For how Long will the Red Rose Grow

Hanahaki

Holding the Chaos Emerald in his hands helped ease the weight in his chest. It's almost as though the flowers knew of the immense power thrumming through the gem and receded on instinct. He could breathe deeper, his throat a little clearer.

But he couldn't hold the Emerald forever. When he brought it back to the workshop, he knew he couldn't hold it forever. When he passed it to Tails's hands and grinned at his excitement, he knew he couldn't hold it forever.

When the constriction resumed and his chest tightened back up, he knew he couldn't hold it forever.

"How did you find this?" Tails had asked, his sky blue eyes alight with glee.

"Eggman, believe it or not." He'd replied with a grin, setting the glowing white gem in the fox's hands. "He announced he was looking for it in Green Hill, so I learned it from him. Kicked his butt, too." He remembered puffing out his aching chest and punching the air in a leftward swing to emphasize his point.

He remembered Tails's laugh, his eyes, his excitement, then nothing at all. Tails had taken the Emerald to his workshop and left Sonic in the living room with that retched feeling of roots and stems on his sternum. He walked to the kitchen sink and splashed himself with water, getting a cup from the cupboard above and filling it with ice and water. He sipped at the freezing liquid, allowing it to penetrate his raw throat.

It helped with the stinging slightly, easing it away from the raspiness he'd had after his fit. His stomach flopped, and any appetite for lunch he had was gone. He knew very little about the disease he was inflicted with, only knowing that it was supposedly a legend to scare naughty children into cooperating. He was sure books on the subject were in the public library, but he would need an excuse to go there without drawing in Tails's suspicions.

He hated lying, truly. Especially to Tails. But he couldn't know. He couldn't know Sonic was dying slowly, doomed to be suffocated by pretty flowers that had taken root in his lungs. He couldn't let him know there were flowers in his lungs at all. Leaving him in the dark hurt almost as much as the realization that he would be leaving Tails all alone soon.

Sonic shook his head and splashed his face again. He did not want those thoughts. Never. He would come around to telling Tails, subtly, that he was dying. Just not now. Lying, he hated, but bending the truth wasn't so bad. Especially when it came to this.

He had unrequited love, and it was going to kill him in the end.

Sonic had never bothered to learn the name of his ailment, and he didn't want the search to pop up on his history in case Tails needed his computer for Google for any reason. He also wanted no one else aware of it. He was the hero, the unshakable, unbeatable hero of the entire world. He couldn't let one silly illness take him down.

But he would.

But not yet.

He finished his water and crunched on some ice, hissing as he bit his tongue in his haste. He set the cup in the dishwasher and walked to his bedroom. He turned on his monitor and signed into his profile. If he was going to trek to the library with aching lungs, he wanted to know what the hell it was he was looking for. He opened his browser and paused at the Google page, trying to think of an indirect way to phrase the question.

'Fantasy Illnesses', he typed at last. He could feign the ideas being for a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, or a new book or fanfic he found that didn't describe what the main character was ill with. Maybe there was a movie he was watching that featured one of these.

He found many from various franchises. Andromeda strain, instantaneous blood clotting. Nope, not his ailment. Dragon Pox, like smallpox for wizards. Nuh-uh. Not it. Hanahaki disease, an illness in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean media wherein a victim of unrequited love is doomed to cough flowers until the love was returned, the flowers were surgically removed, or the host was killed. Yep, that hit the nail on the head.

Hanahaki. He thought bitterly. So that's the name of this humiliating ailment. It would have been fascinating, had it not been for me practically dying because of it.

He felt the familiar tickle of the petals rising up in his throat, and he closed the tab and shut off his computer. He quickly rose from his gamer chair and bolted to his personal bathroom, glad it was one of the furthest rooms from the workspace Tails was in. He hovered over the porcelain of the sink, staring down at the silver drain against the white.

And he coughed. He coughed and coughed and retched and coughed some more. His throat, already being raw from the earlier session in Green Hill, burned like fire as he hacked and gagged and coughed around the petals lodged in his esophagus.

He spat out one petal, then another, then another. He struggled the most on the last, even going as far as to beat on his chest to try and dislodge the stuck phlegm and flowers. That was a bad move, he quickly learned, when the flowers prevented him from sucking air in. His eyes bolted wide with panic, and he stupidly beat his chest some more.

It worked, strangely enough, and the petals rolled into his mouth and onto his tongue. He spat them out, wrinkling his nose at the taste they left in his mouth. Coppery, metallic, and vile.

Sonic pawed at his eyes and removed the tears from them, gulping down air now that his lungs were unobstructed and begging to be filled with it. He closed his eyes and wiped sweat away, begrudgingly looking down at the flowers that had caused the obstruction.

The last petals he'd coughed were actually three ruby red rose petals stuck together. They were sitting in the bowl of the sink, taunting him with the overbearing knowledge that he was in love, and Shadow didn't love him back. That thought made his chest twist.

He also noticed, along with the last singe petal he'd coughed, the three were weighed down by something heavier than spit and mucus. He inspected them, and felt his heart freeze.

Blood.

The coppery taste, the more weight on the petals. It made sense. His throat was already so raw from his fit only two hours or so earlier. But seeing blood in the sink that he'd coughed up, tasting it in his mouth.

That scared him.

——

Hi, it's me! Sorry for the long delay on getting this updated! I started, like, six other stories over the time I was absent from this one, played some games, travelled to Florida a few times for a family loss, and got Covid. Wild times!

Two of the stories I've started were for Wattpad, but the others were Fire Emblem and OCs for my cousin to read whenever we meet up. If you'd really like to read them, let me know and I'll publish them on my second account since they aren't technically Sonic or Smash Bros.

I'll try to write more here as well, as I didn't really expect it to kick off and get any reads, but here's the next chapter! It's a bit slow, sorry!

—SuperHedgies