Shouldn't Have [TomTord]

Chapter Seven

It was already in the dark of the morning when Tom found it in his heart to do something besides lay in his bed awake. He should very well be sleeping (especially sense it was the early AM), but he had too much in his mind to sleep away. He's been staring at the same spot on the ceiling for what seems like hours, unmoving.

He thinks it's about 2 AM when he pulls himself from his bed to head over to his personal laptop that is set up on the opposite side of the room, on a desk that was given to him by Edd two years ago. It was a Christmas present, and Tom does not celebrate holidays like that due to being a Jehovah's Witness, but he got his gift and was happy with it.

He briefly thought about chasing away his boredom and insomnia by playing cheap online video games, but he hesitates when he gets to the search bar.

Thoughts of what happened with Matt hours ago appear in Tom's mind. Matt mentioned that he researched this disease called Hanahaki a lot as a kid, didn't he? Maybe if Tom searched it up, he'll know for sure if it's truly fake or real.

What is he even doing?

Of course it's fake. It was a set up done by Tord, and Matt was just the messenger boy. But still... curiosity did kill the cat.

Tom typed "What is Hanahaki Disease?" Into the search bar and pressed return, getting thousands of results in a matter of seconds.

The third to the top result caught Tom's eye.

"REPORTS OF MANY DYING FROM HANAHAKI!!!"

It was a news article, one that begged to be clicked on and read. When Tom saw the webpage it was located on, he saw a picture of some poor little boy with a suffering expression upon his face. He was looking into the camera as if it would help him, begging with his eyes to have his pain stopped. The picture mainly showed his top half, but it was more than obvious how skinny the little boy was. How could something like this happen to such a small boy?

Tom read the whole article and by the time he was done, he was a tiny bit convinced that Tord did enough research on this disease to make it seem like Tom has it. Even though he has all the symptoms, all the pain, all the experiences that are needed to qualify yourself to have the disease; Tom refused to believe it. Why? Simple. He wasn't in love.

There is not a single part of Tom that deserves to be loved or to even feel love. This, of course, is what he believes. He believes that he is too much of a freak, born from a freaky family, and living a freaky life filled with people that deserve better.

Tom typed in the search bar "How do you get Hanahaki Disease?"

Multiple searches showed up that immediately answered that question. Most had captions saying "Hanahaki Disease: Love Kills" and other captions that say "How Love is Associated in Hanahaki"

Tom clicked on a random link and it sent him into a yahoo answers webpage.

Someone had asked: "Hey guys, I haven't been feeling very well lately :(
I've been having breathing problems and I feel like choking a lot. We went to the doctor about this and the doctor said there's a possibility I have Hanahaki Disease. What is that?"

The top answer had stated this: "yoooo dud you gon die lol sorry!
No but seriously that stuff kills omg like seriously ://
You need to be loved back or whatever. Anyway, good luck! Lol!"

Yep. That answer was helpful.

Tom rubbed the tension from his temples, closing his eyes and trying to relax himself. He was getting frustrated because he didn't understand any of this.