*Flashback 6 years ago*

It was the time of Halloween again, Lucile and I were...just inside the house, doing our studies while the other kids were in costumes outside, getting candies from the neighbourhood. 

My parents never let us wear any costumes and getting candies because they think Halloween was an excuse for a holiday and was only made for selling useless things. And for some reason, they celebrate Valentines? Isn't Valentines the same thing?

I don't know, I can't make an argument with them, parents are always right after all.

But this Halloween, I wanted to do something different. I wanted to stay up till 12, wear a costume for the first time, and join my friends! So when everyone was already asleep, I dressed into my borrowed Dracula outfit, a paper bag for candies, and quietly head out.

It was 9 PM, and kids my age were still going trick-or-treating. That's great! I wonder if my friends from school are still around...

After a few hours later, I had my bag full of candies! Most of these were chocolate though than gummies...still, it's nice to have them! I haven't eaten chocolate since I was 7!

While I was devouring the chocolate bars on a stump, watching other children continue their candy mission, I see a little girl wandering around in a pink dress, holding a teddy bear.

'Haha, that's really cute! I wonder who's the little girl costuming as. She looks kinda like Lucile though!' I thought to myself and then...

'HOLY MOLY! It IS Lucile! In her pink nightgown and with her teddy bear'

I quickly bounced up and ran to her. I pulled her away from the people, and she quickly spins around at my touch. She looked like she just stopped crying.

"Lucile, what are you doing here?!" 

"Jack!" she immediately hugged me tightly. She was shivering from the cold, I unclip my Dracula cape and put it around her. "I-I woke up from a bad dream about a demon kidnapping you, and you weren't in your bed!" she stopped shivering, but she was starting to cry again.

"I waited but you didn't come back. I searched the house then the door downstairs was open so I...I came here to find you!"

And she just assumed I was outside? Well she is just 6 anyway.

"You're not supposed to be here, go home!" I scolded and tried pulling her away, but she only clutched me tighter.

"No! Not without you!" she cried.

"But I'm going to be here for awhile."

"Then I'll be with you until you come back!"

"Lucile, you need sleep."

"No! I don't need sleep...I'm..." a yawn came out of her. "Okay!"

Knowing how stubborn she is, she meant it when she said she won't leave me until we go home. But I still wanna go trick-or-treating, and at the same time, I don't want my sister to stay awake for so long. 

"Alright...come on, let's go home." I sighed, my mind didn't match my words but I had to end the fun here. 

She lights up and stopped crying. 

She finally pulled herself away and took my hand while we walked back home. I left my candies on the stump since it's not allowed back to the house anyway. Lucky whoever steals it.

The lights were on inside the house...Lucile is too short to reach the lights, so it only meant that our parents found us missing. I knew I was in for a beating...but it can't get any worse than a couple of hits, right?

When we came home...our parents were waiting for us, and they looked like they were going to explode. "You good for nothing brat!" Mother grabbed me by the ear to the kitchen and slapped me.

That whole night was mother and father shouting at my face, yelling things to me that I was a selfish dangerous no good brat who disobeys his parents and has a bad influence on his little sister. They thought I dragged Lucile against her will from her. 

Lucile cried even louder in her room while they were shouting. We basically woke up some neighbours that night and got little sleep.

~~~~

A week after that, they separated me and Lucile by making our once shared room into hers and moved me in another room farther away from all of them. 

Not only that, from that moment on, they tried separating us by not including me in some events, and not letting us play together anymore.

Looking back...maybe I shouldn't have did that. If I didn't sneak out, none of this would've happened. If I knew wanting to have first and only night doing Halloween would cause me to be separate with my only friend, I wouldn't have done it...

...Oh well, at least I finally got a room. It's the most sound-proof room in the whole house because it's the farthest and the walls are thick, at least I won't have to hear noises from mother and father's room anymore.

Mother let me have some family photos me, so I bought some frames and put one of my favourite pictures on my new drawer.

I had 2 favourites; one was our parents hugging and kissing me in my 5th birthday and one was Lucile and I playing in the sandbox. Those were my greatest memories...I hope I'll have more great memories with my family and this drawer will be filled of pictures!

====

Date: 2012  May 1 - 4 days remaining

Darkness... utter darkness surrounded me. There was nothing in that pitch black void except me and my thoughts, much like the state my soul is currently in. 

I thought I was dead, that I already died from the pain after that scene. Thought to myself, 'this is it. This is the end. This is where I die'...and waited for the afterlife to take me down to hell...

...only to turn out I was just sleeping. Soon my ears started working, and heard soft muffles of voices nearby. My touch sense started to work and felt my body being laid on a very familiar bed and a soft ball of fur on me. 

Then moments later, there was that same pain I felt before passing out, and it coursed through my head as soon as my ability to feel has operated again.

It felt as if something was trying to pull out my face's skin; specific spots on the face hurt and swelled painfully red, sweat was running down me, and those spots felt full of...something? It's like something was implanted inside the skin. And no, it wasn't acne.

I groaned from the overwhelming headache. "Nggghhh..." slowly and carefully, my limbs try to move, but I could only lift my arms; my legs had the same aching I had on my face, it was impossible to move them without moaning in agony, and they're as if they were tied down by something. 

Wouldn't it be straight up hilarious if I woke up in a bed all tied up again? Hehehe...I think I'd be up for that, as long as it involved something to gag on. Or not being kidnapped without consent.

"Shh, shh...he's awake." there a familiar voice...Dr Maria? Why was she here? Where was I anyway?

I finally had the guts to open my eyes, which took a lot of pain to do for something so simple; the first thing my eyes met was my bedroom walls... I was in my room? 

My body was laying still under my plush blanket on my bed, with the cat I agreed to foster until my upcoming death resting on my stomach. 

My doctor was sitting right beside my bed table, mother and  father and Lucile were there too, they all looked petrified; not the scared 'oh no I screwed up' look, it's the 'oh no HE screwed up' one.

"...wha...what happened...?" I managed to croak out despite my dry throat and raspy voice, my lungs couldn't inhale much oxygen anymore, I could only do short huffs of breaths no matter how hard I tried to take deep breaths, it just wouldn't happen. 

"Dr Maria...? I mean...it's a pleasure to meet you, doctor... you...how did I..."

Nothing next after the memory of passing out came to my mind; I assumed someone brought me home. I hoped that it wasn't Kevin again who found me, but the minute I thought of him, the headache intensified.

"When you ran away yesterday, Melanie and I went after you and that cat...the moment we released him, it ran to the direction you ran and found you." Leslie explained to me, the Frankenstein copy cat raised his head up to me and stretched up while purring as loud as it could. 

Yesterday? ...So that meant I didn't eat dinner, showered, nor brush my teeth. I would've been furious but I was too occupied at the throbbing sensation all over me to care about that.

I moved my hands up to the spot that was swelling the most to try soothe whatever what was bothering me, and the moment I bumped into it, it felt solid, organic, hard, and most importantly...painful as childbirth.

"AGH! GOD IN HELL IT HURTS!"  I lurched and jolted all too quick, everyone flinched and the cat jumped out the bed from my sudden reaction. 

"Jack, don't move, the flowers are very over sensitive from the state you're in."

What? Did I orgasm in my sleep? And wait- FLOWERS?! "What's happening?- What's happening to me?!" Now I was shrieking like my mother. Wow. 

"Something must have happened yesterday, it has only been days since our last check up and the Hanahaki had already reach its last stage."

Flowers growing on the face...I recalled Dr Maria saying something about that.

"So...this thing on my forehead...the thing I felt seconds ago...is a dandelion?"

Mother stepped forward with a mirror in her grasp, biting her hand for some reason. I took the mirror from her and paused for a good long minute to study the face reflected back at me.

I looked horrible in dandelions! They didn't fit my color at all. I wondered if I look better in roses...

I gazed back to Dr Maria. "Doctor...Ma'am...If I may ask, just how long do I have left to live?"

"Your symptoms says less than 10 days..."

====

As my parents and the doctor continued discussing what they should do next, I hastily and painfully sat up and tossed my blanket to the side to eye the things straining my legs from moving. 

Long dandelion roots produced from my ankles had tied themselves to my bedposts tight as a bolt. Great, just great.

"I should get...where's the knife? Get these roots out of me, I can't go anywhere with these things on my legs." I mumbled, fumbling to find something sharp nearby but found none because logically, who would keep sharp objects next to their bed? 

"I won't recommend that. The flowers producing out of your body is made from the cells and nerves of your lungs, it would be equivalent to cutting off a limb and it would surely hurt."Dr Maria stated. I stopped and slowly turned my head to her with eyes squinted, giving her a look that said, 'bite my eye if you will, doctor'.

"Where's the knife?" I asked again.

She sighed with disappointment and gazed back to my parents. "Mr and Mrs Azaleas, could I talk to you in private?"

They head out of my room the second Dr Maria requested so, leaving me, Lucile, and the cat in the room.

"Oh my God, Jack. You okay? You were out since yesterday after all." my little sister claimed, made her way on the edge of the bed. I could see the unnecessary worry in her.

"I'll be better once I get these roots off. Be a darling and hand me those scissors, please?" I pointed at the dresser behind her. Beside the picture framed of us as kids before the whole separation period, a long pair of scissors laid untouched. 

Why did I still have that picture? I should've crumpled it to pieces years ago...

She reached and gave it to me, I stared down the roots and without hesitance, slashed the blade down. What Ms Maria was true; it did feel like I was slicing off a part of my body. 

Trying to fight off the tears and the urge to scream from the pain, I sliced my way through the roots. Then I heard Lucile spoke as low as she could since the adults were just outside the door, talking away. "So uhm...all this time...your crush is...Kevin?" 

"Yep." forced out a reply though my gritting teeth, still not stopping my way from cutting the thick dandelion's origin. 

There was white substances coming out of the cut I did; assuming it was latex(because dandelions have them too), I tried as hard as I could not touch it...but curiosity got ahead of me. 

"You're a boy...he's also a boy." my sister continued.

"Uh-huh...and?"

I smeared two fingers in the white substances and brought it to my mouth, tasting it if it was really latex, or my blood, or something because why the hell not? Wouldn't you be curious too of what kind of flowers Hanahaki produce? Whether are they really flowers from nature or are they manipulated flesh of you from the inside? 

I recalled it tasted bitter, metallic, yet slightly sweet. It was like blood, but at the same time, not so much. Do latex taste sweet and metallic at the same time? As much I enjoyed the taste, it had a terrible aftertaste in my tongue...yet I kept sucking my fingers.

"That's gay." Lucile said. 

My attention snapped back to her, she carried on without glancing at me. "Mom and dad always say it's wrong to love another boy if you're a boy or another girl if you're a girl, you'll go to hell."

Oh. That. The roots have finally been cut off. I could move my legs freely now, but there was the continuous pain and more of those 'latex' were seeping out of the remains. I gazed at my sibling with undivided attention and sighed out my reply.

"I won't be accepted to heaven regardless anyway. Your brother made so much pain to many the moment he was born. I was made to go to hell...if you wanna bash me, or disown me, because of my sexuality, do it now."

She shook her head. "I don't agree with gayness, but you deserve hatred for that. You are who you are, after all."

Well...bless her heart, she wasn't an exact copy of our parents' mentality.

"Thanks sis. Don't tell mother and father, okay? They won't take it lightly."

"How could you be sure? They're our parents. They'll understand you like they would to me."

It made sense why would she think of that, our mother and father would always come out as sweet angels who love their child no matter what towards her; when it comes to me, it's as if I summoned two devils fresh from Satan's underarms just by existing. 

"Just...don't, please?"

"Okay..."

====

My thoughts pondered back to Kevin despite my mind being already in too much burning sensation, and how I traumatized the life out of him...man, what the hell was wrong with me? Was I just a professional monster of a jackass? 

First I made Pax cried and Hannah hate me, Juliette and Melanie had to go personal with my parents, and now I made Kevin mentally damaged from my outburst!

All I wanted was just for them to be casual and indifferent when I die, why did they have to be like this...no, it's my fault. I shouldn't have met them. If I hadn't want that stupid horror novel, I wouldn't have met Kevin, and none of this wouldn't happened.

There's a problem in this piece that I needed to fix? But what was it?

...then I realized I was pushing them away in the wrong way and I needed to fix the mess I did; I still didn't know why they cared for someone like me, but it was obvious that they cared for me regardless of  my feelings. 

I didn't have to hurt them so they would hate me, I need to push them away peacefully, like I was doing to Lucile. So they could have a satisfied closure when I die and they wouldn't blame themselves. Because I was the one to blame in everything, they never had a part in my bullshit.

My mind started wandering to Pax and the times I shared with them. I couldn't admit it to myself, but I knew I have grown attached to that twin. Out of all the friends I had, they were the one I cherished the most, and that's coming from the guy with the mentality of temporary friends.

They just...get me more than anyone does, more than Kevin could if we're being technical here. It's weird, right? For someone to surpass your feelings for your crush, everyone around me said your friend can't overshadow your darling without romantic feelings. But somehow, they did.

Speaking of romantic feelings, remember how my Hanahaki moved to stage 2 when I had that fight with Pax? It still didn't make any sense to me. Hanahaki was supposed to focus on the feelings you had to your crush, which in my case, Kevin.

So why the hell did it grew stronger during that heated moment with my best friend?

Dr Maria was the only one who came back into the room, Lucile and the cat was dismissed so it was just the two of us. "I can see that you have rebel tendencies..." she gestured at the root cuts I did, I only smirked triumphantly back at her. 

She stayed for an extra few minutes as she bandaged my legs off. As she finished off, she began packing.

"I'll be taking my leave now. Make sure to get plenty of rest, alright Jack?"

As she was preparing to leave, I spoke up. "Doctor...there's something I should confess."

Dr Maria paused and looked at me again curiously. "What is it?"

"...you say the Hanahaki revolves around unrequited love to the person the victim loves, correct?"

"Yes, that's accurate."

"Then why...did the sickness spread faster when I had an argument with a friend?"

We were silent, she had an unreadable expression on her face. She was obviously trying to come up with the answer...but she had none.

"I had a fight with my best friend the day my parents called you, and I don't have any romantic feelings for them. Why is that?" I explained in more details.

Finally she spoke, this time she sat back to her seat again. "I...I don't know. Are you sure you don't have any amorous entanglement with your friend?"

I shook my head without hesitation. "If I had, I would've known. Only yesterday I interacted with the guy I liked, so this is the expected reaction...I just couldn't grasp about...what happened before that."

She didn't say anything for awhile, her eyes were unfocused and she kept nodding to herself. Finally she said, "I see...this gives more depth to the Hanahaki disease. I promise to do my absolute research to have your question answer, for now, I need you to rest and clear your head. Okay?"

"Okay, doctor..."

Then she left...

...WELL THAT WASN'T HELPFUL!

====

Once I've done my hygiene needs, I was called down for lunch. The 5 year old kitty I've temporarily adopted ate some raw meat we had in one of Frankenstein's old bowls. 

It was nice of mom, considering she never fed Franky any meat before and it was always me who had to steal some in the fridge.

When we've settled down on the table, we prayed. I repeat, we PRAYED! And it wasn't just the usual; "thank you for the food" prayer, it was "please give this family the needed strength for the days ahead". And get this, it was father who initiated.

We haven't held each other's hand and bowed our heads down since I was 7, it was incredibly weird! What the hell was going one?!

Anyway, as we ate our meal, I thought of calling my friends one last time, I still had their numbers in my phone after all. And visit Juliette tomorrow for the last goodbye, when my mother said out of nowhere, "You're not allowed to go outside anymore, Jack."

"Wha- why not?!" It's as if she just read my mind!

"You can't breath normally anymore and you're going to die in a few days, the least you could do is be with us in your final moments."

Tsk. But...ughh... 

"Fine..." I groaned out, taking another bite from the food on my plate, thinking of calling Juliette instead but then mother added,

"You're also not allowed to use your devices, you might end up stressing yourself even more. Dr Maria says stress makes your illness spread faster."

What?! That's stupid! What about my memes and my MCR playlist?! I could only gape at my parents before stuttering out a reply. "But...I need to say something to my friends! At least let me have my phone so I could text them..."

"Out of the question, you might cause more trouble to yourself than you already have. And plus, friends will never be there for you in the end. Only family sticks forever." my father butted in, mother nodded agreeing at his statement.

...but... "Could I at least send a voicemail to one of my friends?"

"No." 

Damn you.

"Bring them to us after lunch so we could box them away."

Sighing, I nodded and continued eating.

After the meal, I head to my room and opened a plastic bag to stuff my cameras, gaming consoles, and laptop inside. When my hands grabbed my cellphone, I stared at it for a moment...

...and dialed Hannah's phone number. 

'Don't pick up, don't pick up...'

"Hi, this is Hannah Quinn. I'm sorry, I can't answer the phone right now. I'm either with my twin doing some shenanigans or super stressed out from homework. Leave your message after the beep! Beeep!"

It was her voicemail message! Perfect!

When the beep was finally heard, I paused to compose my thoughts. I only had a few minutes before my parents would suspect anything, so I had to make it quick.

"Hey, Hannah..."