Bungou Stray Dogs One Shots

Shin Soukoku

Requested by Blackdahlia11547! Hope it meets up to your expectations :)

Love is deadly and painful

Akutagawa had heard this phrase before many times from when he was young. He didn't understood why at that time. He thought love was supposed to be beautiful. He thought that love was a wonderful thing to experience.

As he grew up, he became a witness of someone's death. He stared at the dead body, speechless and scared. Flowers bloomed on the chest, exiting from lungs and feeding on the flesh as a substitute of a fertilizer.

What the hell happened?

He got his answer soon enough by eavesdropping on a conversation.

The person was infected by a disease given the name, "Hanahaki Disease". Such a cruel disease it was to have. As long as you had fallen in love with someone, this disease will infect you immediately. What are the symptoms? The first symptom was coughing. Coughing so violently until you force out the item from your lungs. A petal of a flower.

Then the process to death started. Flowers continue to grow inside the lungs until ever single space of it is filled, leaving no room for oxygen to come in. You'll keep coughing up more petals, sometimes even a flower head, but it'll never be enough. Finally, the flowers inside your lungs will start eating away at them until they got to your chest and bloom out from it.

How to get rid of the Hanahaki disease? The first method to getting rid of this disease is to simply confess to the one you've fallen in love with. If the person reciprocates your feelings, you'll cough out the flowers from your lungs and none will grow anymore. You'll live. But what if they don't? Then you can pretty much say goodbye to your life, or go through the second method if it isn't too late.

The second method is to undergo surgery. If you've discovered that you have the disease, the first few days are recommended to go through surgery as the disease is still new. But if it went on for too long, not even surgery can help anymore. Furthermore, the results of the surgery was that all of the feelings you've had for the person will be gone.

Akutagawa hoped he will never experience this disease in his entire life.

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One morning, he woke up to the feeling as if pressure was pressing down hard on his chest, forcing him to cough. He began coughing, much more violently than usual, and rushed to the bathroom to spit out whatever had entered his mouth in the sink. He stared at the item lying on the sink alongside a few droplets of blood. A petal.

More specifically, a bloodstained petal.

He stared at the petal for a few seconds before using his hand to reach it and feel the delicate petal. As he was running his thumb along its surface, thoughts began coming and going into and from his mind as he ravked through his memories on how did this happened. It settled on one person. Nakajima Atsushi.

Had he fallen in love with that weretiger? But that's impossible! He was supposed to be his rival! How could he fall for him?

He closed his eyes, letting go of the petal and leaned against the cold wall before sinking down to the floor. Oh, what point is there in denying it anymore? The petal is there, the physical proof of his feelings. He stayed in his position for a long time, burying his head into his hands and silently weeping.

Why had he been so foolish and fallen for Atsushi?

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"Atsushi! You have a visitor asking to see you!" Tanizaki called. The said one looked up, surprised. "Me?" He asked, pointing his index finger towards himself. "No, the wall. Yes, you!" Tanizaki replied, slightly rolling his eyes before leaving the room. Atsushi blinked a few times before getting up and heading towards the guest room.