A Different Take on Hanahaki Disease
AKA how can I make this into a scientific study?
AKA how can I badly write a scientific report on an infamous fictional disease?
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Hanahaki Disease is a fictional disease that is characterized by the growth of flowers in the body that was normally caused by one-sided love or unrequited love.
The growth of flowers can be found in heart, lungs and/or throat. The primary symptom is coughing or vomiting up flower petals, which progresses into full blooms as the condition worsens.
It’s curable through one of two methods.
The first and most common cure is the reciprocation of romantic feelings by the object of the afflicted person's affection. Upon mutual love being established, the flowers disappear, and the symptoms resolve immediately.
The second method involves surgical removal of the flowers, which allows the sufferer to survive but at the cost of losing their romantic feelings for the beloved.
If neither cure occurs, the disease is typically fatal, progressing until the character suffocates on the flowers.
…of course that’s the most of the information regarding this fictional disease.
But, what if Hanahaki Disease isn’t what you thought it was? What if it is different?
Since Hanahaki word is a portmanteau derived from Japanese words hana (花), meaning flower, and hakimasu (吐きます), meaning to vomit or to throw up.
So I’m going to take it and make it realistic as possible.
Hanahaki disease is a disease like many other diseases. To understand the disease, you must to know how to diagnosis the type of disease.
Disease can be categorized by infectious or non-infectious. Sometimes it can be classified via communicable vs non-communicable or acute vs chronic. And by body systems or its causes.
Infectious disease is caused by pathogens (viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites) while non-infectious diseases are often caused by genetics, environmental or behaviors.
Genetic/Hereditary diseases are often passed through genes of one (or both) parent. While Deficiency Diseases are caused by lack of specific nutrients and Autoimmune Diseases are happening when its body’s immune system is attacking on itself.
Communicable is an another word for contagious so whether if it can be spread from person to person or animal to person. Non-communicable is the opposite of communicable.
Acute is for short term while Chronic is for long term.
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Looking over at the summary of the necessary information for the types of disease, I can conclude that:
Hanahaki Disease is a chronic infectious disease. Luckily, it is noncontagious so it can’t be passed around.
In the categories of the areas where it affects the most, it fell in cardiovascular(related to heart and blood vessels) category and respiratory(related to nose, mouth, throat, lungs) category. Not that surprising since the heart and the lungs are deeply interconnected.
So, what kind of pathogens that is linked to Hanahaki disease? A parasitic virus! Or rather, a parasitic plant.
This parasitic plant can be found anywhere but its origin is from Japan. The scientific name of this parasitic plant is Mimikkufurawā(ミミックフラワー) or Kopīfurawā(コピーフラワー), which roughly translates to Mimic Flower/Copy Flower. The name that everyone uses is Kopihana plants, they sometimes use ‘Kopi plant’ or ‘Hana plant’ as a reference to this particular parasitic plant.
Kopihana is also derived from ‘Kopī’(コピーフラワー) which means ‘copy’ in Japanese and ‘Hana’(花) which means ‘flower’ in Japanese.
This Kopi plant is capable of copying other flower/plant’s appearance and colors. It also grow the fruit that emits the sweet scent in order to lure the prey to eat the plant/fruit.
The Kopi plant’s original appearance is a red flower(M) with seven petals in three rows curled inward or a pink flower(F) with eight petals in three rows curled outward.
The Kopi Fruit appearance is an oval shaped fruit that is colored green but as time went by and when it is ripen, the fruit would be red(M)or pink(F). It tastes very sweet.
Beware! Do not digest the seeds, because in the seed is the holoparasite called Hanahaki parasite.
Hanahaki parasite would latched onto your throat, into your lungs, or into your heart and implanted the seed into the muscle.
As time went by, the seed would grew the roots into the muscles and begin to suck the nutrients from your body. Which it would causes the seed to grow into a plant/flower. It also causes the brain to release more oxytocin and dopamine chemicals.
The victim of Hanahaki parasite would feel like there is something lodged inside his/her throat or their lungs, which often cause the coughing fits that lasts for days or weeks. The victim could vomit from the sensation as well.
Then the victim would get the common fever symptoms. The coughing symptoms would persist. During that time, the victim’s brain would produce more oxytocin and dopamine chemicals.
Whether if the fever symptoms goes away or not, the victim will start to coughing up the flower petals. The coughing symptoms will worsen when they start to coughing up flower petals. At that time, the Hanahaki parasite will begin to eat the muscles away.
That will lead to the victim to coughing/vomiting the blood along the flower petals.
When the Kopi seed starts to grow into a sprout, the Hanahaki parasite will force the victim’s brain to produce more oxytocin and dopamine chemicals(sometimes it will causes the brain to produce serotonin chemicals as well) to feed the sprout more.
By that point, the victim’s body is in a critical state. Eventually, the victim will die from suffocation, whether by the flower or the blood.
Then the Hanahaki parasite will steal the body/corpse’s nutrients for the Kopi sprout. Then the Kopi sprout will rapidly turn into an adult flower(s) that will grow out from the dead body(if the body was left alone for 24 hours).
