Summary: While Cloud is suffering from geostigma, Tifa's Hanahaki disease takes a turn for the worse. Slight AU. Different interpretation of Hanahaki.
Inspired by the prompt for Day 7 of Tifa Week 2020: Free Day – "Don't put your eyes down. You're not to blame. I know there are stories you can't explain. But if I should find you black and blue and aching from crying, I'll wait with you" – 'Grow' by Frances
I like the imagery of Hanahaki. It's a fictional disease where you cough up flower petals (the flowers have different meanings to the person) if you suffer from unrequited love and in some variations you can die if you don't have the flowers removed from your lungs/heart (again, depends on the version.) In some versions, the person loses the memory of that loved one if they undergo surgery to remove the flowers.
However, I don't like the execution of Hanahaki. I don't think it's functional in a fantasy world because… damn, now we gotta shame everyone who didn't return a person's feelings. That's a lot to unpack in terms of how that would change a society. I love reading Hanahaki fics for angst but in terms of world building and emotional whiplash, I think Hanahaki has a lot of problems. Hence, I decided to change it up a bit.
So welcome to my take on Hanahaki for Cloud and Tifa. I hope you enjoy!
Next chapter will be posted on Thursday
Dried Petals
1 – Thorns
Hanahaki – a disease in which the soul seeds within a person's heart begin to grow, slowly encasing the heart with thorns if that person has deep rooted feelings that they cannot express. Common in just about every heart and is manageable as long as the person regulates their feelings. Stage 2 Hanahaki Disease, where thorns encase the heart, is commonly known as the 'sleeper agent' disease, relatively harmless. Can become lethal if the person's feelings begin to take deeper root within their heart, if the thorns sprout into flowers and the victim begins coughing up flower petals in Stage 3. The larger the flowers and the more frequent the coughs and the blood, the less chance the victim has to recover, growing weaker and weaker into Stage 4. Surgery must be performed at this point otherwise the victim will die. Currently, the survival rate of Stage 4 Hanahaki disease after surgery is 10%.
Excerpt from the Encyclopedia of Gaia's Strangest Diseases found in Shinra's archives
:
Mama died alone in the bathtub, surrounded by bloodied and dried deep purple petunia petals crushed from the stem. Tifa was the first to find her. She remembers shaking her mother's body over and over, convinced that this cold thing could not be her mother, who was always smiling and patient. She remembers thinking that the deep purple flowers around her mother's mouth didn't suit her at all. The colour was a stain on her mother's face, more hateful than blood.
"Hanahaki," the local doctor said later, after Papa came home and howled with pain at the body, scooping it up and rushing it towards the clinic. "She had Stage 4 Hanahaki."
"No," Papa shook his head over and over again. "She was happy, sure she got tired from time to time, but she had nothing to be sad about. I loved her. Why didn't she say anything?"
The doctor looked at Papa and Tifa with pity. "It's not a matter of loving someone with Hanahaki or not. It's a matter of how they feel and how they deal with their feelings—"
"Are you saying it was her fault?! That she let herself die—"
"Mr. Lockhart, please that's not what I mean at all, just listen—"
Three men had to drag Papa out of the clinic and towards the nearest bar. Papa changed after that. He acted the perfect father around Tifa, but with everyone else, he was distrustful, rude, and loud.
"Everyone lies, Tifa. But you'll never lie to me," he stroked her hair. "You'll always tell me how you feel, won't you?"
Tifa remembers eyeing the liquor bottles suspiciously, angry that those bottles made her Papa like this. But she nodded for him, because it was what he wanted.
"Good," his breath stank of alcohol. "You're my good girl."
Later, Tifa would look up the meaning of petunias, the ones in that revolting deep purple that seem to ooze pain. Resentment, hatred, that's what the book said. Tifa shivered and wondered if it was Papa who Mama hated so much, and how Mama survived with a smile.
:
As the years passed, Tifa avoided the colour purple. She still loved the smell of flowers but petunias made her want to puke. She learned to mix the best drinks for her Dad, so that he'd be addicted to her drinks, not the bar's, and she learned to limit how much he drank. She learned that alcohol could make any soul spill all their secrets and such, this poison ironically halts the progress of Hanahaki. She learned that most people only drank because they had no one to talk to and that a bartender with a willing ear can be a bandage for the soul.
Some people had Hanahaki because of unrequited love, others because they couldn't tell the truth about their previous sins, some wanted to express their true selves in front of their families but never could. The list of unspoken things was endless.
She learned to fight, to smile, to pep-talk herself into thinking positively. She'd whisper all of her darkest secrets to the mirror and play her heart out on the piano. She'd punch things when she felt angry, anything to will away any thorns on her heart.
She'd look into the mirror, wondering what her heart looks like, wondering if her soul seeds had become thorns, waiting to bloom. All her heartaches, missing Cloud, disappointing her Dad, were they from tightening vines, from budding flowers?
"My name is Tifa Lockhart," she'd whisper to the mirror, "I'm scared about the future, I'm angry at my dad but I still love him, and I'm going to be okay."
All these truths about herself, all her anxieties, she'd whisper them then, set them free into the air.
She refuses to follow her mother in death.
:
When Nibelheim burns, Tifa burns too, wanting vengeance. When Marlene smiles, Tifa smiles too, something inside her eased and better. When Barret looks worn, Tifa becomes worn too, doing her best to sooth the silence.
And then she meets Cloud again, and for the first time in years, her heart feels lighter… only to twist painfully at the unfamiliar way he looks at her, at the strange things he says.
Cloud's hurting, she realizes, and like she always does… she tries to fix it.
:
Sector Seven falls.
Jenova is free.
Nibelheim fills with lies.
Aerith dies.
Cloud falters.
Sephiroth steals everything.
They lose Cloud.
The lifestream.
The meteor.
The distance.
These tragedies haven't killed her yet, she hasn't coughed up a single flower. But Gaia, her heart aches.
Still, she smiles for those who need it.
:
She remembers when the journey began, just after they left Kalm to chase after Sephiroth, a night by the fire. She remembers Cloud coughing quietly into his hand, then frowning, before he crumpled that hand up into a fist and walked away to take the first watch. She remembers seeing the frayed yellow petal peeking from his fist.
When everyone else fell asleep, Tifa tiptoed over to his side, where he sat alone on a hill.
He didn't react at all to her presence, save for a slight relaxing of his shoulders.
Tifa was quiet at first, but slowly she reached out and touched his fist, coaxing them to open. The ripped up sunflower petals greeted her.
He didn't say anything, watching her, his eyes slightly aglow with mako.
"How long have you been at Stage 3?"
"You don't seem surprised."
"I deal with this a lot being a bartender." Or, she did. "Lots of customers come in with Stage 3. I have to mop up a lot of petals. Luckily, if they drink enough, they start ranting… and after they rant… they get better. And then they're alcoholics instead."
"Better than dying."
"Everyone's dying, Cloud," Tifa whispered. She had a feeling that the planet was too. "It's just a matter of how we avoid it, and how we add meaning to it."
"Is that what you do then? Give them meaning?"
Tifa shook her head. She wasn't that deluded (she still isn't.) "I think I just make them a little less lonely, even if I can't stop them from drinking. That has to be enough."
But is it? She has her doubts sometimes.
"It is."
She looked at him in surprise.
His eyes didn't move from hers. "If it's from you, it's enough."
Frozen by his gaze, Tifa didn't know what to say. She dropped her head down quickly, but let her hand stay on his.
"So?" she asked, "What's making your heart tear itself apart? Why are you coughing up flowers?"
What happened to Cloud in the past seven years? What could cause him so much pain?
He tightened his hand over hers, a grip that could stop her blood flow. "I… I don't know."
Tifa frowned. "That's common. Sometimes my customers don't—didn't—know what was causing Stage 3 either, so they'd talk about everything until it stopped."
"There's… there's a lot I don't remember."
Her heart twisted. Ever since Cloud recounted his encounter with Sephiroth at Nibelheim, Tifa had suspected that much. But she still wasn't sure. She had suffered a bad concussion and internal bleeding that day… perhaps she remembered the Nibelheim incident all wrong. She'd hate to start a discussion without being 100% sure of herself, that could hurt him more.
Instead…
"…Talk to me," she said, to his surprise, "whenever you have a free moment and you're stressed out. It doesn't have to be about your memories. It can be about anything that bothers you, any pet peeve—"
"Like Barret's snoring?"
She smiled. "Like Barret's snoring. It all helps. As long as it doesn't get to Stage 4, it's manageable. We'll figure things out. I'll help you remember."
He looked away from her, his other arm rubbing the back of his neck like he used to when he felt shy. "I'll… try. But only when we're alone."
Tifa nodded. "That's enough then."
She prayed it would be enough.
:
During their journey, Cloud didn't talk to her about his feelings. But he'd wake her during his watch and have her sit with him, he'd make sure to be there for her watch, and they'd just sit side by side.
Sometimes Cloud would complain about Barret or Yuffie or Cid or Tifa would remark that Cloud had made a good decision that day. The one thing he'd always tell her, without fail, is if he coughed up any petals that day. Tifa kept track, noticed that there were only a lot when Cloud encountered something painful like Sephiroth, but otherwise, the petals were rather infrequent.
These little talks, these quiet moments under the stars, they seemed like nothing.
But she hoped they meant something.
:
He fell to his knees on their second visit to Shinra mansion, after the Mideel and the lifestream, after remembering Zack, and he cried.
'Admiration.' 'Loyalty.' 'A long life.'
Ah, Tifa thought, deciphering the meaning as tears escaped her eyes, those sunflowers were for Zack.
Cloud never coughed them up again.
:
"I can feel them," he whispered, just before their night under the Highwind, before she asked him to hold her, before he kissed her as if she might break apart from the slightest touch, "the thorns are still there."
"Stage 2," she leaned against his chest and closed her eyes, listening to his heartbeat under the strain. "I think we all have it, deep down. We all have thorns."
His grip tightened around her waist. "…Even you?"
She didn't answer.
:
After Sephiroth, after the meteor, after building up Edge, after opening the new Seventh Heaven, after adopting Marlene and Denzel, Tifa almost feels truly happy.
Then Cloud pulls away.
:
He leaves a note, because he doesn't want her to worry, because he has to fight something alone, because the last thing he ever wants is to hurt her.
:
But, she thinks, you're still hurting me.
:
Two months later, Tifa coughs up her first flower.