Kleinsen One Shots

Love at First Flower - Part One

A/N: Hello! This one shot was recommended by BlueWriterPerson, and I actually ended up taking it much farther than I expected to, so I'm dividing it into parts. Here is part one, hope I did this one shot some justice :).

Average height. Brown hair. Glasses. Always wearing a unique shirt. This is the person who Evan Hansen wanted to be with. Not a girl. But a boy. Jared Kleinman. He loved to lay on his bed, stare up at the ceiling, and think about Jared. His perfect mix of laugh and sensitivity. His smile. But his stomach began to churn each time he thought about telling anyone about his feelings - his mom, Jared.

After trying to cover his feelings for a few weeks, he couldn't figure out what to do. He hadn't really dated anyone, so starting out anyways sounded nerve-racking. Plus, what if he screwed up his first romance, with his dream boyfriend? And that's when he decided that he would need a disguise. A girlfriend.

The day after he decided on getting a "girlfriend", he leaned against his locker, scanning the crowd of people who were rushing from one place to the next. Suddenly, he saw her. He watched with awe as her brown hair gently rested against her shoulders, her smile lighting up the hallway. He had to admit, although he no longer had a crush on her, Zoe Murphy was still extremely cute.

Evan took a slow step forward, still staring at Zoe, when he felt a hand on his shoulder. "Why are you looking at my sister like that?" A voice asked. Evan looked up, following the voice, and immediately shrunk against his locker. Attached to his shoulder was the hand of a very tall, grimacing Connor Murphy. Evan began to release a stuttering jumble of words which failed to communicate anything. "I said, why are you looking at my sister like that?"

Evan wasn't great at many things, but one thing he had learned to do was to sense people's emotions, making it very easy to notice the anger and frustration building up within Connor. He tensed immediately, even more than he already had, in defense, although he knew it would not help him at all.

Evan's eyes danced back over to Zoe Murphy, who was finishing collecting things from her locker, and saw Jared walk peacefully by her, whistling quietly, a skip in his step. It gave Evan more motivation, but made him ache - Jared hadn't noticed him at all.

Suddenly, a burning feeling ripped through his chest, one Evan had never felt before. He let out a tremendous cough, one that made tears sting in his eyes. He then noticed a single flower petal flutter onto the sleeve of his sweatshirt. Connor let go of Evan, disgusted, and walked away. Evan stared down at the petal, mystified and terrified as it glowed a deep red. He touched it, and then picked it up. It was real, smooth like an actual flower petal is. Did that really just come out of his mouth? He became confused and began to panic, but before he could do anything else, he had to ask Zoe a question. He sped walk over to her, just as she began to walk to her next class, and clutched the flower petal in one hand. He made another coughing sound, this time just to clear his throat, and Zoe turned to face him.

"Um," Evan looked at the ground, "heyZoedoyouwanttogooutwithme? I mean, uh," he awkwardly laughed. "Listen, I know this sounds really weird, but I get pretty nervous around girls, and, um, but it would be a great honor to have you as my girlfriend?"

Zoe smiled sympathetically. She felt bad for Evan, and how he was always so anxious. "Sure, Evan. I'll see you around," she replied with a smile. Evan smiled back and scurried away to his locker, feeling another cough beginning to form. As his chest burned along with his throat, another flower petal fell. It was a deep red, just like the original one. He gently placed them both in his pocket, and went to the nurse's office. He had to go home and research what was happening.

♪♪♪

Evan ran home that day, after getting approval from the nurse for his "massive headache and stomach ache". When he got home, he went up the stairs two steps at a time, and locked the door to his room, even though his mom wouldn't be home for a while. He grabbed his computer from his desk and sat down on his bed, opening the screen of the laptop so that a photo of Evan and Jared glowed brightly on the screen. It was taken at last year's "Annual Kleinman Summer Party". Even then, Evan felt a little closer to Jared. Now, he felt that they began to drift apart, especially with Jared always talking about his camp friends.

Suddenly, Evan felt as if he was going to throw up. He ran to the bathroom and kneeled over the toilet, where now many flower petals erupted from inside him and flittered into the toilet. "Holy crap," he whispered, staring at them nervously, as if they would attack him. He clutched onto his stomach, lightly rubbing his shaking hands on it, and then weakly flushed the toilet. The flower petals went swirling down, disappearing from his sight. He stood up and returned to his room.

After about half an hour of looking through meaningless articles, ranging from Five Flowers You Can Eat to My Son Ate A Flower, What Should I Do?, Evan found an article that intrigued him, about throwing and coughing up flowers. It read:

"The Hanahaki Disease is an illness born from one-sided love, where the patient throws up and coughs of flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love."

The words began to blur together, and Evan couldn't read any farther. The fact that he probably had a disease didn't scare Evan as much as three words within the disease's description did. One-sided love. Did that mean that Jared didn't like him back? Or could Jared possibly have feelings too? Evan gasped. What if Jared was coughing up flower petals too?!

When his mom got home from work, Evan had lost track of how long he had been pacing around his room. He came downstairs, to find his mom in the kitchen. At first, she didn't see him, so he stood awkwardly, until she looked at him and smiled, about to talk when Evan began to instead.

"M-mom," he stuttered, and began to rub his arm. "I think I'm sick."

"Oh, Evan," she said and walked over to him. She quickly hugged him and then felt his forehead with the back of her hand. "You don't feel sick. Is it maybe nerves?"

Evan shook his head slowly, unable to look at his mom. "I think it's Haki-Haki," Evan mumbled. His mom looked at him, confused, and Evan froze. Had he really forgotten the name of the disease? It was already embarrassing enough to admit his one-sided love, but now he couldn't even remember what he had self-diagnosed with? Dazed frustration began to build up within him. "Han-Hans," he paused again. Nope. "Hakiahan?" As he made his third guess, a choking feeling that was a little too familiar wrapped around his throat. He coughed, and watched as two petals escaped his mouth and fluttered to the ground.

Heidi silently gasped and whispered "Hanahaki." She had heard of the disease, but had never actually seen a case of it. "Okay, Evan honey, mom is going to bring you to the hospital, just to be safe. I won't go anywhere's, I promise, okay?" Evan gulped and nodded. As Evan opened the door to leave with his mom, he found Zoe standing on the other side.

"Hey, boyfriend," Zoe said happily. Heidi paused, her eyes darting between the two of them.

"Boyfriend? Evan, are you dating..." Heidi motioned her hands towards the girl, who said "Zoe" quietly. Heidi repeated her name. Evan looked at both of them, grabbed Zoe by the face, kissed her on the lips forcefully, and ran upstairs. His face reddened, and he didn't even have time to close the bathroom door. He leaned over the toilet and coughed up a few flower petals. In between sobs, he began to release more. Petal after petal of deep red flew into the toilet. A few became scattered, landing on the toilet seat and the floor, mixing with his tears. He curled up into a ball, letting a few extra petals fall onto the floor as he coughed the last of the painful fit out. He shut his eyes, tears streaming down his face.

Heidi ran into the bathroom, and her eyes widened at the sight of her son, crumpled into a ball. Flower petals were spread around the floor, and then she noticed the ones in the toilet. She gasped quietly, and then Zoe walked into the bathroom behind her. She was in even more shock, as she did not know that Evan had Hanahaki, or that it even existed. Zoe slipped out of the room, and Evan saw her through tear blurred eyes.

"Zoe, wait," he pleaded shakily, letting out another cry. "I, love... you," he choked out. Suddenly, he grasped back onto his stomach, another clenching pain taking it over.