Hanakotoba

Rating: G

Fandom: EDM

Ships: Skrillmau5

Warnings: medical settings, hanahaki disease

It starts with one petal.

Joel’s already a little sick- he’s probably caught some crowd gunk from that afterparty a couple days ago, the one where he had just a bit too much to drink and the lights were dim and the music was louder than any one man’s voice could be and Sonny had to lean in close and practically shout into his ear to be heard, You wanna get out of here? And Joel, heart thumping in time with the bass, had nodded along and added, Anywhere you want. Anywhere Sonny wanted had been the host’s back patio, and… the rest is kind of a blur.

But whatever. The good thing about getting sick on tour is that, if you’re Deadmau5, your sets don’t rely on your voice anyway. So he’s getting by just fine, really, despite the tickle in the back of his throat throughout the set. A stray cough or two leaves him, but really, he’s absorbed in the music and nothing will stop that. 

But when he gets offstage and takes off his head, a single white petal dances in the air until it, slowly, reaches the floor. 

Joel doesn’t know when it got into his helmet, but shrugs it off. It’s spring. He’s found weirder things in weirder places, quite famously. And so it goes ignored.

The next time it happens, someone is around to see it.

Sonny is hanging out with Joel in his hotel room on their off-day. They’re both on tour right now- not together, necessarily, but sometimes they play the same festivals or catch each other in the same city and arrange to hang out. This is one of those days- Sonny’s meant to be playing a show tonight, and then he’s off on his way to Chicago or something. Or Boston. Maybe they’re in Chicago and Joel is going to Boston? No, wait, Sonny just came from Boston. They might be in Pittsburgh. The cities start to blend together after a while. 

It’s somewhere cold by Sonny standards but not Joel ones, and he left his coat in the tour bus so he’s borrowing Joel’s leather jacket while they sit out on the balcony and smoke. It’s a couple sizes too big for him and the sleeves nearly reach his frozen fingertips, and it’s a funny contrast with the way he smokes his cigarette as confidently as if he’d been born doing it.

Joel’s talking about something, and it doesn’t even matter what, because the story wouldn’t change and Sonny wouldn’t stop looking at him with those big, adoring eyes like he was discussing the most fascinating thing in the world. But it’s cars. He’s talking about how he still drives just some regular-ass Bentley and, like, it’s technically a luxury car but it’s not a Ferrari or a Lamborghini. It’s not the go-to status symbol for I made it . But if he gets one someday, he wants to go all out. Get the thing custom wrapped with Nyan Cat or something. But as it is right now his Bentley drives just fine, and anyway, he’s touring in America right now and it’d be such a thing to get a new car when he’s not at home or even in the country. 

Sonny looks like he might actually care what the difference is between a Bentley and a Ferrari, because he’s rosy-cheeked from the cold and smiling up at Joel like an idiot, even though he couldn't care less as long as a car has an engine and a radio. Joel punctuates his auto lecture by taking a drag of his cigarette, and that’s when he starts coughing like a nicotine virgin. He grabs onto the armrests of his patio chair and bends over himself, and Sonny politely ignores it but makes sure he’s got a bottle of water he can offer to Joel after because the dumb asshole’s day drinking again and a beer isn’t great to follow up a cough. 

But Sonny stops dead when he notices little white petals fluttering to the ground. 

Joel groans and wipes his mouth, and Sonny just stares at the petals in awe and shock until Joel finally realizes what he’s looking at and, hey, where did those come from?

“I, uh, I think those came from you…” Sonny helpfully supplies, and Joel is almost taken aback, because what sense does it make to cough up flowers?

“I read about this really rare disease once.” Sonny sits up a little straighter. “Where flowers start blooming in your lungs because you bottle up your emotions.”

Joel dismisses Sonny, tells him he needs to stop reading fan fiction about himself, because 12 year old girls make up some weird shit, but Sonny persists.

“No, it’s an actual thing! I think it’s called Hanasuki disease or something like that. You can look it up.” 

Joel rolls his eyes, but agrees to look it up when he gets a chance, even though it sounds like bullshit because what emotions would he even be bottling up? He’s always been a say-it-like-it-is guy. In the meantime, it’s almost sundown, anyway, so Sonny should really just get to his show. Sonny acquiesces and gets moving.

Joel eventually looks up this Hanasuki thing Sonny told him about. No results, at least not pertaining to coughing up flowers. It’s mostly anime fanart and weeaboo stuff.

So, yeah, Sonny’s full of shit. There’s no disease that makes you cough flowers. How the fuck would a flower even start growing inside a person, anyway? Immune systems exist. And it’s probably too, like, hot. Flowers wither in the summer, duh, that’s why deserts exist. It’s just a weirder, more anime version of how when he was a kid, his sister Jen would tease him and tell him if he ate watermelon seeds, one would grow in his stomach. It scared him out of eating watermelon for, like, a year when he was six, but it wasn’t fuckin’ true. And watermelon isn’t even that good so he just never started eating it again. 

“I don’t know about flowers, but I read an article about someone who grew a pea in his lung,” Anton pitches in after Joel’s rant. “It was from the BBC, so I believe it. They never found out why.”

Joel takes a sip of his coffee, even though he drives like he’s already too damn hyped off it, and scowls. The warm liquid soothes his now-perpetually sore throat, if nothing else. He’s mostly grown used to it. The doctors had tested him for just about everything under the sun- not lung cancer, not strep throat, not the flu, not tuberculosis, not mono. They did X-rays, throat swabs, took his blood, every test conceivable. At a certain point, he just didn’t feel like chasing it anymore. It’s whatever. So he quit smoking and left it to get better on its own.

“I don’t think it’s nothing…” Anton eventually advises, cradling his coffee awkwardly, scared of spilling it on Joel’s seats or burning himself. “I mean, I don’t want to lose my friend if it’s really something serious.”

Joel brushes it off. It’s not that serious. Just some weird cough that won’t go away. And he isn’t even actually coughing up flowers, he’d notice if he was. They just follow him everywhere he goes for some reason and Sonny thought there was a connection because of this weird anime bullshit he heard god-knows-where. 

When Joel finally parks the car at home- Anton is crashing at his place while he’s in Toronto- he breaks into another coughing fit. He’s able to mostly suppress it while actually driving, but he has to get it out, because something is tickling his vocal chords and making him sound funny. He braces himself against the wheel and coughs and hacks right into the stupid prancing horse. It really feels like something is trying to come up from inside him now. That tickle in his throat is just worse and worse by the minute, and he feels it all come up at once.

Anton and Joel both stare at the wad of white plant mass that’s landed in Joel’s lap in complete silence. Anton gives Joel a wounded look. 

“Please, talk to a doctor again.”

Joel doesn’t talk to a doctor. At first, it’s because he’s stubborn. And then at second, it’s because he’s on a plane to Malaysia and he’s worried enough about the plane actually getting on the fucking ground given the events of last week and he’s got all this touring festival bullshit to put up with this week anyway. And then at third, it’s because he’s actively on stage when the stabbing pain in his chest starts to overwhelm him and he takes off his helmet but he still can’t breathe, oh god, he can’t breathe.

Joel falls to the ground behind his equipment, hardly catching himself at all. He lands with all his weight squarely on his left arm and fuck, that hurts, but he needs to breathe shit there’s something in his throat and it feels like someone’s stabbing him in the chest and he’s got himself propped up on his right arm and he doesn’t know if he’s trying to force the air in or out , all he knows is that petals keep coming up and up with no end like those fucking clowns with the scarves or whatever they are and they just aren’t stopping and there are gardenias everywhere and they’re stained with blood, and his vision’s starting to go black and the venue security guys (or maybe paramedics, he’s not sure) are grabbing him with their big muscled arms and shouting at each other in Malay. 

Joel’s pretty sure the world’s just turned upside down on him all of a sudden, and before he fully realizes what’s going on, it’s lights out for him. 

Joel wakes up in Kuala Lumpur hospital. 

The nurse doesn’t speak English the best, and he has to strain to understand through her thick accent, but she explains to him that, “Your lungs collapsed, so they put a tube in your chest to let out the air-” helpfully, she points to the bandage covering the right side of his bare chest. “However, you have a disease called Hanahaki. They found some flowers grew in your lungs. So you will have to live in the hospital until the flowers can be taken out.”

Joel nods. It feels weird, but just a little easier to breathe now, with the tube in his chest and a ventilator mask strapped to his face, breathing for him. He doesn’t use words, but he does smile appreciatively at the nurse. She’s really pretty, he notices for just half a second. She’s wearing thick-rimmed glasses and she has long black hair that’s all gathered up in a ponytail on one side. Kind of angelic.

Unbothered by the way Joel is looking at her, still kind of hazy from just waking up, she points out his call button and tells him to hit it if he needs anything or starts feeling like he can’t breathe. He nods again, and she’s gone. Joel looks around the room and notices his phone on the bed next to him, with a little handwritten note laying on top of it. 

Hey, mate, I hope you get well soon. We’re all worried about you but I’m sure you’ll be fine, you’re a tough guy. At least you don’t have to get on a plane out of here too soon! ;D

XOXO, Rob. And Gareth. And Porter!

At the bottom of the page, a bunch of hearts are drawn, and then a little Feed Me chasing the hearts with a bug net with a PS saying, Jon hopes you’re alright too.

Joel appreciates his friends. He really does. He just can’t help but feel like something is missing. 

Joel doesn’t relax until he knows who’s filling in for him at Ultra, which is a few days later- Avicii will play instead of him, and that’s fine. Tim’s a cool guy and, shit, despite the fact he loves ripping into him, he doesn’t dislike him or his music, or even his fans. He thinks there might have been better options for a live show , but with two weeks’ notice, it’s a good choice. 

Although, he was really looking forward to meeting up with Sonny again. They hadn’t seen each other in so long. 

Oh well, he thinks, longingly. No use crying over spilled milk. At least he got a “get well soon” text from him. 

Still, Joel gets awfully bored in that hospital room. He’s talked to his tour manager already and had all his equipment shipped home without him, including his head. Everyone else who had been at Future Music Festival has gone home already, so that means no visits from his friends- Rob and Gareth stayed behind a little longer than everyone else to keep him company, but they’re on the plane home right now, too. It’s just Joel and his phone, and frankly, there’s only so much a roulette of Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit can do for him before he starts to go insane from the monotony of white walls and the beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor. 

So, he just lays there and closes his eyes, even though he knows he won’t sleep. Because what the hell is there, anyway? His surgery’s not supposed to be until tomorrow, he might as well get comfortable.

Joel isn’t too bothered when he hears someone come inside. Probably a nurse coming in to check his vitals are okay and his ventilator actually works, or something. But when he feels something tickle his cheek and opens his eyes, he sees the humanoid form of Heaven hovering over him, grinning like a damn idiot. 

Beep-beep-beep-beep.

The tempo of the heart monitor picks up, just slightly. 

“Sonny?” It’s a little hard to talk through the ventilator mask, but Joel manages. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in America getting ready for Ultra?”

“And miss seeing you before your surgery?” Sonny’s hand finds Joel’s, in the darkness. “Besides. I’m waiting on you to say something to me. Lung surgery can be risky, so I wanna hear it before.” 

“Thanks for reminding me of my mortality,” Joel coughs, squeezing Sonny’s hand as his chest tightens. “You were right and I should have listened to you. You come to Malaysia just to hear that?” 

“Well, when you told me the diagnosis I did some actual research.” Sonny pauses a long moment, letting go of Joel. “You know Hanahaki is only caused by one particular emotion being bottled up, right?”

‘I didn’t even know it existed until I started throwing up gardenias.”

“Oh, you poor thing. Someone really should have warned you.” Sonny faux-pouts and crosses his arms, resting on the side of Joel’s bed. He’s quiet for a long, comfortable moment, finger tracing lines against Joel’s bare chest where it peeks out from the covers. “Does Kelly know?”

“About the Hanahaki?” Joel asks, dumbfounded. “Yeah.”

“No. That you love someone else.”

Oh.

Oh.

It hits Joel like a truck, all at once and fast and hard. Where it all began, what it all built up to, why it messes him up sometimes that the cute Malay nurse kind of looks like…

Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep.

“Who is it?” Sonny asks, clueless. 

“I…” Joel turns his head away. “It doesn’t matter, the surgery’s tomorrow.”

“So they’ll cut the flowers away and you’ll never love again if it goes well, or they’ll botch it and the flowers will grow back and start suffocating you again.” Sonny sits up a little straighter and leans in closer to Joel, and- their faces are so close. Sonny is so close. 

Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep.

“Just tell me who it is. I won’t say a word.” 

It’s a split-second decision, really. Joel pulls off his ventilator mask and his lips are crashing into Sonny’s, and, oh god it’s hard to breathe without the air forced into his lungs but he doesn’t need air, he needs Sonny. Deeply, desperately needs him. Sonny’s startled, at first, but soon he’s kissing back, leaning over Joel and holding him in just such a way that he won’t mess with Joel’s chest catheter, and Joel feels okay for the first time in so, so long, and it feels like Sonny is breathing for him even though he knows he’s not. But it’s so… warm, and safe. Like Sonny’s got him. Like nothing can hurt him as long as Sonny’s still here. 

Joel pulls away short-of-breath, and tenderly, Sonny presses the ventilator mask back to his face with a smile. And it feels so right to have Sonny pressed up against him in this moment, so natural.

The nurse comes in shortly after, alerted by his abnormally high heart rate, to fuss at Joel and put the ventilator mask back on him proper, but he doesn’t care. He’s happy.

In the morning, Joel makes sure to ask the doctors not to cut the flowers back all the way. 

And a couple years later, when Joel sneezes out a vermillion red gardenia to match the bouquet during his vows, everyone laughs.