Prologue

824 20 5
                                    

***

It all started when she realised she was in love.

In love with a guy she knew her whole life.

Gray Fullbuster.

They were childhood friends and grew up on the same street, going to the same kindergarten, elementary, high school and University.

She started to notice everything about him one day.

She started to notice the crinkle in his eyes when he smiled at something. She started to notice when he would tell her that he was fine even though he wasn't after losing a game at Ice Hockey practice. She started to notice how he would play with his pen around his fingers in class. She started to notice how he would sit in a certain manner. She started to notice every single detail about him she didn't before.

Then she realised she was acting weird.

Her heart skipped a beat when he enters the room. Her palms would get clammy. Her stomach would be filled with butterflies. Sometimes all of it happen at the same time and she feels as though she needed to puke from how nervous she felt.

When he speaks, she felt everything around the two of them disappear and only he existed in her eyes.

His lips moved with every word he spoke, and she wondered, how it would feel to kiss them? How soft were his lips?

She would panic when he frowned, thinking he had caught her, but he thought she had gone off to dreamland in the middle of their conversation.

She thanked the gods that he was oblivious about her strange actions towards him, yet she hated the fact that he'd never noticed.

Gray wasn't a playboy. He has had girlfriends before, two perhaps, and they never lasted longer than a few months.

So, to say he's oblivious to such things, would not be too far from the truth.

"Juv. Juv!" Gray snapped his fingers in front of Juvia who was zoning out.

Her eyes blinked quickly and focused on him, seeing the man cocked a brow at her.

"W-what?"

He rolled his eyes, "I said I was going to go, I'm meeting someone for dinner,"

Juvia brought herself back to reality, looking around her dorm where the two of them had been studying together. The table they had been sharing was filled with her stationary taking up half the space while the other half was empty.

She had no recollection as to when he had packed up.

"R-right, I'll see you tomorrow," she said but he was already putting on his shoes the moment she came to her senses.

An inaudible sigh left her mouth and Juvia got up from where she sat, going over to the door where her best friend was prepared to leave. She opened her mouth to say goodbye, but his phone rang, cutting her off. From where she stood, she could see a girl's name flashing across it, Claire. A smile graced on Gray's lips immediately, he answered the call with a chuckle that made her stomach flipped.

"I'm coming, just wait a little while more."

While he said that, he barely remembered his best friend looking at him with a sad smile. With his footsteps and voice disappearing down the hallway, Juvia watched the door close in a slow manner, like it was mocking her inability to keep him with her.

She took a step forth to lock the door when out of the blue, her chest tightened, like it had been knocked out of air. She gasped sharply, pressing her palm against the hurting area. The pain persisted and was followed by a coughing fit. Juvia felt her lungs protest in agony but it would not stop.

It hurts. She thought.

Her lungs squeezed and screamed in pain while her heart felt as if there were thorns probing through the thick muscles. The agony caused her to drop to the ground, holding herself up with her hands in a hunched position. She found it easier to breathe and it brought relief, albeit little.

She took in a wheezy breath only to choke on it. There was something lodged at the back of her throat and it was forcing its way through. Up or down, she could not tell, she only knew it brought discomfort and was contributing to her suffering.

It hurts. The same thought replayed in her head.

It was to the point where she thought she was going to die right there and then. Her roommate, Lisanna, would return to find her dead body on the floor. Her brother was going to blame himself for not looking after her on his own. Her friends are going to mourn-

She did not even realise she was crying out of agony until the droplets splattered on the polished wood beneath her, creating a small puddle of tears.

Another cough escaped her diaphragm as she tried to get rid of whatever was there.

By the next cough, something landed on her tongue. She could feel its roughness in the center but smooth towards the outside. Hurriedly, she spat out the nasty thing in her mouth.

Azure eyes watched in horror at the thing she had ejected out of her system.

A string of saliva connected her to the dark violet flower that sat on the ground. It was the only thing that confirmed that Juvia had indeed coughed out a flower.

And it did not take long for her to realise what was happening. She had read it before somewhere, perhaps it was in a novel she read, or it was a random fact she found on the internet and took note of it because of how interesting it was.

Hanahaki. A disease where the person in the giving end of unrequited love coughs out flowers. It can only be cured if their beloved returns their feelings. Otherwise, flowers slowly fill up their lungs and roots grow out of them, essentially ridding of their right to breathe, much less even live.

She begun to cough violently once again, another purple flower left her mouth, only this time, it was coming out petal by petal.

*Author's note*

05/28/2020 Edited. Happy Reading!

In The End - A Gruvia FanfictionWhere stories live. Discover now