Honestly I don’t even think it’s even the removal of the death thing (like that’s certainly helpful, but you can probably keep it, if you need it for the Drama) that saves it, so much as it is the idea that the problem is caused purely by you not admitting your feelings, rather than the other person not sharing them.
Like, in the standard version of Hanahaki, the point is that the disease is caused by unrequited love, and the afflicted end up coughing up increasingly large amounts of flowers, until either they suffocate or the other person returns their feelings.
A lot of versions do require a confession on top of that, but fundamentally the most important thing is the object of your affections developing specifically romantic feelings for you. Or you die.
As an aro person, I’m sure I don’t need to explain why this trope is uncomfortable for me, considering that it basically paints me as a potential death trap.
Plus some stories also feature ‘The Surgery’, which removes the roots of the flowers from the victim’s lungs, thus saving their life, but in the process makes them incapable of romantic love, which is treated as the highest tragedy.
Chronic Hanahaki on its own would still kind of have this problem, it’s just toning it down a bit— rather than being responsible for your death, your crush is instead just responsible for your continued pain/discomfort and frequent hospital visits. Better, but still kind of icky.
Chronic Hanahaki (that could still be potentially terminal in the long term, if you need extra drama) caused by not saying your feelings aloud, regardless of how the other person feels, on the other hand?
Beautiful. Great metaphor for the real effects that repressing your emotions can have on your body. Lots of dramatic potential.
Like, obviously there’s your bog-standard “I love you but don’t believe that you love me, so I will choose to suffer tragically alone rather than risk making you feel bad for not loving me back” thing that the Hanahaki genre was made for, but there’s room for more here as well.
Especially if you expand it to be about supressed emotions in general, rather than just romantic love.
- The character who is in a relationship, but still has trouble verbalising their feelings sometimes, due to past trauma/mental illness, and thus still experiences recurring bouts of Hanahaki. Their partner who reassures them that it’s okay, that they know they love them, and that if they want to say it then that’s fine, but if they don’t feel they can right now then your flowers are beautiful babe, and that’s fine too.
- The character who notices flower petals lying around their kid’s room, and doesn’t understand why their child won’t just tell them who they are in love with, so they can support them in confessing their feelings. Only to find out that their kid has actually been dating their same gender best friend for months now, and the Hanahaki was about coming out to their parent.
- The autistic character with alexithymia, who by this point just treats coughing up the occasional flower petal as another, rather annoying autistic trait. “Fuck,” they say, coughing up a blood-stained rose and holding it up for their friends to see. “Anyone got any ideas what this one could be about?”
- The polar opposite of the traditional Hanahaki thing. The ever happy, toxic positivity character who will die from the flowers choking their lungs unless they finally admit that they kind of hate you sometimes.
- The character at the funeral of a family member they had an extremely dysfunctional relationship with, defiantly coughing their flower petals right onto the grave, and refusing to admit that they felt anything other than dislike or indifference for them deep down, because even now, when they’re dead and gone and it doesn’t matter, “you first, bitch.”
- The character who witnessed or was told something that they aren’t supposed to know, and not only has to deal with the secret eating away at them, but also has to come up with more and more reasons for why their Hanahaki isn’t going away, even after they confess all their other secrets.
- The character who, upon clearing out the house of a beloved elderly relative who recently died, finds a whole room full of rotting flowers, and is faced with the question of what their relative’s big secret was.
