Anthology | mairi oneshots

Scraps and a goodbye

hi, ive been thinking about it and i dont feel like deleting my writing, something i poured my heart and effort into creating it, just because im not in the fandom anymore. just as well, i was thinking about using this account for my writing projects, but it just doesnt sit right with me, so ive decided to republish this book and publish all the scraps, ideas, half written blurbs that otherwise could have been a lot and move on to another account where i am not haunted everyday lol

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Forget-me-not: This was going to be a oneshot about hanahaki disease, but for some reason every word I wrote for it disgusted me. I hated it no matter what I wrote, so I never finished it. Here's what I DID write. (759 words)

Mattia was seven, maybe six, when he saw the woman double up as she coughed up a storm, frightening him and making him hide behind his mother as he peered at the choking lady. He gasped when she opened her mouth and pulled out two long, white petals coated in fresh red; at this point, his mom tried shielding him from watching, but it was too late, Mattia needed to know what had happened.

Dinner that day was tense and filled with glares in between his parents as they juggled back and forth the responsibility of who would explain the sensitive topic to the impressionable child. Unsurprisingly, his nightmares after that day were infested by bloody blooms stuck to the back of his throat and prickly thorns in his tongue, until eventually his parents convinced him that Hanahaki disease was rare and only happened when "deeply heartbroken". While Mattia didn't really understand what that meant back then, as he grew, it all unfolded in front of his very eyes.

He came to understand that Hanahaki develops from an unrequited love, and that much like love, it faded and went away without becoming a terrible issue. Asides from the lilies woman in his childhood, he had never seen anyone truly suffer from it, he had never known death or the pain right before it happened. That changed his freshman year, and like many things in his life, it changed thanks to Kairi.

Kairi had moved across the country for high school, and while you couldn't call him extroverted, he definitely thrived with some friends by his side. On a class of at least four hundred upcoming freshmen, it felt next to impossible to make friends with people who already knew each other. Slightly alarmed, he decided to attend try-outs for football and hope that he could form friendships there. What he didn't count on was being the only freshman selected for the varsity team, and thus he found it difficult to connect with his older teammates. As for the other freshmen, they had a different schedule for their own team, leaving Kairi on a lonely limbo where he didn't really belong anywhere.

Kairi was forced to make peace with his social circle, or lack thereof, when his mother fell mysteriously ill. Her rosy complexion became waxy and pale, her breathing was shallow and her body frail. Kairi considered all types of ailments, but every single one came up short when compared with her deteriorated condition, yet she insisted on shaking off his concerns with trembling hands. He never thought about Hanahaki disease, at least not till that night.

His father left the house on the early morning, when not even birds' tunes rang, and came back late under the silver glare of the moon. Kairi didn't think much of it, after all they had moved due to his father's job, but while wistful, he noticed that he hadn't talked to his father in almost a fortnight. As he kept thinking, he heard a car engine splutter then die on the driveway, and his phone told him it was almost two a.m. His father was here.

Jangling of keys and he left his dark room, the squeak of the door swinging shut and he took the stairs, his father's footsteps on the linoleum floor as Kairi approached him. The tired mumble hadn't even left his mouth when his father turned around, and it all went downhill from there.