Chapter Text
Velma never thoughted properly about Hanahaki Disease. She never considered the chance of being affected by that. It was a rare disease and the cause sounded like a joke to her, but after some time she started to have a little fear. Velma became afraid, what if she turns in some of those rare cases? She was aware of her feelings and she was certain about not being mutual. Not in a million years, in any universe.
Then, one day she pulled out a tiny yellow petal from her mouth.
“Jinkies.” She said, trying to understand why. What was the logic?
Even if it was really Hanahaki Disease and not some weird event about her being put some flowers in her mouth without notice, how could it be? What was the biological reason for the flowers growing inside her?
She put the petal in her skirt's pocket, and decided to investigate at the end of the day. Now, Velma was focused on enjoying her tiny vacation with her friends. Just a couple hours wouldn’t be enough to worry about.
“Velms!” Fred's voice appeared across Velma’s bedroom door. He started to knock gently.
Velma felt a little shivering in her back. Lately, every time he called her by that nickname, her heart started to skip a beat. Recovering her posture, she opened the door. Fred was holding a shopping bag from a famous clothes brand.
“Hey!” He smiled. “So, Daphne decided to buy you a swimsuit. I told her that maybe you wouldn't like it but… At least it's orange.” Fred gave her the bag to hold, she took it.
“Jinkies! Thanks… I will say thank you to her later.”
“See you at the beach!” He started to walk away, but turned back and said with a slighter lower voice “Don't worry if you don't want to put it on, like… You know.”
Velma smiled. Fred could appear to be self-centered sometimes, but it was cute when cared about the others.
“That's okay, thank you.” Velma answered with a shy smile. He smiled back and got out from the beach house they all were sharing. Meanwhile, Velma closed the door and took a deep breath.
“This is gonna be hard.” she whispered to herself. Not even knowing if she was talking about wearing the swimsuit or suppressing her feelings at the point to start puking flowers.
Feeling the sea’s fresh water on her feet, Velma was looking at the ocean while Shaggy and Scooby were playing in the sea. While she was dressing the bikini Daphne gave to her, she pulled another petal off her mouth, the guilt of being in love with her best friend's boyfriend appeared again. Velma was feeling pathetic.
She felt a splash covering her body, it was Daphne trying to pull Velma back to Earth.
“Are you doing okay?” The redhead asked.
“Jinkies! Yeah... Just enjoying the view.” Velma answered, trying to not look at Daphne.
“The bikini looks good on you! I told Fred!”
“Thanks, Daph.”
“If you had a boyfriend, he would be crazy over you!”
Velma laughed, not in a million years.
“Come on, let's swim!” Daphne invited Velma, splashing water on her again, who answered with a simple ‘jinkies’.
That afternoon was the funniest and coziest in a while, everyone was enjoying the moment with great passion, especially Scooby. When the night started, they decided to try to cook something, even though everyone knew the high risks of evolving that, it would be a great story to remember later. They decided to make pizzas, but soon the gang was trying to make some more difficult dishes, like turducken and hot meat pie. Trying to get the courage to start her doings, Velma was looking at the chicken body with a slight shock. She could have chosen the pizza, but she decided to challenge herself. “Everything I need to do is follow the recipe!”, she thought, but that wasn’t pleasant as putting clues together in a mystery.
Velma finally started the work, saying her usual jinkies whenever she found something kinda gross in the process, but she could do the basics. Well, it wasn't that bad. She put the attempt of turducken in the oven, wrapped in aluminum, and closed. Velma sighed, relieved. When she got up, felt a thing in her throat. “It’s probably another petal.” she thought, and decided to lock herself in her room for research. Going out of the kitchen, she bumped into Fred.
“Hey, Velms!” He said with a smile. “Already done with the turducken?”
Velma nodded, feeling another petal coming to her mouth.
“I need to talk with you later! I need your help for a plan!”
Another one, or two… She couldn’t open her mouth.
Then, just smiled at him and signed with her hands she would talk to him later.
In her bedroom, she ran into the tiny bathroom and some yellow flowers let her mouth easily, other ones had to be picked manually, she barely coughed. Then, she flushed, came to bed, grabbed her laptop and sat in her bed. Velma needed to know how to handle that. She navigated throat medicine articles and the information was almost vague, there was a lot to be discovered and she didn’t like that.
The first case was in Japan, Edo period. An artist fell deeply in love with the princess, after a while he started to puke flowers and to draw himself in that situation. Most people thought that was purely poetic and he fooled his peers with magic tricks, dying actually from some lung disease. He baptized his condition and that became a famous image to represent desperate love, everything was just art until some other cases popped around the world with the same cause: loving someone too deeply for a long period of time, not a crush, not something that would end shortly.
The disease was recognized as real a few years ago, autopsies, x-ray, everything science could do to try to unmask any trick were made. But there was almost no treatment done, the surgery could be too risky, and the collateral were still being studied.
There were some cases of cure, none of them really catalogued because there was no concrete proof, aside from some of them having respiration problems and scars in their lungs, but that could be nothing related to Hanahaki Disease. But everyone told the same:
“It stopped when I was loved back.”
Well, that was way out of question.