Hanahaki Disease [花吐き病]

一

"the flower petals told me that you loved me, but sadly it doesn't work that way" - wtm

"Haki, want to go buy bread after school?"

"I'm not sure, I might football practice afterwards..."

"Then I'll wait for you, I've got nothing to do at home anyways."

"You sure? It's sunny today, I don't want you to get heat stroke or something"

"Don't be silly, I have water and the uniform is pretty suited for this weather"

"Alright then, I'm planning to leave early today anyways because it's so hot"

"Ok then, wait for me after class!"

The two sat down in their seats and class started, the classroom filling with students, clearly affected by the weather.

"Class, settle down. Today we will be..."

Hana found herself not listening and instead, doodling in her textbook. Cats, clouds, some weird looking characters from her imagination and-

"oooh is that me?"

"Haki! Shh the teacher will hear"

"No she won't even she's bothered by the weather and went to get some iced water"

Looking up from her page of doodles, the teacher was indeed gone and some of the class had fallen asleep.

"So are you planning to answer my question?"

"It's not you! It's someone else!"

Hana felt her face flush red with embarrassment, and her fingers were nervously tapping against her chair. Haki winked at her before rushing back to his desk as the 'lookout' student whispered that the teacher was coming.

The teacher ended up giving them a study lesson as no one was willing to listen and everyone was feeling rather under the weather. Studying in a hot and stuffy classroom isn't exactly ideal and it was hard to keep focused but the lesson ended relatively quickly and everyone was glad to get out of the non-air conditioned room.

"Ok let's go get bread!"

"Wait, don't you have-"

"Nah, it's actually too hot, lets go get bread and eat in that cafe"

"Alrighty then, are you sure your coach won't get mad?"

"Haha, no worries, it's too hot for him as well, it's a substitute coach today"

"Let's go then!"

The cafe was near their houses, a room that smelt of jasmine tea and coffee with the slightest hint of vanilla. Haki thought it smelt almost like Hana. They liked the cafe because it wasn't very busy and most of the customers went there to read or to quietly chat with the workers.

"Ooh Hana look at all that bread"

"Oh my gosh, I think that's new!"

The two cafe owners stood near the counter, and one of them kept looking at Hana and Haki and whispering to the other. The pair didn't see them and they ended up ordering a ham and cheese croissant, a cold chocolate, an iced cappuccino and grilled toast with honey. They sat at their usual window seat and with a grin of her face Hana pulled out her phone and started to show pictures and funny texts to Haki who grinned and in return told her funny stories and showed her some of his own photos. Silently giggling and whispering, the moment felt special, better than any other of their hangouts, or what their friends called 'dates' though this wasn't true and they were only friends and this is what they usually did after school in the cafe, except they both felt strange, and when Haki showed Hana a picture of a cute senior and told her "She's so pretty haha, all the boys want to date her" Hana felt a strange feeling in her chest, a pang of hurt.