Kowalski has been dealing with the disease for months, his crush on Doris slowly killing him until he sees petals fall from her lips and gathers the courage to confess. The flowers should have died after Doris reciprocated his feelings, but he seems to be getting worse.
Mistake
They had agreed to meet but neither of them had spoken yet and the silence was deafening to the point that the occasional harsh wet couching fits between the two of them were welcome. Kowalski's lips parted, but instead of 'hello' another bought of coughing tore through him. He doubled over, chest heaving as his lungs fought for air, until finally the battle was won, and blood covered flowers filled his hand, upon closer inspection, it looked like bits of heather and hydrangea.
"I suppose we should talk about that," Doris spoke quietly, opening her purse and passing several tissues over to Kowalski. "Clearly the last few weeks-"
"Were a mistake," Kowalski finished for her as he wrapped the bloody flowers in the tissues and wiped the blood off his hand.
Doris winced at the word. She had grown to have feelings for Kowalski over the last few months, not something she had dreamed happening when they started their friendship and to hear him refer to it as a mistake was painful. Almost as painful as the flowers that were currently growing in her lungs. "I wouldn't necessarily call them a mistake. More of a…" she spun the paper coffee cup around in her hands looking for the right words, "cautious experiment that did not have an agreeable outcome. Afterall, Hanahaki isn't an exact science and it has been documented in some cases that it takes several days for the flowers to fade after reciprocation."
Despite himself Kowalski found himself smiling. He hadn't been attracted to Doris by her blue eyes alone. She was a woman of science and that had spurred his small crush into something akin to love over the years they had gotten to know each other. It was sweet for her to phrase what had occurred between them a few short weeks ago as anything but a mistake, but they both knew on some level that it was exactly that when the morning after found them in her bed feeling like little more than strangers with flower-filled lungs. "It was still a mistake to let it go on as long as we did, after all if the flowers hadn't cleared up after the first few days, then we should have taken it as a sign that they weren't going to clear up."
"There's nothing wrong with a little optimism and I don't regret all the time we spent together." Doris reached across the small table and placed one of her hands over his. "The worst of this is that I regret not giving you a chance sooner and that I'm not the one for you. But I suppose my brother was right telling me that my timing has always been off."
"Maybe it's timing on both our parts. It just doesn't make any sense. You reciprocated my feelings and by all accounts then the flowers should be gone." Kowalski pulled his hand out from under Doris's eyeing the ball of bloody tissues with distain.
"Have you considered that it's not me you have these feelings for? Maybe you just wanted me to be the one the feelings were for," Doris suggested having considered that possibility when she started finding petals on her tongue three months into dating Kowalski. "Ask yourself, did you love me or just love the idea of me?"
The question was eerily similar to one that Private had posed to him some years ago when then they had been discussing the potential and ethics of the Luv-U-Lator. That conversation had devolved into what it meant to love someone versus loving the idea of someone.
After a moment Kowalski nodded, "that thought has occurred to me."
"I'm not going to hold that against you. You'd hardly be the first person to want to share their life with someone. Loneliness is a terrible thing after all, and I have to admit that I think that may be why I started to fall for you even though it seemed like you already had feelings for someone else."
"What? Why would I have feelings for someone else?"
Doris laughed at Kowalski's bewildered expression before returning to her previously somber demeanor. "I'm sorry for laughing, but I didn't think that you hadn't considered that as the reason for the petals. It just seems obvious now looking back on everything. You were never very open with me, always reluctant to talk about your past or things that were bothering you. Not to mention the lack of physical intimacy."
Kowalski felt his face heat in embarrassment, "Doris, I told you that much like some of the greatest minds in history I found that I fall on the asexual side of the spectrum of sexuality."
"That wasn't exactly the physical intimacy I was referring to. It was that the smaller things like just holding my hand or cuddling on the couch," Doris held up her hand before Kowalski could even begin to defend himself. "I don't need the lecture on the finer points of intricacies of asexuality. It wasn't the fact that it hard for you to be comfortable having any level of intimacy with me, it was that even when you said you were comfortable, which I did believe at least to an extent, it always felt like you were just going through the motions."
"I didn't realize that you felt that way during our time together."
"It's not that I didn't enjoy our time together. Anyone would be lucky to have you it just became clear to me that I wasn't who you wanted to be with. You wanted to be with someone. It just wasn't me."
"I see," Kowalski murmured as he thought back to the earlier days of their relationship. He had always been doubtful about his actions, constantly second-guessing himself over what to do or what to say. Many times, he had to stop himself from asking if they were doing something because it was something that couples were supposed to do- it was a normal thing to fall in love, get married, and have a few kids. It's what you're supposed to do.
"I'm sorry, but I need to go. I have to propose a grant for a new study- it's whole thing. Anyway, it won't look good if I'm late." Doris explained as she slipped her purse back over her shoulder. She reached across the table and gave Kowalski's hand a gentle squeeze, "I really do hope you find who it is you're looking for."
Kowalski smiled at her and nodded, this throat tight as he fought the urge to start coughing again. As he watched her walked away, he wished he could find to the strength to argue: it wasn't a mistake, it was supposed to be you.
