Dedicated to kisssana
Dahyun began to notice it one morning at the coffee shop that they always ate at together before going to school or work. All the girls would meet up and it would make quite a ruckus as they argued over what tables to sit at and what food to order. It was kind of funny when they all walked in together. The cashier would always look over their shoulder at the baristas and make a face. Here are those damned girls again.
It had just been a normal day. Dahyun was seated across from Sana and Jihyo. Chaeyoung was next to her, arm in arm with her girlfriend Mina. The table next to them had Tzuyu, Jeongyeon, Momo and Nayeon. Dahyun sometimes got embarrassed at how loud they all seemed, but she loved these meetings with her friends.
"Hurry up and tell me what you want." Jihyo said to Sana pointedly. "Everyone else has decided and you know how long it takes for them to make nine coffees. I don't want to be here all day." Sana squirmed as she tried to think of something to drink and Dahyun found her eyes wandering over to Momo on the other table. She always seemed to be looking at Momo these days.
She had her arm around Nayeon's shoulder, and her face was grinning. Not just her mouth, but her whole face lit up when she smiled. It made Dahyun's insides turn all warm and fuzzy. Momo looked to Nayeon's face and kissed her on the nose, making her laugh. They were cute together, Dahyun thought. There was no denying that, it was just that... when Dahyun saw them together, it brought a deep sadness to her. She wished it was her in Momo's arms. She wished it was her getting the kiss on the nose. She wished it was her that could see that smile when she woke up in the morning.
A tight feeling was beginning to form in her chest. It must be the jealously kicking in. She rubbed her chest slightly, repressing the need to cough.
"You ok Dubu?" Sana asked her. She linked her legs around Dahyun's under the table, a comforting gesture, but something Dahyun didn't want right now. She felt really sick all of a sudden.
"I'm gonna use the bathroom." She mumbled, untangling her legs from Sana's and stumbling away.
She tried to hold her composure long enough to enter a cubical but failed. A wave of nausea flowed down her spine in a hot flush and she leaned heavily on the closest sink in a cold sweat. She coughed and coughed and coughed. And when she recovered, she saw it.
A single petal coated in blood lay in the sink.
At first, Dahyun thought she was going crazy. She picked up the thing and ran it under some water to take a good look. She was right. It was a petal. The petal of a white daisy, perfect, as if it had just been plucked from the head of a flower in a garden. It was pretty.
She thought about telling the girls but decided against it. This was crazy. What if it was just all in her head? She flushed the petal down a toilet and rinsed out her mouth with water. She looked at herself in the mirror. She was normal. Everything was normal. Dahyun chose to ignore the petal. She told herself again and again that it was just in her head.
She straightened her shirt, tied back her hair and walked out of the bathroom, making sure that her expression didn't betray her resolve. Much to her dismay, everyone on the table was looking at her as she returned to her seat in front of Sana.
"You were in there for an awfully long time." Jihyo said. Her expression was in that one she always got when she was worried. Everyone liked to call it her 'mum face'.
Dahyun shook her head and saw that her coffee had already been served. It looked cold. She must have been in the bathroom for a long time.
"Nothing was wrong Jihyo." She stated. She took a sip from the cup and she grimaced when she felt that it was cold.
"Dahyun was just taking a huge shit!" Chaeyoung yelled. Mina grabbed her in a headlock and covered her mouth. The whole restaurant seemed to be looking in their direction now. Jeongyeon was trying not to laugh, hunched over the table and clutching her stomach. Tzuyu looked as unimpressed as always, but her face was red with second hand embarrassment. She would never admit it to anyone, but she was really sensitive.
Dahyun felt her own cheeks heat up. Though she would under different circumstances find one of Chaeyoung's crude comments hilarious, right now, she just felt sick. She couldn't find it in her to laugh.
She placed down her cold cup of coffee, hearing the clink of the china as it came into contact with the plate. She realised her hands were shaking. She quickly placed them under the table. She felt cold and hot at the same time.
"Dahyunie?" She heard a voice from the other end of the table. She looked up only to realise that everyone was standing to leave. Why was she so out of it today?
It was Momo that had called her. She was standing arm in arm with Nayeon, both of them looking at her with concerned expressions. "Dahyunie, are you alright?" She asked again.
Her voice. Dahyun thought to herself. Her voice was the most beautiful thing on the earth. Especially when it was saying her name like that.
"I'm fine. I'm just a little... tired." She mumbled, looking at Momo and Nayeon's shoes. But she knew that there must be something else going on.
Dahyun had almost forgotten about the petal by the time the others found out. It was one of the most embarrassing moments of her life.
She was out with Jihyo and Momo only a week later for a bowl of ramen. Dahyun knew this ramen was going to taste especially good since it was going to be for free. Jihyo had lost a bet against Dahyun and Momo that Sana wouldn't ask her out. Jihyo, now a happy couple with Sana, was going to have an empty pocket after Dahyun and Momo were done tonight. Dahyun's stomach was empty. She hadn't eaten since breakfast for this specific moment, just to spite Jihyo when she bought so much food. Momo was guaranteed to pig out too. Dahyun loved that about her.
She wasn't like some other girls she knew who worried about their weight and constantly watched what they ate to stay in shape. Momo didn't care. She ate whatever she wanted and gained weight proudly as if it were an indication of her wealth.
"I gained a full two kilograms on my trip back to Japan." She smiled wide.
"Bullshit." Nayeon scoffed. "You never gain weight." Momo looked highly offended and shoved her girlfriend with her shoulder. She reached to Dahyun and took her hands.
"Nayeon doesn't know shit about me Dahyunie." She said, making Dahyun's face light up. "I DID gain two kilos. I ate well!"
She was weird like that, and it made Dahyun smile. If Jihyo was lucky, she might have a few won left to purchase an ice-cream from a convenience store on the way out of the restaurant. But truthfully, this ice-cream would probably be for Momo too.
"FUCK I'M HUNGRY!" Momo yelled as the three girls walked down the streets. Passers-by stared in frustration at the profanities and the noise.
"Fuck, I'll be broke in a few minutes." Jihyo muttered, causing Dahyun to laugh out loud.
"Only because you're dumb enough to think that Sana wasn't head over heels for you." Momo commented. She turned around to walk backwards while talking. Dahyun was worried she would trip.
"I swore she was into Dahyun." Jihyo rubbed the back of her neck.
"All she ever talked about to me was you, stupid." Dahyun laughed. It shocked her how someone could be so dense.
"Yeah." Momo started to skip backwards like an idiot. "Every second word out of her mouth was 'Jihyo'."
"No, it wasn't"
"You thinking Sana was into Dahyun is like thinking that Dahyun is into me!" She laughed, turning back around and kicking a plastic cup discarded outside a public bin. "Crazy!"
Dahyun's heart slowed at this. Her and Momo was... crazy? She didn't think it was crazy. Well, maybe a bit since she already had a girlfriend, but what was there not to like about Momo? She was funny, a little wild, cute AND sexy as hell and she gave the softest, warmest hugs. Dahyun wouldn't say that she was into Momo, she would say she was in LOVE with her. But... maybe that was a bit too crazy.
Her chest felt suddenly tight, and her eyes blurred with tears and the cold sweat that had begun to pour down her face and body.
"I feel sick." She mumbled.
Everything was a rush. The coughing. The vomit. Her legs collapsed and Momo and Jihyo were at her side in an instant, along with a crowd of passers-by, circling her like vultures. She shivered and coughed and choked on tears and vomit and blood.
"What the...?" Dahyun could hear Momo's voice as if at the end of a dark tunnel. It echoed and pounded in her ears. "Are those... petals?"
Dahyun awoke in a hospital bed, surrounded by her friends. Even Mina, who she knew despised hospitals, had faced her fears to see her. Her heart swelled with gratitude as she scanned the faces of the girls she loved so much before her eyes landed on the one who she loved most. Then her heart sank.
Her cheeks were aflame in seconds, memories of what had happened before she had blacked out flooding her mind. She looked away from Momo just as she was bombarded with kisses.
"KIM DAHYUN YOU SCARED ME!" Jeongyeon cried, grasping her hand. Dahyun forgot about her embarrassment when she saw tears in the girl's eyes. "YOU'VE SHAVED ABOUT TEN YEARS OFF MY LIFE!"
"Shut up!" Chaeyoung whispered. "Other people are in here you know."
"What's going on?" Dahyun sat up in her hospital bed and looked around at her friends. "What happened? How long was I out?"
"We don't know." Sana said, glaring at Momo and Jihyo who stood on the other side of her bed. "They won't tell us anything."
"We know as much as you do." Momo frowned, linking her fingers with Nayeon's for comfort. Dahyun couldn't remember if she had ever held Momo's hand like that before. She wondered if it was as comfortable as her hugs.
Before anyone could get another word out, a man walked into the room and up to Dahyun's bed. He smiled and placed a pair of rimless glasses on the bridge of his nose. The badge displayed on his white coat read: Dr Sagong – Cardiologist. What would she need a cardiologist for?
"Good morning." He said cheerfully. "My name is Dr Sagong, a cardiologist here. You must be Kim Dahyun?" He said, glancing down at his papers. Morning. Dahyun must have been out for a long time.
"Yes." Dahyun mumbled in reply.
"Good, good." He straightened his posture and moved closer to her. He pulled a stethoscope from around his neck. "Do you mind?" He asked, placing the buds into his ears and lifting the end. Dahyun shook her head and allowed the doctor to listen to her heat. He asked her to breathe in and out a few times before humming softly and nodding. He returned the stethoscope to its place around his neck and stepped back slightly.
"I don't know if your friends told you or not, but we performed a scan on you while you remained unconscious." She began. "Once you arrived at the hospital, we received word that you had been coughing up a foreign substance that could be described as 'petal-like'."
Dahyun frowned. It was like that day in the café wasn't it.
"We took a CT scan and a chest X-ray, and we have a confirmed diagnosis." He stated. He looked grave as he said this. "Would you like to see your X-rays to allow me to explain?"
Dahyun nodded slowly.
"Are you serious?" Momo raised her voice. Nayeon tried to calm her down, but it was no use. "Are you fucking kidding me? What kind of a question is that!" Dahyun could see tears in her eyes. "Of COURSE, she wants to see them."
Nayeon was whispering into her ear as she doctor nodded.
"I understand, but please refrain from speaking that way or I'll have to ask you to leave."
Dahyun's heart raced at the thought of Momo's protectiveness, but she frowned again as the doctor pulled out a tablet displaying an X-ray.
The picture was remarkable. At first, nothing seemed notable, but on closer inspection a strange shape could be seen snaking across the chest toward the neck. A long thin vine. Several, all winding themselves in knots. Each ended in a cloud like substance at the end. It was unmistakable.
"They're flowers. Daisies." The doctor began, straightening his glasses. The room was dead silent as he continued his explanation.
"Kim Dahyun-ssi, I regret to inform you that you have contracted hanahaki disease." The word 'disease' made Dahyun's heart race and her mouth run dry.
"You have several daisies growing inside your heart and lungs. If not treated, they may cause extreme pain, cause mass blood loss, obstructions to blood flow and airways and..." He swallowed. "Will result in death." The silence remained at his words. The only sound that Dahyun could hear was her own heart. The heart that may never beat again.
"What is the cause?" Momo asked, her voice much quieter than before. She looked fragile, Dahyun thought.
The doctor shook his head slightly.
"This may sound ridiculous, but hanahaki disease is actually caused by unrequited love." All eyes were on Dahyun in an instant. "The flowers growing inside of Dahyun will be the favourite type of the person she is in love with."
"How do you make it stop?" Chaeyoung mumbled, her eyes fixated on Dahyun.
"There are two treatment options. Only two." The doctor began. "The first is non-medical and is simply that the person she loves returns her feelings of affection. The second is a surgical removal of the flowers from the heart and the lungs." He straightened his glasses again. Dahyun was starting to think it was a nervous tick. "The prognosis of patients who opt for the non-medical treatment is poor, so I would recommend the surgery. There is almost a one hundred percent chance of a full recovery, but there is one consequence."
Dahyun swallowed.
"What's that?" She whispered.
"You'll lose the love you feel for that person."
A/N: What a joke this was supposed to be a one-shot. It's turned into a three part story and I don't know if I'll pass my exams. I'm invested.