this was just a small writing warm up i came up with on the afternoon of a lazy wednesday - funnily enough, i haven't seen an english hanahaki au so i decided to give this prompt a go!
there's a lot of flower symbolism in this oneshot, which i'll explain later.
thank you for reading, and please drop a review if you're able!
He swears the roses rising in his throat are out of love.
It is a light October autumn, flowers falling outside of the school's campus as Arthur's well pressed shoes clack on the linoleum floor.
Pausing, he looks at him - Alfred's face is as cheery as it was last time the two of them met. Those eyes are bluer than ever as he bends down to talk to Natalya. Her face is flushed with indignation and her mouth is parted in annoyance, but any blind man walking can see she cares for him, truly.
He can feel the petals tap at the edge of his throat, and he retches for a moment, coughing out two dusky rose petals against the cool metal surface of his locker before quickly stuffing a tissue against his lips, forcing them out and wiping his mouth. He takes a long, serrated breath against it before tucking in the evidence against his jeans pocket.
"Good morning, Alfred," he says cordially, giving him a little wave. "Did you finish up the chemistry write up of our experiment yesterday? I-I'd love to share notes at lunch, if that's all right."
"Ah hey, Arthur," Alfred replies, his eyes twinkling behind his glasses in such a way that made Arthur's weary heart skip a beat. "Yeah, that sounds great! Rooftop, if that's fine? I was up chatting with Kiku last night, so I didn't really do my best job."
"Typical," Arthur huffs, but hides a smile as he turns to his left, moving to his next class. "I do hope that being with Kiku's helped your brain cells to finally develop."
"Oh, finally?" Natalya remarks, smiling teasingly at Alfred and folding her arms in a coy, cute fashion. "Thought the day would never come. Maybe you'll stop pretending to make an effort on our dates and just be yourself..."
"Don't tease me, Nat! You know you love our dates," Alfred wails, and Arthur feels the harsh curl of unfurling petals against his ribcage as his voice folds itself into the chatter of class.
Only when the pang of unrequited love paralysed his senses did they come, choking and searing his mind until he could think of nothing but how Alfred would never love him.
They first came out in crumbled pieces - the week after the eve of Alfred's sixteenth birthday, and he had choked out a fragment of a rose and he and Alfred had laughed together underneath the stars. He had brushed it off as being part of his fancy ice cubes that he had placed in the drinks, but a week later he and Alfred were doing a joint study session and he had delved into a coughing fit, his heart and head pounding.
Alfred had been beside himself with worry, and Arthur had to reluctantly send him home first. Kneeling over the toilet bowl, he closed his eyes and opened them in shock as something other than retched forced itself up against the water, blooming like a Windsor garden.
Flowers - roses, to be exact.
Red, white, yellow, purple, pink…as the weeks passed on and more sickly sweet flowers - even blue and green, who he was sure he'd never seen in real life - bloomed in his lungs, his stomach - hindering his breathing at night, and causing him to shiver on the tiles for hours on end.
The doctor sucked in her teeth and paused when Arthur contacted her, producing a little fistful of the blue blooms that had been spilling from his lips. They checked his chest and lungs, and found little flowers blossoming in them, like little Valentine's day bouquets.
It was called 花吐き病, or Hanahaki Disease. The falling of flowers from one's mouth when they suffer from unrequited love. They invaded the person's chest, their lungs, until one of three things happened.
One, they'd undergo a surgery to shut down the unnatural growth, removing the blooms - but removing the memory of the unrequited love and the person who was the subject of it.
Two, the person reciprocated their love. Arthur had laughed at the doctor the moment it came out of her lips. Alfred, reciprocating his love? Never. The other boy would never look at him more than a friend. These flowers would choke him until the other would even start to look in his direction…
Three. The flowers would eventually suffocate him. They could be in his lungs, in his larynx, in his oesophagus, but they'd all cut off his air, the fact he was so pathetic that he could not even act on his unrequited feelings for one of his best friends…
Arthur didn't know which one was better or worse.
Then, that same winter, the day he and Alfred finished patting together a snowman and Alfred went inside first, Arthur wheezed out a mess of blue roses, scarlet petals and blood onto the stark white of the snow as he struggled for breath as his oxygen faded and the light dimmed.
A pair of boots crunched out onto the driveway - until they broke into a run.
"I…I don't know, mister," Alfred said desperately, his hand still entwined with Arthur's resting body. "We…we were building snowmen at my house, and I was going to get some hot chocolate but then I found him outside, with…with blood, and some blue flowers, but…"
"Flowers?" the doctor said, tilting his clipboard a little higher. "I see. Blood…he must be at the late stage."
"Late stage of - mister?! Has he caught cancer, or something like that?" Alfred asked. "B-But he hasn't gotten any chemo…and his hair hasn't fallen out, I…"
"It's called Hanahaki Disease, Mr. Jones," the doctor continued, peering down at Arthur in such a way that made his chest clench. "The patient coughs out flower petals, brought on by intense feelings and later unnatural growth. When a patient starts coughing out blood…well, suffice to say, it is the beginning of the end."
"Is there…is there a way to cure it?" Alfred blurted out, letting his rough, calloused fingers run over Arthur's softer knuckles. "What causes it?"
"Well, there are two ways," the doctor said, lifting Arthur's patient sheet to note down his condition. "Hanahaki is born from what the patient believes to be severely unrequited love, you see. First, we could perform a surgery to remove the flowers - but it removes their love and therefore their memories of their unrequited love. Second, the person simply reciprocates their feelings. Third…well, that is what is happening to your friend right now. The flowers eventually mutate and grow in clusters, suffocating their chest and lungs - meaning they eventually stop breathing. If your friend does not accept their surgery or have their love reciprocated, well…they suffocate."
Alfred was silent with this reverie, turning his gloves in his hand. He remembered Arthur stitching them for him on the autumn where he broke up with Natalya, coming to his house and consoling him as he moped…
…and now he was going to lose him.
"Do you have any idea who the person he might have been in love with was?" the doctor gently pressed.
"No," Alfred said into the cold, stale air of the hospital. "I'm sorry, doctor. I really don't."
"…very well. All right, I'll leave the two of you alone for now. Please let me know if you know anything more." the doctor said, patting him on the shoulder and walking away.
Alfred paused as the door shut, and it was a few moments before he got off the hard plastic stool and touched Arthur's face, his eyes softening.
"You too, h-huh?" he whispered, lips trembling as Arthur'slaboured breath resonated around the room. "If…if only what I felt for you could cure you of this…"
"There's no option other than that," his doctor said gently, patting Arthur's shoulder. "Are you sure…are you sure the person you love does not return your affections?"
"He couldn't," Arthur croaked out, his voice stained with pain. "He wouldn't. But I can't forget him. I can't forget the best relationship I've ever had with someone who really cares."
"What's his name?" she said, leaning a little lower. "Come on. You can tell me. Maybe the boy pacing outside your room knows-"
"It's him," Arthur sobbed, his green eyes crumpling. "I love him, but he'll always see me as just a friend. If I forget, then see him, I…"
"He would be sadder if you died," she said. "Think about it, Mr Kirkland. Arthur. Would he have you die? He'd rather you forget him but still be alive."
Arthur breathed out, feeling the bouquet in his lungs exhale along with him.
"Give these to him," Arthur said, and puts his hand in his sweater pocket, pulling out a fistful of blue rose petals. "I washed them, promise. He deserves to have them. I want him to remember that we were best friends, once."
It is a spring afternoon, one lesson before class ends and Alfred has to go to basketball practise, the halls bustling with activity as students rush to their classes.
"No, it's fine, really," he says, his thick eyebrows furrowing in amusement. "Really, Jones, we've only met one day and you're following me around. What are you, soft?"
"Rude," Alfred says, the words feeling as if they are strangling him. "I'm not no softie! You just bumped into me, that's all. I guess, me being the hero, I should help you out."
"Tch," Arthur snorts, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "Well, hero, if you insist. I suppose you could come with me to our Chemistry class."
"Seeing as we're lab partners as well," Alfred teases back, but the lump in his throat prevents him from laughing. "OK, just give me a moment before I put back my books in my locker for a sec."
The moment he slots back his Biology folder, they rise in his throat, and he coughs twice in succession.
He sees crumbled petals of a white daffodil land on the palm of his hand.
symbolism
arthur coughs up blue roses several times throughout. blue roses symbolize the unattainable or untouchable, which is how is he feels about alfred.
alfred, at the end of the fic, coughs up daffodils - these signify rebirth and new beginnings, feelings that have been indicted for meeting arthur again for the first time after his surgery. but they are bittersweet - they also mean unrequited love, something alfred is suffering from as arthur has lost all memory of meeting (and loving) him, meaning that he himself now suffers from what he views as a love that can never be requited.
thank you for reading o/ if you're interested in other things that i've written, please feel free to check out my profile for more works.