~SkepHalo Oneshots~

Caught You Like the Flu

⚠Trigger warnings: blood, choking, suffocation, death⚠

Darryl was in love.

There was no denying that fact. He was head-over-heels in love with his best friend, Zak.

Darryl loved everything about him; his face, his hair, his voice, his laugh, even the way he trolled Darryl constantly. Every time Zak would tease him with a bit of playful flirting, Darryl would get so flustered he could hardly speak.

He didn't know for certain whether Zak liked him, but the flirting certainly made him hope he did. Thanks to that, Darryl had begun to gain some confidence regarding the matter; given a few more days, he figured he might be able to confess his feelings.

In a good mood, Darryl grabbed his phone to text Zak, to say hello, to offer video ideas, to ask about his day, anything. It didn't matter what they were talking about; he just wanted to talk to him. However, when he turned on the phone, he was immediately distracted by a Twitter notification. He tapped on it, curious as to what Zak had posted.

His heart dropped into his stomach. This couldn't be happening. His eyes were lying, he was dreaming, something like that. He refused to believe that the words on his screen were real.

Darryl rubbed his eyes, he pinched himself, he closed and reopened the app, but nothing worked. That horrible, heartbreaking tweet was still there.

Zak didn't love him.

All the flirting, all the kisses, everything. It was all a joke. Fan service. Nothing more.

Darryl's throat closed up as the horrible truth sank in. He could hardly breathe. He covered his mouth with his elbow and coughed bitterly. His eyes widened when he suddenly became aware of something solid in his throat. He stood up and ran to the bathroom to cough whatever it was into the toilet rather than onto his sleeve.

Once he had done so, he opened his eyes and was greeted with the sight of three small flower petals floating in the toilet bowl. "What the...?"

Trying not to panic, Darryl flushed the petals down and returned to his computer. He opened up Google and typed in "throwing up flowers."

He hit enter, and the search results instantly filled with one thing: Hanahaki disease. Darryl scanned the page, eyes filling with tears as words and phrases stood out to him: unrequited love. Heartbreak. Suffocation. He closed the page and made another search: "how to cure hanahaki."

After looking for some time, he had gathered that there were three ways to get rid of the disease. Number one: confess to Zak. If he felt the same way, he would be cured. Number two: get surgery. That would remove the flowers, but also prevent him from caring about Zak at all. Finally, number three: the flowers continue to grow until he suffocates.

Obviously, he didn't want to die, but he didn't want to lose his love for Zak either, especially since some sources said there was even a chance of him forgetting about Zak entirely. That left one option, confession. But Darryl already knew that Zak didn't love him. He sighed and put his head in his hands. His head hurt from thinking, and he could feel another coughing fit coming on quickly. Darryl went back to the bathroom and threw up the petals. To his horror, a small amount of blood had come up as well. He flushed the toilet again and decided to think about his options more in the morning, after he'd gotten some sleep.

Miraculously, he was able to fall asleep eventually. The next morning, he woke up and immediately rushed to the bathroom. He tried not to panic at the discovery that one or two whole flowers had joined the petals and blood. He sighed as he flushed the toilet yet again. The disease was working more quickly than he had expected. He'd have to do something soon.

Darryl glanced at himself in the mirror before he exited the bathroom and stopped short. He stared at his reflection, horrified, and brought his hand up to his face to make sure what he was seeing was real. It was; his fingers made contact with a small flower just to the right of his left eyebrow. He gripped it gently and tried to pull it off, but it hurt, as if it were part of him. It was like trying to pull off the flap of skin around a fingernail, but on his head instead of his finger. He sighed and left it.

A few days passed, and the disease got worse. Each time Darryl threw up, there was more blood and more flowers. He was having trouble breathing, and he could hardly see anymore from the blossoms that had appeared over his eyes. He grew desperate, and one day, as he sat coughing into the toilet, he finally made the decision to call Zak and pray that his tweet was somehow a lie.

With some difficulty, Darryl identified Zak's contact and called him. The phone rang a few times, then Zak's voice answered, "Hello?"

"Zak," Darryl said, more a plea than a greeting.

"Hey Darryl, what's up?"

"I need to tell you something. I-" He broke off into a fit of coughing.

"Woah, hey, you okay? You sound sick, you should rest."

"No, I can't. Zak, I love you. I love you so much, more than anything." He wanted to say more, but another bout of coughing prevented him from speaking.

"...I'm sorry, Darryl, I... don't feel the same."

There went Darryl's last hope of survival. He leaned his head back against the wall, listening as Zak continued to speak.

"I'm sorry, I hope we can keep being friends anyway."

Darryl wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. He struggled to breathe in to respond. He was going to say something generic; it's okay, yes we can still be friends, etc. But as he noticed how difficult it was for him to inhale, he settled for, "I'll miss you."

The flowers took over, and he never spoke again.