Page 1 of Fated
Chapter 1
Max
Hanahaki: A fictional disease popular in the fanfiction community. According to the lore, a person develops Hanahaki when they fall in love with a person so deeply that they can’t live without them. Symptoms begin with a sore throat and chest pain, followed by intermittent coughing that eventually results in coughing up flowers.
If the sufferer doesn’t gain the love of the object of their affection, they will eventually die from suffocation. The only other known cure is to have the flowers removed through surgery, but if they do, their love for the person will be lost forever.
I thought Hanahaki was complete crap until the morning I coughed up a purple and green flower.
I’d had a tickle in my throat and a twinge in my lungs all month, but I’d chalked it up to the cold that had been getting passed around town. However, holding the flower in my hand had me staring at it in disbelief.
How could I be in love? I mean, I loved my friends, sure, but romantic, obsessive love? I didn’t even know anyone outside my tight circle of gamer geeks and fantasy fanatics.
Josh, Lauren, and Kaitlyn were my ride or dies, but I wasn’t in love love with any of them.
I laughed incredulously as my mind drifted to the only person who came close to counting. He was perfection personified. Tall. Dark. Brooding. And when I tell you the man was obsessive…woo boy. My pants were tight just thinking about him.
Too bad he wasn’t real.
“So…are we not gonna talk about how Max yakked up a flower right in front of us?” My ever-observant friend Josh asked.
My throat tickled again, and I spent another few minutes painfully producing another purple and green flower.
“Seriously, Max what the hell have you been eating?” Lauren asked, rubbing my back soothingly because she was better than both of my other friends combined.
“Can you do it again? I didn’t have my phone ready, and this needs to go on Tiktok.” Kaitlyn shoved her phone in my face and motioned excitedly.
I gave her the stink-eye and said, “It’s not a parlor trick I can do on command.” Then I hiccupped, and a purple flower petal popped out of my mouth and drifted gently to the floor.
“I don’t think that was enough, Max. I think we need a whole one to convince everyone.” Kaitlyn made a circling motion with her hand, indicating that she wanted me to continue with my unwilling flower show.
Lauren scooped the petal off the ground and gazed at it thoughtfully before saying, “Shit, I know what this is.” She shot to her feet and started pacing.
“Don’t say it, Lauren,” I begged. I was far too stressed to deal with the insanity she was about to start spewing. In our group, she and I were the diehard fanfiction readers. We knew our tropes better than we knew our families.
She ignored me and continued at a volume that I was certain the neighbors down the street could hear. “This is Hanahaki! You’ve got Hanahaki disease, don’t you?”
Then she proceeded to catch a confused Josh and Kaitlyn up on the specifics of the disease. They both went from doubtful, to curious, then to alarmed as we all stared at the flowers in my hand.
“When did you fall in love with Josh, Max?” Lauren asked, finally breaking the silence.
“Josh? Ew, no way. He farts constantly.” It wasn’t the only reason I wasn’t into Josh, but it was definitely on the list.
“Hey!”
“I’m just telling it like it is, buddy. You’re a chronic farter. End of story.”
“Slander!”
“You scared the dog out of the room ten minutes ago, Josh. Everyone was there,” Lauren said loyally.
“You should be so lucky to get someone like me, Max, and you know it.”
“Maybe some of your girlfriends might not mind, but I’m not interested in wearing a gas mask to bed every night.” It would be terrible for my skin. Even if I didn’t have a special someone, it didn’t mean I was going to let myself go. I liked how I felt when I looked my best, and if a tall, dark someone crossed my path, I wanted him to see me looking amazing too.
“Whatever, princess,” Josh grumbled. Then he got an odd look on his face, unfolded his tall, beanpole frame, and left the room. We all heard my dog, Mitzy, yelp and run out of the doggy door.
I didn’t blame her. If I had been her, I would have done the exact same thing. Everyone said Mitzy and I looked and acted exactly alike and would tease me by saying that I was the human version of my small, blue-eyed, white-furred dog.
