In the bathroom of an old motel, Kakuzu had locked himself inside, hunched over the sink. With his chest heaving and breaths coming ragged, he tried to cough up as many of the flower petals out of his lungs as possible. He’d even resorted to ripping out some of the stems and roots deep in his throat, no matter how painful it was.

Kakuzu watched blood-stained flowers fall from his lips and onto the porcelain surface of the sink. Still, he continued, ignoring the concerning amounts of blood spilling.

Yellow carnations and green orchids had been growing and thriving in his lungs for quite a while now, since he realized he’d grown fond of you.

However, the day he found out he was afflicted with the Hanahaki disease as a result of unrequited love, Kakuzu halted all attempts to tell or even hint to you about how he felt. So, for months on end, he began keeping a distance from you, hoping it would stifle the growth of flowers and his own feelings for you.

However, this only worsened the speed of the flowers’ blooms. And this was where it took him, tearing off as many flowers as he could in a motel bathroom.

It was only when a particular tug on a stem shot a sharp, stinging pain into his lungs did he finally stop. Kakuzu hung his head to regain his breath before rinsing his bloody mouth and cleaning the sink from remnants of petals. The flowers were trashed and covered up by tissue paper.

When he heard the motel room’s door handle rattling, which signaled your return, Kakuzu pulled his mask back up and fixed his cloak in an attempt to look as though he wasn’t just tearing flowers out of his trachea. He exited the bathroom and sat on edge of his bed, facing away from the door.

Pretending to act composed, Kakuzu greeted you with a curt nod before turning away again and stifling a cough. He’d recently taken to speaking less, as it would lessen the exacerbation of the tears caused by the flowers’ stems growing in his lungs.