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Hanahaki Disease I

Sorry if this feels bloated (I may have gotten carried away) but hey, aren’t all genshin players used to bloated dialogues? jk

About you: Accomplished graduate of the Amurta Darshan, specializing in pathology (study of diseases). First official patient of Hanahaki Disease in the modern day. Hopelessly in love with...

---

Bimarstan doctors are stumped. They know nothing of a disease like this. Not the name, not the progression, not the treatment. You have tried to tell them about the disease yourself, but they dismissed it as you are “not in your right mind”, “as a result of the disease”. Hah.

This case is highly confidential, as nothing of the disease has been studied yet. It is protocol not to spur unnecessary fear to the public as some might assume that the disease is contagious due to lack of concrete information, or some other ridiculous made up claims.

Who else to ask when it comes to petals and flowers other than forest watcher Tighnari? You were sent over to Gandharva Ville to be taken under the care of Tighnari himself. Of course you know who he is, you are an Amurta graduate like he is! If there is a name to be remembered in Amurta, it is either his, or yours. Even in the Akademiya, you two had already been somewhat popular names. He is a trusted colleague, with his research discoveries in botany, oftentimes those with unverified pathological significance sent over to you, and your combined works occasionally sent over to another trusted colleague in pharmacology. In short, you two work together quite often.

Or, well… used to work.

He prepared a special area just for you, so you could be a clinical case study. Like a lab rat. A private area with a large window. It’s open enough to let a lot of fresh air in, but covered enough so you can still enjoy your privacy. That, and because he is required to hide you. The case, again, is strictly confidential.

You don’t blame him, though. You can’t. You two orkshare the same trade. Maybe he would even listen to you unlike those arrogant people at Bimarstan. But… who cares? What’s the point?

You’re bound to die anyway.

He looks very closely at you.

His face frowns a little, seeing you look so… devoid of hope. He tries to grab your attention, because the look in your eyes - you look like you’re about to go somewhere very far away.

You cough. Just a few, tiny, suppressed coughs.

A couple of petals fall into your hands. No blood, not yet.

You exhale.

He does, too.

“…The people at Bimarstan told me that you were speaking nonsense. I’m sure you know, but the… disease that you have - there are no records of it. But I trust you. I have great respect for your intellect. You research this kind of thing.” A pause. “Can you tell me everything you know about this disease?”

You don’t respond, not verbally. But you look at his direction - an act that tells him “I’m listening”.

“Do you know the name? Progression? Cause?” he pauses. “…Treatment?”

You don’t answer right away.

“Hanahaki…�� you uttered. “Hanahaki disease. Progression is… oral expulsion of petals. In the late stages of the disease, those petals are whole flowers. Flowers also grow on the skin in late stages.”

He notes everything. He trusts your information. “You must’ve heard or researched about this disease somewhere,” he thinks.

“Do you know the cause?”

“…” a pause.

“… mhm.”

“Can you tell me what it is?” He continued, his pen hovering very closely over the sheet of paper.

You avert your gaze before you answer.

“No.”

His eyes widened a little. Not that you saw. So you know the cause, but you weren’t willing to tell him?

“and the treatment?”

You stare at the white sheets in front of you. You didn’t respond.

He walks towards your bed and gently starts picking up the scattered petals on the sheets. “You’re not the type of person to omit details. Or hold back information.” his hands continue to trail the sheets, picking the petals up one by one. “You’re usually who we send cases like this to, except, well… we can’t really send you to yourself, can we?”

Silence.

He looks at you, your eyes dull and lifeless. Like you’ve lost all hope. It was painful to watch for Tighnari. He knows what kind of a powerhouse you are - were - at work. You were highly competent. Confident. Efficient. Brilliant. You never second-guessed yourself. You would take on a stack of work with a smile and a fiery passion like no other. You used to look like you could run the world if you desired.

Now look at what this disease did to you.

He exhales. “I understand. It must be a difficult topic.” he walks towards the door, hands on the handle, and before turning,

“I’ll wait for you to come around.”

He opens the door and leaves the room.

Your eyes didn’t leave the sheets. He didn’t pry any further.

For now.

—-

A whole week has passed since your arrival at Gandharva Ville.

He heard another cough coming from your room. Soft, small, suppressed coughs.

It was already the third time this early in the morning.

Tighnari opened the door while you were wiping your lower lip with the back of your index finger, your gaze still as blank as ever. You two had talked a little about the disease during the past week.

“Still the early stage,” you said simply, voice still faint from the recent coughing. “Just petals.”

Tighnari approached, sitting on the chair for him at the side of your bed. “You weren’t coughing much yesterday. I thought you were getting better.”

“I won’t,” you said, like it’s the surest thing in the world.

“You’re the first recorded case of this… Hanahaki disease.” his hands collecting the petal samples, as usual. “and yet you know of its name and progression. Cause and cure.”

“First case in modern times,” you corrected. “I’ve seen this disease before. In theory. In fragments. I’ve known about it way back in the thesis season in the Akademiya. I didn’t think much about a disease that made no sense, especially when you learn of the cause.”

“Who would’ve thought it’d be me of all people who will prove the very existence of this disease.” your tone laced with bitterness.

“You were always the go-to when it comes to new diseases. You could pinpoint the cause. You record every stage of the progression. You even hypothesize possible treatments before sending reports to our colleagues in pharmacology.” Tighnari stated.

“A few days ago, you said the end stage…”

“-isn’t survivable. Correct.” you interrupted. “If there is one certain thing about this disease, it’s that it will never stop until I’m throughly, completely, absolutely dead.”

“You said there is a way to stop it.” He continued.

“Two ways, actually. But only one is within the patient’s control.” you corrected.

“…then what is it?” he asked, his hand curling into a fist.

You turned your gaze away, intentionally ignoring his question.

“You’ve never withheld information before,” he said, his voice a little louder. “Not once. Even when it could cost you politically. Even when it could cost you your job. Your position. Even when it was dangerous. You always wanted knowledge to be shared, especially if it could help someone else. It’s our common ground, the constant thing we’ve both practiced since the Akademiya. Why are you staying quiet now of all times?”

It’s frustrating. If there is someone who understood him with his rule-breaking dissemination of information, it’d be you. And you of all people, withholding information? from him?

“…if this were someone else, you would be running around trying to gather every bit of information you could get. You wouldn’t sleep, you wouldn’t rest, you wouldn’t-“

“I know,” you interrupted. “I know, and yeah, you are correct. Ironic, isn’t it? Now I also know how damn annoying I must have been to my patients.” You shot him a look that just frustrated him further.

He just exhaled. A really long exhale.

“You know how persistent I am. I’m never gonna stop asking you about this. If you don’t wanna be well for yourself, at least think of how many people you’re helping everyday. They need you here. They need you alive.”

He went out the door.

—

After a week, blood starts coming alongside the petals when you cough.

With each passing week, the amount of blood and petals grew.

Until one day, he heard it. Your cough giving a significantly different sound.

Very,

very,

very… different.

The sound was wetter. Thicker. Heavier.

He came running as fast as he could. As soon as he opened the door, he saw you throwing up full blossoms for the first time. You were hunched over the bed, one hand on the sheet and the other on the bed frame, both gripping very, very tightly.

You weren’t guessing. You weren’t bluffing. You weren’t unsure. It wasn’t a theory. It was exactly as you described. Starting as petals, eventually flowers.

The flowers aren’t anything that can be found around Sumeru. Or maybe even anywhere in Teyvat. He would know.

These flowers… all different colored… all different-looking. It was produced completely by the disease. Bloodstained flowers, too large for the fragile shape of your throat. It was horrifying to look at.

You very slowly looked up to meet his gaze. He looks concerned. Horrified. With your lips still trembling and stained with blood, you spoke.

“I’ll tell you everything that I know.”

---

Tighnari cleaned you up first. Insisted that “the information can wait, but first you need to feel better.”

You obliged. It gave you time to prepare your thoughts. Your dialogue.

You watched quietly as he cleared the place. The blossoms kept for close study, him currently mopping up the blood with his brows furrowed, while you quietly hold your half-drunk glass of water. You could tell that he needed the time. The space. He is still obviously affected by what he saw.

After a while, he settled down. He sat on the chair on your bedside, his hand holding a well-used notepad instead of the paper sheets he usually had.

“As I said, the disease’s name is Hanahaki.”

He looked at you intently.

“First time I heard about it was when we were studying in the Akademiya. There was one time I argued with Master Naphis and he yelled at me for "being a smartass" before he locked me out of the laboratory. I suddenly had a lot of free time in my hands. I went to the library to read some books. I was originally going to read books in the Amurta section, but I guess I must have been pretty annoyed at being excluded, so I decided to just read random books.” you weakly chuckled at the memory.

“After a while, I didn’t realize I’ve already been reading people’s biographies and autobiographies. One of those was an autobiography of someone from Mondstadt. It was just a very small mention, but that’s where I first learned about the disease. It said that the author's cousin was supposed to inherit a noble title as a direct descendant but died of Hanahaki disease, which started a 15-year battle of inheritance that wiped out half of his clan's members.”

You noticed that Tighnari’s pen just hovered over the pad, waiting for relevant information about the disease.

“Ah, sorry… I must’ve gotten off-track. Anyway, the author emerged victorious. With glory and title on the palm of his hand, he still berated his deceased cousin. Saying how much of a fool he was for acquiring such a ridiculous disease, and dying from it. I didn’t understand it at the time.” you paused.

“It wasn’t until I was already working on the field - I think two years after graduation… or was it three?” you tried to recall. “Some idiots were smuggling contraband and some stolen Inazuman items into Sumeru. It was a whole lot. Of course, they were handled by the Corps of Thirty, and as for their Inazuman accomplices, they were deported back into their nation straight to the Shogunate. I saw a book entitled "Hanahaki". It was a pretty thin book. I knew the name, so I straight up lied and told them that the book is mine, that it was stolen from me. The cover was decorated with beautiful petals and flowers that made it look like a light novel. It was easier for them to hand over the “harmless romance book” than to question my words.” you mustered a dry chuckle. “You have no idea how scared I was to get found out.”

“The book was anything but. It was formal. Clinical. Complete. It gave very straightforward details about the disease. Cause. Symptoms. Progression. Cure. It was only then that I understood why the Mondstadtian noble berated his cousin.”

“The cause,” you continued,

Tighnari waited. It felt like a thousand years in the space between each breath.

“…it’s unrequited love.”

Whatever Tighnari was expecting, this was not it.

“What? This isn’t the time for jokes.” he growled. “How could an intangible thing manifest as a physical disease?!”

“I wish I was kidding. Believe me.” you answered seriously.

He exhaled. “So the cure-“

“Surgical removal.” you interrupted. “Surgical removal of everything. It will keep the patient alive. But the love they have for the person will disappear with it.”

That wasn’t what he was trying to say.

Your tone remained clinical. Detached. Almost rehearsed.

“Like I said, the disease isn’t survivable. It won’t stop until I’m dead. Even with surgery, it’s fatal, especially in the later stages. The longer the disease progresses, the riskier it is to operate.”

“You’ve seen me throw up flowers. You know what stage I’m in.”

You closed your eyes.

A long, slow sigh.

You lowered your loose shirt in front of Tighnari. He looked in disbelief.

A flower on your arm. Two small flowers beneath your collarbone.

“Once there’s a blossom on the skin, it means the roots have already grown beneath.” You inhaled deeply through your nose, and for a second, Tighnari swore he heard a faint crackling beneath your skin. “It’s only a matter of time until I start throwing up large amounts of flowers. Until the roots overtake my lungs, my vocal cords, my ribcage-“

You opened your eyes again. Looked at him.

“and yes, what you speculated is correct. What you were about to say before I cut you off. It’s gonna disappear if the love is reciprocated.”

You smiled bitterly.

“Which means right now, I’m as good as dead.”

The words hung there like fog.

Silence.

Still.

“…who is it, then?” he uttered, almost like a whisper.

You didn’t answer.

“I have a request,” you said, ignoring Tighnari’s question, “record everything about the disease. Every growth, every sign. Watch the progression very closely. Take pictures. Write a book. It’s gonna be monumental for Amurta. I give you full permission to publish it under your name.”

“Ridiculous,” he snapped, more sharply than he meant to. “You’re treating yourself like a corpse in a lab. Like you’re already gone.”

“You know how historical my data is gonna be for research.”

“You are not a paper to be published.” he said, stepping forward. “You are still alive.” he growled, turning to you, voice shaking, eyes bright with disbelief. “You know exactly how to cure it. You’ve laid out the path. The solution.”

His voice rose. “and you won’t even try!”

You still didn’t speak.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” The words tore out of him before he could think. His hands curled into fists at his sides. “You would rather die in pieces- suffocating, choking on your own ribs than-“

A long, heavy exhale.

“You should know best how frustrating it is to handle stubborn patients.”

You didn’t answer.

—

A few more weeks passed.

The flowers aggressively coming out of your mouth went from a few, to a lot.

The silence hung heavy after each time you vomit the flowers.

—

”You can use my graduation picture as a before reference. I suppose it’s the most accurate reflection of how I looked when I was still healthy.”

His pen paused for a beat. You noticed.

“I do regret a bit… not allowing photo documentation earlier. Back then, I was still… hopeful.”

Tighnari’s fingers tightened around the pen. “Hopeful,” he repeated quietly. “You mean… back when it was still petals.”

“…yeah.”

“Who is it?” Tighnari asked. It had already become a regular question.

A sly smile pulled at your lips.

“Maybe I’ll tell you on my deathbed.”

—

---

I swear this was intended to be kaveh x reader. Tighnari has more appearance right now because he oversees the disease. ;-; but I'm gonna try to think of an alternate tighnari ending. I'm gonna rack my brain for a way to give kaveh a lot of appearance......... again sorry for the bloat writing I wanted to write collei in, so she could occasionally talk to you, maybe comfort or relate (yk, her eleazar) try to make you feel better and less alone. I ended up just thinking of collei happy friendship ending and it's against the plot sadly

#genshin x reader

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