Red Begonias

Chapter 2: Bloodied Petals

~Lance’s POV~

It’s been almost a whole month since I discovered that I have the Hanahaki Disease and the coughing fits are now gettings worse. They last for a minimum of five minutes and I always end up having to clean multiple petals off the floor. I stayed in my room for most of the day, only getting out to fight the Galra or train. Allura called over the intercom for us to get ready for training and I groaned, getting out of bed. I instantly started coughing once on my feet which forced me to lean on my nightstand. The coughing got worse and more petals flew out of my mouth, landing on the floor. I heard everyone asking where I was over the communicator and took a shuddering breath as I coughed harshly, blood flew out of my mouth with several more petals which were also soaked in blood. I gasped. Normally you don’t start coughing bloodied petals until month three. I guess my Hanahaki is progressing faster than normal. I let out a couple more coughs before picking up the petals and throwing them away, wiping the blood from the floor. I get dressed in my armor and run to the training deck. Everyone stood there, their arms crossed over their chests.

“There you are. We were wondering if you were going to bother to show up.” Shiro says coldly. I bow my head.

“Sorry… it won’t happen again.” I say, getting my bayard ready while getting into position. Everyone else did the same and the training sequence was activated. I started to shoot at the little drones surrounding everyone before I felt the tickle in the back of my throat. i let out a small cough, a small red petal landing on the inside of my helmet where no one could see it. I shot down a few more drones before the tickle became worse. I coughed again, this time three petals fluttered out of my mouth. I ignored them and went to shoot a drone but it got me first, leaving Keith unprotected. He got hit and so did Shiro, thus ending the training sequence. Everyone glared at me and I looked away. Keith stormed up to me angrily.

“Why are you so fucking useless Lance?! Why can’t you just focus for once?! Maybe if you weren’t so pathetic we’d have a better chance of killing Zarkon!” He shouts, getting up in my face. I flinch back and turn away, going to change out of my armor. I dump the petals from my helmet into the toilet and flush it, then putting my armor away and getting dressed in my normal clothes. My heart ached in my chest as the hollow feeling inside of me threatened to swallow up my aching heart as well.

I walk to my room, coughing up petals into my hand the whole way there. I stumbled into bed, coughing violently as I leaned over my bedside trashcan, several bloodied petals landing in the can. The coughing subsided after a few doboshes and I leaned back, panting softly. Keith’s words echoed in my head as I laid back, tears rolling down my face but no sobs escaped my lips.

Keith doesn’t just not like me he hates me. He hates me because I’m useless and pathetic. Maybe that’s why my disease is moving at twice the normal rate. Because my beloved hates me. I feel my stomach churn and bolt to the bathroom. I throw up into the toilet. Only instead of seeing normal vomit, I only saw blood and red petals. So this is why I’m coughing up begonias… the flowers were trying to warn me that Keith hates me… Wonderful.

I dry heave for a few minutes before being able to lean back. I press my head back against the wall and sob silently. I felt a large knot form in my throat and coughed violently, trying to get it up. I got onto my knees, coughing more violently. Blood flew onto the ground as the knot came up out of my throat. I spit it out onto my hand, seeing it was a whole begonia. The red petals a dark crimson with blood. I cried harder, spitting up the excess blood as I looked away, curling into a ball as I hugged my knees to my chest, rocking back and forth. Everything was moving so fast. The six months I had estimated now cut in half. Which meant that I only have about one more month to live. I sobbed. I would never be able to see my family again. Never be able to hug my mom again. Never be able to see my little brothers grow up. All of that hope was gone. All thanks to a stupid crush on a boy named Keith.

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Chapter 2! Hope you enjoyed! (I am updating this quickly bc I had no wifi so I wrote this on Google Drive and so I'm copy/pasting it.)

Luv y'all,
Erin Jaeger