So I’ve seen a lot of Hanahaki disease in art and such but whenever I try to find out more information on it (as if I were to ever write something I am very anal and I need to know all aspects of it) I could never find them. So this is my version of the hanahaki disease. It can be for angst and for happy endings because I can’t angst so I needed the ability to write this and still have a happy ending but as it’s originally an angsty thing I kept the angst aspect as well.
Keep in mind these are all just made up by me I don’t know the original person to come up this is, in essence, my version of the disease.
Hanahaki Disease is contracted when there’s a one-sided love. Flowers begin to bloom (and wilt) inside the lungs and eventually it’ll clog up your respiratory system and lead to death. The person suffering will cough up flower petals (both from wilted and healthy flowers) it’s also possible to throw up whole flowers (the scratching in the throat will make you cough up blood for a good while after, god forbid your hanahaki flower is something with thorns)
The flower depends on what type of love you have for the other (it can be lustful, longing, etc.) or it can be the type of person you like (if they’re toxic, pure, playful, etc). Nobody knows why some get it from their type of love and some get it from whom they love.
The flowers grow faster and bigger the more you love the person and depending on how big the flower shows how much they mean to you (so if your flowers are inhumanly big for their type and a single one fills up the entire lung then it’s the purest form of love)
The only known cures is that you get the flowers surgically removed (this also takes the feeling of love you have for the person away. It can come back, however, so it’s normally advised that after the surgery you distance yourself from the one who caused it)
On another note, if the doctors accidentally miss even a single seed then the flowers continue to grow as do the feelings which can be dangerous since they get bigger and grow more rapid
Once the surgery is done the doctors typically will keep the flowers in a vase and give it to the person if they wish to keep it as a reminder
The main risk with the surgery (other than death as it’s a risky thing to do in general) is that the person could lose the ability to love altogether.
The second known cure is that the person that caused it reciprocate your feelings. Sadly this is normally not the case (sometimes you can’t force things to happen when the feelings aren’t there even if someone gets hurt).
It’s best that if you caused someone to get the disease and you don’t love them to not pretend you do, it doesn’t get rid of the disease it can actually make it fester and become far worse than it would’ve been naturally.
Types of flowers and their meanings can be found in this post
Some people opt to get the surgery done whenever it gets bad but they keep some of the flowers so the feelings don’t go away. This is normally very pricey and isn’t advised. It took doctors a long time before they allowed the operation to be done and purposely leave some in there.
Despite people thinking it affects mostly woman, it actually affects both men and women equally. This is shown from a survey done at a hospital, there was almost an exactly equal number of men and women sufferings from the diseases. It’s still thought to be a more women-centric disease.
The longest someone has survived with the disease without any form of treatment was two years. After a year it was so bad they had to be hospitalized almost every other week (though they always refused treatment of any kind and was allowed to go home)
People with the disease who don’t get it cured or treated normally only live from two months to a year with the disease before it kills them.
A treatment to help reduce the growing (doesn’t stop it but prevent whole flowers from blooming which is normally what kills people) are these pills that basically make the body secretes a kind of weed killer type of antibody that attacks the flowers and make it inhabitable for them to live in the lungs (they will still try by the patient normally just caught up wilted flowers and occasionally a dead vine or leaf). With treatment, the person has a 50/50 chance of surviving and living a full life. They’ll live a life of always coughing up flower petals however and the pill lowers their immune system and can make them sick and can sometimes attack muscle and fat (which can also lead to death). The pills are also far cheaper than the surgery so a lot of people try the pills first.
The disease isn’t just front someone not loving you back, sometimes it’s from not letting the person know you love them and you assume they don’t return it and the thought festers into the disease
Some people who continuously gets the disease from just one person (or perhaps many and they’re just someone who falls in love easily but nobody returns their feelings) have been known to commit suicide once they realized the disease will just be back again and the one they love will never love them back (already unrequited love sucks but add in a reoccurring disease and you can’t escape it is the worst).
There is a small community (mostly online) that glorify the disease as they think it’s beautiful to love someone so much you are physically ill and encourage people to not get a cure or treatment and let it take them. There’s also people who don’t suffer from it but want to as they think it’s beautiful.
