The Hanahaki Disease is an illness born from one-sided love, 'causing the patient to throw up and cough flower petals; slowly increasing in numbers, the petals will eventually become bloody, soon clogging up the patient's respiratory system and windpipe leading to eventual asphyxiation and death. The infection can be removed through surgery, but the feelings disappear along with the petals.
The first time it happened would forever be engraved in her memory.
Under the shade of the sacred tree, she felt cold tears touch her cheeks. Her mind was filled with images of the night before, of this same tree from a different era, of a girl in his arms – a different girl she could never hope to compete with.
Images of herself running haunted her, hand-in-hand with the fear of facing him again, of what he would tell her then. She knew that if she heard those words ("I decided to be with her") her heart would snap in half; but then again, she could clearly recall it breaking last night.
I love him, she weeped silently, I wish I'd never laid my eyes upon him.
Something catched in her throat and she coughed suddenly, violently, a piercing pain coursing through her already-aching chest. Caught of guard, she lost her balance, her legs betraying her and her knees hitting the ground.
She stared at her hand for a while afterwards; through her blurry vision, she barely recognized that she was holding the crimson, rounded, smooth flower petal that she had just coughed out. Fear struck her, blurrying her vision some more with brand new, uncontrollable tears.
She'd heard about this. Of course she'd heard about this. Some of friends thought it was 'as romantic as it was tragic'. Personally, she had never expected it to be real. But then again, didn't she think that of demons as well not too long ago?
Her heart was pounding, her lungs were aching. There were many things she found herself wondering.
(Had she really fallen ill? She didn't deserve this, did she? Could she ever heal? If not, how long would she survive? How painful would it be to die? How could she tell her family and friends about this? If she told them, would they force her into an hospital? Would they stop her from ever seeing him again? Could she accept that? Could she possibly hide it from them? Would she pull it off? Could she bear it?)
I want to see him.
She buried the petal under the sacred tree.
Author's Notes: Kagome takes an awful lot of time to realize/convince herself she's not really second to anyone and that's there's nothing really one-sided about her feelings for Inuyasha. So what if she didn't have the luxury of time?
I honestly wanted to write more for this concept but I lost inspiration as I was writing. I still really liked this part though, and at least this way you can decide for yourself between a happy ending or the angsty ending I was thinking of. I guess.