Hanahaki

Is it really hard to love someone?

She had never thought about it, till that day.

That group project was the last thing she wanted to do until she saw that pretty face of his. He wasn't the popular guy, it was the opposite. So when he got paired up with her, the loved and famous Anya, and two of her close friends, he felt like he could internally explode at any moment. For her, that was the first time she saw him.

Being the cool girl she was, limited the number of people she could meet or remember. But on that day, she wondered how come she never saw him at least once at school, even though they had been attending the same college for two whole years.

Suddenly, right when that video call for the school project started and the shy guy's eyes met with the beautiful girl's, he turned his camera off.

"Miryo, what happened? Turn your camera on, everyone here has it on." Misia, a classmate of theirs, rolled her eyes upset. No response.

For a moment, Anya swore she saw him muting himself for a few seconds.

"Yo Miryo, what are you up to?" Jack scolded the timid guy.

"Guys, I think if he did that he had his reasons, stop being annoying and let's start the project already." Anya scolded her friends. She was a very empathetic person so it wasn't hard for her to imagine how Miryo must have felt because of their words. "I'm sorry, I'm here." Miryo's low voice said.

"Can't you turn your camera on already?!" Misia couldn't help but show her annoyance.

"I'm sorry but I'm having... Connection problems... At the moment… So... Yeah. You'll hear just my voice -" He cut his sentence by muting himself many times, surprising the three guys. "Are you okay?"

"It's just a low connection, no big deal." He replied after unmuting himself again.

The project went on for a few hours, till everyone bid their goodbyes. Anya finally closed her laptop, feeling the butterflies in her stomach. It surprised her how she could feel those emotions for a guy she had only seen for a few seconds. Is this how falling in love at first sight feels like?

She stood up from her desk and right when she entered her bed she felt her stomach hurt as if thousands of bees were stinging the inside of her belly.

It was as if something delicate yet sharp was growing and hurting her insides. The pain she felt was unbearable to the point she fell on the floor feeling weak and started to cough uncontrollably.

"What the hell? What the hell? What the hell?" She kept asking herself, scared of the sudden painful feeling.

After coughing nonstop for a few minutes, making her throat sore and her body feel restless, she looked at her hand which she had kept in front of her mouth all this time.

Her beautiful, big, and dark eyes widened in shock. Right on her rosy palm, a little, soft pink petal was resting there.

"How did this come here....?" She wondered as her curious head thought of possible reasons to explain the previous cough attack.

A week passed, and the girl had been having these coughing attacks more frequently now.

At first, she thought it was temporary but right when, after a whole week, she found in her hand a few red petals she saw coming out her throat, she started to get scared. The weird thing was that the attacks would increase every time she'd glance at Miryo when they were at school, or when she joined the daily video calls of the group project with Misia, Jack, and... Miryo. Even though Miryo would always keep his camera off.

What on earth was happening?

The situation became unbearable.

She hated it when she had to run to the restroom even during her classes because her mind couldn't stop thinking about Miryo. Whenever she'd manage to run away from everyone she coughed a lot, having no clue where she was supposed to hide the petals. Apparently, that timid and gentle guy stole her heart. And when the thought of it would come to her mind, the coughing would appear again, showering her with colorful petals.

Finally, she walked into a library once she got off school and opened her laptop trying to look out for her symptoms.

'Please Internet, give me a hand. Help me understand what's happening to me.' She thought.

Hanahaki.

The sky outside was dark already, but she didn't care about all the hours she spent in her research. Anya finally found out what the hell was going on inside her body.

Hanahaki.

That was the name of her disease.

Beautiful but also mortal flowers were growing up inside her lungs, making her cough petals. Those same flowers were going to grow up in her body till they would kill her. The girl's mind thought about that big box under her bed containing all the petals she coughed since the first day. Her body tensed, now knowing those petals came from flowers that were going to kill her from the inside of her lungs sooner or later. Doing further research, her eyes lightened up by reading there were 2 options to make her safe.

She read what the screen of her laptop was showing her in hope.

1. Hanahaki disease appears when the patient is the victim of one-sided love. The disease disappears only when the love becomes mutual.

2. A surgical operation can remove all the flowers inside the patient's body, but the love's feelings will be removed with the flowers as well.

When Anya read the words 'One-sided love', the only thought that came across her mind was Miryo. She knew damn well she couldn't stop thinking about him since the very first moment she saw him.

Anya remembered their first encounter perfectly. How his eyes blinked a few times through the screen when he looked at her, how his fluffy hair looked, making her want to touch it. How his light skin made his appearance even more attractive and desirable. All of this went on for just a few seconds before he turned the camera off.

... Why did he do that though?

Anya felt her heartbeat increase once again and her throat started to feel dry. She was going to have another coughing attack. 'Is it because I thought about him?' She wondered.

Anya quickly closed her laptop and ran out of the library just to meet with the cold breeze of the night, which made things worse. Opening her bag as fast as she could, she threw a glance around her just to make sure nobody was going to see her in that pitiful state. Once she started to cough loudly, her eyes were terrified by the view she had in front of her.

Tons of petals stained with blood were coming out her mouth, and Anya could feel her throat hurting from all the petals she felt were still going to come out.

She closed her eyes.

She didn't want to face the reality in front of her. She didn't want to accept the fact that she was sick.

But the countless petals coming out of her mouth were saying otherwise.

"You're sick, Anya. Accept it and move on." She whispered to herself.

"I don't want to fall out of love with Miryo, though. I don't want to. I love him."

A tear fell off her soft cheek. She was just a girl in love, how could nature do this to her? Why was it so hard to love someone?

"I'm not going to undergo a surgical operation either. I want to love him. Even if I'm suffering so much because of this damn disease, he makes me happy. Thinking about him makes me happy." A voice inside her head started doubting her.

'But, Anya, how can this painful disease make you happy? He's just making you suffer. Don't you want to stop feeling this pain?'

"He just has to love me back, right?"

'Right. But... Will it be easy?'

"I'm not so sure about it."

The next day, she did her best to look out for him at school. Misia and Jack, her best friends, couldn't understand what the matter was with her. Anya had been acting weird all day. Walking in the lunchroom with them, her eyes squinted around in hope, trying to find her crush once again. Suddenly, she felt a strong grip on her arm making her turn around. She froze. Miryo was right in front of her. He was panting and looked at her with such a desperate face. On the other hand, she was frozen, not expecting him to have such a straightforward approach with her. Everyone around the room started to murmur while looking at the scene in front of them. In their eyes, the popular girl was being assaulted by a weirdo.

"Anya." His deep voice called.

They were lost in each other's eyes, and she thought her heart was beating so fast it was going to explode.

"Are you in love with me?" The sudden question managed to make her gulp. Everyone was looking at them now chuckling in amusement.

"Is he expecting the popular girl to like him back? Poor thing." Whispers like this spread in the room while Anya's brain started to malfunction, not knowing what to say. Miryo changed his expression. Since she wasn't answering, that meant she didn't love him... Right?

He released his grip slowly, hoping till the last second she would say something.

'Anya... You wanted to talk to him today.

Just because of all these people enjoying the show in front of them, aren't you going to say something? Are you... scared?'

The voice inside her head scolded her.

The girl was so focused on what to say that she didn't even notice him having a few white petals attached on his sleeve all this time.

Miryo ran away, leaving her startled.

After he got out of the room, every student there burst out laughing loudly, and Misia and Jack who were next to Anya all this time started to nudge each other crying from all the laughs.

"He's a weirdo."

"He's so crazy for doing this!!"

The only one who wasn't laughing was Anya. Instead, she felt like dying from the sadness. "Why didn't I say something...?"

She ran after him.

She saw how he got out of the school reaching out to his house, which was practically next to the building. He didn’t even close the door of his house so she was able to get in. Following him, she managed to enter his room and found him seated on his bed.

The guy raised his head, surprised to see his crush in front of him.

He didn't even care about the condition of his room, or how now she terrifyingly eyed the floor, full of white, black, and grey petals. Or how she changed her expression when she raised her eyes finding drawings of herself attached on the walls of his little bedroom.

He just wanted to hug and kiss her, telling her how much loving her pained him but he didn't care. At least he had her.

"What are you doing here..." He managed to say, out of breath.

But her eyes were stuck on the walls, observing the drawings of the girl whose features were reminding her of herself.

"Is this why you would always turn your camera off? Were you drawing me?" Her mouth parted open from the shock.

The drawings had colored petals glued on them, making the details even more beautiful to see.

Since he wasn't answering... She continued to voice out her thoughts.

"These petals... Please... Don't tell me that..." Realization suddenly hit her, making her widen her eyes in surprise while looking at him.

He was glancing at her ever since she walked into his room. Finally, he decided to stand up and went closer to her.

Miryo's eyes were soft for her, his love for her was too much for Anya to understand.

Does she have the slightest idea how much he suffered coughing those flowers every day? All because of her? Does she know the fear of death he felt every morning while he would wake up and started to cough tons of petals because she was his first thought of the day?

Sweetly but slowly, he caressed her cheek, making her melt under his touch.

"This life has been a landscape of pain and still, flowers bloom in it." He whispered, but loud enough for her to hear. "W-what?" She felt confused.

"Every day, every night. Thinking about you was so painful. But still... These flowers reminded me of you. Whenever I think about you, or I see you... I start coughing petals. Is this how love is like? And even if I know it hurts I still want to think about you. Why do I continue to love you? How can I love you if all you do makes me suffer? I hate you. No. I love you." His eyes started to glisten, and Anya could read all the pain he went through all this time. "Miryo... I love you too." Her rosy cheeks were wet from her tears rushing down miserably. He widened his eyes.

"You do?! I came to you before because I had to die today, because of this damn disease. Asking you if you liked me was my last chance... But you didn't say anything... So I thought that..."

"Miryo!!" Anya started to laugh silly, trying to catch the attention of a now confused Miryo. "We're not coughing flowers anymore!! Ever since we saw each other, ever since we confessed!!"

His expression changed again.

"We're not!!" He repeated, making Anya melt once again as he now was showing his gummy smile. He was so precious.

"Does this mean we're not going to die? Does this mean we are safe because we got to know each other's feelings?" She managed to say while wiping her tears away with her sleeve. He hugged her and whispered something in her ear.

"Yes, it's because we love each other."