Time for the free day and finish this amazing Kalemomo week my friends! For the Free Day, we are going with Hanahaki, a magical disease where the patient coughs flowers because of an unrequited love, and it can only be cured by telling the other person the real feelings of love. But if the feelings are not accepted or too much time passes, the patient will die.
Enjoy it!
She always thought that love was probably the strangest but most beautiful feeling in her life. Since she was a child, she read love stories about Lilith and other demons related to the subject; some that were tragic or had one-sided feelings, and others where the most genuine happiness and affection that a couple could have were demonstrated. Momonoki wanted to live the love dream of the second group, just as she always read about it in her free time.
The reality was different, however. Even though she wanted to take the first step with him, she was never brave enough to try to tell him what she felt, she always got nervous and walked away from him thinking that the next day she would have another chance. She always lied to herself for many years, and she still didn't get out of square one, at least 90% of the time. She was so close to Kalego, but at the same time so far from him.
But the other party didn't help either. Kalego was dumb at identifying a sign of love from her, and in the 10% of the times where Momonoki tried to do something to try and reveal her love, Kalego mistook it for kindness or as a formality. He didn't recognize the signs. Therefore, after so many years of being a coward and knowing that Kalego was a hard rock to conquer, she decided to give up. With sadness and exhaustion, she accepted that she wasn't going to live the dream of her life.
However, it is one thing to say something and another thing to do it. Even though her mind was already telling her that she wasn't going to have a chance with him, the times Kalego talked to her were enough to give her false hope. Kalego didn't know it, but she was giving Momonoki insecurities. She didn't know what to feel, and soon her mind and her heart were confused with this whole situation.
And that was where the disease struck.
She woke up one morning almost choking, coughing, and feeling like something was inside her. She thought maybe it was some phlegm, but she was surprised when a fresh, brightly colored petal came out of her throat. She wondered how that got there, and her most logical conclusion was that it was a piece of the salad she ate for dinner.
She didn't give it any importance and continued doing her classes normally, thinking that it was something temporary. However, the next day, she again woke up coughing up a petal; then two days later there were more petals, and a few days later, they were roses. Each time, the flowers increased in beauty and size that made it difficult for her to breathe, reaching the point that Momonoki was wondering what was happening to her.
In the early days, she thought she had caught it from a strange plant in Suzy's garden. She knew that certain demons had problems because of certain plants in that place, but hers reached a serious level. She decided to give her a visit, asking her what she had. And it was there that Suzy's look stopped being tender and charming and became one of concern.
She told her to meet her after school, saying not to say any of that to the rest of the staff or her family. That only made her more anxious because what she had seemed serious. However, she did her best to remain calm, even though the cough was already beginning to be noticeable even in her classes. Once all the students left, she headed back to Suzy's garden, where she was waiting for her with Raim next to her. They were both worried, and when Momonoki asked them what was happening to her, they only answered with one word.
Hanahaki.
Momonoki was confused, and it was there that they both told her about her illness. Born from a feeling of one-sided love, the disease attacked the victim with a branch that grew inside her lungs, and these from time to time grew accompanied by certain flowers inside her, which little by little suffocated her until she died. She could notice the progress of the disease with the difficulty on breathing and the beauty of the flowers when she coughed as the days passed. Right now, she had a ticking time bomb inside her.
Raim and Suzy knew that the indirect cause was Kalego, but they didn't want to blame someone, because diseases could attack everyone without discrimination.
She couldn't help but cry when she heard the news. They comforted her for a while, even giving her some water to calm her down. Those were long minutes, but they managed to temporarily stabilize her friend, even preventing her from talking continuously so that she wouldn't run out of air. When she asked if anything could be done to cure her, Suzy told her that she had two solutions.
The first was the option of internal surgery, in which she could undergo a small treatment where the branch inside her lungs was removed. It was the effective solution, but the side effect was that the feelings of love and affection that she had with everyone she knew were going to disappear. Not only Kalego's, but with her friends and even her family. She would turn into a cold demon.
The second was for her to reveal what she felt for the boy she loved. If the feelings turned out to be reciprocated, the branch would immediately stop growing and she would be cured. However, if she was rejected, her illness would kill her instantly. It was a 50% risk on each side.
Those were strong decisions that could greatly define Momonoki's future. Her friends understood that she was in a huge dilemma, and they even hugged her to assure her that nothing was going to happen to her. They promised to keep her illness a secret and lie that she only had a bad cough, because they knew that if they brought up the topic of love like that even as a joke, it would cause repercussions at school.
Momonoki said that she needed time to think about what she was going to do, and she told them that she would inform them about her decision in those days. They told her that they would support her in whatever she wanted to do, but she had to be quick, because she had little time left to live.
She was like that for three whole weeks. Three whole weeks where everyone began to notice Momonoki's poor health. She coughed continuously in the classrooms, in the staff room, even in the hallways. There were times where she had to sit more in her seat than usual because her energy would drain quickly. Her colleagues asked what she had, and she only responded that she had caught a bad cough, but she would recover. She appreciated how many teachers gave her medicinal tips so that she could heal, but they didn't know that what she had was something more lethal than they thought.
It hurted her even more to lie to her grandfather that her illness wasn't serious. This was the one who cared the most about her health, and if he found out that she was literally dying thanks to Kalego and those damn flowers, there could be serious consequences for both families. She endured tears of pain every night, struggling to sleep and continually waking up because she felt like she was dying from lack of air.
And after those three weeks, she knew that she had to do something. The flowers had turned into orchids and tulips, beautiful in colors and with shapes that reminded her of Kalego. She decided to send a message to her friends, and she told them that she was going to undergo surgery to be cured. She even told them that, even if she didn't remember all the good times with them in the future, she wanted them to be by her side and forgive her for falling in love.
None of the three knew that that night they were all crying.
The next day, Raim and Suzy told her that they were going to take a day off to find a surgeon who could help them. Momonoki just had to wait and not put much effort into her classes. She followed what they told her, trying only to concentrate her mind on saying key words and hiding the flowers coming out of her. It was a great effort and for now everything was going well, until a scene made her doubts reborn.
A secret kiss between Iruma and Ameri.
It was unlucky for her that right in the hallway leading to the student council room, she noticed a small kiss between both students. A small scene, but cute. She remembered that on those girls' nights that she was invited, Ameri revealed her feelings for the director's grandson, and seeing her story well, they both lived an incredible adventure. She noticed the pure love between them, and wondered if she could have that moment with Kalego.
She couldn't let everything she had with Kalego fade away and be a trash memory to her. It was there that at the last minute she made a change of decision. She decided to put her fears aside and risk her best shot at Kalego.
She no longer followed the words of her friends, and she went straight to Kalego's office to talk to him personally. Classes were over and therefore she had the opportunity to be alone with him. However, it wasn't an easy task to reach him. Her weak body staggered every so often, and the flowers began to come out with fresh blood. The rose thorns collided with her throat, signifying that the disease was developing and letting her see that she didn't have much time left. By that point, it was already very difficult to hide the cough she had.
It took her a while, but she finally reached the place where the professor was. As she entered, Kalego greeted her and asked her if she needed any help. She rejected this outright, wanting to prevent him from knowing about her illness. Still, that didn't stop Kalego from bringing her a comfortable chair and some water for her body.
They talked for a long time, Kalego being the one who incredibly talked about her the most since he was worried about her health. Momonoki responded to his questions with short answers, answers that weren't convincing to Kalego, but that were enough for her.
Until she realized that her cough was going to get worse sooner or later if she was close to him, so she decided to risk it all.
"Kalego? You are someone incredible. Someone who literally makes my heart jump with happiness."
He had no way to respond to her sudden words, and even though Momonoki was speaking slowly, he heard without interrupting her. She mentioned positive points that no one else told him, points that were remarkable and aspects that made him look like a great teacher and demon.
"Maybe you will never know what will happen next, but you have been a great influence on me... someone who had made my days the best... and I wish that, from today, we could continue together... a relationship beyond the one we have as teachers..."
He didn't know what she meant by those words. She was mentioning it as if she was unsure of what was going to happen and was talking in a very deep way about past memories she had with Kalego. The teacher appreciated the fact that Momonoki saw him with an incredible image, but he was a little scared of what she meant.
And it was there that Momonoki said those special words.
"I love you Kalego. I love you with all my heart. I would like us to be a couple."
Kalego was left speechless. For a few moments, he didn't know how to analyze this whole situation. He didn't know that Momonoki had genuine feelings of love for him, feelings that he never thought he would create in someone.
He decided to thank Momonoki for being that demon who always looked at him with a positive look and for being someone brave for revealing her feelings. He liked the fact that she was part of his life, and her presence was something that it was never going to bother him. Momonoki believed that affection was reciprocal, and she knew that Kalego's every word was genuine and honest.
However, he had to reject her with the same honesty that he had. He replied that, although they had both had a long history together and it was a story he liked to remember, Kalego couldn't see her any further than a close friend of his. Although he said it was because he had some priorities in general, the simplest reason was that he didn't know anything about how to maintain a relationship as a couple.
"I'm sorry Momonoki."
Kalego had no more words to say, but he felt that was enough. They were both silent for a few minutes, with Momonoki completely devastated internally and Kalego feeling for the first time that he had said something wrong. He never thought his relationship with her would go very far, but now here they were. Momonoki fell in love with him, and he was surprised by how someone could look at him with loving eyes.
Kalego finally told her that it didn't mean that she would be someone who would be left out of his life. He was going to feel guilty if that broke a strong friendship he formed with her, so he said he agreed to continue being on good terms with her, telling her that he would never turn down any future requests she had. Momonoki, trying to hold back her tears, accepted what he said, saying that she appreciated the sincere answer she had given him. A few moments later, she drank the last of the water from her glass and headed for the exit.
He helped her out of the office, and once they were at the entrance, Momonoki told him that she could go to her room alone. Kalego hated leaving her alone, but the girl's insistence made him finally give up. He said goodbye to her and gave her some last words.
"Take care Momonoki, please get well soon."
She left his office at a slow pace, moving away from Kalego and knowing that she had lost. Everything she dreamed of, all those illusions and thoughts of hers had betrayed her. At the end of the day, no matter how long she had been with him, or how much trust he had had in her, he only saw her as a colleague of his. A simple friend.
"It hurts when I realize I'll never mean that much to someone."
She walked through the hallways avoiding her colleagues, wanting to be alone and without contact from anyone. Her vision became blurry from time to time, she even had to hold on to some walls to be able to move forward. It took her a few minutes, but after climbing a good number of steps, she finally reached her room.
She opened the door, weak, defeated, knowing there was no future for her in love. She was a failure. She wasn't going to live the dream of having her prince charming, and she wasn't going to have a happy future where she was with the demon that helped her from the beginning.
Nor one in general.
Once she closed the door, that was where the disease began to take its final blow. The flowers began to grow uncontrollably inside her, finally trying to leave her breathless. She could feel herself short of breath, but this time, there was no way to get the flowers out because they piled up instantly. The color of these changed to a totally dark and deep black, giving a simple meaning that Momonoki could grasp in those moments of fear.
She was trying to open the door to her bathroom, but panic prevented her from doing anything. She fell to her knees in front of her bed, and although she tried to steady herself with something to calm herself, she couldn't let go of her neck. Her voice was inaudible, and she knew that the disease was about to do its job. She could see the black flowers coming out of her non-stop, all with small traces of fresh blood.
She shed tears of fear and sadness, as she watched her life flash before her eyes. She didn't know what was going to happen when she died, but all she wanted was to know why she had been unlucky in love. But she also wondered how all the people she loved would react. She was afraid of death.
She was slowly losing consciousness, but suddenly she felt in her body how two arms began to touch her. They stroked her hair slowly, bringing a calm to her body that she didn't resist. Those arms began to close around her body, as if they were a blanket that protected her from the cold.
While she felt that warm hug that little by little made her eyes close, she remembered how nice it had been to fall in love with Kalego. How nice his words had been when he wrote an exclusive chapter just for her...
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"Are you ok Kalego?"
Balam's voice brought him out of his deep thoughts, making Kalego's gaze turn to his friend.
"Yeah." He answered.
"It doesn't sound like you are telling the truth." Balam said.
It had only been a day and Kalego was still feeling weird from the conversation he had with Momonoki. Although he had been honest with her and had ended with good terms in their relationship, he felt bad because at the end of the day, Momonoki was the only demon who genuinely loved him. The rest of the staff could always annoy him, but she had never been able to make him angry. He felt that he hadn't been good to her.
"It's just something that happened with someone. It's not something to worry about."
Balam had never seen his friend feel half down, with certain exceptions. He approached him to try to see if he could comfort him or at least do something to make him feel better.
"It's ok if you don't want to tell me what's going on. But at least tell me if you want me to answer something in a general way to help you."
Kalego knew he needed a word from someone. Especially when he had no experience in love at all.
"How does it feel to know that at the end of the day someone really loves you for who you are?"
Balam didn't know if he was surprised because Kalego had followed his advice, or because of the question itself. However, he put that doubt aside and decided to try to see if he could give him a hand.
"You still think that everyone here sees you with a bad face or as someone susceptible to jokes, right?"
It wasn't exactly the closest to his situation, but Balam somewhat understood what he felt.
"Yes, I think you know that almost everyone here plays tricks on me or simply doesn't take what I tell them seriously. But I managed to meet someone who genuinely loved what I did, someone who saw me as... a Naberius with great dignity. Something that not even my brother saw in me."
"Oooohhh, who are we talking about?"
"You said to ask generally. I won't go deeper."
Balam was wrong to say to ask something generic, but he decided not to insist knowing that his friend now needed a serious answer.
"Heh, well, I honestly understand that you might feel kind of confused. I know that you have told me that your upbringing has been strong and there have been internal problems within your family since your brother became one of the thirteen crowns. From there you got a tough character and I think it isn't news that you think that many see you in a hostile way. However, remember that the Netherworld is big. There will always be that demon who can have two eyes with a different perspective, someone who will see from another angle that you are someone great. Just imagine this: Me as your friend can see you as someone cool; but I'm sure there is someone in this place who will see something else that I can't. And when you see that, you will have experienced what genuine affection is, something that I sense you have had recently."
Genuine affection. That feeling he had always heard, but he had never felt firsthand. He was never interested in those topics, and it didn't help that the Babyls staff didn't respect his space and most of the demons were disrespectful. But, seeing that Momonoki had made him feel special and knowing that this she was always honest with everything she said... she made him happy.
He felt his heart skip a beat for a moment, having a small smile on his face that for the first time he loved to have.
"I'll tell you the rest another time, but seriously, thank you, Balam. I needed to hear that."
Balam was happy to know that his friend was feeling better. And he was sure that he was because he said it with sincere words and didn't show any body expressions that show any lie.
"By the way, do you know what happened to Momonoki? Raim and Suzy have been looking for her since yesterday, and they looked worried." Balam said, changing the subject.
Kalego was surprised. The last time he saw her was in his office, but now she had mysteriously disappeared. He knew that she was always going to talk to her friends, but this time it wasn't like that.
"I'll go look for her." He said.
He asked permission to leave his office and went to look for her in different places in Babyls. He went to look for her in her classrooms without success. He then began to go through different towers of the school, but he couldn't find her either. Afterwards, he went to talk to Morax, but he was also worried because his granddaughter hadn't appeared all day. It was as if Momonoki had disappeared out of nowhere. Kalego continued searching for her, until he was finally left with only one more place to search. Her bedroom.
He walked for a few minutes until he reached her bedroom. It was locked, so he knocked on the door to see if Momonoki was inside. But there was no answer. He continued to insist, but Kalego didn't hear any steps or anything like that. Knowing that she was probably somewhere other than Babyls, he decided to call her phone. He quickly looked up her number and hit speed dial to try to see where she was.
His surprise was big when he heard the ringtone of her phone inside her room.
Kalego began to worry and after putting away his phone, he knocked louder on the door. Momonoki was inside, but he didn't know what was happening for her to not open the door. He kept trying, but after not receiving any response, he decided to break some school rules and had the idea to break down her door.
He didn't care if it wasn't polite to force entry. He didn't want to think that something bad had happened to her. He calculated all his strength, and with a single blow from Cerberus, he managed to enter the teacher's room.
And upon entering, he got an image that would remain permanently in his memory.
"Momonoki!"
There on the floor, in the middle of the entire destroyed room, was Momonoki, covered in black flowers with blood in her mouth and with tears in her eyes that were signs of her suffering. The ground was also covered with black flowers, making that place like a small garden and a tomb at the same time.
Kalego ran over to her looking totally worried, grabbing her in his arms in desperation, trying to see if she had a pulse. But it was too late.
She was dead.
Looks like Momonoki's love story ended up in the group of tragedies and sadness. Hanahaki never forgives, and even if she managed to improve her relationship with Kalego as a friend, it wasn't enough to save her. And it looks like some tears will come soon from her friends and family. And Kalego? Let's hope he doesn't discover the truth, because I don't think he will accept the fact that his rejection literally killed her...
And with that, we are done with the Kalemomo week! Dissapointed a bit in myself for not finishing the fic on time, but I loved doing this for one of my OTPs in Mairuma. Thanks to @DailyKalemomo on twitter for making a great event and for giving me the opportunity to write some Kalemomo c:
I'll see you soon with another adventure my friends! Even tho time is going to be limited for me again, I'll not going to stop writing. And for you my dear reader thank you for being with me during all these 7 days. You are amazing.
If you want to know more about me, you can follow me here, or in twitter: https://twitter.com/DYP_Lf
God bless you! Take care!