Chapter Text
For the past week, Four hasn't been feeling quite right… not feeling quite right is probably an understatement, he's been feeling like shit.
He's been way more tired than usual and going to sleep earlier doesn't help, the very evident purple under eyes don't help his case either. He gets sharp chest pains every now and then and shortness of breath, and quite frankly, it annoys him more than anything because god forbid anything gets in the way of making a video.
It's not like last time, the perfect video, no. This time he was confident this was going to be a good video but absolutely not perfect. He'd never go that far for content again, no way. That thought made him shudder.
What's worse is a few days ago when sickness really started to show signs. He developed a pretty nasty cough that felt awful, but he persisted. He was so close to finishing what could be the best video of this year, and he wasn't going to let some pathetic cough stop him.
The blue-clad meme guardian was about to run back his video, proofread (or rather proofwatch) it to make sure it's up to standard, and if there's any final tweaks to be made. His train of thought was interrupted when a sharp pain caught his chest, something he'd grown used to over the past week, and then an abrupt coughing fit.
Ragged coughs erupted out of him, breaking the silence of the faint buzzing coming from his computer fans. Sharp pain followed each cough, ruining his throat and probably his voice.
The coughing didn't seem to stop, something was stuck in his throat, but what?
He coughed and coughed until eventually, after what felt like forever, three small purple petals, specked with a few drops of blood, lay on the palm of his gloved hand.
“What the hell..?” he murmured, his voice wrecked from coughing.
As far as he was aware, he hadn’t been eating flowers recently, but that isn't something he should rule out entirely.
A few faint chaps pecked the door to his room.
“SMG4? Are you okay?” Meggy’s worried voice called through the door. Realising he had doubled over, and was now kneeling on the carpet, he quickly scrambled up before responding in a hoarse voice,
“Yeah, all good!”
He put as much optimism into it as he could muster to make Meggy go away, he needed to think about what this could possibly be.
The ex-inkling thought about this, then walked off, seemingly happy with that answer and quickly left SMG4 with his thoughts.
Let's see, what flower even is this?
This is when the blue meme guardian realised he had absolutely no knowledge on flowers whatsoever. He probably could only name the ones from Minecraft if he tried and even then that's a big ask.
Purple petals, they reminded him a lot of a purple-clad meme guardian. SMG3.
He felt a small goofy smile pull at his mouth.
Stop it!
He shook his head and smile away.
Just friends.
He sits there for a few minutes, deciding what the best course of action would be. Normally for something like this, he'd brush it off but since certain events involving a perfect video came about, he promised the crew he'd take better care of himself.
Weighing out his options, he ultimately decides the best course of action is to talk to a trusted adult, that adult being Luigi since he probably has the most knowledge on flowers in the Mushroom Kingdom with his flower shop.
He pockets the petals and makes his way out his room to find wherever Luigi could be.
˙⋆✮
“Luigi?” SMG4 knocked on the botanist’s flower shop's door. It was dark inside, maybe it wasn't open?
“Smeegee4?” Luigi's voice asked from behind him, “What are you-a doing here?”
“Luigi! Hey, I just have a few questions about.. flowers..?” His voice lilted upwards, almost like a question at that last part.
The green Italian raised an eyebrow before responding, “Okay.” Confusion evident on the others face.
Four reaches into his pocket and pulls out the three petals from earlier, albeit slightly crushed from his pocket, but they still looked okay.
“Do you know what flower these petals come from?” He held them out for Luigi to inspect, thankful the blood had wiped off in his pocket.
“That's petals-a from a purple bellflower,” Luigi paused, taking a closer look.
“Where’d-a you get it from? They don't grow around the showgrounds.”
Where he got them from..?
“Ah! I just.. found them lying around?” Four's voice squeaked in the way it did when he lied. He was a god awful liar and it only took one questioning look from Luigi to make him fold.
Four glanced sideways nervously, “I may have coughed them up.” he said sheepishly.
Luigi's mouth drops at this news,
“Eh?!”
Luigi rubbed his moustache, calming his expression.
“You know what-a this means, right?" The green Italian explained, after a few heartbeats of silence, the green Italian face palms before continuing, “you probably have hanahaki!”
Whatever hana-what now was, it didn't sound too pleasant.
“Not good?”
Luigi shook his head solemnly.
“Hanahaki is a disease where the victim grows flowers-a in their lungs from unrequited love.” Luigi explained, seeing how Four was struggling to follow along.
Unrequited love?!
“But I'm not- oh shit” It dawned on him that he might not have just a small crush on his purple counterpart, and it may actually be love.
“Smeegee4, I don't-a know who you love but you have to tell them!” Luigi urged, shaking his shoulders slightly.
Four wasn't fully tuned into the conversation at this point, still trying to wrap his head around the fact he actually loves SMG3.
The same SMG3 who has tried to kill him many times in the past.
Holy shit.
He was actually fucked. There was no way in hell SMG3 loved him back.. right?
Sure, they had become closer in recent years and Three had a whole, what he liked to call ‘Vegeta Character Arc’ but that didn't change the fact they were only friends.
“Smeegee4?” Luigi shook him slightly, once more.
“Yeah?”
“You, have to tell-a them! I don't want you to die.” Luigi urged once more.
SMG4 nodded, still processing what was currently happening. He had hanahaki and it was because of SMG3.
Jesus Christ, he could actually die from this.
He'd faced many world ending dangers before, never had he thought purple flowers would be the thing that took him out.