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When Shuichi woke up in a coughing fit, at first they were pretty confused; that confusion started to morph into more of a panicked state as he began to cough up some blood; which then turned into them coughing up petals.He immediately realized what was going on,with him coughing up flowers as well as blood.
"Ok...so I have Hanahaki,and it's for Kiibo....ok this is fine, completely fine..."Shuichi was trying hard to convince themself, but they were having a hard time doing so and continued to panic because of the sakura petals he had coughed up.Once Shuichi had calmed down a bit from the initial panic they decided to call Maki, since him and Maki were best friends and he knew he could rely on her.
Maki woke up to the sound of her phone ringing.She checked the time on her phone and saw that it was 3:42 and she was wondering who was calling so late, she then saw the caller ID and felt something was off so she picked it up.
"Shuichi, what's going on?"Maki asked and you could hear the concern in her voice,but all that was heard from the other line was a shaky breath being taken before Shuichi spoke.
"Maki..."Shuichi took another breath before continuing."I think I have Hanahaki..."
"For who....?" Maki asked but she spoke quieter than before
"Kiibo..."Maki hesitated before speaking next
"I have it for Kaede..." Shuichi took a second to process what she said considering how late it was
"Y-you have Hanahaki too...?"Shuichi then continued "When did you find out"
"Found out yesterday, once school was over.." Shuichi could hear the defeat in Maki's voice
"At least we can help each other right..?" Shuichi asked
"Yeah.." Maki's voice was a bit more uplifted knowing they could help each other with what they were going through.After a few more minutes of talking they ended the call.
Maki was thankful that the was the weekend because then Shuichi could come over and they could both figure out what the hell they were going to do when it was time for school, they couldn't just ignore the two considering they were friends with them, and they couldn't avoid them since they would know something was going on with them;t he only option they had was to try to make is as normal as possibly and hope they didn't cough up any petals when they were around Kaede and Kiibo.
As it came back to being a school week Shuichi couldn't help but feel his nerves get the better of him since only 2 days ago they found out about having Hanahaki disease along with learning Maki had it as well and the fact that the people they have it for they are fairly close to and have talked to everyday at school.
"Ok Shuichi you got this...., all you have to do is act like you normally do so they don't think anything is wrong..." Even with Shuichi trying to perk themself up he could still feel his nerves building but for now they would try to ignore it.
As Shuichi approached his group of friends Kaede called him over.
"Hey Shuichi !!" Kaede spoke sweetly as well as doing a hand motion to wave him over to the group.
"Hey Kaede..." Shuichi spoke in a soft tone as to not draw a bunch of attention like Kaede's call initially had.
"Is Maki-Roll not here yet?" Kaito asked the moment he noticed every one was there but Maki
"Huh I thought she would be here by now..." Kaede thought out loud
"That is quite peculiar.." Kiibo noted
"I'll go look for her..." Shuichi said and before anyone could say anything else they were already walking to find Maki.
"Goddammit Maki where are you..?"Shuichi continued to search the school until they remembered what Maki said to him about anytime she's stressed she goes to the roof. Once Shuichi got up there they could see Maki sitting on the roof.
"Maki.." They started "The group was looking for you.." Maki said nothing for a minute until she said
"Sorry,I was in the bathroom I started to cough up Kinmokusei petals" Maki stated
"Well why don't we go to the group now..?" Shuichi asked
"Yeah Sure.." Maki then got up and they started walking back to the group when the bell for their first class had rung.
Maki was dreading going to her first class since she sat right next to Kaede and she had to talk considering they had a project in that class.
"Hey Maki, where were you this morning?" Kaede asked, Maki hesitated before answering and just decided with a short reply
"I was on the roof." Before Kaede could say anything else the teacher came in and began talking about the project they would start with the person next to them. Maki was trying to not talk as much as possible to make sure that she didn't cough up any petals while she was talking
For Shuichi he got more lucky with his first period as he was sitting next to Rantaro
"Did you ever find Maki?" He asked
"Yeah....but by the time I found her the bell had rung." Shuichi stated before their teacher and unlike Maki's class Shuchi had no project to do, but he still had to do partner work which would have been fine but the teacher wanted to change partners and Kiibo was in his class and they got paired up with her.
"Hello Shuichi." Kiibo had a small smile on his face as she spoke
"Hey..." Shuichi spoke fairly quietly to be careful to not cough up any petals while Kiibo was there since they didn't want to cause Kiibo to worry.
When the bell for the final class rung Shuichi and Maki left as fast as possible because they had been around Kaede and Kiibo so much trying to suppress the petals to the point they both knew they would be forced to come out soon and it would be worse if it was near their friends as it would worry them which is the last thing they want to do;When the were starting to walk home they both could feel a cough slowly building up so they tried to sneakily stand farther back from the group so they wouldn't be able to see the petals but as they were falling back Rantaro noticed so he started to fall back as well to check on the other two; Not long after Shuichi started to cough up some of the flower petals and when he looked up they were in shock but also very panicked since Rantaro who was one of their friends had just saw him cough up a flower petal and Shuichi knew that Rantaro has information about what Hanahaki disease is, while Rantaro was calming down from his own shock of learning his friend has Hanahaki disease Maki had started to cough up some of her petals as well as cursing because this time there was a witness. Even with a witness Shuichi couldn't stop the second round of sakura's that he had coughed up this time there was a bit more blood on them and their throat was much more dry than the first times he had coughed out the sakura's meaning that his condition was slowly getting worse which wasn't a surprise to them considering the fact they had spent most of the day around Kiibo because of classes and the fact that they are in the same friend group didn't help his situation, once Rantaro had snapped out of his shocked state the first thing he asked was
"Who?" Shuichi decided it would be pointless to hide it now considering he had already seen them cough up the petals
"Kiibo..." Shuichi said the quietly but Rantaro heard him just fine
"Maki?" Rantaro spoke in a questioning tone
"Kaede." Maki spoke in a neutral tone but you could see her face get tinted pink when she said that.
The rest of the walk was Rantaro making sure that Maki and Shuichi were able to go at their own pace when the had more petals coming up Rantaro spoke again
"You are going to have to tell them at some point." Rantaro wasn’t asking is was more like he was stating something that they both knew might have to happen, then Rantaro spoke again
“Or you can get the surgery but that takes your ability to love so i wouldn’t recommend it..” That's when as much as they hated the thought of confessing they both knew it was their best bet of survival but they also knew if they got rejected the disease would start working faster so they had to be careful about what they chose to do..
Once Shuichi got home they were trying to decide on what to do as much as they hated the thought of confessing dying without trying would probably be worse. That’s when Shuichi decided that if he got enough courage to do so they would try to confess but if that courage would come only time could tell….
During school that day Kiibo was quite worried because Shuichi was acting differently,Kiibo couldn’t tell if that was just her mind playing tricks or if something had really happened but he decided to ask Kaede if she noticed anything different about them.
Kaede was just sitting on her bed when she heard her phone ringing, she picked up her phone to see who was calling her; once she saw who was calling she picked up.
“Hello Kaede.” Kiibo spoke in a neutral tone
“Hey Kiibo!, What's up?” Kaede asked
“I wanted to know if you had noticed anything different with Shuichi today?” Kaede could tell Kiibo was curious but she also knew he was worried.
“They did seem a little off, Maki was as well…” The last bit Kaede had mumbled to herself remembering the behavior Maki had shown earlier that day.
“Ah, I see”Kiibo started “ Well thank you Kaede I will end the call now, goodbye”
“Bye Kiibo!!”
As more days past the more Kaede and Kiibo had started to worry about Maki and Shuichi.One day when Kiibo walked into the bathroom because she was going around trying to find Shuichi, he saw something he least expected to see she saw Shuichi on the ground with a bloodied flower in their hand, Kiibo was unsure how to comprehend what was happening even while not understanding human emotions well he still felt the need to help Shuichi with what ever may be going on.
“Shuichi?” Shuichi jumped at the sudden voice, not having realized Kiibo was there
“Kiibo..?” Shuichi’s voice was hoarse from having the flower come up instead of the petals this time showing how bad his condition is getting as time goes on.
“What's going on?” Kiibo was madly confused as he had never seen anything like this before
“It’s called Hanahaki disease, its when you have love for someone that’s unrequited” Shuichi explained
“Who do you have it for?” Kiibo could see Shuichi hesitate in answering the question that they had been asked but he slowly got around to answering it.
“The person that I got the disease for is….” Shuichi paused to take a deep breath and try to stay calm
“......You…” Once Shuichi got that out it took Kiibo a bit to process what was just said to her but once he figured it out she had to tell Shuichi how she had felt as well.
“Shuichi, when you say love you mean in a romantic way?” Kiibo asked
“...Yeah..” Kiibo them shook his head in understanding
“I feel the same way towards you, and if you would like we can get into a relationship though there are many things I am unsure of I would like to learn with you if possible..” Once Kiibo was done talking Shuichi started to cough again a flower coming up and that's when he realized that the flower coming up was that of the disease coming to a stop so they needed to get the flower fast to make sure it didn’t cut off his air.
After the final flower of what Shuichi thought was unrequited love had come up, Kiibo and Shuichi had started their relationship and decided to take it slow since it was new to both of them and they wanted to make every second count.
While Shuichi had finally gotten over his Hanahaki disease Maki was still struggling with her’s, she was glad Shuichi didn’t have to deal with it anymore and that he said he would still help her through it, she wanted to try to get through this by herself and she thought the chances of her actually getting together with Kaede were small; yesterday she saw Kaede get confessed to but she didn’t ever hear Kaede’s response because her first instinct was to run incase she said yes, so now she has no idea if she has any chance at all and her end decision is to sit in silence while the disease slowly takes her since it’s not the worst way she could have gone out, she did always use to say that ‘love can kill’
Saying that Kaede is worried is slowly starting to become an understatement, Maki was having a harder time controlling her coughing fits around her friends and she had started to cough up whole flowers it was getting so bad that Rantaro and Shuichi had both been trying to convince Maki to confess since they didn’t want to lose a friend to something that could have been avoided; the only problem with this is that Maki was still convinced she had no chance.
Rantaro was talking to Shuichi one time and said
“I'm going give her one more chance to confess on her own before I either tell Kaede she has Hanahaki disease or I try to make Kaede confess to her” Shuichi had completely agreed with this as they didn’t wanna lose their bestfriend when he knew they both liked each other.
Another week had gone by when Rantaro had went to talk with Kaede about Maki
“Kaede, I need to talk to you” Kaede could hear how serious he was being and just nodded her head
“Can you confess to Maki?”
“I mean…I could try?” Kaede spoke but in an usure tone
“Please do you’re the last hope I have..” Rantaro said this and walked away
It was after school and Kaede had told Maki to meet her by the field of Kinmokusei flowers they had, Once Maki had gotten there Kaede started speaking but she kept a steady pace to try and get everything out in one go
“I know this may seem out of the blue but, I finally had the courage to do this and I hope that after I say this you don’t look at me any differently; long story short I just wanted to say that I like-no love you, it's fine if you don’t feel the same…” When Kaede was done talking Maki had started to cough up the final flower of what she had always thought was unrequited love, that turned out to be mutual; once that last flower was gone Maki had said
“I love you too…” Kaede could tell she was embarrassed from how bright red she was but Kaede pulled her into a hug and then their adventure of dating each other had begun
Bonus Friend groups reaction to Both couples saying their dating:
Shuichi & Kiibo
“Well it’s about fucking time!”Miu exclaimed
“While I am disappointed you didn't tell me you liked her, I'm proud of you sidekick!!!” Kaito Shouted
Rantaro just smiled and shook his head deciding to congratulate them later
“Congrats guys!”Kaede said
Maki just nodded
“Thank you, guys…” Shuichi said quietly
“Thank you, all.” Kiibo said
Kaede & Maki
“YOU FINALLY CONFESSED KAEDE THANK FUCK” Miu shouted
“I DIDN'T KNOW YOU LIKED KAEDE MAKI-ROLL, but congrats!”Kaito shouted a bit but lowered his volume
“Congratulations.”Kiibo spoke
“Congratulations guys!” Shuichi spoke excited for them
“Congrats.”Rantaro said
“Thank you all’ Kaede exclaimed
“Thanks…I guess…”Maki spoke unimpressed
In the end they got lucky their love was returned, but there are many who aren’t as lucky to get their happy end and in the end their
love can kill.