You fill my lungs and take away the air [Global Examination]

Chapter 5: Lost in translation

It was stunning, a deep shade of royal purple, with a long, hood-like appearance, as if it was trying to hide itself from the rest of the world, with one petal larger than the rest, covering the entire flower as if it were trying to act as a shield, a protector.

154 just stared at the flower, partially in awe, because it was amazing that such a beautiful flower could grow from the depths of his body, he, who was a former part of that horrible System that killed and hurt so many people like it was merely an inconvenience...

And yet full of disbelief, he was absolutely perturbed, because he didn't think that something like this could ever happen.

Something like should never have been able to happen in the first place.

This was just getting ridiculous, and 154 could no longer ignore the truth anymore, absentmindedly placing the jar that 922 had given him on the counter near the door; he had been ignoring the most obvious conclusion, blatantly refusing to see the signs of his affliction.

Lone, individual petals, 154 could probably brush them off with stupid excuses, such as flower petals just landing in his food or drinks by accident, or even just pranks (they were stupid excuses, because even 922 didn't seem to buy them at all), but a whole flower?

A whole flower...

...

Despite it sitting in the palm of his hands this entire time, 154 still found it hard to believe.

The flower in his hands, and what it implied.

Hanahaki Disease.

154 was no stranger to phenomena known as the Hanahaki Disease; a strange floral affliction born from one-sided, unrequited love, a rather uncommon ailment that was more tall tales and dramatics, with its only cure being either a successful confession or a surgery that cuts out those invasive flowers.

It was a rather gruesome thing, all things considered, choking on flowers, drowning in their own blood, and 154 had no idea how people could find it romantic in the slightest, those parasitic blossoms taking and taking and taking and never giving anything back in return, consuming its host from the inside out until they are nothing but an empty, heart-broken husk, a fading shadow of what they used to be.

Just like his existence, perpetuated by all the pain and suffering of examinees and invigilators trapped within the System...

Being suffocated to death by something incorporeal, untouchable, Hanahaki Disease was about as romantic as being haunted by a ghost... which is, to say, not romantic in the slightest.

But the romantic stories about Hanahaki Disease wasn't the reason why it had piqued 154's interest.

No, it was because the Hanahaki Disease was only disease that the System would willingly treat, was the only ailment that the System actually seemed to show some kind of sympathy towards - seemed, because the System was a ruthless, heartless bastard, and there was no way it could feel sympathy of all things; if it could, they wouldn't all be trapped in this hellhole, their withered souls eroding away, just waiting to die.

Illnesses and curses caused by the various History and Biology related examination centers, the System would get rid of those, but only because they were directly caused by the plot and setting of the exams itself; if someone caught pneumonia during an exam set in the arctic, the System wouldn't give any shits about it, simply because, in that case, it was the examinee's fault for not taking care of themselves, and getting themselves sick.

For regular illnesses and afflictions... the System also gave no mercy to them. Someone could be suffering from diabetes, or even a chronic heart disease, but if they had the affliction before entering the System, or somehow developed cancer in the middle of an exam, the System wouldn't do anything, wouldn't even offer treatment, or sick days, as if it were none of its business.