since the thing perhaps is to eat flowers and not to be afraid

[irrigo]

(harmless) hanahaki meme

hanahaki (literally "vomiting flowers") is a fictional illness that began in japanese literature. most commonly, it happens in the case of unrequited love; flowers bloom in a person's lungs and their love suffocates them until it is either requited or they die. that's pretty angsty. instead, consider a world where hanahaki is a normalised inconvenience and it's never hurt anyone. flowers grow in your chest from the cultivation of love — for your friends, your family, your dog. and it's a feeling that wants to be known, so maybe you can't help spilling petals sometimes when you laugh, or sigh, or shout at someone. everyone knows what it means and it's something to be celebrated. you love. maybe you don't want to, though. maybe you chew on the petals and swallow them back, so that no one knows the feelings you're carrying around in your heart. but maybe that's not going to work forever, and sooner or later, you're going to cough those feelings up.

the short version ① hanahaki means your characters cough up flowers. plain and simple. ② it's caused by unspoken love, in any form, platonic or romantic; whether the love is requited has nothing to do with it. ③ the disease is not harmful in any way, and it's no more annoying than a persistent cough; it's treated as more symbolic magic realism here than concerned with the real life implications of coughing up flowers. ④ it's "cured" when a person expresses their love, whether the feeling is requited or not. ⑤ so basically, you can rp any everyday scenario... but now your character might have to deal with the minor nuisance of hacking up petals around the people they love. and those people are going to know what that means.

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[leatherdaddy]

[ Just because no one's talking about the elephant in the room, the frequent breaks, the coughing, the fact Noct isn't slipping into slumber nearly half the commute between stops doesn't mean that his entourage hasn't exchanged knowing glances (and later, concerned ones). The pervasive scent of wet flowers that hasn't escaped their vigilant notice either, particularly not on Gladio's watch.

He keeps his distance, allows the prince his privacy, but it only goes on for so long before he begins to grow more concerned when the condition stops being funny and starts being serious. ]

Good, because I've just about had it up to here with this, and you.

[ Gladio's retort is scolding, unimpressed. Moreover, he's not sure what Noct thinks Gladio can do about it, but he'd better have an idea of who he's supposed to shake down. Who needs to confess, whether it be true or not, just to cure him.

He'd do it, too - even if it meant cornering Ignis or Prompto, but he doubts either one of them would be reluctant to do what it took if it meant the future king's life. ]

You know this sickness can kill, right? So knock off the crap --

[ Gladio strides up to his charge, makes sure he's at full height - tall, broad and imposing - so there is no question that he's fed up himself and wants this whole mess put behind them. ]

And tell me who it is, and what you need to hear from them.

[noctass]

[ but is he going to take him at face-value when he starts coughing up his lungs

Being treated crossly can only get him crosser. It's a self-perpetuating cycle, when Gladio comes over for what looks like a shakedown, and Noctis retreats a skittish half-step, only to return once Gladio hasn't edged up any closer on the field, which is doing its part to make him look like he's ripping up flowers by their stems as opposed to vomiting them everywhere like some kind of wrecked botanist shop in full blossom. Rather than the emotional imbalance, the worst part's the fear that it won't stop, which stopped being funny at all around the time it started happening to him. ]

M'not gonna die from this. When's that ever happened?

[ Documented in the books, in a few case studies he's bothered to look up, but not in his lifetime, at least. It won't— no, can't get that bad, but he's baleful all the same for the implication. He didn't expect empathy going in when Gladio's obscenely good at being brash, but it's hard to fire off orders when he's never been the type to (when he doesn't even know where to start). He can barely hazard a guess whether it's Luna, a whole ocean away, to put the tremors in his throat to rest, or it's a third party like Iggy, as if his infatuation's coming a decade too awkward to deal with. To want to deal with, period, ruining the balance between the four of them. Just let him get back to the days of yore, snoozing in the car and embracing chocobos at will. ]

... I don't know, alright? You think I'd ask if I could just do it myself?

[ No, he's not evading the question. It's just misdirection where misdirection can only go, when Gladio bounces the query off on him, and Noctis finds himself at a distinct loss for words. Should've known better than to come up empty-handed. As it is, he's only left with a humiliating admission to offer up in return. ]

Thought you might have an idea.

[leatherdaddy]

[ True, it's an inconvenience more than anything, but what if it happens during combat? What if he's drowning in flowers as they fill up his lungs and throat and mouth at the worst of times? This isn't something he can protect him from. ]

Do it yourself? [ Gladio makes a disapproving click with his tongue behind his teeth. Tch. Noctis, ever unsure of himself when it comes to relationships, people in general. This is their future king. He's got his work cut out for him, tasked with his part in whipping Noctis into kingly shape physically and mentally. ]

Are you telling me you don't even know who you're pining for?

[ Something gives Gladio reason to pause his interrogation, causes him to withdraw a moment to scrutinize him from the corner of his eye. His hands lift to settle on his hips. Hang on a minute. ]

...Why are you asking me?

[ Sure, he's charged with safeguarding the future leader of their realm, but it's Prompto he seems the most comfortable with. His vigilance has shown him how the pair would go off on their own numerous times. So it seems odd that Noctis would entrust this, what must be an embarrassing situation as it is, with Gladio... who would not be quite so sympathetic that he's let this go on for so long. ] Isn't Prompto more of your partner in crime?

[ Once again, he prompts his future king for orders. It's the same old push and pull game with these two. But now he's wondering if there's something Noct isn't telling him. ]

[noctass]

[ This is some point-blank awful stuff, going from bad to worse to horrifying levels of emotional displacement when his flimsy defense is turned on its head. Stalling won't keep him from being relentlessly bullied (well, not really, more like Gladio being Gladio) any more than it'll keep Noct from carefully edging around the subject. It's broken rhetoric, biting at his cheek at all this condescension. Sucking on his teeth's just about the best defense he's got at the moment, which basically amounts to nothing as Gladio continues flipping the questions back at him. Figures. Should've just went to Iggy first, he'd be patient, and considerate, and probably bake him a snack afterwards, too, since perfection knows no restraint.

So regret's got Noctis feeling like spaghetti. Ragretti spaghetti, let him die, this is enough, he's already lost all sensation in his arms from sheer mortification alone. ]

Kinda doubt Prompto would be able to offer the best advice on this one, big guy.

[ He knows his best friend, having spent the better part of his high school career with his partner in crime, so he'd know— better than anyone else— that Prompto's just as feelings-impaired as he is, getting down to the nitty-gritty terror of direct, emotionally-charged confrontations. And talking to a guy who can't even handle himself around girls, period— there's no way he could take the heat, regardless of whether or not he's the one being boiled (or choked, as it currently stands) alive.

Most of Noct's belief in Gladio's questionable skills comes from the fact that the guy spent the entire cosplay festival hitting up chicks, and beyond the first flare of annoyance welling up in Noctis there'd been nascent signs of jealousy, and okay, backpedaling now, damn. Enough of that, too. ]

You know what, just. Never mind. Forget I asked. It's fine. I'm fine. Just go back to whatever you were doing, I'll lay off.

[ Entirely counterintuitive to his first lurch forward is coughing a dahlia (go figure) and taking the first stride past Gladio. It's not remotely graceful, hacking up flower after flower like he's dead-set to make a bouquet before the afternoon's out, but Gladio's probably content to leave him well alone over pointing him in the right direction. ]

[leatherdaddy]

Oi.

[ If Noctis thought he could just breeze past like that, he has another thing coming. Gladio doesn't make a move outside of tracking him with his eyes, but one large arm shoots out to catch his arm first, then the front of his shirt next. He's a physical guy on any day ending in y, particularly when his passions are incited - for better or worse. His tone likewise is not gentle. ]

No, what you should have done was come to me sooner. Or any one of us.

If you haven't got it through your thick skull yet that any one of us would lay down our lives for you, then you'd better get it now.

[ Hell, he's got Shield written - quite literally - all over him. The tattoo itself, the predatory bird unfurling it's wings that stretch out over his back and arms, frozen in a silent scream on his chest... that's the mark of a Shield. His father has it, he has it. It's tradition and a reminder to Shields that their bodies are no longer theirs, they are marked for their liege. His life is for Noctis, forever.

Gladio's anger seems to subside, but his commanding tone is unrelenting. He isn't taking no for an answer, and not letting Noctis just walk away from this now. ]

This cough. It's supposed to come on when you're near the one who's feelings aren't returned to you, right?

Right now. Is it better or worse?

[ Impatient, Gladio gives him a small shake for fear that Noctis will withdraw in on himself, resist answering honestly - he doesn't want him to overthink this. ]

Spit it out.

[noctass]

Let go, isn't this what you were after—

[ Even his hair looks outright demoralized, thrown askew by the new development of a hand grappling his arm, then his shirt. There's an immediacy to his head darting down as he twists to move out of the knuckles arresting him, but his body's going through throes of imminent joint failure when he pulls to a stop instead of outright striding off.

It shouldn't shock Gladio that Noctis copes badly as far as lectures are concerned. He's increasingly aware on an intellectual level that Gladio's right, that some of that logic's rational, but he was half-humiliated and increasingly out of sorts long before this stand-off started. Too proud to beg when he's been wronged, much less when he's done wrong by someone else.

His breath incises, the stress of a wire snap, and then Noct's bristling to the shoulders, flinging up a mulish glare. Tetchy, tetchy, chest heaving with the weird desolation of it, because of course. Can't go a day without being reminded of his debt, when he asks about flowers and Gladio goes on an elaborate tangent regarding duty and obligation in return. ]

... I didn't ask for you, for any of you to do— to be that for me! I get it, alright?! I know you have to.

[ It all comes back around to the same damn thing, and his voice cracks, painfully annoyed and awkward around the confession, like he's concussed by it. His friends have no self-preservation when it comes to him, and Noct's always the one at fault, but he doesn't think past capitulating and lowering his head when he's raised it, for once. Instead of hacking up petals, there's a bitterness soldiering on in his outburst where Gladio's anger subsides and dies down to a crawl. ]

I just ... wanted something for myself. Not because I'm supposed to get it as king, or that it's my duty to take it on. Because I chose it.

[ Deflection comes up again, the sort that sounds kind of homicidal but mostly incensed, forced out in a hazy, frustrated rush. None of it has bearing on the question, but he can't bring himself to answer when his face replies for him in wordless, clean-cut hurt, cheeks hot with mortification. ]

I don't want anything you don't mean. So back off already.

[ And Noct shoves at him with the intent to laconically stalk off with all of his hurt, crabby feelings and avoid Gladio for the next solid decade or so. ]