Hanahaki Disease

花吐き病

a disease in which the victim coughs up flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love

Megumi coughed up the first petal during the graduation ceremony.

There were so few of them, the ones who had graduated, compared to everyone from her first day here in Totsuki. She was proud, of course, that she was part of this group, despite the small, small voice inside her head that told her she did not deserve her spot. But that kind of thinking does not do anyone good, so she strived to put the positive ones first. The negative would come later.

After Megumi had received her diploma, her seatmate nudged her.

"Hey, Tadokoro," it was Soma, and his wide grin and bright eyes made Megumi's heart flutter, "congratulations! We survived!"

Megumi's cheeks turned pink. She whispered, "Well, I was able to pass thanks to you, Soma-kun."

He frowned, eyebrows furrowing in a questioning manner, before shaking his head. He said, "That's not true, Tadokoro. You survived because of your skills—you're an amazing cook, you know."

Why did he have to be this way? Megumi's heart started pounding harder. She said, in a ridiculously red face, "T-thank you, Soma-kun."

He grinned, and she's sure he's messing with her at this point.

"Oh, by the way, I should greet Nakiri, huh. I'll see you later, Tadokoro!"

Megumi nodded as he left, sneaking through the other people who had just graduated. She looked back at the stage, trying to pinpoint what she was feeling. Her throat started itching, so she allowed a cough, covering her mouth to not disturb the others. And then, the feeling of dread covered her and everything negative that she said would come later just appeared.

In her hand was a pink petal.

Now, she believes she's on her more-than-a-hundredth petal. She's stopped counting after 100, but she does remember that the last few petals were lilacs and dandelions. Strangely, however, she still keeps them and she's watched the petals wilt away before throwing them out of the garden.

She tried not thinking about him, and it worked, for a moment, but Soma himself couldn't stay away from Megumi that long. He'd call her in various times during the day, laughing about how Paris had great bread or how India had so many spices, and that he had forced Erina (he called her Erina, could you believe it?) to eat peanut-butter coated sardines. And she's on the other side of the phone, laughing as well, but feeling the itch on her throat grow and grow. It's after the phone call does she cough it all out, and all these petals fall on her carpeted floor.

She wants to cry, but she finds that coughing takes up most of her energy, so by the time the last petal drop to the floor, she feels too exhausted to cry it out. Instead, she lies down with her petals, surveying each and every one of them, because she feels that even petals must have feelings. Megumi doesn't like being overlooked, so she makes sure no petal does.

Yuki finds out a few weeks later.

They're in a coffee shop, a few blocks away from the restaurant that Megumi's working at, talking about their days in the Polar Star Dormitory, catching up on their lives, and gossiping what happened with the other Totsuki students after graduation.

"Oh, I heard Yukihira and Nakiri were dating. Is that true, Megumi?" Yuki asks, so bright and wide-eyed, so youthful and so happy.

Megumi is happy too, but then she feels the itch and she shrugs her shoulders because she knows that she can't speak. She can taste the petals and they're clogging her throat, forcing their way to her mouth, but she tries to swallow it, but it only hurts her throat more, so she keeps her lips shut but these petals keep pushing and pushing and—

they land on the coffee that Megumi had ordered.

Yuki stares at it in horror; the rest of the coffee shop is silent.

The drive to the hospital is slow and quiet.

Yuki, eyes focused on the road, has the same frown that she had in the coffee shop as she ushered the two of them away in her car.

"How long?" the smaller girl asks.

Too long, Megumi thinks, but she answers, "Since graduation."

"Does he know?"

"He doesn't have to."

Yuki sniffs, Megumi turns towards the window. Her former dorm mate cries out, "Why didn't you tell anybody? It doesn't have to be me or Ryoko! You're hurting and still you—"

Megumi waits for Yuki to calm down. She can feel Yuki's body shaking and struggling and Megumi's heart bursts because it's nice to feel that you're important to someone else. Megumi looks back at her friend, frowning at the way her friend's eyes tear up.

"I'm sorry, Yuki."

"I should be the one that's sorry! I should have known… we all should have."

They stay quiet. Megumi whispers, "Please don't tell anyone else, Yuki, please."

Yuki briefly glances at her friend, pale and pleading, eyes dangerously tired, lips starting to blend with her skin, and she lets her tears drop. She sniffs, "Megumi, you're hurting."

Megumi is stubborn. "Promise me, Yuki."

And it's a flash of desperation in her yellow eyes that pushes Yuki over the edge. "Okay."

The doctor says that Megumi can undergo surgery right now if she wants to.

"I'll think about it," is Megumi's immediate response.

The doctor purses his lips, nodding carefully. He tells her, "Well, that's the case with most patients. They're too scared to let go of the feelings that they have. But I assure you, Tadokoro-san, you'll still be able to love another person."

"That's not what I'm worried about."

Everyone pauses, steadying their breaths.

The doctor sighs, "Well, Tadokoro-san, you have about three months left before you start coughing up blood. It will just get harder from there. You know what happens if you cough up too much."

"Yes, of course. Thank you, doctor," Megumi replies.

But she has no plans on getting surgery.

She decides that maybe Tadokoro Megumi loves too much.

The doctor said three months, but it has only been two since her last visit and already she's coughing up blood.

It doesn't alarm her that much the first time, right after seeing a blurred picture of Erina and Soma entering a hotel whilst holding hands, and she immediately goes to the sink to wash it off. She's cursing in her head, but she's remaining her composure, as if there's someone watching her in her lonely one-bedroom apartment.

Megumi decides to continue the day, because no matter how much you hurt, the day continues anyway.

The second time, however, is much worse.

"Tadokoro! I haven't heard from you lately," Soma laughs heartily from the other line. Megumi pictures him with simple clothes on, probably with his white headband wrapped around his arm, red hair spiked up, and eyes so bright that it melts her heart into two.

"I understand you've been busy, Soma-kun! And I've been busy as well with the restaurant…" Megumi says, so softly and gently as anyone would have expected from her.

"Yeah, well, Master Shinomiya is relentless. But I feel like I'm learning a lot," Soma tells her, "Still, Tadokoro, I can't believe you haven't opened up a new restaurant yet—the other graduated Elite Ten already have at least one."

Megumi looks down at her hands, pale and thin as always. She replies, "Well, you haven't opened up a restaurant as well, Soma-kun."

He laughs again, and Megumi swears it's more melodic every time she hears it. He says, "You have a point. But I still want to harness my skills here with him."

"It's the same with me; I don't think I have the courage yet to open a restaurant."

"But you'd be really good at it, Tadokoro! I know you; you're a really great chef—oy, Erina, you don't have to eat that!"

Megumi inhales sharply, and then her cough starts itching again.

"U-uh Soma-kun! I just remembered that I have to do something else for the restaurant, I'll call you when I'm free!" she talks fast, trying her best to let it all in one breath to avoid coughing.

"What? Tadokoro—"

She ends the call quickly. Finally, she coughs everything out: all the different colored petals like roses and lilies, all covered partly with her blood. She feels her throat burning as it continues to cough and cough and cough as she watches the petals and blood fall and fall and fall.

At the end of it, she cries. She can still taste the saltiness and a strange metallic flavor of the blood on her tongue. Soon, the taste is now mixed with the saltiness of her tears dripping down and down. It's helpless—she's helpless and she thinks that she deserves this for being such a coward, so dependent, so parasitic, and so worthless. Why else would Soma pick Erina over her? She doesn't have Erina's confidence, her beauty, her brains, and everything else. What Megumi is, it's the exact opposite of this woman, and it's for that reason she knows that she's unable to compete with her no matter how hard Megumi does her best.

Erina's life falls into place; Megumi's scattered all over the board.

Yuki finds Megumi another month later, almost drowning in the bathtub with petals and crimson water.

"Oh, Megumi, what have you done?" she whispers mostly to herself, but Megumi hears. Megumi will always be there to hear everything.

Megumi's lying on the bathtub, head underwater. She's on her last breath of oxygen and she lets it go as bubbles that float to the top. She's deciding that maybe it isn't better to get up. She's now holding her breath and it shouldn't be long until she runs out of it. Whether it is the will to live or the breath that she's currently holding, is a different story altogether.

Still, it's Yuki, despite being smaller and thinner, who manages to pull out the girl from the bathtub and onto the bathroom tiles. Megumi does not feel a thing, did not feel how she was carried, did not feel how she was placed down on the floor so carefully as if she was fragile, but she does shiver because of the sudden change in temperature. Then, she feels a towel rubbing on her, and the numbness is temporarily gone.

But Yuki's in front of Megumi, eyes dark and nearly to the point of tears. The woman's patiently wiping away Megumi, but Megumi just wants to be wiped away.

"What happened?" Yuki asks in a whisper, as if they're in the cemetery and it's bad to be loud for fear it might wake up the corpse.

Megumi thinks she's the corpse herself. Still, she shrugs and admits, "They're dating."

Yuki finally wraps the towel around Megumi. She presses her forehead against hers as an attempt to comfort the girl. Megumi feels wetness around her neck and briefly wonders if she's crying again without notice, but she looks at the blue eyes in front of her, tears dripping from the corner of her eyes to the chubby cheeks and then falling to Megumi.

"Let's go back to the hospital, please. Let them fix you, Megumi."

And Megumi finally realizes that she's not the only one who's been hurting.

She agrees to go.

Megumi attends the Polar Star Dormitory reunion.

She sees him, laughing and sharing different stories with the other dormers, arms around a certain blonde.

Her throat does not itch; she doesn't feel the need to cough anymore.

In fact, she feels nothing at all.

end