kaihi | Hanahaki

The Hanahaki Disease Meme

The Hanahaki Disease is an illness born from one-sided love, where the patient throws up and coughs up flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love. The infection can be removed through surgery, but the feelings disappear along with the petals...

1- Discovery:
There's the one person who makes your heart leap into your throat- but wait, that's not your heart. Where are all these flowers coming from? And why do they remind you of your beloved?

2- Concern:
Someone you know has been acting strange lately... Coughing a lot, hiding their hands all the time... It's enough to make anybody worry.

3- Sicker and Sicker:
Coughing up flower petals all the time isn't easy to hide. Maybe you have medication to ease the symptoms, but it's getting harder to even breathe, now. You're going to have to make a decision, and soon...

4- Contagious:
You have kept your secret well, and no one seems any the wiser. Wait, is the object of your affection coughing more than normal, or could it be your imagination?

5- Confession:
Everyone knows that there's two ways to get rid of Hanahaki: Surgery (the risk dependent on the time period), or confessing your feelings. Time to toe up and face your beloved and just tell them that you love them so much you're dying from it.

6- Post-Op:
The other option... You just couldn't tell them, but you weren't ready to die. Still, without those feelings the world seems a little less colorful. Can you still be friends with them now that you have to start all over? Do you want to? Was your memory of them removed entirely during the operation, or are those moments starting to blur and fade as a result?

7- Make your own!
There's flower petals coming out of somebody's mouth in some way for some reason- make this prompt your own.

Just as a note, due to the nature of the meme vivid descriptions of coughing/choking/gagging are probably going to happen. If you want it toned down, make sure to put that in your top-level.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You... just- happen. To cough up flower petals?

[ okay, sure. this is happening. ]

Is this what's causing that cough?

I don't know! Maybe!

[ sakura vainly tries to cover his mouth as he coughs some more, tossing the petals aside as if they have betrayed him. ]

I don't get this at all!

[ suo is still staring at the flower petals littering the ground, as if that will answer anything. he recognizes lavender easily enough, the distinct flowers and scent are familiar, but there was more than one way to go about this and he's not sure which would be easier here.

how do you ask someone if they have an illness that wasn't even supposed to be real, when that someone has probably never even heard of it - and wouldn't admit to having it, to complicate matters further? ]

Sakura, do you know anything about hanahaki?

[ even suggesting it out loud feels weird. ]

Hana — what?

[ what kind of word is that? it doesn't sound familiar at all. ]

[ well, at least they're on the same page with that. ]

It's an illness that supposedly makes a person cough up flowers. Usually, the flowers are associated with someone the person knows, and being around that particular someone can make symptoms worse. It's not supposed to be real...

[ but the evidence kind of speaks for itself here. he's not going to mention the romantic aspects yet, convinced sakura would just shut him out even harder if he did. ]

So, it's a stretch to even ask, but can you think of anyone lavender reminds you of? Someone at school, maybe.

[ associated with someone? who could it be?

come to think of it, the cough wasn't so bad when he's by himself. it's only when he came to school, walking down with suo and nirei that he felt it burn in his chest. like an urge he could not name. sakura rubs his throat absently, looking down at the flowers.

they just look like purple petals to him. they don't hold any meaning he can detect. ]

I dunno anything about lavender. Why would being around someone make me worse? It doesn't make sense.

I don't know that being familiar with lavender would help much. It's a fairly common ingredient in teas and medicine, because it's calming, but-

[ that definitely doesn't apply here. he hesitates to answer the question, trying to solve this problem without causing other - more complicated - problems was going to be difficult. ]

The nature of hanahaki has something to do with your feelings. So, when you're around that person... it can trigger a reaction, especially if the feelings are complicated or being repressed for some reason. Honestly, you feel everything so intensely, I'm surprised it isn't even worse than this.

[ the idea that sakura has a crush would normally earn some teasing, but not if it's actively trying to kill him. and he's still trying to wrap his mind around the implications here. hanahaki being real still doesn't sound like the most reasonable argument, but he's not a doctor, it's the only one he has. at least it's enough to prompt sakura to talk through whatever is going on with him. ]

If I'm right about this, the symptoms should ease up when you're not at school. Or, when you're on your own, if it's not someone from school.

[ tea.

suddenly, something clicks and sakura feels his face going pale. there's only one person he knows that's fixated with tea. who leaves tea in his house and makes sure he's well stocked. who's always there right by his side. so calm, so centered. full of faith in his possibilities.

sakura steps back involuntarily. he can't look at suo. he can't do this. he can't. because it would end all of it, completely and utterly. nothing could come out of this — this situation. ]

I-I'll deal with it. It has to go away sometime.

[ they always do. ]

[ something shifts, he's not exactly sure what did it, but sakura going pale was clear enough indication that he's had some kind of revelation. that's not good, he was still holding out hope that it didn't make any sense, that sakura would argue it sounded increasingly ridiculous the more suo explained, but it seems more likely that he's hit the nail on the head with this.

that's a lot to take in, actually.

sakura steps back and suo reaches forward. the instinct to set a reassuring hand on his shoulder and the urge to stop him from leaving both override the obvious connection he might have made otherwise. the timing of sakura's reaction, the way he reflexively put distance between them once he had it. ]

Sakura, if this is really what's happening, ignoring it will only make it worse.

[ sakura freezes for a moment, feeling his throat clog up, the fragrant cloying smell of flowers throttling his senses and he wants to — he wants to —

he can't and that's enough to get him to push suo's hand away. ]

I don't believe that! Everything goes away! Always!

[ there's a time and a place for the blunt approach vs. indirectly talking around a point to get to it, and suo is growing increasingly unclear on which direction to go with this.

sakura's blatant distress before he pushes his hand away makes something else suddenly occur to him. it just doesn't make any sense... and wouldn't he have noticed-? ]

We're not going anywhere.

[ it's firm, deliberately worded. he takes a step back, putting some distance between them and giving sakura more space, watching him carefully as he continues. ]

Maybe I'm not the one you should be talking to about this.

What do you mean — [ sakura hunches over, trying to ward off another cough before he manages to straighten himself. ] — Who else would I even be talking to?!

Hanahaki

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