UNIVERSE / BTS.

34: hanahaki byou / yoonjin

HANAHAKI
BYOU

WORD COUNT 1.8k
OVERVIEW "hanahaki disease is a fictional disease in which the victim coughs up flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love"

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KIM SEOKJIN BLAMED himself entirely for the pain he was in. this chest stabbing, lung aching pain that he felt next to his heart, he knew it was his fault. he had heard the tales from his mother and his many female relatives, but he never thought it would happen to him. a boy, suffering from hanahaki disease? preposterous.

it had been seokjin's aunt who had first told him of the malady of which many people - the majority of which were female - had suffered from, as she had lost her dearest friend to the disease. the hanahaki malady was as old as time itself, she had told him; a disease that occurs when a person suffers from one-sided love, and flowers begin to bloom in the victim's lungs. you'll know you have the disease when you begin to cough up flower petals after feeling indescribable aches in your chest.

and there seokjin was, recalling the words said to him six years ago, as he lay on the floor of the office building's bathroom, holding in his hands five pearly white rose petals, spotted with droplets of crimson blood. his blood.

"oh no." seokjin's voice was barely a whisper, his eyes brimming with salty tears as he looked at the petals, heart beating fast in the cage of his chest. the first flowers had begun to bloom, almost like they had been waiting for spring. seokjin's rose garden at home had just produced their first buds, and so had his disease, blooming petals as white as the clouds that floated across the sky that seokjin could see from the small widow in the washroom.

he inhaled deeply, controlling his tears, hearing footsteps on the tiles outside. he stood up from the ground, throwing the white petals into the toilet and wiping his lips of blood, flushing the petals away. he had painkillers in his pockets - his chest had been paining him for so long, he needed them - and he chucked two down his throat, dry swallowing and taking a deep breath. there was people talking outside of the cubicle where he had locked himself, and walked out, coming face to face with the boy who was partly responsible for the petals he had just coughed up.

min yoongi was with his best friend, byun baekyun, the two of them laughing about something seokjin hadn't heard. seokjin just brushed past them, ignoring the stabbing pain in his chest as he ducked out of the bathroom. his work day wasn't over yet, so he returned to his cubicle, seating himself beside hoseok and returning to what he had been doing before he had rushed to the bathroom.

"you okay, hyung?" hoseok asked, sounding genuinely concerned. "you rushed outta here like you were in a lot of pain."

seokjin bit hard at his lip, typing up the information he was supposed to be working on. hoseok looked at his hyung with a caring expression, noticing a red stain on seokjin's usually pristine button up.

"hyung?" he asked tentatively, biting at his lip. seokjin turned his head with a polite 'hm?', wondering why hoseok was acting like this. the younger boy pointed at the blood stain, and seokjin's eyes widened.

"um," seokjin started nervously. "well..."

was he really going to tell his coworker that he had a potentially life-threatening disease? he and hoseok weren't too close; all they really spoke about was the cute people on their floor - hoseok really liked kim taehyung, while seokjin was crushing on the equally straight (and taken) min yoongi - and they'd had some drinks outside of work, and even if seokjin didn't know him that well, he was the only friend he had at work. but still. seokjin would only tell hoseok after he told his closest friend.