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Tine loves flowers. They were beautiful and the different meanings each one had had always caught Tine’s interest. But they were also very sad, Tine believed, because unless they were made of plastic, the longest they could live in a vase filled with water was a couple of days. So as much as Tine loved flowers, he didn’t like giving or receiving them. He told Sarawat as much, and the couple managed to avoid giving each other flowers for the past several months they had been dating.
Until Tine started coughing them up.
It was after a date with Sarawat that Tine found the first one.
Sarawat had brought Tine home and they shared a sweet kiss by the door.
“I love you, Tine.”
Tine’s lips pursed. “I love you too.” He replied uneasily.
Sarawat seemed happy at his reply and went home.
Tine had been distracted during the date, able to eat only a bit of his dinner while he thought about how lucky he was to have Sarawat in his life. He wished Sarawat felt the same way, and that he wouldn’t get tired of Tine. The law student thought he wasn’t a catch by any means, despite his constant declarations of being Mr. Chic.
At midnight, Tine was woken by shortness of breath, like something was lodged in his throat and blocking the air from entering his lungs.
“What the hell…” Tine gasped, clutching his throat with one hand, the other bracing himself on the bed while coughs wracked his body.
Tine leaned over and with one final cough, he felt something pass his lips and fall on the bed. With shaking fingers, Tine picked it up and held it under his lamp.
It was a daffodil.
“You look tired, bro.” Fong commented as he took a seat beside Tine, noting the other boy’s dark undereye circles.
Tine sighed. “I had the weirdest dream.”
“How weird?” Ohm asked, “Like sex weird?”
“Ugh, of course not, you perv.” Tine replied, eyeing Ohm with distaste. “You’ve been spending too much time on Pornhub.” Ohm grinned at him.
“What did you dream of then?” Puak arrived and sat next to Ohm. “And yes Ohm, stop spending too much time on that site. It sets unrealistic expectations for sex.”
Tine cleared his throat, cheeks tinged pink. “As I was saying, I dreamt I coughed up a flower.”
Ohm’s eyes narrowed. “That sounds eerily familiar.”
“That is weirdly specific. Don’t you hate flowers?” Fong wondered.
“I like them. I just don’t like that they rot and die after you pick them.” Tine clarified, then continued his story. “I dreamt I coughed up a daffodil in the middle of the night and it disappeared.” He frowned. “I could’ve sworn I placed it on my nightstand but when I woke up this morning, it was gone.”
“I’m amused by the fact that you’re more concerned about the flower disappearing than you are about coughing one up. Besides, you said it yourself, it was a dream.”
Ohm and Puak nodded at Fong’s statement.
Tine sighed. “Yeah, I guess.”
At exactly midnight, Tine woke up again, his throat constricting and his lungs feeling like they were on fire. By the time his coughing stopped, Tine had found another daffodil on his bed.
It was gone by morning.
Tine still wasn’t sure if he was dreaming or not.
The frown on Sarawat’s face deepened as he saw Tine struggling to stay awake, eyes blinking rapidly as he stared at the computer screen. Sarawat had initially planned for them to go out for dinner but seeing Tine’s tired expression when they met up led to a change in plans. But even a Netflix movie seemed to be too much for Tine.
“Tine?” Sarawat said softly, nudging Tine’s shoulder.
Tine turned towards his boyfriend. “Yes, Wat?” Even his voice was croaky and tired.
Sarawat leaned into Tine and gently brushed their lips together. “You look like death warmed over. Maybe we should just call it a night.”
“No! I’m okay, I promise.” Tine suddenly yawned and his cheeks turned red. “Maybe I’m a little tired.” He admitted, eyes already half-closed. “But I want to stay awake with you…”
Sarawat shook his head fondly as he turned off the laptop. He arranged the comforter over both of them, wrapping an arm around Tine’s waist and pulling the boy close.
“Don’t leave me, Sarawat.” Tine mumbled.
Sarawat was a little confused at the request but replied anyway. “I won’t. Sleep, Tine.”
Tine was already snoring softly against Sarawat’s neck.
Like clockwork, Tine woke up at midnight and expectorated another daffodil, this one stained with red. Tine cleared his throat and tasted the metallic tang of blood.
Sarawat stayed asleep during the entire thing.
During lunch the next day, Ohm had suddenly let out a loud “Eureka!” while scrolling on his phone.
Tine was startled and spilled half his glass of water on his shirt. “Shit, Ohm! It’s a good thing this was just water!” His white shirt was practically transparent.
“Sorry!” Ohm apologized sheepishly. “But I can make it up to you!”
Tine stared at his friend curiously. “How?”
“I knew that flower coughing thing was familiar.” Ohm flipped his phone around and showed Tine a Wikipedia article.
“Hanahaki Disease?”
Ohm nodded excitedly. “It’s the stuff Y-girl dreams are made of.”
Tine took Ohm’s phone and read through the article, googling the term again and looking at the various BL novels with Hanahaki Disease as part of the major plotline. He frowned.
“You get it if the person you love doesn’t love you back.” Ohm said conversationally. “Which is weird because Sarawat is hopelessly in love with you.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s weird.” Tine said blankly. Maybe Sarawat didn’t love him after all. Or maybe he got tired of Tine. It wasn’t new to him, people tiring of him. The girls he dated usually broke up with him after a few weeks.
Fong took the phone from him, frowning at how the stories were mostly tragic.
“Fuck that’s sad,” Fong muttered. “And it sounds like it hurts.”
“It does,” Tine said.
“Tine,” Puak said seriously. “You do realize that it isn’t a real disease, right? You’ve just been dreaming it.”
“It sure doesn’t feel that way.”
His friends shared worried glances with each other.
“I’m not crazy.”
“No. You’re not.”
Tine pouted as his brother gave him a look.
“I don’t like that look, P’Type.”
“What look?”
“Like you’re psychoanalyzing me. I don’t like being psychoanalyzed.”
Type sighed and took a long sip from his coffee. He and Tine had met up during the weekend after Man had told Type that Fong told him about Tine’s trouble sleeping. Tine finally spilled to his brother how he had been plagued with dreams of daffodils and a fictional disease every night at midnight over the past week. Sarawat was already starting to notice how the deep eyebags were becoming a permanent fixture on Tine’s face.
“So.” Type looked at Tine pointedly.
Tine rolled his eyes. “Fine. Lay it on me, big bro.”
“I’m no expert seeing as this disease isn’t real,” Type said clearly, emphasizing the last part, “But I think this has more to do with how you feel about Sarawat than how he feels about you.”
Tine’s eyebrows scrunched together. “What do you mean? It’s pretty clear. You get Hanahaki Disease because of unrequited love.”
“Tine,” Type stared at Tine seriously. “You get Hanahaki Disease if you think your love is unrequited.”
Tine was silent.
It was another week of dreams filled with flowers that were gradually getting bloodier with each night when Tine finally cracked. Tine had been trying to read his sheets and failing miserably. Every beat of his heart hurt with each passing thought through his mind.
Maybe Sarawat wanted to break up already and his subconscious was warning him about it. Maybe he thought Tine would be different and he regretted being with him. Maybe Sarawat never really loved him at all.
“Sarawat.”
The boy looked up from his guitar and saw Tine looking at him sadly, eyes shining with tears. Sarawat felt a clench in his chest at the expression on Tine’s face. He put down the instrument and sat close to the boy.
“What’s wrong, Tine? Do you feel sick?” Sarawat wiped away the lone tear that had fallen down Tine’s cheek.
“No, no. It’s just that,” Tine took a deep breath. “Do you love me?” His voice was small and he had diverted his gaze from Sarawat’s.
Without missing a beat, Sarawat replied, “Yes.”
Tine looked back at him, unbelieving. “You can’t possibly love me. I’m stupid, and clumsy, and I say the wrong things all the time. I made you suffer during the whole fiasco with Green! I hurt you so bad and I don’t know how you can love someone like that.”
Sarawat felt like he had been punched in the gut. “Do you love me, Tine?” He asked quietly.
“I do!” Tine said hurriedly, gripping Sarawat’s hands in his own.
“And I believe you,” Sarawat said calmly, “So why can’t you believe me?”
Tine cried.
“I honestly don’t know. Most of the time I feel like I don’t deserve you, Sarawat. Like I’m not worthy enough of your love.” Of being loved.
Sarawat could almost hear the last part Tine was thinking and it broke his heart.
He sighed, his own tears threatening to burst like a dam. He didn’t know Tine felt that way, that he felt guilty about what happened before they got together. How insecure he really was about their relationship. About himself.
Sarawat pulled Tine into his chest, one hand rubbing soothingly over Tine’s back.
“I love you, Tine.” Sarawat said firmly. “I love you because you’re stupid, and clumsy, and say the wrong things all the time. I love everything about you, Tine, all the good stuff and bad stuff included.”
Sarawat pulled away and placed both his hands on Tine’s wet cheeks. “But most of all I love you because you’re a good person, Tine Teepakorn. You are beautiful inside and out. You wouldn’t even go off on Green when he was borderline stalking you. You wouldn’t even go off on me when I was being pushy and practically harassing you about your boobs.” Tine laughed at that one.
“I love you because I do, Tine. I will always love you. I didn’t pine over you for an entire year for you to believe that I don’t. Whatever insecurity you have over what we are, over my love for you, I’ll gladly prove you wrong, today and every day for the rest of our lives.”
Tine let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding in since he said yes to being Sarawat’s boyfriend.
“That sounds like a proposal!” He joked, wiping his face.
“Do you want it to be?”
Tine turned red at the utter seriousness of Sarawat’s question. “Don’t joke like that, saraleo.”
Sarawat smiled. Tine brought his lips to Sarawat’s gently, head turning to the side as Sarawat pushed them back on the bed. The taller boy settled in between Tine’s legs, one hand wandering up Tine’s shirt and spreading warmth over his abdomen. Tine groaned, shifting his shoulders and bringing his arms up to wind around the other boy’s neck. Sarawat’s other hand was inching up Tine’s leg, slipping into his shorts and settling on his thigh.
Tine turned his head to the side after a few minutes and tugged Sarawat down beside him. He snuggled contentedly into Sarawat’s neck and closed his eyes.
“I love you, Sarawat.”
Sarawat closed his eyes too and pressed a kiss to Tine’s forehead.
“I love you too.”
There were no daffodils that night or any night that followed after.