Chapter Text
Michael was so good at hiding it.
It started around the same time as puberty and never went away, so he kind of had to learn to be excellent at deception and concealment. He never went anywhere without a plastic baggie to collect the flowers until he could throw them away. He lied about having asthma so Jeremy wouldn’t question all the hacking and coughing.
Michael thought he could live with it.
Pining, watching Jeremy go on and on about Christine, choking on the petals clogging his lungs and throat. He didn’t need to change anything; he could live like this, he thought.
Then one day Jeremy mysteriously ditches him at the mall, and it’s like overnight he’s got new friends and new hobbies and without seeming that reluctant, he leaves Michael behind.
Jeremy doesn’t even seem to see him anymore. Michael feels like a ghost, might have convinced himself he was one, too, if it weren’t for the stabbing pain in his chest, the relentless sickly-sweet taste of flowers clawing up his throat.
Michael goes to Jake’s party for Jeremy, but when he sees him on the couch having a blast with Christine, he feels the anxiety-- and the flowers-- blooming in his chest and he runs for the bathroom.
“Shit,” he mumbles, staring down at the red carnation petals floating in the toilet water. They’re mixed with blood. “Shit, shit, this is bad…”
“Michael?”
He recognizes the voice through the door: Jeremy.
“Uh, don’t come in,” he says evasively, panicking as more carnations clump in his chest and throat. “I’m not, I can’t…”
But Jeremy opens the door and walks in anyway, looking concerned. “Michael, what’s going on? You throwing up in here?”
Michael takes stock of his position: kneeling in front of the toilet, red-faced. “Nnnnyes,” he says. “Super sick. No more Peach Schnapps for me.”
But Jeremy peers over the rim of the toilet bowl, sees the petals and the blood. Michael cringes, sinking against the wall of the bathroom. “Michael…”
“Nothing,” he says, feeling his stomach churning. Jeremy can’t know, he wouldn’t understand and he can’t know . “It’s nothing, Jere, don’t… nothing, I just, uh, I had a salad and it didn’t agree with me. It’s really nothing, it’s--”
“Hanahaki disease.”
Michael looks up at him, shocked. “How did you know…?”
“My Squip’s datab-- ahh, internet,” Jeremy stammers, and then he walks across the bathroom and carefully lowers himself to the floor, sitting beside Michael. It could be like old times, before Jeremy started ignoring him, except they’re in a bathroom at a party and there are flowers climbing up Michael’s throat. “I read about it from the internet, and…” He stares at Michael, taking him in. “Are you okay?”
Michael’s not sure. His chest hurts and he’s kind of sad, but both of those things are perfectly normal for him. At least Jeremy’s talking to him and not looking right through him. “I’m fine,” he says.
The two of them sit, backs against the wall, Jeremy’s lanky legs stretched out in front of him. Michael’s balled up beside him, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. “How long has this been… I mean, has it been…?” Jeremy can’t even seem to finish his sentences. He looks distraught, but not disgusted like Michael thought he would be.
“Like four, four-and-a-half years,” he says in a low voice.
Jeremy’s face crumples up. “I’m so sorry,” he says, but there’s no way he knows why it’s happening. All he knows is Michael’s in love with someone , all he knows is Michael’s been dealing with the clogged clumped-up lungs and coughing up carnations for four, four-and-half years because he’s in love with someone . “Is there anything I can…” But he trails off, staring into space.
He tilts his head like he’s listening, and now it’s Michael’s turn to be worried. “Jeremy?”
“Yeah,” he says, suddenly coming back down to earth. “Yeah, it’s… Michael, do you want help?”
“Um.” He’s not sure what Jeremy means. Help managing it? Help hiding it?
“I can help,” Jeremy says, earnest and wide-eyed. “I can fix it, Michael. I can make it stop.”
As far as Michael knows, there’s only one way to cure Hanahaki, and that’s if the person you’re in love with loves you back. And… no. There’s no way. He stares at Jeremy, perfectly imperfect and kind and cute and wonderful. There’s just no way. Unless. “Jeremy…”
“I can help you,” Jeremy says again, angling his body toward Michael. He leans forward, pressed close to him, and it’s like when they used to read comic books under a blanket with a flashlight as children but it’s warmer, electric, being so close.
Michael chokes down the flowers in his throat. “You can?” he says.
Jeremy cocks his head to the side again, like he’s listening to someone who’s not there. And then he gets even closer to Michael. “Yes,” he says.
Yes . It’s maybe the most beautiful word Michael’s ever heard. Because… because it makes no sense and yet it’s happening, apparently. Jeremy can cure him. Jeremy can make it stop, the blood, the carnations, the heartache. Because somehow, miraculously, Jeremy must feel the same way.
“I know what the cure is,” Jeremy says, leaning impossibly closer. They’re breathing in the same air, and Jeremy smells like Mountain Dew and some weird new cologne and Michael knows he smells like weed and carnations and copper but it’s still magical; they draw ever closer like magnets. And then Jeremy says again, “I know what the cure is, Michael.” And he whispers, “It’s from Japan.”
Wait, what? “It’s a gray, oblong pill,” Jeremy continues. “I… read about it on the internet. And it can fix Hanahaki, make the flowers stop.”
The emotional whiplash makes Michael’s head and heart hurt. But if there’s a way for him to stop the flowers, in any way… “I didn’t think there was a pill for it,” he says honestly. “And it… works?”
“It works,” Jeremy confirms. “I can get one for you. If you want?”
When Michael first started coughing up flower petals, he thought he was losing his mind. But it’s real, painfully, disgustingly real. He’s got the lesions in his throat to prove it. He always thought he’d just have to endure it until he died, and that he’d probably die too young. And now suddenly he can see another life stretched out in front of him, all thanks to modern medicine.
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, Jeremy, I… please.”
“Of course,” Jeremy says. “I’ll come over tomorrow after school and give you the pill.” He curls his legs up toward his body, and for a second Michael thinks Jeremy’s about to lean into him, maybe hug him. But he stands up instead. “I’ve… gotta get back to Christine. See you tomorrow, Michael.”