The Hanahaki Disease// Voltron AU

bonus: my best friend

Playlist: Sorry - Halsey

After

I swear to god, if my best friend dies, I'm going to burn the whole school down. Lance is looking at me like a man who's playing the worlds saddest symphony on the worlds smallest violin. "Can't we please just keep this between the three of us, I don't want everyone knowing." He begged, clasping his hands together and giving me his signature puppy dog look. This boy has perfected such a face. I'm not used to giving in to people, especially if I think they're stupid. But Lance always manages to convince me to listen to his dumb ideas.

"Why?" I demanded angrily. He was being irrational. Matt was the best person to help us in this situation. He's always the first person I go to when I have problems and that's not just because he's my brother. He's a good problem solver. He thinks rationally and he always seems to have the answers.

"It's kind of embarrassing to be honest and I don't want anyone to worry. It's not that bad right now okay? The three of us can figure this out. I'll get better and we'll never have to discuss any of this ever again." I tried not to roll my eyes. Instead, I looked towards Hunk who was wearing a similar worried expression to Lance. Of course Hunk would be on Lance's side.

"But Lance..." Hunk said slowly, catching my vibe. He knew we shouldn't hide this from everyone but he also wanted to keep a promise to a friend.

"You're two of the smartest people I know." He argued. "The three of us can do this. We're the Three Musketeers! The Three Amigos! The Golden Trio! The Unholy Trinity! We have nothing to worry about."

"Okay Lance. I won't tell my brother." I finally agreed. "But if we can't figure this out, if you get worse than you are right now..." Lance agreed to let me tell Matt eventually. Just not now, not now. Hunk, Lance and I spend the rest of our night researching. There's not much information beyond what we already know though. I don't know what Hunk and Lance looked at (honestly I think Lance got distracted and started looking at memes) but I read fanfiction until my eyes bled.

Then, I went back to my dorm and read some more, even watched a couple of videos on YouTube that people had created about the disease. And all evidence pointed to the same conclusion, the Hanahaki Disease wasn't real. Sarah appeared next to me, snapping her fingers in front of my face. I pulled my headphones down and she laughed at me a little. "Hey best friend. What's got you looking so serious?" I shrugged a little. Sarah and I became roommates this past year after we decided we both hated the people we were first paired with. Living with Sarah is easy. I always showered in the morning and she always showered at night. We were both pretty clean people and got along swimmingly. She was one of the only girl friends I had at this school.

"Nothing really."

"You've been concentrating on your phone pretty hard ever since you came home. What are you watching?" She asked nodding to the video on my phone before she went back to her dresser and continued to get ready for bed. She had already showered and brushed her teeth by the time I entered the room. That's another thing I like about Sarah, both of us promptly go to bed at eleven o'clock and on the weekends, the two of us stay up until two AM watching stupid videos or movies together.

"I was just... Reading up on something." I said vaguely. Lance didn't want me to tell Matt but... Was Sarah fair game? Maybe I'll just tell her I was reading up on the Hanahaki Disease. That's not too suspicious.

"Reading what?"

"Have you ever heard of the Hanahaki Disease?" I asked, the words slipping out of my mouth. Sarah nodded immediately.

"Oh yeah, I read a lot of fanfics on that disease. It's always so tragic." She says, sitting down on top of her bed and crossing her legs.

"What do you know about it?"

"Well, in the stories, people usually get it if they like someone who doesn't like them back, or at least doesn't know that this person likes them. Then they either get together and the person gets better or... They die. Usually the flowers choke them." Sarah says with a slight shrug. My throat felt weird jut thinking about it.

"Yeah all the stories end in those two ways. Isn't there a third option?"

"Not that I've come across."

"So it's either die, or confess and hope they like you back?"

"That's the tragic part Katie. In most fics I've read, the person dies because either the other person doesn't like them back or they never admit their feelings to the person and they die." Sarah's one of the only people at this school that calls me Katie. She doesn't do it very often but when she does, sometimes I forget that that's actually my name.

"Well that sucks." I muttered, trying not to panic or get worked up over it.

"Are you reading a particularly sad story?" She asked me, climbing into bed. I sighed and hit the power button on my phone, closing the screen.

"Yeah, kind of." I murmured. "I just don't get it. Flowers can't grow in people's lungs." I grumbled, hardly even talking about the fanfiction I was reading..

"That's why it's called fiction my dude. It's not real." But it is real. I watched Lance cough up a flower. A perfect, purple flower. It had a stem and everything. Lance had explained how before, in the early stages of the illness, he had only coughed up flower petals but now, it had progressed to actual flowers. The thought made me nervous. "You gonna go to bed soon?" She asks with a yawn. I nod. My eyes are tired. I rub at them a little and begin to change into my pajamas, my head spinning with all the new information I've received.

"Hey, Sarah?" I whisper as I turn off the bedroom light, ready to step into the bathroom to brush my teeth.

"Hmm?" She asks sleepily.

"Do you.. Do you know if Lance has a crush on anyone?"

"I don't know." She yawns again and it almost makes me yawn. "You're closer to him than I am." I sigh and flip on the light for the bathroom. "But I did kind of think he had a thing for Jeremy when we first met." She laughs tiredly and I swear my pulse races. The list didn't have Jeremy on it. It didn't have any of our friends. Could it be one of us? Could Lance have fallen in love with someone close to him and not want to admit it? Is that why he doesn't want everyone to know?

I have to talk to Hunk.

A/N:
Ahhhh isn't the video completely adorable and HEART WRENCHING. DAMN.