Plumeria Petals

six

"Let's talk about Hanahaki!"

If Jungkook had to honestly comment, it was an odd topic to start with.

It was lunchtime at the moment and so he and his friends decided to sit together at their usual table. Only four of them were present—namely Jungkook, Taehyung, Jimin, and Hoseok—since the other three had other matters to attend to.

Grouped around the table, Jimin decides to bring up this topic about Hanahaki. Truthfully, Jungkook found it strange for him to want to talk about this, especially since it was a disease that could be deadly. Although, the topic was quite intriguing, to say the least, which is why he decides to listen to what his friends have to say about it.

"Why Hanahaki?" Taehyung asks, raising a brow in question.

"I don't know. I just find it quite fascinating." Jimin admits, propping his elbows onto the table and resting his head on his hands. "Besides, it sounds more interesting than any other disease out there. It's basically the only disease that I still do not understand the science of."

"You're not the only one Jimin." Hoseok comments. "I bet many people still do not understand the science of how these flowers actually grow inside of you. I mean really, it's not like that there is already the soil in your stomach nor is there an actual light source for the flowers to grow, so how does that work?"

Jimin pouted, nodding in acknowledgment. "True. Not unless, hypothetically speaking, Hanahaki can be a genetic disease. I mean, there's no sunlight nor should there be enough space for the flowers to grow so, there must be some alterations in the genetic information."

"That's... very scientific Jimin." Taehyung stares at him, trying to comprehend what he just said.

Jimin almost laughed. "This is what happens when my subject before lunch is Science, especially since our topic was about genetics."

While Hoseok was making comments—basically just talking about his last subject and ranting about his teacher—Jungkook crossed his arms and looked up at the ceiling in thought.

To his knowledge, Hanahaki Disease is where the victim of unrequited or one-sided love begins to vomit or cough up the petals and flowers. One of the only ways for the disease to disappear is if the said person returns the feelings in time before the victim dies of suffocation. That is if the feeling is mutual and requited. But if ever it still remains unrequited, the victim may choose to take surgery, although the feelings would disappear along with the petals. The memories will be gone, and it is possible to lose one's capability to love which is why the options of curing Hanahaki were quite risky.

Hanahaki was quite an interesting topic to talk about, Jungkook admits. However, this disease wasn't one to be talked about frequently and, as a matter of fact, many people neglect this because of this belief that the disease is made-up. However, in this world, it wasn't. Like any other, Jungkook had some questions in his mind about the disease, especially about acquiring it.

"Is it possible for everyone to get the disease?" Jungkook asks. "I mean, it's not every day that they would show in the news that someone dies of Hanahaki or post an article about it."

"It's not, actually," Hoseok confirmed. "Apparently getting the disease is at random. Some say that only half of the Earth's population can acquire the disease while some say that only specific people can get it because of significant reasons."

"There are some who experience unrequited love but they still find themselves completely healthy, no signs of the disease," Jimin added to Hoseok's explanation. "However, there are also some who were unfortunately diagnosed with Hanahaki. According to this article that I saw online, the disease is usually triggered after a few days of realizing that the feeling is one-sided. They also said that if you've been experiencing unrequited love for a year or more, it means that you're one of those lucky people who cannot acquire Hanahaki."