Flowers for You (DaiSuga Hanahaki)

Odd

     The lunch bell finally rang, releasing Suga from his horrible English teacher. It wasn't that he was bad at English, in fact, he didn't dislike the subject at all. He just hated the person that taught the subject. Sugawara joined Daichi for lunch at their usual place, like he always did. Something strange had been happening to him recently. Lots of little things started reminding him of Daichi. While in the car the radio was playing one of Daichi's favorite songs. One of his neighbors planted sunflowers in their yard, which for some reason reminded him of the captain. It was mostly little things that always kept the thought of Daichi in his head. 

     Just the thought of hanging out of Daichi made him smile. It wasn't unusual for him to enjoy spending time with Daichi, but Suga could tell that there was something different this time. He was enjoying it being just he and Daichi when the girl from class 1 felt the need to interrupt them.

     "Hey Daichi, hey Sugawara." Michimiya smiled. "Do you mind if I join you today?" Suga felt a jolt of annoyance. Of course, she had to interrupt their alone time. Lunch was one of the few times a day at school that was just he and Daichi and Michimiya was ruining it. 

     "Sure, why not? Suga, you don't mind, do you?" Daichi asked. Suga shook his head. It would be rude to say otherwise. Even then, the reason he didn't want her there was relatively shallow. 

     The three ate lunch in comfortable silence, just listening to the sounds of the school and watching the other students. Sometimes they'd talk about volleyball and the insane first-years or sometimes they'd talk about class and assignments and teachers. Usually, Suga was just content to sit in silence, making his dislike for Michimiya even more shallow. 

     Eventually,  Michimiya started to get uncomfortable with the silence. "Hey, have either of you heard of Hanahaki disease? Some of the girls in my class were talking about it." Both Sugawara and Daichi shook their heads. "Well, I guess that makes sense because apparently it's really rare. It infects people with unrequited love and causes flowers to grow in their lungs until they suffocate or the object of their affection returns their feelings. Until then you're coughing up flower petals and blood." 

     "That sounds awful!" Daichi exclaimed. "Flowers growing in your lungs. That would be really painful. And just anyone with unrequited love can get it? Damn."

     "Yeah. That's pretty scary. You can't just make the person you love like you back," Suga noted. Hanahaki. Interesting.

     "Exactly! That's why it's so terrifying," Michimiya tries for a laugh. "Now that I know something like this exists I'm kinda scared that I'll get it. I don't even know if the guy I like likes me back. This serves as a good motivator to work up the courage and finally ask him." 

     Daichi laughed. "I guess. Anything that helps." He turns to Sugawara. "Do you wanna grab something from the vending machines?" 

     "Sure." Suga stood and followed Daichi out the door.

     "Hahahaki, huh? What an interesting name," Daichi mused. "It is really scary to think about, but apparently it's really rare."

     "Yeah yeah." Suga nodded. His mind was racing. Flowers growing in your lungs and slowly suffocating you? How would that even work? Why does it only occur in people with unrequited love? What does shared mutual feelings do to cure it? Are there any other cures? There are probably other cures. If there weren't I would have heard of it by now. Suga waited while Daichi bought himself a drink from the vending machine. The bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. Social Sciences was his next class, lovely. 

~~~

     On his usual walk home, Sugawara couldn't stop thinking about Hanahaki disease. It was the weekend, so he would have plenty of time to procrastinate on his homework and research the disease instead. He stayed up pretty late into the night, reading everything he could find, which was a lot. Apparently, there was a treatment that involved going into the lungs and cutting the flowers out at the roots. The surgery could result in a loss of romantic feelings/loss of ability to have romantic feelings for anyone, loss of memory of the loved one, and or loss of romantic feelings of the loved one. All around, not a very cheery subject. 

     Suga wondered what unrequited love had to do with it and how someone returning the feelings of the victim would cure the disease. It didn't make logical sense, but neither did Hinata and Kageyama, so there was always a possibility for the inexplicable. 

     The next day, Suga realized that he had fallen asleep at his computer. All of the tabs of reading he was doing were still open. Outside, birds were chirping and sunlight came in underneath his curtains. It was a nice day out. He checked his phone. Sugawara felt his heart sink a little when he saw that there weren't any new messages from Daichi. He found himself wanting to message Daichi even when he didn't have anything to talk about. It was odd. Extremely odd. This is kinda funny. Usually, I'm the one people come to for relationship advice, so I don't really have someone that I could ask. Maybe Saeko. I'm not sure why but she seems like the kind of person who would be good with that kind of thing. 

     "Koushi, breakfast is ready!"

     "Coming!" 

~~~

     Sugawara finished his homework and spent the rest of the day looking for more information about Hanahaki. Despite the horrifying nature of the disease, he was oddly fascinated with it. Normally something like that wouldn't even interest him, but recently a lot of things had been thrown out of whack. He went outside and practiced his serves against the wall around his house until he got bored. Even though he was vice-captain, volleyball wasn't everything to him (unlike certain crazy first-years). Besides, practicing alone wasn't nearly as fun as practicing with Daichi and his teammates, even the crazy ones. 

     Later in the afternoon, he decides to go for a walk to get rid of all the energy he seemed to be carrying around with him. Sugawara wanted to think about something that wasn't Daichi or Hanahaki for once, but nothing really seemed to help. Everywhere he went there were little things that kept reminding him of Daichi. The ramen shop on the corner that he never gave a second glance brought up thoughts of his friend. If there was a way to just shut off his brain, Suga would pay any price for it. He felt like he was going a little insane. Maybe it was the stress of school and having to babysit hyperactive first-years or maybe it was something else. Whatever it was, it was driving him crazy.