It cannot be undone

Chapter 1

Hanahaki Season was different for everyone. No-one's quite sure what evolutionary advantage there is to coughing up flowers for three months out of the year as the body's way of dealing with perceived unrequited feelings, but, much to the entire world's collective irritation, it was what it was. It begins for everyone when their first romantic feelings arise and aren't reciprocated. That could be as early as kindergarten, wanting to hold hands with one of the kids in your class more than any other person, but watching them share their lunchable with someone else, though middle school is most commonly where those feelings become strong enough to actually activate the bloom. Some people on the aromantic spectrum don't activate it until their late teens, college or even later and, even then they may only experience it once or twice, since the situation in which they find themselves developing romantic feelings like that doesn't occur often, or just doesn't occur during their Season. You're kind of jealous of aromantic people who have never had to deal with it.

Hanahaki Season lasts for three months, starting every year on the same date; the date you'd first ever had romantic feelings strong enough to start hacking up flower petals. You're free to catch feelings for the other nine months without consequences, but watch out if you catch feelings around your Season, because your house tends to look like the opening of Ouran High School Host Club. The amount of flowers really varies depending on your feelings; you'd spent days putting professional florists to shame in the month leading up to your senior prom when you realized you had feelings for your best friend, right up until they asked you to go with them and the petals had been gone the next day, but your smile hadn't been.

Your body doesn't care if they have feelings for you, all it knows is that you think they don't, despite the feelings you absolutely, definitely have; it needs either a confirmation, or for you to get over it.

You and your high school best friend had dated for about six months after prom, but decided that you were better off as friends and thankfully, in the years since you'd started college, your Seasons had been a non-event; no romantic feelings, so nothing to worry about. It's not that you didn't go out or didn't date, it's just that there was nothing serious enough to warrant an active Season when it actually came up.

You've had your YouTube channel since your Freshman year of college, something to do in your spare time, mainly playing videogames without a face cam. During your first year, you managed to develop a modest following of a few hundred, thousand subscribers, thanks to your long, gentle Stardew Valley videos. Even now, four years later, you're still posting updates and playthroughs of it, which your long-time fans appreciate.

After a year, you quickly gained a lot more traction, mostly because you joined Twitch and, finally added a face cam to your setup. Suddenly everyone knew what you looked like, and holy shit, they loved you! Your aesthetic surprised a lot of people; for your streams and videos, you put a lot of effort into your look, but the look itself was surprisingly in line with the pastel goth aesthetic, when people had clearly been expecting your attire to favour cottagecore. Despite it being unexpected, the look was definitely not unwelcome.

A little into your third year of YouTube, you graduated college and hit a million subscribers, with a majority of your content still being either stream highlights, or long playthroughs with your gentle commentary over the top. Someone once likening you to Sykkuno in terms of wholesomeness, and after checking out his content, you were more than flattered by the comparison. Being called 'SFW Cr1tikal' was less flattering, though that was more to do with how calming your delivery was to listen to, and how your commentary sometimes came a little out of left field, or carried off on  unrelated tangents. You're the YouTube gaming community's darling, soft spoken with a kind attitude, someone who makes friends easily, finding yourself fitting in with the big dogs on the platform, despite how abrasive their own playthrough styles may be.