Chapter Text
Why can't I - why have I still not given up on you?
I cling onto withered memories,
Is this greed?
I try to restore the lost seasons, I try to restore them.
If there was one thing that Dr. Kim Seokjin learned over his many years on his job, it was the fact that the Hanahaki was a cruel and horrifying disease.
It was not ironically beautiful in the way young girls liked to imagine coughing out flowers for the sake of love was, nor was it the tragically passionate romance story fanfiction authors make it out to be. It was downright nasty, merciless in the way it destroyed those it afflicted, aggravating the agony of emotional turmoil that inevitably came with unrequited love. Even as Seoul's leading Hanahaki specialist, Seokjin has watched countless patients wither away right before his eyes, feeling utterly useless as he stood by their bedsides helplessly, unable to save them from a disease they refused to receive treatment for. He has seen the toll it exacts from its sufferers, constantly reminding them of their unattainable desire as they cough out bloody petals and choked on thorny stems. It was a vile, unpitying disease, and it was the reason why Seokjin had chosen to do medicine in the first place.
He had been merely ten when he learned about the disease first-hand, watching wide-eyed as his older sister had coughed out a fistful of pink roses during Chuseok dinner. The whole table had gone deathly silent then, the happy buzz of festivities grinding to an abrupt halt as a confused Seokjin looked on and saw his mother cry for the first time. A heated argument soon broke out, of which Seokjin remembered little except for the way Yoona had eventually cracked and sobbed piteously, all the while hacking up pink petals that looked way too innocent for something so deadly. They never found out who it was she had fallen so deeply in love with, for she had killed herself the very next day.
It was hence with a single-minded determination that Seokjin worked his way through medical school, eventually becoming one of the best physicians in this oft stigmatised field. Hanahaki patients were dreaded by many in the medical profession, for though there was an easily accessible option of surgery to remove the flower's roots, most of these patients refused all treatment, preferring death over forgetting their loved one. It was a disease poorly understood by society, its victims often blamed for their own illness even as they were going through hell themselves. Seokjin knew just how helpless and misunderstood these patients must feel, and hence made it his mission to provide the unconditional support they needed, regardless of how adamant they were against treatment and surgery. It was their right to decide after all, and Seokjin prided himself on never judging his patients and always respecting them as people. Perhaps this was why many of his patients eventually found their own way out of what many considered a terminal disease, because of how deeply empathetic their doctor was. After spending the past fifteen years dedicated to learning about the Hanahaki ever since he lost his sister, Seokjin felt confident in his understanding of what his patients were going through.
That is, until the night he woke up with a terrible cough, only to see a single white lily petal lying innocuously on his palm.