tangled flowerpot

this is based off a webcomic called flowerpot where people are infected with like... flowers? kinda similar to the idea of hanahaki disease but its a virus in the webcomic its based off of

Rapunzel had always loved flowers--she had no green thumb, but the pleasant aroma and beautiful array of colors had always made her happy. As a young child, her dream was to be a flower girl at a wedding, and the day she got to scatter petals down the aisle had been one of the happiest in her life. For some time, she had wanted to own a flower shop, to be able to arrange bouquets but after a brief experimentation in gardening (and realizing that, frankly, she was more of a danger to the plants than anything else), she moved onto another passion: art. While paints definitely weren't something that she would like to hold to her nose and inhale, she enjoyed the blend of colors, to turn a blank canvas into something unique.

In highschool, she started dating. They were the highschool sweethearts, friends since early childhood and no one was surprised to see them exchange chaste pecks on the cheeks and walk with one another to class. A small gesture of kindness, however, ended up permanently impacting her life. A bouquet of flowers was presented for Valentine's day, a grin on her face as she held the flowers close and hummed in delight. Around the same time, newspapers and television began to broadcast that flowers had become a carrier for some sort of virus, that flowers should be avoided and recalled until a proper treatment had been found. By then, it was too late.

Merely a few months later as spring began, Rapunzel began to feel ill, her throat raw and itchy. She had coughed up some petals, even, but in denial and confusion had played it off as having left her bedroom window open, having swallowed some in her sleep. But she was on a date with her boyfriend when the problem grew worse, the blonde coughing and hacking up petals and even blood, clawing at her throat in a desperate attempt to breathe. It was a horrifying sight, probably.

That had been a few years ago--now she was in college. Each year around spring, the flowers would bloom back in her throat. Some years, it was mild, resulting in nothing more than a cough. Others, she would start choking, rushed to the hospital to remove the foliage from her throat. She was one of the unlucky ones--most infected by the disease saw flowers on their scalp, their hands, somewhere where it was an annoyance but not a hazard.

This year was one of the years where she had one moment been walking with Eugene in the park before the next she couldn't breathe, waking up in the hospital with another ache in her throat, having undergone another surgery and knowing that yet again she'd be in the hospital for at least a week to monitor her health. How fun.

Sitting up, she tried to speak out of reflex when she noticed Eugene before wincing--too soon. So instead she settled for reaching out, giving his hand a squeeze.