Elsie ~

Group: BTS

Pairing: SUGA X READER

1k celebration: “I haven’t slept in ages.” // “I feel like I can’t breathe.”

Summary: When you fall in love with your best friend, flowers begin to bloom.

Genre: angst with a happy ending, fluff, hanahaki au

Length: 1.7k

A/N: i love my wacky aus and who would i be if i didn’t do one for the hanahaki au.

(( Hanahaki disease - 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 infection can be removed through surgery, but the feelings disappear along with the petals.))

The feeling had been there for a few weeks, that Min Yoongi was more than just a best friend to you. But as you sat with your head on his chest, heart racing slightly as your hands brushed as you reached for the popcorn, it was hard to deny the tingles running down your arm from simply making contact with him. It was movie night in the dorm, and you had all assumed your usual positions, but after a friend had pointed out how close you were to Yoongi, the feelings had truly begun to bloom.

Yoongi shifted slightly, with a content groan as your head fell into his lap, whilst kicking out your legs to rest them on Jeongguk’s lap. But your attention was no longer drawn to the television, the loud action movie’s loud screams seemed to fade away as your gaze focused on Yoongi’s face.

As he absentmindedly ran his fingers through your hair, you felt a sneeze tickle the back of your throat, but you thought you might be sick so quickly you jumped off the sofa before running to the bathroom. The boy’s begun calling after you asking if you were okay as you slid past the entrance in your socks, your fingers digging into the doorframe before finally pulling your body in, you definitely weren’t okay.

Then a fierce sneeze ripped through your body, your eyes slowly cracked open and you stared in horror at the small pink petal resting in your hand; you had just coughed up a flower petal, scrunching it in your hand before letting it fall into the toilet and flushing it away quickly, hoping your feelings would disappear that easily.

But something was happening to you, and you knew what it was because you had seen it happen to Taehyung, whose unrequited love had left him close to death when he had insisted on hiding his symptoms. As you heaved a sigh, a cough caught in your throat as you knelt in front of the toilet, watching more flower petals drift from your mouth, before one caught in the back of your throat.

Then you were retching, watching in shock as droplets of blood fell into the water followed by larger yellow petals, daffodil petals.

“I need to use the toilet,” Yoongi’s voice was muffled through the door, but the action of turning your head to tell him not to came had you coughing again, and Yoongi upon not receiving an answer, hesitantly began to creak open the door that no longer had a lock after a previous incident with drunk Namjoon, “I’m coming in.”

It didn’t take long for you to realise you wouldn’t be able to hide your condition from him, but one thing was for sure; you weren’t going to tell him you had fallen in love with him. As you continued to wretch into the toilet, flinching as Yoongi’s hand landed on your back; his hand moving up to pull strands of your hair away from your face without saying a word, whilst you desperately tried to stop the petals from falling from your lips.

The bathroom was silent apart from your coughs, and heavy breathing as you were busy wondering what was going to happen and how you were going to fix this problem without losing your friendship with Yoongi forever. You could tell having him around wasn’t helping but these flowers had rooted in your heart and you sunk into his touch, but you and Yoongi knew you needed help as soon as possible.

Jars of dried petals of all colours littered the shelves of your room, you had found a sense of peace washing up the blood and bile covered petals that fell from your lips, and storing them as a painful reminder of the disease you were working to cure.

For the first week, it had been awful, as even to this date, all that left your mouth was petals that would die within an hour.  Taehyung was the one who had reassured you that you were in the early stages and that you could live like this for years but it was Yoongi who had recommended placing those petals in jars, and he continued to call them beautiful which would always lead to another bout of coughs.

The boys knew it was one of them, but you still refused to tell them who it was, even when Taehyung had burst into tears, begging and pleading you to at least tell him so he could help and understand. But you were adamant not to tell them, and although the boys doted on you hand and foot to try not to worsen your situation, and it worked.

As you sat at the kitchen counter chatting to Jeongguk about a new game he was playing, you caught a whiff of Yoongi’s cologne and you felt the tickle at the back of your throat, your shoulders hunched as you doubled over clutching at your stomach, worried because this pain didn’t come when you were coughing up petals.

The inside of your throat felt raw, and your vision began to blur as you heard Jeongguk’s chair scrape back as he screamed for someone to help. You were now slumped on the table trying to relieve some of the pain as your hands clawed at your throat, your teeth closing on petals as you felt someone’s hand over your face to the side.

Your vision was blurring and as someone grabbed the rose that was currently in your mouth, you wondered for a second if they were going to shove it back down, but instead, they began to pull it out. The pain of the thorns that had scratched your throat and the taste of copper made you feel like you were going to vomit, and as you stayed slumped on the table, your eyes began to water in embarrassment at how weak you were.

After coughing up your first full flower, you distanced yourself from the boys. Your phone notifications had been blown up for the past few days, Jeongguk and Taehyung even turned up at your door a few times, but it was only Yoongi you let in. Yoongi had a way of caring for you that made you feel like he didn’t really care, small things like leaving pain killers on your table or a new vase for the full flowers you had begun to cough up.

But the state you were currently in wouldn’t last for long, you could barely eat a meal and you only drunk iced water, tilting back your head to allow the water to soothe your injured throat. But it wasn’t just your throat being affected, Yoongi could tell that when he tried to tuck you into bed, when you looked up at him, big eyes swimming with tears before you looked away muttering, “I haven’t slept in ages.”

“I can tell,” he replied with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, as he climbed into bed next to you. His arm slung over your frail form as he soothed your coughing form and with a sudden realisation that he had been trying to deny for the past month when you had coughed up your first petal, you were in love with him.

Sometimes it’s not a question of catching feelings, but realising they’ve been there all along. Maybe it was seeing you in the hospital surrounded by white walls and the fact you no longer smelt like vanilla and roses, just medicine. Or the x-ray that hung on the opposite side of your wall, showing the flowers that had grown in your lungs, meaning that when Yoongi hugged you now, your heartbeat was fast and your breathing was shallow. But now Yoongi and the boys could no longer touch you, they were kept away looking at you only through the glass and listened to the doctors begging you daily to have the surgery.

Yoongi wondered if it was seeing your defiance, even when they promised you had a week left to live before storming out that did it, that made the feelings bloom from the seeds that had been planted from the first time he had heard your laugh.

But your health didn’t improve, in fact, it continued to deteriorate and as you became too weak to even cough up the flowers, the boys would watch in tears as you simply tilted your neck up and let the next flower sprout out of your mouth, before pulling the blood covered bloom out and placing it into the vase next to you.

It was a heart-shattering sight, and when the doctors finally allowed everyone a final goodbye; Yoongi was the first in. As he fell to his knees at the side of your bed, grasping your thin hand between his and placing his forehead against it as his warm tears fell on your skin, “Yoongi, I can’t breathe.”

The sound of the machine flat lining sent the boys into a frenzy, but Yoongi stayed frozen to the spot, before he leant forward and placing a kiss on your lips whispered, “I’m in love with you.” But the nurses were already tugging the group out of the room, however Yoongi was unable to resist as he began to cough, the boys looked at him in shock as a single white rose petal floated from his lips and to the floor.

Yoongi refused for this to be the end, leaping to his feet he shoved the door open if it was only to see you one more time and burn your face into his memory. But there you were, sitting up and looking around in confusion and as the sun began to shine through your window illuminating your face, Yoongi felt his heart stutter as he barged past doctors to wrap his arms around you, before you asked “Who are you?”

Yoongi fell limp in your arms, and you barely managed to keep a straight face before you burst into laughter, your hands cupping his face before you brought it to your lips, planting a kiss on his soft lips, “You dork, I’d rather die than forget you.”

Yoongi wiped away his tears as he let his head fall onto your shoulder with a sigh, he could still feel love blooming in his chest at just the sound of your voice and he wondered how he would ever make up for the pain you had felt because of him.