Chapter Text
Jughead examined the X-ray film on the viewbox attached to the wall of the cramped clinic of his primary care physician. He stared transfixed at the image laid before him: a radiographic snapshot of a chest. As a cardiothoracic surgery resident, Jughead had seen thousands of X-ray films of the chest; so many that he could easily distinguish the normal from the abnormal, the mild from the severe, the innocuous from the toxic.
However, it was the first time that Jughead had seen something like this: an illuminated film of the chest — but it might as well be called a secret garden , because shadows distinctly resembling the form of flower petals matted both of the lungs. Thin stems protruded from the base, arching and bending toward each of the bronchi, obliterating the shadow of the tinier branches of the airway, until they ended just before the center of the chest - the designated position of the heart. A lobe of the left lung had been fully occupied.
Jughead could have marveled at the peculiar sight, had it been any other radiographic film. But this film was different: it was his own.
He cleared his throat and faced his physician, Dr. Ethel Muggs, who was standing next to him, also staring at the same film with disbelief evident in her eyes.
“Ethel, have you ever seen anything like this?” Jughead asked.
“No,” she answered, her gaze alternating between Jughead and the negatoscope displaying the X-ray film. “I’ve never seen something like this. There must have been a mistake when they developed the film. There’s no way you could be growing flowers in your lungs,” she paused for a beat before adding in a hesitant tone, “is there?”
Jughead gave her a wry smile as an answer. He thanked her for her time, and bid her farewell.
.
.
.
In truth, Jughead knew more than Ethel about this case. The X-ray was just a confirmation of his prolonged suspicion on what kind of disease he might have.
About three months prior, he’d started to have unrelenting coughing fits that were usually accompanied by ferocious chest pains. Over the course of the few months, he’d experienced varying degrees of chest pains - ranging from mild, ignorable pain, to pain that caused his breath to hitch and his teeth to grind, to pain that was so severe he ended up curled up in the fetal position, his fists balled, rendering him only a few notches away from screaming his lungs out.
He could have easily chalked it up to stress and hard work, and to the innate frailty of the physical body as opposed to the mind. But one particular afternoon a month ago, while he was lounging at the hospital’s cafeteria after a long surgery, eating his first meal of the day— he had been seized by an excruciating pain in his chest, so violent that he had to abandon the meal he’d been previously looking forward to (an event that was unprecedented). His breathing had come as gasps as he felt his airways spasm and tighten, leaving him reeling on the ground.
That day, he had ended up in one of the tiny hospital beds in the emergency room.
Jughead was no stranger to pain. He’d been seeing it in most of the patients that came through the doors of the hospital. He’d seen physical suffering in various forms, but he’d never felt anything like that. More accurately, he’d never felt pain so debilitating to the point of resignation to death. Jughead had thought that death would have been a welcome respite from that kind of acute suffering.
That night, he had woken up feeling like his mouth had turned into sandpaper, and his airway felt like a thousand thorns had passed through it instead of air.
***
A mop of blonde hair rested on the bed beside his left arm, stray strands that escaped a loose ponytail were strewn across the sterile sheets; a delicate hand clasped one of his frail ones. Jughead attempted to pull his hand from her grasp, but the action roused her. When she straightened from her seat, her eyes were unfocused for a while before they filled with tears, and the next second, she was throwing her body all over him.
It was Betty, his best friend of a decade. Also, the love of his life.
“Juggie!” she cried as she snuggled closer to him, burying her face on the nook of his neck. “You scared me! I saw you gasping and thrashing on the ground, and the next minute you were lying unconscious! I was so scared, I thought you were gonna…” she was unable to finish her sentence as her words were drowned by her sobs. She took a few moments to level her breathing before straightening up again, and then she fixed her gaze into his, a wordless question emanating from her eyes.
“I’m fine. I think I just had an asthma attack,” Jughead tried to say casually, but his voice came out so small and raspy it was a wonder that she even understood him.
“Asthma attack! That was no asthma attack, Jug! I was there! I saw you grapple for air, and you were coughing out blood and… and…” she let her voice trail, as though unsure of what she was about to say.
“And what?” Jughead croaked.
“You were coughing out flowers, Juggie. Actual flower petals. At first, I thought it was only blood, but as you churned out more of them, the clearer they appeared.”
Jughead stayed silent. That wasn’t the first time that such a peculiar event happened. Although, it was the first time that someone else witnessed it. He’d been coughing out blood, at times accompanied by curious forms that distinctly resembled forget-me-nots . That afternoon was the third time that it happened to him. The first time, he’d been so shaken that he hadn’t managed to get a wink of sleep, even though he’d been hopelessly sleep-deprived for several days.
Interestingly, the coughing of petals started three months ago when his various other symptoms began appearing. If not for the devastating pain that started to arrest him at arbitrary times of the day, he would entertain the idea that he might be losing his mind.
“I asked Dr. Fred Andrews to admit you under his service, just to get a work-up and get a better picture of what’s happening.” Betty said, propping herself on his hospital bed. “I already ordered a chest X-ray. The new intern will wheel you to radio ... You may have to go through contrast chest CT, and possibly get a blood count and PT-aPTT for your bleeding ...” Betty started talking so fast, the authoritative tone that she used when she was being the spectacular Dr. Cooper coming to the surface. (Nothing less can be expected from Dr. Cooper, the best of their batch of cardiothoracic surgery residents, and top candidate for the chief residency position.)
Jughead waved a hand in front of her to stop her in her litany.
“I’m fine, Betts. It’s just my hyperreactive airways and my accumulated fatigue manifesting. There’s no need to make a big deal out of this.” He attempted to sit, but a wave of vertigo washed over him, causing him to drop his head back on the pillow. He shut his eyes to alleviate this fresh batch of unfamiliar symptoms. When he thought it was safe for him to open his eyes, he added, “Besides, it’s the busy time of the year, I can’t afford to be admitted. We’re swamped with cases.”
“No, Juggie! You can’t just dismiss these things! We don’t know what’s happening!”
“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about me,” he attempted to sound more convincing, but his voice sounded weak even to his own ears.
“But Jug— ” Betty pleaded, her voice thick with concern. She cupped the side of his face, rubbing her thumb lightly on his cheek. With a tremulous sigh, she said, “Why can’t I be worried about you? You’re the most important person in my life… You’re my... best friend.”
She said it with so much sorrow that Jughead felt a lump lodge on his throat. He swallowed a couple of times to push it back down - but it stayed in place.
“You know that, right?” she added when Jughead failed to respond, trepidation passing through her eyes.
He opened his mouth to tell her that yes, he knew, but he felt the start of spasms in his chest - no different from what he previously felt. He tried to squeeze a couple of breaths into his lungs, before he managed to say, “Do you think you could order some steroids for me?”
Seconds later, he was wheezing and gasping, and his eyes were bulging out.
What followed was a blur to Jughead — he saw Betty jumping to the crash cart nearby, getting a clear vial of medicine; a couple of nurses came running to her aid, and the next thing he knew, he felt his chest opening up, and then he was breathing again.
“See? Hyperreactive airways. Nothing that a good ol’ steroid can’t fix,” he panted after a few minutes. He tried a smile, but all that came out was a wince.
“Juggie, you gotta stop making light of this situation. I’m serious! I’m admitting you right now!” Betty stated, anger beginning to latch on her voice. She began to tear up again, and just when he was about to hold her hand (he hated being the cause of her agony), he heard heavy footsteps approaching his bed.
“Hey, man. Are you alright? Betty was worried sick back there. I got scared too.”
Jughead turned to see Trev, all smiles and obviously bearing nothing but congeniality and genuine concern.
“Betty, you okay?” Trev said in Betty’s direction, his voice dropping a notch lower. He ducked to drop a kiss on top of her head, but Betty moved subtly away (almost deliberately it seemed), leaving Trev hanging.
“Y-yeah. I’m fine. I was just telling Jug to get admitted for work-up, but he’s being a stubborn jerk,” she said in her unnaturally perky voice, sitting back on the chair beside his bed.
A deep frown started forming on Trev’s forehead, and he looked like he was about to say something to Betty but thought better of it. Instead, he turned his attention to him. “Yeah, she’s right, Jones. It won’t hurt your good graces with the chief if you get off work for a few days, especially if you’re sick. One can never be too cautious when it comes to health.”
Trev Brown was the chief resident of the neurosurgery unit; good-looking, smart, creme de la creme of his batch, and from a prominent and rich family. In short, everything that Jughead was not. On the other hand, Jughead was barely keeping his head above water in his program. He was the son of an alcoholic, and he grew up in a trailer park before getting absorbed in the foster system after his father was convicted for petty crimes. He barely escaped a terrible cycle of poverty.
Next to Trev, Jughead was nothing. If there had to be a competition of sorts in getting Betty’s affections, he didn’t stand a chance. Trev was the perfect match for his best friend.
That’s why Jughead didn’t even find a reason to protest when Betty came to him bearing the news that seemed to slam the skies over him - that she had started dating Trev Brown. What Jughead couldn’t understand was the tinge of sadness and desolation in Betty’s voice at the time. Almost like she didn’t want to, but had no choice in the matter. In the end, Jughead chalked it up to his imagination - the way he dismissed any sort of fantasy he used to have about Betty reciprocating his age-old feelings for her.
Curiously, it was a few days after he heard that news when he began to suffer from his unusual illness. As if the universe never ran out of things to torture him with. Tough luck, he used to think. Just the Jones luck.
“Juggie, please. If you don’t wanna do this for yourself, can you at least do it for me?” Betty muttered, standing up. She reached for the clipboard bearing his ER chart, scribbling what Jughead suspected were orders for his admission.
Jughead looked at her intently - longer than necessary - into her large doe eyes that always left him powerless. He saw how she set her jaw, eyes exuding stony determination, and Jughead knew that he had no choice in the matter.
It was typical of her. She always had to be in control, and be aware of any eventualities. Betty was the kind of person to prepare for any kind of surprises — good or bad.
And Jughead knew that she didn’t want to be caught unprepared for whatever health crisis he may be facing. He may not have believed that she had any romantic feelings for him, but he knew in his heart that he was the most important person in her life, as she liked to remind him time and again.
So, to appease her apparent distress, he stated, “Alright, alright. I’ll go through the damn tests. But I’m not getting admitted. I’ll just do them on outpatient basis.” Betty’s face instantly lit up, and Jughead felt his breathing hitch a little.
Trev moved closer to her, arms snaking to her waist - a possessive move, Jughead noted. “C’mon, sweetheart. We gotta go. We’ll be late for our reservation,” he whispered in her ear, and Jughead thought he saw her shift uncomfortably.
“Okay,” she whispered before turning her attention to him, “Jug, remember. Work-up,” she reminded him again, and walked closer to his bed. She looked at him long and hard, wearing an unreadable expression before she let go of a visible sigh. She leaned on the bed to plant a kiss on his head, and said in a voice so soft he was sure it was meant to for his ears only, “I’ll check on you later, I promise.”
It was Jughead’s turn to heave a sigh, and then he willed himself to give her a smile - or something closely resembling a smile. “Bye, Betts. Enjoy your date.”
They turned on their heels, walking away from him side by side, with Trev’s hand resting on the small of her back. Jughead’s insides twisted into a knot, and a vaguely familiar stabbing in his heart resurfaced. He waited for the impending increase in its intensity, but somehow it didn’t come, like an expected hurricane that changed its course in the meantime.
But Jughead knew that sooner or later, the hurricane would come back and inundate him once again. Until then, he meant to keep his head up.
He watched their retreating backs until they rounded a corner, looking every bit complementary and picture-perfect.
Suddenly, Jughead felt like he wanted to cry. And it took every willpower he had at the time not to give in.
***
He’d promised Betty that he would undergo the necessary diagnostic work-up, but as it turned out, Jughead had been sucked into the busy routine of his professional life. Time seemed to contract when he worked in the operating room. Days slipped into nights without notice.
He had welcomed the distraction. He’d found that the more he allowed himself to get lost in the hospital jungle— getting some sense of purpose— the less time spared for him to think about Betty, and the nagging thoughts of how things might have turned out differently for him - for them - had he been less of a coward. So, he’d toiled and worked himself to exhaustion.
He’d become an expert in avoiding Betty and in evading trains of thought that might lead to her. He’d stopped going to the doctor’s lounge in the OR complex where they’d previously spent idle times together in between procedures, when they were allowed to dawdle before they get propelled into the hustle and bustle of the hospital.
Sometimes, in the rare chances of him having the luxury to stare into space, he would think of how he might catch a glimpse of her face while he scrambled through the hallways, but at the same time dreading the very same thing, because he’d grown to fear the all-consuming pain that seemed to intensify when she was around. He’d thought of how long it had been since they had sat together in the call rooms discussing and figuring out difficult cases. He’d thought of how he missed her smile, and the glint in her eyes whenever she stared into his.
Meanwhile, his illness seemed to have taken free rein over his body. The attacks had been occurring more frequently, each one worse than the last. It had become increasingly difficult for Jughead to conceal it as he’d tried to carry on with his life.
At some point, he had started researching about a disease that would explain the conglomeration of his symptoms. In his years of practice, he’d never encountered anyone exhibiting the same symptoms as his. In most of the academic books that he’d read, there was no mention of a disease that made the afflicted cough out actual flowers. And the more it eluded him, the more reluctant he had become about getting tested, which in turn had made him retreat to his own world, shunning everyone else.
But Jughead had been determined to find out about the nature of his illness, so he’d spent what little free time he had in poring over books, both mainstream and obscure.
Finally after weeks of researching, he had found something that vaguely resembled his malady, one that was coined by the Japanese as Hanahaki Disease. There had been a single paragraph about it in a book of exotic and rare diseases, and the more he’d read about it, the more preposterous it seemed to him. He hadn’t been able to wrap his head around the information he was getting - such as a disease caused by a profound unrequited love , or so the passage said.
He would have laughed at the sheer absurdity of it - but the more he’d read about it, the more everything seemed to come together. He could understand depression and a dent on mental health as a result of the woes of the heart, but growing actual flowers in his chest? There must be some other explanation.
He’d found several case reports filed over the years about the disease, but they were few and scattered. But he needed to know more. As a physician, Jughead understood that the start of treating any form of illness is to understand it well. When he couldn’t get any satisfaction from all his readings, he’d decided to take his chances in consulting his mentor, Dr. Fred Andrews, the chief of their department.
After seeing his X-ray, Jughead went straight to the office of Dr. Andrews, hoping that their chief had answers to his questions. He found him hunched over his desk, a deep frown creasing his forehead, as he read what Jughead assumed was a compilation of cases.
When he thought that he could interrupt, he knocked on the door and said, “Dr. Andrews. Do you have a minute?”
The older man looked up from his reading, and his eyebrows knit together. He put down the folder he was holding - a signal for Jughead to go on.
“What do you know about Hanahaki Disease, Dr. Andrews?” Jughead asked as he followed the chief’s wordless gesture for him to sit in front of his desk.
That must have rung an alarm, because as soon as he asked his question, Dr. Andrews straightened from his seat, his expression wearing something akin to worry. “Why do you ask? That’s a fatal disease, Jughead. Thankfully it’s not very common, especially in these parts. I’m surprised you even heard about it.”
“Have you seen someone afflicted with it?” Jughead tried to ask lightly, but solicitude began creeping into his expression.
“I’ve only seen it once, when I did an observership training in Japan years ago. It’s not carefully studied yet, because cases are few, and I imagine not reported very often. It’s the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen, I’d tell you that.” He regarded Jughead considerably before asking, “Do you suspect someone having the disease?”
Jughead had always felt some sort of kinship with the chief, and in the years under his mentorship, he’d always made him feel important, like perhaps he was the son he’d never had. It didn’t take much for Jughead to start talking about his symptoms with his mentor. Having been weighed down by his illness for too long, he found it a relief to finally open up to someone. He shared about his bouts of chest pains and his struggle for breathing during the attacks, and ultimately, the coughing out of flower petals - which Jughead considered to be the most disturbing of it all.
Dr. Andrews looked at Jughead intently, genuine concern evident in his eyes. “Jughead, I’m not really sure how this disease develops, and current literature isn’t of much help either. But the Japanese believe that it arises due to profound unrequited love. Don’t quote me on that, but for some unusual causation, they’ve come up with that conclusion.” He paused and leaned forward, his hands meeting together on his desk. “I say you have a couple of options here. One, you could find a way to have your affections be returned - which I must say should be damn deep for you to have this affliction. And two, you can opt for surgery. That—” he said while pointing at his chest, “— is totally resectable. ”
“That’s it? Surgery and it’ll be cured?” Jughead somehow couldn’t believe that it could be so easy.
“Yes, the one case that I’ve seen underwent surgery, and she recovered quite well...” Dr. Andrews said, his tone making a subtle change.
Jughead could sense a but in that statement, so he quirked his eyebrows and voiced as much. “But?”
Hesitation lingered on Dr. Andrews’ eyes before he answered, “Well, I don’t know exactly why or how it happened, but her memories weren’t exactly intact after surgery. She completely lost her memories of the person she used to love. That’s why I said it’s the strangest thing I’ve seen.” He leaned back on his chair before he continued, “It’s a mysterious disease, Jughead. Almost like it’s one of the metaphysical things that continues to evade scientific explanation.”
Jughead just stared at the older man for a while. He felt as though he was getting out of his depth as he tried to process everything he’d heard.
“What if I continue supportive treatment? I noticed that it responds to pain relievers and steroids,” he asked after a while. He wanted to explore other options.
“The disease is progressive, and it grows fast . If we don’t operate, it could be fatal.” Dr. Andrews expelled an audible sigh, his eyes never leaving Jughead’s. “I mean, if we do nothing, Dr. Jones, you may die, and we don’t have much time to waste.”
Minutes passed in silence, and Jughead allowed himself to absorb all the information he just received. His confliction must have shown on his face, because Dr. Andrews broke the silence and spoke in a sympathetic tone.
“I’m not going to let you die, Jughead. You’re far too talented to just die. We could do the surgery as soon as you’re ready.”
Jughead took a long, deep breath, and then he exhaled slowly before finally saying, “Can I sleep on it?”
“Absolutely. But don’t take too long. At the rate you’re getting the attacks, we might not have the luxury of time.”
Jughead nodded, and started rising from his seat. “Thank you, Dr. Andrews. I’ll let you know my decision as soon as possible.”
tbc.