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The flower petals came into existence on Eric Cartman’s first day of senior year, and they seemed to resemble fire; bright reddish-orange and burning as they were coughed up. He could see streaks of red, which seemed to interrupt the consistency of the flames.
After the initial flower petals were flushed, Eric had proceeded to sob quietly, unsure of why, of all people, something like this was happening to him.
School ended up being much more difficult because of this, with him having to excuse himself to the bathroom every single time he was sure the petals would return. It was often when they did, and exhausting. But every single time, he was questioned on whether or not he was okay and if he needed to see a doctor. And each time, he reassured everyone that, yes, he was fine, and that they all needed to leave him alone.
"God," he whispered between coughs, retching as more fiery petals left his throat and fell into the toilet. It was what… the third time in two hours that he had been in this position, incapable of any thoughts other than wondering whether or not the petals were ever going to cease.
Soon, the water in the toilet was tinted red, and a layer of petals was scattered along the bottom. Eric sighed as he stared at it, ignoring the tears that had already begun to fall.
"Cartman? Are you in here?"
Shit. No, this wasn’t happening.
Eric flushed the toilet, watching as the petals disappeared. Without answering, he unlocked and opened the stall door, coming face-to-face with Kyle. He swallowed thickly as the petals threatened to return.
"What’s wrong?" Kyle asked, and Eric shook his head. "Nothing, like I said. I’m fine. Everything is fine," he said before sighing.
Why now? Why now would Kyle fuckin’ Broflovski, of all people, care about him? He had no reason to. He should just go away, let things go back to normal, and stop worrying about him. Why can’t they all just… stop worrying.
"Then… what were you doing in the stall?" Kyle pressed, the words coming from his mouth barely registering as a sentence.
Eric huffed, keeping his eyes glued to the floor. "Gee, Kahl, what do normal people do in the bathroom?" he asked, the venom he was hoping for being all but absent from his voice.
Kyle grimaced, scrunching his nose up. "You and I both know how much of a lie that is," he said, and Eric shook his head. "Oh, but it isn’t," he said, and with every word he spoke, every ounce of venom he tried to add, every lie of how fine he was, the flower petals threatened to return. They almost taunted him with their presence.
Before Kyle’s open mouth was able to emit any sounds, Eric exited the bathroom and headed straight for the classroom, praying that the day could go on without the threat of coughing up more petals.
He wanted to run away, figure out what was wrong with him; anything to make the petals stop. Anything to make the agony stop.
The petals had turned into flowers, making it harder to hide whatever was happening. It took minutes before the flowers would come up and allow Eric to breathe again.
After the first flower, Eric had decided to figure out what exactly was making this happen to him.
‘Coughing up flowers' were the words which were typed into the Google search bar, then retyped twice more due to the urgency in which he pushed the keys on the keyboard.
Eric’s eyes landed on a link where the description seemed to mostly be in Japanese, but two words in English caught his eye.
"… Hanahaki disease? What the hell?"
Eric clicked on the search bar once more and typed 'Hanahaki disease' before hitting enter. Suddenly the page was filled with various links, and at the top sat a detailed list of causes and cures. Eric simply stared at it, his mouth agape as he stared at the words on the page.
"Caused by unrequited love. Two known cures. If the person is not cured, the flowers will continue to grow in their lungs and choke them, causing immediate death. Petals come first, then whole flowers."
Eric clicked on the link that would explain the cures and felt his heart drop to his stomach.
"Cures for Hanahaki disease: Either the person returns the victims love, or the victim undergoes surgery to remove the flowers, thus removing the victims love for the person altogether."
It was odd, Eric’s situation. He’d never considered loving someone enough to warrant this kind of sickness, nor had he considered how or when he would die.
He found it funny, as he normally did in his own life-threatening situations. Especially in the ones where he was absolutely certain he was going to die.
So he laughed, so much so that tears started to form and fall down his face and onto his lap. But it was then that he realised that he was crying, and his chest hurt from the sobs that wracked his body. It was almost as painful as when he struggled to remove the flowers from his throat.
Almost.
At school he made a point to publicly announce his quickly-approaching demise. He knew exactly when he would do it as well; five minutes into the lunch period where everyone in school would be witness to it.
Eric’s plan was simple: Announce it without letting anyone know exactly what was going to cause his death, and that included avoiding any flowers.
As soon as the bell rang for lunch, Eric set a timer on his phone for five minutes exactly and put it back into his pocket.
More recently, since the flowers came into existence, Eric had noticed exactly the toll that being so secretive had been taking on his appearance. And he was ever-so-curious as to why no one else (seemingly) had noticed. But this time, he would make sure they’d notice.
In about three minutes.
Eric strolled into the cafeteria, humming as he did so. He let his gaze wander around the large area, taking in all of the familiar faces. Some of them were so dear to him, and he felt as if he would miss them.
Two minutes.
He sat down at his usual table, of which was crowded by the usual group: Kenny, Stan, Kyle, Butters and Wendy. Wendy had been a recent addition, having boycotted her old table for some reason or another — Eric neither knew nor did he care to find out.
One minute.
Eric smiled, earning strange looks from the five others at the table.
"Cartman, why are you smiling? It’s so weird," Stan said. Eric continued, shit-eating grin still attached to his lips. "No reason, Stanley… Just anticipating something," he said as the timer on his phone went off.
Eric cleared his throat, only to realise something was wrong. Something very wrong, as in, flowers-wrong. They were at the back of his throat, threatening to come out.
"I have… ahem, an announcement."
Eric felt nauseous. No, no, no. Not now. Not in front of the people who he may or may not consider his friends. And Wendy Testaburger.
"What is it, Eric?" Butters questioned, and Eric smiled softly. "… Issues have recently arisen, which may or may not cause my untimely death in assumedly the very near future," he said.
It was suddenly very silent, with many more pairs of eyes on him than he had previously anticipated.
"Uh… what?" Kyle questioned and Eric shook his head. "It’s fine, honestly. There are cures, but there’s no way I’d ever do it… not that I have any reason to not do it," he said, but before anyone could comment on it, Eric coughed and a fiery orange flower fell onto the table, streaked with blood. The same blood that was now dripping from Eric’s mouth.
Embarassment was absolutely an understatement in this situation, he decided as he wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
"Cartman, what’s going on?" Kenny asked and Eric waved the question away as if it would magically be forgotten. "Nothing, aha. Everything is fine, as I said before. People cough up flowers all the time, seriously. Even if it’s been happening since the first day of school," he said and Kyle scoffed. "Obviously you’re not fine if you’re just coughing up flowers, and it happens again almost as soon as you mention how you’re going to die. So stop lying, and tell us why you seem to think you’re dying."
Eric let out a shaky breath, tears rushing in succession down his cheeks. "Because there are only two cures, Jew. And I’m not going to receive either of them, so I’ll just let flowers choke me to death before I get them. It’s not like you care whether I live or die."
Not long after figuring out exactly what was wrong with himself, Eric had also discovered why this was happening to him. He’d weighed the pros and cons of the situation, and had decided that the surgery wasn’t worth it, even if he would die otherwise.
Damn that stupid Jew, and damn himself for even feeling like this.
"What are the cures, Cartman? Maybe we can help–" Kyle began, and Eric shook his head. "No, you can’t help me. No one can. I’d rather die than be cured if it means that I never have to admit anything to anyone," he said, resting his arms on the table and staring at the flower that continued to mock him.
It was then that Wendy decided to speak up.
"While you five were busy with whatever you were blabbing about, I actually did a bit of research on whatever’s going on with Cartman. It’s called Hanahaki disease," she said and Eric shot her a death glare.
"Isn’t that the thing with unrequited love?" Stan asked and Eric stared at him. "Ding, ding, we have a winner. You get no prizes," he deadpanned and Stan glared at him.
"What are the cures?" Kenny asked and Wendy tapped away on her phone. "There are two, it seems. Surgery, or the love is requited. However, surgery has the consequence of completely removing all of the feelings that the person — who is Cartman in this case — has of the other person," she said.
"I would rather die than do that," Eric deadpanned once more.
"But why? Why would you rather die than get the help that would keep you alive?" Kyle asked, his voice growing louder and more unstable with each word.
Eric sighed. "Because no matter how much I’d rather not admit it, I don’t think I want to remove my feelings entirely," he said, voice wavering as he struggled to keep from crying.
"What ab-"
"No, absolutely not. I can’t admit my feelings because I know they don’t feel the same way, so what’s the point? He’ll never feel the way I do, so I’ll be rejected."
Eric would never admit that, however long ago, he’d tried to tell Kyle how he felt, more times than he could count. He even openly admitted his feelings at a fucking basketball game, only for it to be treated as a joke. And there were other times after that as well, and the time he’d finally decided to give up, he began to cough up flower petals. No matter what, he knew it was useless to say something.
Kyle deserved better — better than Eric Cartman. The person who fed a kid his own parents. The person who had no problem with saying derogatory things about minorities. The person who was awful to his first (and only) girlfriend, so much so that the two of them still couldn’t be friends.
"I’m an awful person," Eric said. "He deserves much better than me."
Then he looked right into Kyle’s eyes — those incredible, nearly emerald-colored eyes of the person who he was supposed to hate — and smiled softly. "I’m sorry, but I can’t tell anyone. I can’t do it."
Then he stood and exited the cafeteria, barely registering the protests from the people at the table, or the footsteps that followed his own.
And it wasn’t until he was nearing the bathroom that he finally became aware that he was being followed.
Eric turned to see Kyle and scoffed. "Don’t worry, I’m not dying today," he said and leaned against a wall next to some lockers.
"But what about tomorrow? Or the day after? Cartman, you don’t need to die at all," Kyle said and Eric shrugged.
"But I am, Kyle! Or did you not get the memo? It’s going to be bye-bye Eric Cartman and there’s nothing I — or anyone else — can do. You can have hope all you want, or tell me that there’s a way, but there’s not! If I say anything, I’ll get rejected, and what’s the fun in that?"
He was shaking by now. "What’s the point of confessing if I know how it ends, or if I’ve already done it multiple times and no one seemed to care? What then, Kyle?"
The aforementioned teen’s eyes widened as he backed away, nearly stumbling as he did so. "W-What…?" he choked out as Eric realised, to his own horror, what he’d just said.
"I-I have to go–" he said as he began to leave, only for Kyle to grab his wrist.
"No," Kyle said defiantly, pulling Eric closer to him. Eric felt his heart drop. "What are you doing? Let me go," he said, but made no attempt to remove Kyle’s hand from his arm.
And suddenly there were sparks.
It took Eric longer than normal to realise what was happening, his mind focusing on the warmth that had overwritten nearly all of his senses.
He was being kissed.
Kyle was kissing him, and he could feel the flowers wilting the longer the kiss lasted.
When it was over, Eric felt hot tears streaming down his cheeks and falling to the floor. He wiped a few of them away, but more took their place.
"W-Why did you do that…?" he asked and Kyle scoffed. "Because I feel like the world’s biggest idiot for never noticing, even when we were kids," he said, falling to the floor with a huff.
"You thought it was a joke instead. Or, like everyone else, a scheme or a lie or whatever, as if I would ever lie about something like this."
Kyle frowned. "So when did they start…? The, uh, flowers and petals?" he asked, deciding to change the subject.
"The first day of school, as soon as I decided to stop trying to tell you how I felt… I don’t want to cough up flowers anymore, Kyle. They’re like fire and they burn."
Kyle pressed his lips to Eric’s once more, lingering for a few seconds.
"Don’t worry… I think the fire’s been put out."