"…gi, you're…wait…you're not…"

"..I…lo…y…"

"Yugi! Yugi, can you hear me?!"

Yellow light blinds him. Shielding his eyes, Yugi sits up from his spot with a pained grunt. He looks over to his desk, but instead sees an elderly face. The old man rests on his knees by Yugi, one hand gripping the younger man's shoulder and the other on the carpet. Just peeking from a pocket of his overalls is a mobile phone, which falls to the floor as he leans forward. The words "11 missed calls" flash on the screen.

"Oh, thank god, are you all right?" the elderly man pleads. "Téa told me you were coughing up a storm."

Yugi raises a hand to his throat: breathing came naturally and easy. "I was, but…I think I'm better now," he replies. "Thanks, Grandpa."

"No, no, no, thank Téa. All I did was fall asleep watching the new Duel Monsters tournament." Grandpa looks over his shoulder. "…did you drop something during the cough? It looks like a potted plant exploded in here."

Cold grips Yugi's chest. He abruptly jumps onto his feet and looks at the carpet. Shreds of green vines and purple petals lay scattered across fabric, small splotches of red beneath them. A thin emerald-like stem with four amethyst blossoms rests in the middle, almost contrasting itself from the surrounding remains. The lower end of the stem branches into dozens of dirt-brown threads that curl around the nearby silver chain. They reach further down, from the chain links to the golden blocks spread across—

Yugi freezes.

Pieces of the now-destroyed Millennium Puzzle rest among the roots.


A calming hush carries on the library air. Paneled glass windows hang over adults and children alike as a pair of automatic doors, welcoming a newcomer inside. Yugi walks in with a bag hanging from his shoulder and a notebook in his hand. As he approaches the front desk, he immediately spots the row of computers near the fantasy section. Only a few machines are in use when he walks over. He briefly skims the computers in use (the screens were library catalogs except for one being used for porn) before taking a free chair.

"Yugi?"

A familiar British voice catches his attention. Yugi looks over and sees Bakura standing behind him with an armful of horror novels.

"Is everything okay?" Bakura asks. "I'm sorry for sounding rude, but I got worried when you didn't respond to my texts last night."

Yugi blinks. "Oh, god, I'm sorry," he apologizes.

"No, no, it's all right. I was worried that you had another coughing fit, one more severe than last time." Bakura adjusts the books in his arms. "To be honest, I'm more surprised to see you here. Aren't you still recovering?"

Memories of Atem's plant-infested soul flash in Yugi's mind. He looks away, downcast. "The cough…it's completely gone. I just need to figure out some things somewhere that wasn't my room."

Bakura opens his mouth to speak, but his eyes dart toward Yugi's neck. He leans over to see the other's torso when shock fills his face. "Oh my—I'm so sorry," he mutters.

"It's okay." Yugi places a hand where the Millennium Puzzle should be. "I haven't really told anyone."

"I don't mean to pry, but do you want to talk about it? It isn't a good idea to bottle up your stress."

A strange heartache fills Yugi's chest. "…not really. Not yet, anyway."

"Oh…okay." Bakura shifts his books a second time. "I'm about to check out, but please remember: you can text me anytime if you need to talk. Or call, whichever works for you."

Yugi looks at his friend. "Thanks, Bakura," he says with a smile. "I'll keep that in mind."

"Take care, Yugi."

With a quiet wave, Bakura walks toward the front desk. Yugi turns his attention back to his computer and, seeing the internet browser, types "hanahaki" in the search bar. He grabs his notebook and turns to a page marked "information from Téa." The information she provided before and after the incident plays in his mind as he takes notes:

HANAHAKI
-
Fictional disease in love stories
- Makes you cough flower petals if you're secretly and madly in love with someone
- Can be deadly (choke on flowers) if untreated
-
Two ways to cure it, according to authors
1) Get flowers surgically removed, but lose your memories of the person you love
2) Have the person you're in love with confess that they feel the exact same way (failure might not be an option?)

Looking back at the monitor, Yugi's eyes dart across the screen as he reads. Each website provided the same information as Téa, and each article only brought more questions. Who was Atem in love with? Was it even a case of Hanahaki? Maybe the flower cough was just a symptom of something else: there were always unknown diseases being discovered in the world. But how could a disease affect someone who's dead? And why did it also affect him, the living host for the dead person?

Something catches his eye. On the computer is an article mirroring Téa's words, but with a new set of text:

"Authors like to incorporate a specific trait of the victim's beloved in their case of hanahaki. This can range from the beloved's favorite flower, natural eye color, symbol of the family, and so on."

Yugi pulls away.

"They match your eyes."

Mind reeling, he drops his head in his hands. Purple flowers matching his purple eyes…it had to be a coincidence, right?

"Aibou, I'm so sorry."

Like the pieces of a puzzle, it all clicks: Atem's request for distance, Yugi's cough getting worse when the Pharaoh took over, and his apology before the Millennium Puzzle was smashed. However, he shakes his head. He was looking too deep into this…right?

Yugi pauses. Somewhere in his mind, remnants of voices before he woke up in his room linger. There were three voices.

"…gi, you're…wait…you're not…"

First voice he knows is Téa, shouting over the speaker for an answer. From the sound of it, she must've seen someone who she thought was Yugi, but wasn't.

"Yugi! Yugi, can you hear me?!"

Third voice was Grandpa trying to wake him up. Not much to ponder about there.

"…I…lo…y…"

The second voice, from what he could remember, was a deep and warm baritone. Judging from Téa's words at the start, it had to be Atem taking over his body. He vaguely recalls a forceful grunt after those words, possibly from when the Millennium Puzzle was broken. But what was Atem even saying at the time?

"…I…lov…"

Yugi's heart stops.

"I love you."

His sits up in his chair. His cough was long gone and yet he felt breathless.


With a soft click, Yugi closes the door to his bedroom. He drops the notebook on the now-cleaned carpet, sighing as he flops onto the bed. Where he lay, he sees the golden box with the shattered Millennium Puzzle, waiting to be reassembled. He rolls onto his back. Even with all this knowledge, what could he do? No surgeon could operate on a millennia-old king (especially for something like coughing up flowers) and putting the puzzle back together likely wouldn't do anything.

Yugi gulped nervously. The only other cure was to return the other's love, but…could he really do that? He never thought someone like Atem would fall for him: in fact, it never even crossed his mind. Would he be telling the truth if he said he loved him back? What if it was a lie? Would pretending to love Atem just make things worse? How did he even feel about the Pharaoh? How soon did he have to put the puzzle back together? Could he put the puzzle back together, knowing what he knew now? Atem destroyed it for a reason, would that be going against his wishes?

A soft breeze blows through the window. Yugi looks at his desk and sees the wind gently caressing the flower that survived the puzzle's destruction. It stands in a ceramic pot of soil, freshly dug up from Grandpa's storage closet, as its amethyst petals and closed buds sway slightly.

Yugi looks closer. One of the buds, though small, is in bloom.


Author's Note: And, that's the end of that. I honestly wasn't sure how to end this, but I feel like leaving an ambiguous "cliffhanger" works somehow. In the research I did on hanahaki (because I love schlock like that), I couldn't find anything on what happens if the victim's beloved didn't feel the same. That, and it got me thinking: if you found out a close friend had a life-threatening disease that only *you*could cure by saying you were madly in love with them even if you might not feel the same way, what would you do?

Side note: Yugi spotting someone looking at porn in the library? True story: during a trip to the library a few years ago, I spotted a middle-aged man doing that in broad daylight (he was in the front row of computers, too). Someone must've alerted him because he *very quickly* clicked out of it.

Thank you very much for reading! 3