One of my favourite episodes from Unikitty! is Crushing Defeat. As cool as the concept of being literally crushed by a crush is, I remembered another one-sided love trope I enjoy: Hanahaki Disease.
Don't worry, I've changed it up a bit so it's not lethal.
Unikitty and the Hanahaki concept belong to their creators.
It started out as a normal day for Hawkodile; hanging out with his friends and punching anything that needed to be punched.
But there's one thing that sets this day apart from others.
He finds himself with a cough early that morning that continues through the day and just as the sun starts to set, he finds himself wheezing up a couple of flower petals.
The petals are small with a pointed end and a pretty purplish-pink speckled with dark red.
Strange...
He definitely didn't eat something with flowers in it.
Eh, it's probably a one-time thing.
But it happens a second.
He can barely slip away from his worried friends in time to cough in peace. And when he's all done, a spike of dread pierces him.
There are more petals than last time; at least 7 or 8 are cradled in his hands.
Now he knows something's wrong with him.
"The Blossom Bug is a very rare illness born from one-sided/unrequited love where the victim coughs up flower petals that grow inside their lungs, and after being untreated and reaching a late enough stage, whole flower blossoms as well. The flowers coughed up usually has a special significance to the victim in some way. Examples include their loved one's eye colour, hair colour, favourite colour, favourite flower, etc.
While the Blossom Bug isn't lethal, it will last as long as the feelings go unrequited. It becomes very painful and difficult to deal with the illness, especially when whole flowers are being coughed up, the more time passes, so victims opt to cure themselves as soon as possible.
There are three cures to the Blossom Bug.
1. Cease your romantic feelings for the other person. (The flowers WILL stop growing, but you'll have to cough them ALL up and the disease has a more likely chance of returning worse if the feelings reemerge.)
2. Remove the flowers with surgery. (Beware: This has a 100% chance of working, but it also completely removes all of the romantic feelings as well with little hope of getting them back.)
3. Get them to return your feelings. The flowers should harmlessly wilt and disintegrate immediately. (Note: Simply confessing your feelings to your love will work too, but the disease will only truly be gone once they return your love.)"
In the royal library, Hawkodile set the book of rare maladies down in dismay. Flowers were growing inside of him...
Because of love?
It sounded like a fairytale.
A scary, terrible, twisted fairytale.
These almost alien symptoms mixed with the pre-existing feelings, combined with limited options, two of which were very undesirable and the last being practically impossible...
Why him?
As if to answer his own question, Hawkodile started to cough up the sudden blockage in his throat. Another shallow pile of petals joined the few sparse ones on the table before being brushed aside and onto the floor.
At least he wasn't suffering from a worse ailment; one of the entries talked about being physically crushed and compressed smaller and smaller by your love materialized into giant hearts.
He picks up the book again, hoping to find some consolation or help for his affliction; maybe something in here would tell him how to make the pain less or slow down the imminent flowers.
"Petals have a chance of simply falling out of the mouth if the target of affection is mentioned or nearby. Some cases has even reported having petals fall from the mouth simply at the mention of a name."
Though there was almost no doubt in his mind of who he was crushing on, surely a test wouldn't hurt...
"Dr. Fox."
A small clump of purple, red flecked petals lay still on the table, spit-free.
He's coughing up more petals each day.
His friends don't need to know.
If he's fast enough, and he usually is, he manages to dispose of the petals that fall from his mouth and keep his secret under wraps.
Maybe they get confused about the clusters of purple petals that always appeared to follow Hawkodile around, but if any of them found out, they certainly weren't spilling the beans.
That didn''t mean it's any easier for him to suffer through.
His chest never stops burning, his throat feels rubbed raw and he can't even keep up with his bodyguard training with his sudden short-of-breathness that comes with the flowers clogging his lungs.
It's a nightmare.
He also managed to identify what kind of flower he was choking on, which made it feel even worse.
It's ironic in more than one way.
Foxgloves symbolize confidence.
It only gets worse after the Giant Cupcake Monster attack.
The effort he has to take to beat the thing is twice than normal; his inability to breath hindering him greatly.
It's all thanks to Dr. Fox's cannon arm that he's able to beat the thing at all.
And what does Hawkodile get for his efforts?
A single wink and compliment from Dr. Fox, and he almost can't get away fast enough to his treehouse to spit up the stupid petals in privacy.
When he's done, there's got to be a few dozen scattered on the floor around him.
Very rarely does Hawkodile show weakness, but right now...
It seems very appropriate as he slides to the floor with the petals and curls on himself just a bit.
He hates himself for this, too scared to make his feelings known and forcing himself to suffer.
But what else can he do?
Even if he could get surgery, he'd rather give up his sunglasses from his mentor and resign from being a bodyguard than forever losing these feelings he's gained for the scientist.
And at this point, the option of possibly squashing down his crush, burying it so deep that it couldn't be found, wasn't much of a choice either.
Even though it caused him so much pain, there was a bittersweetness that came with those feelings. The tingle and weightlessness in his heart was almost worth having to suffer through the Blossom Bug.
Besides, fighting against feelings is the one thing he's horrible at. Feelings are not something that you can punch and they'll go away.
So that left him the final option: confessing.
...
Ha, like that would be any easier.
There wasn't much chance that she'd see him as more than just a friend.
After being moved to the "friend-zone", looking at your crush was never the same. Instead of the happy nervousness they brought you when you thought about them, it would only be replaced with the pain of rejection. It was hard enough to deal with the aches and soreness that came from the disease; no doubt rejection would make it ten times worse.
A breeze suddenly announces its entrance through the open window with a low whistle and the petals, laying haphazardly around him, are suddenly brought back to life, swirling and dancing in the air.
As he watches them fly through the room entranced, and settle back down with a touch gentler than the air that carried it, Hawkodile realizes something.
Pain and beauty could exist together; it just depended which way you saw it.
He'd just been too focused on the pain.
The petals... the fact that he was coughing them up in the first place, it proved that without a doubt, he loved Dr. Fox and his heart would always belong to her. She would always be his first love.
Nothing would change that.
These petals don't make their home in the trash with the others, but into a jar on the windowsill, the sun shining on their beautiful purple pigment.
The next day, he's making his way to the castle kitchen to join the others for breakfast and doing his best to act like everything's normal.
Nothing is wrong and he's certainly not coughing up the equivalent of a florist shop's amount of petals.
But this time, Dr. Fox's sudden appearance manages to catch him by surprise and the horrifyingly familiar itch in his throat starts to build up.
This time, Hawkodile can't stop himself from coughing up petals again.
In front of his friends.
He has to bite back a scream when a whole blossom joins them in the soggy pile.
By the end of the day, the disease has definitely gotten exponentially worse. He's coughing up more flowers than petals and despite his friends' advice, support and help, he can't-won't face his crush.
He finds himself at the top of the castle, gazing at the sky bathed dark indigo and hoping that the meteor shower Dr. Fox mentioned will prove as some sort of distraction.
"Still coughing up flowers?" Wow, she's good at sneaking up on people. Hawkodile didn't even hear her footsteps or even the door opening.
He only nods at her voice, because at this point, his mouth is uncomfortably filled with flowers at the back and it hurts to even talk.
"This should help." Dr. Fox gives him a vial filled with green liquid, like the colour of her eyes, he notes, that feels like fire searing his lungs while instantaneously puking up a stream of foxgloves. At least she gave him a bucket to go with it.
"Did it work?" She asks, sitting down next to him.
"Kind of." Petals are starting to fill his mouth once again, but not as fast as before.
The two only sit in silence,
Dr. Fox gives him a sad, pity-filled shrug. "I wish I could help more... but I don't-"
Suddenly, her eyes light up in that way when she gets an idea that just makes his heart ache a bit less.
"I got it! Since you're so nervous about it, why don't you practice on me? Just pretend I'm your crush!"
The situation she's putting him is painful and funny and painful all at the same time.
Maybe that's why he finds himself laughing and crying and wheezing and hacking up flowers-
"Hawkodile?"
"...Sorry. Not laughing at you, it's just..." His voice was hoarse as he rubbed away the tears that started to fall down his face. "I really want this person to like me back and if she doesn't..."
He shivers a smidge as she rests a paw on his back in consolation. "It's worth a try. Besides the practice might help shake your fears."
What was that quote from that one singer he and his friends heard once on the radio?
"Seize your moment?"
Well, he seizes his.
No interruptions, no one but them together.
The confession has a lot of action words, gestures and just something purely Hawkodile. It's unnatural how naturally the words come to him.
But she's left all too soon and already, her mind is completely engrossed in the falling astroids that stream through the sky and nothing else mattered at that moment. She doesn't realize that he's no longer spitting up flowers or even petals or having breathing troubles at all.
His chest aches, not from the previously residing blossoms, but from the knowledge that Dr. Fox hadn't realized that it was she he was confessing to. She simply thought she was practice and not the real thing.
She still didn't know how he felt about her.
She still didn't know he loved her.
And he was okay with that.
There were no more flowers after that day.
Yeah, his chest and throat would get a dull tickle if he pushed himself too hard or he'd cough up a couple of petals painlessly when he thought about the Doctor too much.
But it wasn't a big deal now; he could still breathe fine and more importantly, protect his friends.
He'd tell her one day.
Maybe then, he'd finally be rid of the Blossom Bug for good.
The part about confessing partially helping cure the disease isn't true about the Hanahaki Disease, but...
I had a feeling that Hawkodile may have choked to death on the petals before he'd tell his crush if it was the normal Hanahaki Disease.
If I need to improve on any spots in my writing, please tell me! I love CONSTRUCTIVE (not destructive) criticism!