dr stone oneshots & hcs!

hanahaki; alternate ending

The Hanahaki disease was a mysterious and controversial illness learned about through the 100 tales. A woman, whose romantic feelings for a loved one were unrequited, had died from the disease that involved choking to death on flowers. The ailment was so obscure to Ishigami Village that you hardly believed in it growing up.

That was until you coughed up petals of your own. You had been reflecting on your relationship with your friend Senku, a strange man from the past who brought an extraordinary amount of knowledge to the village, when scarce known symptoms of the illness first arose. You admired him greatly and overtime realized you had developed romantic feelings for him.

But you knew how Senku felt about romance. It was completely off the table, and the thought of your feelings being unrequited accepted immediately as fact, despite not knowing for certain, sent you into a panic and triggered the beginning stages of the Hanahaki disease.

After you started coughing up more petals more frequently, you would disappear in order to sort yourself out without having to worry about a villager's watchful gaze. As time went on, you knew that your unexplainable and sudden absences would start to become more prominent, even worse that a pattern would start to take form in them, but you thought you did a decent job excusing yourself from the start.

And you were right. Most of the villagers, even if initially confused or suspicious, bought off any and all excuses you offered, not thinking it anymore than a reaction to the weather or the intensive labor. You managed to convince most of the village, except for the leader himself.

Senku's eye and mind were especially sharp after becoming chief of Ishigami Village. He had a lot of people to manage, and every contribution mattered to the projects they were attempting to pull off. The scientist took notice of your random absences around him, and though he thought they were suspicious, they also affected Senku in ways he didn't expect. Somehow, they made the time the two of you spent together more valuable in Senku's subconscious, as you seemed to always be preoccupied with something else.

Upon taking notice of the eagerness he felt when he was around you, Senku was forced to reflect. Working on science projects absolutely made Senku excited, but there was something that made the experience all the more thrilling when you were beside him helping. Whether it was a helpful hand or a listening ear, his love of working with you differed a little to how he felt about working with the others. And he realized through the lengthy periods of time that you were away from him and or the group that he missed your presence. That his thoughts would wander almost anxiously off to think about who you may be spending your time with, realizing that he preferred it if you spent it with him. And through these realizations he came to a startling conclusion- that he had developed feelings for you.

But obviously you didn't know this, and obviously one of Senku's first attempts at trying to get rid of these feelings was ignoring you a little more than usual like you had been doing, and during this period your Hanahaki only got worse, as it fueled your thought of Senku not returning your feelings.

The distance Senku attempted to put between the two of you didn't work out like he wished it would've, and he slowly went back to being himself around you, something that both of you silently preferred. Your feelings for each other grew with each passing day, and it was killing you both, in your case literally. The ironic thing was that neither of you knew it.

At some point, Senku got sick of not saying anything. You kept leaving the group unexpectedly and he had no idea where, and for a while he thought maybe you had found out about his feelings and started avoiding him. The whole situation was a mess that somehow nobody caught on to, not even the two people involved in the situation.

So Senku confronted you the evening after first reconnecting with Taiju and Yuzuriha and gaining Nikki as an ally. It was the first time in a while the two of you were working together comfortably, and to Senku's embarrassment, the victories he obtained along with a feeling of peace encouraged him to speak up about his feelings, because he really wanted more moments like those.

But at the same time, he was scared his feelings would just scare you off even more. Still, Senku felt the need to clear the air. He didn't want anything coming in between your work, and he certainly didn't want to make you uncomfortable.

So as everyone settled down for the night, he pulled you into the lab and asked if the two of you could talk.

Both of you were unbelievably nervous, and the situation is almost hilarious. You were worried that Senku had found out about the disease and about your feelings for him, and Senku was worried that you'd be disgusted with him and that his feelings will get in the way of any work the two of you needed to do together. He started off with some small talk, confused as you watched him pace around nervously and avoid eye contact with you.

A brief moment of tense silence fell over the two of you before Senku spoke up and confessed. You were stunned. You almost didn't believe him. No, not almost; you didn't believe him at all. But even you know that there was no reason for him to lie about it, because Senku was always sincere when it came to you, and you swore you felt the heaviness of your lungs lift from your chest and the scratchiness of your throat clear away. It was incredible how light you felt after Senku's confession.

You put a hand to your throat, which confused Senku. Were you seriously so disgusted with him that you felt physically ill? But then you quickly looked up at him, catching him off guard, and hurriedly sputtered out a confession of your own.

-

You and Senku didn't immediately label yourselves, nor did you share your confession with anyone but Gen, who was more than happy (and more than taken aback) that your feelings for Senku were mutual and that you weren't both burdened with the Hanahaki disease.

It wasn't until a little while later that the two of you actually talked about the disease. Even though you were cured, you still felt horribly for letting your feelings become so strong that they manifested in the form of an illness. Senku gazed at you with a grim look as you told him the timeline of your experience with the disease, from his celebration party, to Gen connecting the dots and helping cover for you, to the immediate lightness you felt when you realized Senku reciprocated your feelings. All the while you couldn't look him in the eye.

"That was a close one you know. You could've left me feeling responsible for your death." And you held your breath, enormous guilt overwhelming you because that's exactly what you didn't want. But then suddenly, you felt a sharp pain shoot through your head. "Ow!"

Senku leaned over with his hand in the air. "But you didn't, so stop looking so gloomy."

"I could say the same for you!"

To think that a misunderstanding could've been the reasoning for your death.

Senku chuckled. Yeah, things could've turned out a whole lot differently were it not for his confession. But you were here, you were safe, and you liked him back. And for once, Senku decided to focus on the present and be thankful to have you by his side instead of hyper fixating on the 'what ifs' of the past and future.