VIXX One-Shot Café (Requests Open!)

[M] Hanahaki (HYUKBIN)

Requested by: Me
Pairing: Hyukbin
Genere: Foreplay but not actual smut, some blood, and also fluff. it's not angst but hongbin cries a lot
Word count: 4,559

Hongbin hated flowers. Just because he had them all over his apartment meant nothing. He hated them. He only had them because he needed to. He didn't want to throw them away, and he always got more. From himself. You see, Hongbin never received flowers for any special occasions or anything (other than graduation). It was more so the fact he had a little bit of a disease. He never told anyone about it, as they didn't have to know; everything happened behind closed doors. This disease he had was all centered around one thing: love. That's right, Hongbin was in love. Not any kind of love, a one-sided love, as he saw it. It hurt him so much that his body held a negative reaction. Those flowers that decorated his apartment came from his own body, produced by him, his mind fully convinced the one he loved didn't love him back. It was all fueled by stress. Any normal person would just vomit into their kitchen sink and wash it away down the drain, but Hongbin couldn't do that, flowers weren't good for the pipes. He thought throwing them away was a waste, they were pretty, despite where they came from. Everyone complimented Hongbin on the various flowers decorating his apartment. If only they knew the truth. The flowers usually only come when Hongbin actually interacts with him for more than simple greetings. Quite annoying if you asked him.

Just like every time he just even spoke to Sanghyuk, Hongbin was bent over his sink, coughing and spitting out flower petals. It was midnight, not the favorable time for this activity, but he had to do it. It wasn't an option, it was a requirement. There he stood, eyes wet with tears from the effects of the flowers. It wasn't comfortable; similar to just throwing up bile, anything coming up your throat is bound to hurt (though flower petals were much worse). He gathered up the loose petals in his trembling hands, rinsed them, and moved them to the counter, then took the whole flowers. He rinsed the blood out of his sink and mouth before taking a pen from the basket on his counter and wrote the date on one of the loose petals, taking it to a heavy book he kept there to press and flatten it. Call him crazy, call him a stalker, even call him obsessed, but Hongbin kept track of his interactions with Sanghyuk. They changed what kind of flowers he got. He kept a document of it in case he saw a pattern in anything.

"Roses again.," Hongbin muttered to nobody as he arranged the flowers with yesterday's roses. A little gruesome, he would admit, but it still made his apartment look nice. Hongbin washed the blood off his face, made himself some tea to soothe the scratchiness in his throat, then went to bed.

Hongbin rarely ever left his house if it wasn't to go to work, which was always risky, considering he saw Sanghyuk every day. Hongbin was an assistant to a biology teacher at the university, and Sanghyuk just so happened to be a student in their last class of the day, an advanced course. Hongbin would have thought that he was weird for liking one of the students if Hyuk wasn't just a year younger than him. Hongbin was sat at the desk in the front of the room grading papers when he heard the professor start talking about something that made him perk up and focus on him.

"...an ailment known as Hanahaki Disease, in which the afflicted regurgitates flowers and petals. In extreme cases, the flowers can cause scarring in the esophagus, coughing up blood, and will sometimes even sprout through the skin, causing a large amount of blood loss. The disease was originally thought to be a strictly fictional ailment caused by a one-sided love, but a few cases began making themselves known in the early 1920's." The professor read off the presentation on the screen. "Hongbin? You seem interested. Is there anything you'd like to add?"

"Oh, if you don't mind, then I suppose I could. Is that alright with everyone?" Hongbin looked around the room, seeing people nod. He stood up and cleared his throat, immediately swallowing down whatever tried to come up. "The afflicted can start seeing symptoms as soon as they meet the one they fall in love with, that's how they know. Some symptoms can include nausea, sore throat, and stomachaches, some of the same symptoms as a cold. The Hanahaki doesn't become evident until the first flowers come." Hongbin took a breath to let the class write notes then continued. The types of flowers are changed by how the person thinks of or interacts with the one they love. All cases start out mild, but over time will get increasingly worse." Hongbin glanced around the room and saw a certain student with his hand up. "Yes, Sanghyuk?"