "choosing his time" early rather than waiting for his sickness to get worse.